Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
By the way, I seem to have failed in telling my intentions.
“You must have a daughter who is like a boy.” is said by the fortuneteller. Not the spirit.
The fortuneteller said that the spirit of my dead brother was with me (=the daughter).
My mother was surprised the fortuneteller guessed right my mother has a daughter (=me) before my mother told the fortuneteller my mother has a daughter (=me).
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Yes, it puzzled me so I made a guess at what you meant. I was sure I got it wrong, so I'm glad you corrected me.
Quote:
This is my revision.
“Her reasoning was this: My mother saw a fortuneteller on the street. The fortuneteller told my mother that he/she could see a spirit of my mother’s baby who had died before birth. The baby was a boy and it must be with my mother’s daughter. The fortuneteller said “You must have a daughter and she must be like a boy.”
What do you think?
(Writing English is still too difficult to me. )
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It's an ongoing process, but seeing that you can clearly explain where misunderstandings happen shows you're advancing your knowledge quite well.
As for my corrections to your changes:
I put "he/she" in place of the second instance of "the fortuneteller" to reduce the wordiness and have it read more naturally. Of course, the first instinct is to believe "he/she" (I'm thinking the fortuneteller was female unless proven otherwise) refers to "my mother".
However, in this case "my mother" is the object of the verb "told" and cannot be the correct reference for "he/she". This leaves the subject of the sentence "the fortuneteller" as the only reference for "he/she". It seems awkward to explain it. English is full of examples like that, as I'm sure you know.
But if the fortuneteller was male, "he" is the only correct pronoun. Which would eliminate any confusion as to who was speaking.
Hope that helps, Yuri!