Learn English – “Dracula when I saw was the last movie.” Why is this sentence wrong

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I have heard the following answer from native speaker.

The first time when I drove was at driving school.

So I applied that to write a sentence like this.

Dracula when I saw was the latest/last movie.

Is this sentence wrong? If yes, what is wrong and what should be modified?

Best Answer

The two sentence are not at all written in a similar way!

The first time when I drove was at driving school.

That is built up a bit like: (some instance) when (I did something) was (at a specific place)

Now:

Dracula when I saw was the latest movie.

Is built up more like: (the object I did something with) when (I did something) was (a special kind of object)

It is possible to form a sentence the way you did, with some minor changes:

Dracula, when I saw it, was the latest movie.

This sentence is very different from your example: the main clause is "Dracula was the latest movie". This was true "when I saw it". You can move that indication of time around:

When I saw it, Dracula was the latest movie.
Dracula was the latest movie when I saw it.


If latest was not meant to be used, then your sentence needs a bit more work!

Dracula when I saw was the last movie.

If you want to say that after Dracula you did not see any other movies, this sentence makes, I'm afraid, very little sense. The easiest way to say what you mean is then:

Dracula was the last movie I saw.

There is no good way to include when in that sentence. You use when to indicate a time at which something happened - but you are not saying that at all! You are not saying anything about when you saw the movie, you only want to say it was the last one you saw.

There is absolutely no way to form a sentence that looks even a little bit like your original example sentence that would simply say "Dracula was the last movie I saw". The original sentence says when something happened, and where it happened. You are not saying when you saw the movie or where you saw the movie.

You could say:

The first time when I saw Dracula was at home.

But that says two things you never mentioned :) And it does not say it was the last movie you saw!

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