English words that are reduandant
Hello hello linguaphiles,
I've been teaching English jr high school and high school students at a cram school recently. Since I'm not a specialist, I've already hit the wall. (;_;)
There were two very basic questions when teaching.
1) My 10th grade student said she doesn't understand the last part of "with her"; why it was added to the passage.
Mary was wise enough to take an umbrella with her.
"Take an umbrella" is already explained that she is with her umbrella but why English has to add the words "with her". I couldn't give her a reasonable reply.
If I would translate this into Japanese word for word, メリーは傘を(彼女と一緒に）持ってゆくほどに賢かった。"with her" should be omitted when translating because it is better, but in Japanese school, every single word should be translated into Japanese, otherwise, teacher will deduct some points from her score. Therefore, even it looks strange we should always repeat the same thing if there is an English word written there. Do you have any advice for this?
2) Two friends were out together in the forest.
She didn't understand why there is a word "out". It is already known that they were in the forest which is "out"….but what does the "out" refer to? Ummm…
Sorry if I am asking you something dumb.