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 Sun Nov 18, 2007 18:11 pm Expression: "He does not look a day older than 15 years." |
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He doesn't look a day older than 15
sounds more natural to me.
(Sorry to be so nitpicking!) |
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Conchita
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Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
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| Sun Nov 18, 2007 18:19 pm Expression: "He does not look a day older than 15 years." |
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| Conchita wrote: | He doesn't look a day older than 15
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Yes, Conchita, I also thought of the same first, but let's suppose a student finds the following sentence in a dictionary, he won't be able to know whether 15 is days, months or years. Do you think mentioning years makes the sentence odd?
| Quote: | | He doesn't look a day older than 15. |
Many thanks
Tom |
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Tom
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 30 May 2006
Posts: 1967
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| Sun Nov 18, 2007 18:32 pm Expression: "He does not look a day older than 15 years." |
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Hi Tom
In my opinion, your sentence would be most natural with the word 'over' (rather than 'older than'):
He doesn't look a day over 15.
No native speaker would ever think you were referring to 15 days or 15 months instead of 15 years. So, to any native speaker, the word 'years' is so utterly unnecessary that if you decide to add it, you will only succeed in making your sentence sound odd.
EDIT:
Also keep in mind that we basically never say "He is 15 years."
Instead, we say either "He is 15." -OR- "He is 15 years old."
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English |
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Yankee
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