«This one confuses me:
on the edge of village.
→ of the village.»
"Village" is a common noun like "crane", not a proper noun like "Tuckahoe" (a village in New York State); and it's a count noun, meaning that (1) you can pluralize it (one village, two villages), (2) you HAVE TO pluralize it if it refers to more than one (can't say "I've lived in three village"), and (3) that in the singular it almost always needs a determiner (a word that specifies which village you're referring to, or that you DON'T mean any particular one). So you can say
I found it on the edge of...
the village
our village
Tuckahoe
that village
some village
a village
a pretty little village in the south
but you can't say (grammatically) "I found that on the edge of village." Does that make sense to you?
«>> strangers ... kimonos>>
Second option chosen because kimono is a Japanese word and they don't plural. Kimono is kimono whether it is one or many.
This is not meant as a criticism. It just bugs me when people pluralize Japanese words. Maybe it is my slow but steady attempt to learn the language but it sounds and looks weird to me when Japanese words are pluralized. And it jumps out and smacks me on the nose like typos and grammar goofs do you.»
OK, I grok that. My thinking was that this word is familiar enough as a loan word in English to be pronounced as English and pluralized as English, and it usually is; but I won't try to press that here, since the singular works ("a kimono"), and of course you're the author.
However, if it had to be plural in meaning, I would definitely oppose
• They were all wearing beautiful new kimono.
Why? Because this sentence is in English, not Japanese, and English requires a plural there. That sounds as bad to me as
• They were all wearing beautiful new sweater.
which I'd expect to get from someone whose language does not form plurals (whether not obligatorily or not at all) and who has not mastered English plurals.
Re: Thanks for Feedback
I missed this one before:
• was little crane
→ was a little crane
"Village" is a common noun like "crane", not a proper noun like "Tuckahoe" (a village in New York State); and it's a count noun, meaning that (1) you can pluralize it (one village, two villages), (2) you HAVE TO pluralize it if it refers to more than one (can't say "I've lived in three village"), and (3) that in the singular it almost always needs a determiner (a word that specifies which village you're referring to, or that you DON'T mean any particular one). So you can say
but you can't say (grammatically) "I found that on the edge of village." Does that make sense to you?
OK, I grok that. My thinking was that this word is familiar enough as a loan word in English to be pronounced as English and pluralized as English, and it usually is; but I won't try to press that here, since the singular works ("a kimono"), and of course you're the author.However, if it had to be plural in meaning, I would definitely oppose
• They were all wearing beautiful new kimono.
Why? Because this sentence is in English, not Japanese, and English requires a plural there. That sounds as bad to me as
• They were all wearing beautiful new sweater.
which I'd expect to get from someone whose language does not form plurals (whether not obligatorily or not at all) and who has not mastered English plurals.