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I'm having trouble trying to do these exercises of sentence transformation, where you have to fill in the blanks with 3-6 words, including the one in brackets, so that the new sentence has the same meaning as a similar meaning to the original one. This is the first.

They left as soon as I entered the room. (had)
No _____________________ the room than they left.

Before knowing the answer, I thought it was something like No [sth] I had entered the room than they left, but I couldn't guess what [sth] could be and I didn't notice the inversion.
Here is the second.

He told her because he believed it was true. (belief)
He told her ______________________ true.

I don't understand why they removed because, maybe I shouldn't write it... But they left true... And I think the solution doesn't contain the fragment his belief was true, since the thing that is true is the it of the first sentence. But I may be wrong...

Edit. This is not homework! Answering this question will mean neither relieving me of my duty nor making me able to do all the exercises of this kind. It'll just teach me two expressions that might come in handy one day (and maybe some useful tips too ;).

Human
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    I'm pretty sure the first one is No sooner had they entered the room... I'm at a loss for the second one, though; the best I can muster is He told her his belief, that it was true, but I'm afraid that's rather clunky. – J.R. May 11 '16 at 13:22
  • @J.R. Thank you! I think you meant No sooner had I entered the room... – Human May 11 '16 at 13:30
  • Yes, correct. Nice catch. – J.R. May 11 '16 at 13:37
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    He told her because of his belief that it was true. He told her since it was his belief that it was true. He told her since his belief was that it was true. He told her as his belief was that it was true. (These are in the order I wrote them as my ideas evolved. I think the last one, with the "as", is the best.) – AdrianHHH May 11 '16 at 14:30
  • @AdrianHHH, you cannot write more than 6 words... – Human May 11 '16 at 14:40
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    "He told her what he believed was true", "He told her since his belief was true. – Peter May 11 '16 at 15:25
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    I can write as many words as I choose. You might desire that the answer should be 3-6 words, but that does not stop me from writing as many words as I like. I will leave condensing my suggested words to 6 or less to you. If I had seen a 6 word variation I would have written it as an answer. – AdrianHHH May 11 '16 at 15:26
  • @Peter your first option doesn't work - it has to have the word in parens if I understand the exercise correctly. Also in your second suggestion "his belief was true" changes the meaning of the sentence. – ColleenV May 11 '16 at 15:36
  • Human, we can tell you some answers, but that isn't going to help you answer similar questions in the future. Can you explain any more about why you're having trouble thinking of a solution? Maybe we can help you understand how to look at the first sentence to figure out your own answer. – ColleenV May 11 '16 at 15:39
  • @ColleenV, Maybe: "He told her since he thought his belief was true." – Peter May 11 '16 at 18:49
  • @Peter That makes more sense to me. Human thanks for adding more detail - I've voted to re-open. – ColleenV May 12 '16 at 01:59
  • He told her because it was his belief (= he believed) it was true. – TimR May 17 '16 at 15:07
  • https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=it+is+my+belief%2Cit+is+our+belief&year_start=1675&year_end=2010&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cit%20is%20my%20belief%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cit%20is%20our%20belief%3B%2Cc0 – TimR May 17 '16 at 15:13
  • Could you please separate this into two questions? I'd like to be able to answer just the first question. –  May 20 '16 at 13:55
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    He told her in the belief that it was* true.* But this is just an Off-Topic guessing game - I don't endorse this meta question. – FumbleFingers May 20 '16 at 18:49
  • Fumblefingers has nailed it. See OD: She acted in the belief that she was doing good – Mari-Lou A May 21 '16 at 12:08
  • @FumbleFingers, thank you! Was there any better place than this site for asking my question? – Human May 22 '16 at 11:11
  • @Human: Other opinions may differ, but I don't think this kind of "please do my homework" question would be On Topic on any SE sites. But in any case, I don't think either of your two questions are well-posed. In any given real-world context most competent speakers would understand subtle nuances of difference between the "original" and "suggested alternative", so it's misleading to "teach" these examples to learners in a way that gives the impression the alternative phrasing is somehow precisely equivalent and thus transparently interchangeable with the original. – FumbleFingers May 23 '16 at 13:41
  • @FumbleFingers. This is not homework! (I should have added that...) Indeed, it's from a test I took some time ago. I spent enough time on those questions that I was able to remember and ask them here. As for the precisely equivalent thing, I'd say that in all the languages I know, two factually different sentences hardly ever have exactly the same meaning. I think these exercises are not really meant to test your competence in rephrasing sentences, but rather your knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures and idioms. The original phrasing is there just to give you the context. – Human May 24 '16 at 09:04
  • When they write He told her because he believed it was true. (belief) He told her _______ true, they are probably asking "Do you know (and can you use) the expression in the belief that?". I think they are not asking for a precisely equivalent phrasing... I don't know whether this is true or not, but it seems plausible... – Human May 24 '16 at 09:15
  • @Human: It's still this kind of "please do my homework" question regardless of whether it was set by your schoolteacher, an exam board, or some enterprising amateur on the Internet - though I'd suspect it's the latter (and a non-native speaker at that). You should note that no sooner had I entered... is quaint/dated phrasing typical of a Victorian children's story, not something today's learners should want to use. – FumbleFingers May 24 '16 at 11:53
  • @FumbleFingers, at least you now know it isn't homework. :) And nope, it wasn't set by some enterprising amateur on the Internet ahah. Anyway, thanks for the clarification, I'll keep that in mind. – Human May 24 '16 at 13:44
  • @Human: Also note that for the second item, in the belief that it was true is equivalent to *in good faith [that it was true]. Neither of which expressions carry any implication that the information was given because* the speaker believed it to be true - simply that he *did* believe it, regardless of *why* he said it. – FumbleFingers May 24 '16 at 15:19

1 Answers1

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The first, as noted in the comments is:

  • No sooner had I entered the room than they left.

Notice that we need to put the Subject after the auxiliary verb here. This is because there is a negative word in the Adjunct at the beginning of the sentence.

I think the second probably is:

  • He told her in the belief (that) it was true.

This doesn't really say that he told her because he believed it was true. But these questions are often not very well designed.

Human
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Araucaria - Not here any more.
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