Ahmed M.

asked • 03/25/16

find the mistake then correct

Find the mistake and correct
It 's mine.I admit breaking the window.

2 Answers By Expert Tutors

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Brittany B. answered • 04/13/16

Tutor
4.9 (142)

Empathetic English Extraordinaire

Ed M.

I mentioned using the preposition to between admit and breaking in the third paragraph of my original response. However, as I indicated there, I still believe the to is optional or at least in some dialects of English; others may certainly require it, I just haven't looked into the corpus data. 
 
As for transforming the nominalization breaking the window back into its full clausal form, i.e., that I broke the window as you also suggest, that is indeed possible since clearly admit is subcategorized for finite-clause as well as noun phrase complements, but this transformation involves a number of steps that may unnecessarily complicate the correction of the "error" in his sentence. Plus, from answering other questions that Ahmed has posted here, I know that he is not a native speaker of English, so again asking him to transform breaking the window into that I broke the window introduces the possibility that he will introduce additional learner errors into the mix, which pedagogically doesn't seem to be a good idea.
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04/13/16

Ed M. answered • 03/25/16

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4.9 (40)

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