Sabina loved her husband immensely

[Bassim]

I am wondering if my sentence sounds natural.

Sabina loved her husband immensely and, watching him suffer from cancer, made her feel sad.

 

[GoesStation]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Sabina's husband isn't a woman. You could write Sabina loved her husband immensely and, watching him suffer from cancer, made him feel sad but I don't think that's what you mean. (It means that Sabina made her husband sad.)

I think these two sentences convey the meaning you're after: Sabina loved her husband immensely. Watching him suffer from cancer made her feel sad.

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

The commas are the problem in the original. Remove them and it's correct and means what you want it to.

 

[Bassim]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Thank you again for your corrections.
I wrote this sentence because I wanted to see if I can use "bracketing commas" correctly. But apparently, my commas only made my sentence unclear.

 

[jutfrank]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Both commas are wrong.

We don't put a comma between subjects and immediately-following predicates. In the second part of your sentence, watching him suffer from cancer is the subject of the clause, and made him feel sad is the predicate.

The first comma is unnecessary because we don't normally use a comma after coordinating conjunctions (in this case, and).

 

[Bassim]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

jutfrank,

Thank you so much for your good and useful explanation. You opened my eyes. The problem is that I did not see that "watching him suffer from cancer" is the subject and other part of the sentence the predicate. And when you do not see the whole sentence and do not recognise different parts of the sentence, you are likely to make mistakes like I do.

 

[teechar]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Bassim, as an exercise, write the corrected sentence below.

 

[Bassim]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Here is my second try:

Sabina loved her husband immensely and watching him suffer from cancer made her feel sad.

 

[jutfrank]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

The problem is that I did not see that "watching him suffer from cancer" is the subject and other part of the sentence the predicate. And when you do not see the whole sentence and do not recognise different parts of the sentence, you are likely to make mistakes like I do.

Try to get into the habit of seeing your sentences in this way, then.

 

[teechar]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

I would put a comma after "immensely" in post #8.

 

[engee30]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

:up: So would I, actually. Going even further, I'd be tempted to utilise a semicolon, or even a full stop.

 

[YAMATO2201]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Sabina loved her husband immensely and watching him suffer from cancer made her feel sad.

Is it possible to replace "suffer" with "suffering" in that sentence?

 

[GoesStation]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Sabina loved her husband immensely and, watching him suffer from cancer, made her feel sad.

Thank you again for your corrections.
I wrote this sentence because I wanted to see if I can use "bracketing commas" correctly. But apparently, my commas only made my sentence unclear.

Bracketing commas, as you aptly call them, set off a parenthetical phrase. Such a phrase adds information to a sentence which could stand without it.

A good first test for this sort of sentence is to remove the parenthetical phrase and make sure that what's left says what you expect. In this case, you get:

Sabina loved her husband immensely and made her feel sad. You can see why I corrected her to "his" and why the commas don't work.

 

[teechar]

Re: Sabina love her husband immensely

Is it possible to replace "suffer" with "suffering" in that sentence?

It works better without the "-ing".