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I am trying to figure out which sentence is correct.

I asked some of my friends, but got different answers. Or are they both correct?

  • I wonder who teaches you English.
  • I wonder who teaches your English.
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    If used as an ellipted form of 'I wonder who teaches your English at Bard Hill now that old Chimsky has retired?', (2) might just be acceptable. Only (1) is normal English. Nov 28, 2020 at 12:59

1 Answer 1

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Both are grammatical, but the second is unlikely semantically.

They have different structures:

Who (subject) teaches you (indirect object) English (direct object)

against

Who (subject) teaches [your English] (direct or indirect object)

So the second is asking either who teaches "your English" to somebody or who teaches something to "your English", neither of which makes a lot of sense.

Edit: I realise that it could mean Who teaches "your English" to you, but that is quite unusual. However, this does get used in the past (though usually with the indirect object expressed:

Who taught you your English?

Theis has no objective difference from Who taught you English?, but by talking about this unusual thing "your English", it is suggesting that there is something remarkable about the way you speak English - probably suggesting that the teacher was either outstandingly good, or very bad.

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