English practice - travelling around Europe

[wayfarer]

Hello to all,
in order to have some English writing practice, I'll shortly talk about the journeys I took in these last years. Corrections are welcome.

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Rome is very popular all over the world, and many people choose it as their holiday destination. Because of traffic, pollution and poor city planning, though, it is not a very pleasant city to live in. Every time I can, I move away from Rome and travel in Italy and Europe, not in other continents because I don't like long airplane flights. In 2008 I went to Zagreb, Croatia, to visit some friends; in 2010 I went to Paris to visit my sister, who lives and work there; in 2012 I went to London with a friend. London is an enormous city and often we had trouble in finding the correct routes through it: once we went four times back and forth on the same bus!!

I often travel around Italy, also. I'm an experienced chess player and often play tournaments outside Rome. Quite often, these tournaments are played in beautiful places: for example, last June I played in a beautiful city on the mountains of Alto Adige, a German-speaking region near the northern border.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Hello to all,
In order to have some English writing practice, I'll shortly talk about the journeys I took in these last years. Corrections are welcome.

------

Rome is very popular all over the world, and many people choose it as their holiday destination. Because of traffic, pollution and poor city planning, though, it is not a very pleasant city to live in. Every time I can, I leave Rome and travel in Italy and Europe. I don't travel to other continents because I don't like long airplane flights. In 2008, I went to Zagreb, Croatia, to visit some friends. In 2010, I went to Paris to visit my sister, who lives and works there. In 2012, I went to London with a friend. London is an enormous city and we often had trouble in finding the correct routes through it; once we went four times back and forth on the same bus!!

I often travel around Italy, also. I'm an experienced chess player and often play in tournaments outside of Rome. Quite often, these tournaments are played in beautiful places; for example, last June I played in a beautiful city in the mountains of Alto Adige, a German-speaking region near the northern border.

Nice story.

[Perikles]

Pretty good! The only comments I have are 1) on other continents (not in, though you say in Africa, not on it) and 2) who lives and works there.

Edit: Cross-posting with Rusty, who sees different corrections necessary

[wayfarer]

Thank you Rusty and Perikles for the corrections. Your replies were almost contemporary: Perikles' reply came just one minute after Rusty's one!!

I'm glad that this time I made less mistakes than in my previous posts. "My sister lives and work" is evidently a mistake caused by distraction. You corrected the expression "move away from Rome" because it means leaving Rome for good, I guess?

Would the sentence "I travel in Italy and Europe, but not to other continents" have been correct?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

I'm glad that this time I made less mistakes than in my previous posts.

Fewer mistakes. Lots of English native speakers get this wrong. Fewer of something countable, less of a singular.

There are fewer people here than yesterday
There is less of a crowd here than yesterday

Fewer problems, less hassle

Originally Posted by wayfarer

You corrected the expression "move away from Rome" because it means leaving Rome for good, I guess?

Yes, or at least for a long time. "get away" would imply a short absence.

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Would the sentence "I travel in Italy and Europe, but not to other continents" have been correct?

Not really, it sounds wrong to me without repeating 'travel'. I would say "within", not "in".

I travel within Italy and Europe, but I don't travel to other continents.

[wayfarer]

Thank you for the further explanations, Perikles, I'll take note of them. I didn't know about the difference between "less" and "fewer", and I didn't know that verbs have to be repeated when there is a "but" clause, in my language it is different.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

and I didn't know that verbs have to be repeated when there is a "but" clause, in my language it is different.

No, no, that is not a rule. I like apples but not bananas. I think my objection is related to the collocations "travel within" and "travel to". Because these prepositions need to go immediately after the verb, it sounds odd if the second verb is missing. Having said that, my wife disagrees with me and claims that you are correct on that point. On the other hand, she is Irish.

Now I'm unsure. More input needed.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

... corrected the expression "move away from Rome" because it means leaving Rome for good, I guess? (Yes.)

Would the sentence "I travel in Italy and Europe, but not to other continents" have been correct?

Colloquially, I think everyone would understand this, even though Perikles' argument is indeed valid. There is a difference between 'travel around' and 'travel to'. Both are phrasal verbs, meaning that both the verb and the preposition constitute the verb.
If you were to use 'travel to' in the first clause, then the 'but not to' phrase would be perfectly fine. But, since you're already in Italy, you can't travel to it, so you must choose other wording.

