15

Me and my friend had a conversation.

[My friend] damn, your listening skills are good
[Me] they've improved a lot since I started watching English dubbed anime

My friend told me that I can't use "they" to refer to my English listening skills because it sounds unnatural. He told me I shoulda said "it's improved a lot." instead. However, I'm not sure why that is the case. Could anyone explain it to me?

James K
  • 217,650
  • 16
  • 258
  • 452
cdleace
  • 365
  • 2
  • 7
  • 4
    I've cleaned up and shortened the dialogue. There was a lot of irrelevant chat. (Do you record a transcript of your conversations? Your unstructured dialogue did not look like the sort of thing one could remember without a recording.. or was this a "text" conversation). By the way, the spelling is "should've" not "shoulda". – James K Jun 01 '21 at 06:41
  • It was a text conversation.

    Shoulda is short for should have.

    Thanks for helping me.

     – cdleace Jun 01 '21 at 06:51
  • 7
    No. "Shoulda" is an eye dialect. It is a phonetic spelling to indicate pronunciation. In writing "shoulda" is a mistake. – James K Jun 01 '21 at 07:05
  • 1
    Yeah, I will keep that in mind. Thanks. – cdleace Jun 01 '21 at 07:09
  • 13
    @JamesK yes it's eye dialect, but that doesn't mean it's wrong, just very informal. In such contexts, it's extremely common. If this was in a text conversation over an instant messenger, it would be entirely appropriate – Tristan Jun 01 '21 at 15:59
  • 3
    @JamesK It's not a mistake, it's a stylistic choice. It might be a mistake in a doctoral dissertation or a resume, but it's not a mistake in writing generally. – barbecue Jun 01 '21 at 18:43
  • 9
    @barbecue In the context of writing a question on English language learners stackexchange (and not the quoted text conversation), it is a mistake. A minor one and quite tolerable, but still a mistake. I would not mention it on a stack on which the goal was not language learning. But many learners are, understandably confused about contractions and spoken forms like "gonna" or "wanna", which are freely used in conversation, but are incorrect in standard written English. We do no favours by say that "shoulda" is mere a styistic choice. – James K Jun 01 '21 at 21:46
  • 3
    @JamesK, shoulda is a normal word. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. – Fattie Jun 01 '21 at 22:39
  • 1
    @JamesK Popular culture and social media are filled with counter-examples. I say it's casual informal usage that should be avoided in professional writing. You claim it's a mistake in writing. It's not. It's a mistake in SOME writing. – barbecue Jun 01 '21 at 23:24
  • 3
    @barbecue The 'shoulda' did not appear in OP's text conversation, it appeared in the body of the question. Had it been in the conversation, it would have been wrong to remove. In the actual question text it would be more wrong to leave it in. – mcalex Jun 02 '21 at 04:18
  • Thanks for helping me. However, please don't speak ill of my friend. I think he was just confused. – cdleace Jun 02 '21 at 09:26
  • @mcalex no idea what the relevance of your comment is. Simply re-read my last comment to know exactly what I'm saying and why I'm saying it. – barbecue Jun 02 '21 at 12:38
  • 2
    'My friend and I had a conversation.' My friend had a conversation, I had a conversation. Me never had a conversation. – Tim Jun 02 '21 at 15:57
  • 4
    JamesK is correct. "shoulda" does not appear in the dictionary: https://www.lexico.com/search?filter=en_dictionary&query=shoulda - it's a colloquialism that shouldn't be used on this ELL stack – Aaron F Jun 02 '21 at 16:01

1 Answers1

53

As described here, "listening skills" is plural. So, "they" have improved a lot is fine. If your friend had said "your English has improved a lot," English would be singular. So, "it has improved a lot" would be correct.

Mongoose1021
  • 626
  • 5
  • 3
  • Thanks for answering my question, but my friend told me that "they" are used when I talk about other people's skills, not mine and that "they've improved a lot." sounds unnatural. – cdleace Jun 01 '21 at 06:40
  • 63
    Your friend is wrong – James K Jun 01 '21 at 07:06
  • 11
    Your friend is confused. The "they" in the sentence refers to the plural skills, not the single person. Consider "Exports this year are worse than last year. They have probably suffered as a result of the pandemic" - there isn't even a person being discussed here, just plural exports – Caius Jard Jun 01 '21 at 17:11
  • @cdleace - your friend is, absolutely, wrong. As everyone here has said. – Fattie Jun 01 '21 at 22:40
  • 3
    @DavidSchwartz "It's" can also be a contraction of "it has," which would indeed be correct in that sentence if the antecedent were singular. – John Montgomery Jun 01 '21 at 23:24
  • 2
    So "they've improved a lot" sounds unnatural to your friend. That suggests to me that your friend is not a native speaker of English. It would sound perfectly natural to native speakers all over the world. – Dawood ibn Kareem Jun 02 '21 at 03:38
  • 3
    I'd go beyond 'fine' and say that the use of they is the only correct way given the two options. OP's friend is wrong twice - not just saying "they've ..." sounds unnatural, but also in proffering "it's ..." as the correct version. – mcalex Jun 02 '21 at 04:24
  • @DawoodibnKareem He's a native speaker. He was just confused. – cdleace Jun 02 '21 at 21:56