Wednesday, 6 November 2013

NEWS and ADVICE

NEWS

This word is "unchanging",singular and uncountable:

-Unchanging: the last letter is -S. You can't use NEW to say noticia. NEW is, of course,another word: the adjective for nuevo.

-Singular: you say The news WAS good. Is there any news?

-Uncountable: Two news. You can turn it into a countable by using a piece of news, two pieces of news, but you shouldn't think that just because in Spanish you have noticias, you need to use the plural pieces of news.  My advice is to use NEWS in a similar way to how you would use other singular uncountables, such as WATER or MONEY:
    I have some water/money >>>> I have some news for you. (never mind if you mean tengo una noticia or tengo noticias)
    Is there any money7water? >>>> Is there any news? (¿Hay noticias/hay alguna noticia?).

If you're really interested in mentioning a number (tengo tres noticias, dos buena y una mala), then you would use PIECE OF: I have three pieces of news for you

Typical mistakes:
    I have a good new.   >>>   I have good news
    I have a good news.   >>>   I have good news
    What are the news?   >>>   What's the news?
    She had three news for  me.   >>>   She had three pieces of news.

ADVICE

The only reason I am mentioning this noun (the verb, by the way is to adviSe) is because it works just like NEWS, and is also often used incorrectly. It's singular and uncountable. ADVICES is always wrong.

Typical mistakes:
    He gave me a good advice.   >>>   He gave me some good advice.

    Can you give me an advice?   >>>  Can you give me some advice?
    She gave me three advice / advices.    >>>   She gave me three pieces of advice.

No comments:

Post a Comment