Mateo Guzmán
“I often buy fruits when I go to the supermarket” – illogical? I am an English assistant and I often hear my non-native students say: I often buy fruits when I go to the supermarket. I think it is wrong logically because "go" means "to move or travel from one place to another". I am not sure whether it implies "you are already there" Should we change to: I often buy fruits when I am at the supermarket but it does not say that "I go to the supermarket". How do native speakers express that idea? Note: when could mean "after", so, I often buy fruits when I go to the supermarket=I often buy fruits after I go to the supermarket
Jul 28, 2017 5:21 PM
Answers · 2
5
For me, as a native speaker (and frequent fruit-buyer), the only thing wrong with the sentence is the plural 'fruits'. When I read your title, I assumed it was a question about countable and uncountable nouns. If you change it to "I often buy fruit when I go to the supermarket", your sentence is 100% natural. There is no problem at all with 'go'.
July 28, 2017
1
Your suggestion would work too, but there is nothing wrong with saying "I often buy fruit when I go to the supermarket." Based on your definition of "go", you could reword the sentence like this: "I often buy fruit when I travel to the supermarket" or "When I travel to the supermarket, I often buy fruit." "Go" does not imply that you already there. It simply means that you usually purchase fruit when you are at the store. Hope this helps.
July 28, 2017
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