I travel around Italy and (other countries in) Europe, but I don't travel to other continents.

[wayfarer]

Thanks Rusty, now it is clear, when there is the same verb, but there are different prepositions, the verb has to be repeated. Another example can be: finally we decided not to walk to the park, but just to walk around the neighbourhood.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Another example can be: finally we decided not to walk to the park, but just to walk around the neighbourhood.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Hello to all,
in order to have some English writing practice, I'll shortly talk about the journeys I took in these last years. Corrections are welcome.

------

Rome is very popular all over the world, and many people choose it as their holiday destination. Because of traffic, pollution and poor city planning, though, it is not a very pleasant city to live in. Every time I can, I move away from Rome and travel in Italy and Europe, not in other continents because I don't like long airplane flights. In 2008 I went to Zagreb, Croatia, to visit some friends; in 2010 I went to Paris to visit my sister, who lives and work there; in 2012 I went to London with a friend. London is an enormous city and often we had trouble in finding the correct routes through it: once we went four times back and forth on the same bus!!

I often travel around Italy, also. I'm an experienced chess player and often play tournaments outside Rome. Quite often, these tournaments are played in beautiful places: for example, last June I played in a beautiful city on the mountains of Alto Adige, a German-speaking region near the northern border.

Is Alto Adige Italian for South Tyrol?

[wayfarer]

Yes, Premium, I have been to Südtirol, near the Austrian border. It's a very pleasant region to stay in, I like both the landscapes and the town's architecture, with well-kept and vivid-colored buildings. It's one of the few italian regions that relies on tourism and nature conservation, rather than on useless industries. Luckily for me, they speak also Italian, because I don't understand nearly a word of German!!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Yes, Premium, I have been to Südtirol, near the Austrian border. It's a very pleasant region to stay in, I like both the landscapes and the town's architecture, with well-kept and vivid-colored** buildings. It's one of the few italian regions that relies on tourism and nature conservation, rather than on useless industries. Luckily for me, they speak also Italian, because I don't understand nearly a word of German!!

"the town's architecture" is the architecture of the town. Here, you refer to a region and not a specific town, so "the architecture of the towns". However, you are referring to villages, so you really mean "the Alpine style of the villages"

Italian always with I, not i.
I hardly understand a word of German.
**colored USA, coloured UK.

[wayfarer]

Thank you Perikles, you are right, I refer to a region, so the towns are more than one. A built-up area, let's say, of 10.000 people, can be referred to as a town or has to be considered a village?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Thank you Perikles, you are right, I refer to a region, so the towns are more than one. A built-up area, let's say, of 10.000 people, can be referred to as a town or has to be considered a village?

'Town' and 'village' overlap quite a lot, but I'd say a village could be up to 2000 after which you'd call it a town. Technically, I think a town is only a town if it has it's own local administration with a Town Hall and so on, but the term is often used without that structure. In England anyway. Others might disagree. Please don't ask me to define a 'city'.

In your post, 'architecture' would refer to specific grand structures, and I guessed you meant more like 'building style' of towns and/or villages.

[poli]

I don't know if this is true in Britain, but the word village in the United States conjures up old-fashioned and quaint communities. Towns are more generic. They may or may not be quaint and old-fashioned.

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by Perikles

'Town' and 'village' overlap quite a lot, but I'd say a village could be up to 2000 after which you'd call it a town. Technically, I think a town is only a town if it has it's own local administration with a Town Hall and so on, but the term is often used without that structure. In England anyway. Others might disagree. Please don't ask me to define a 'city'...

Originally Posted by poli

I don't know if this is true in Britain, but the word village in the United States conjures up old-fashioned and quaint communities. Towns are more generic. They may or may not be quaint and old-fashioned.

There are several words that we use to describe communities within the US: the words village, town and city are the three that are most widely used, but they are not the only ones. Each state has its own laws or customs that define different forms of local government and how they are named.

Outside of legal/political uses, I suspect that these 3 terms are used in broadly-similar manners in most English-speaking areas: a "village" is the smallest of the three, and it consists of only one concentration of residences and perhaps some businesses or public buildings, and it may or may not have some type of locally-elected government; a "town" is larger than a "village" or may consist of two or more concentrations of buildings and often has some type of locally-elected government; a "city" is larger than a town and usually has a locally-elected government and a cheif executive who supervises public employees.