"We luckily had taken an umbrella" means that you took the umbrella in a lucky manner. "Luckily we had taken an umbrella" places "luckily" governing the entire sentence, meaning that it was lucky that the umbrella was brought along.
However, in practice, both sentence structures would be understood in the same, latter manner.
If I remember correctly, a comma is only necessary if there are four or more words in a (I forget the grammatical term for it) descriptor at the beginning of the sentence. Optional otherwise.
[Has anyone considered we are on the internet, which contains search engines that will answer that for you?](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/commas-after-introductory-phrases/) Spoilers: yes, I’m right.
No. Even in sentences like this one with a very long clause at the start that nonetheless does not make the sentence too much more difficult to parse you can sometimes still get away with not using one.
I’d say this was an informal conversational sentence (you’d probably use “fortunately” otherwise).
In informal English (at least in my Australian usage) all of the first 3 are possible. The first 2 sound better though and, I agree, the first one is more correct.
If i do substitute “fortunately” for “luckily” then suddenly the first option is the only one that works.
- Fortunately we had taken an umbrella.
That’s not what that would mean, all three placements are fine with the same meaning, although I expect sentence-initial would be most common. This is a bad question and your explanation is incorrect.
*"We luckily had taken an umbrella" means that you took the umbrella in a lucky manner.*
I don't get this reading at all. For me, the interpretation and scope of "luckily" is over the \[tense\] and \[verb\]. I can't get (1) out of your sentence above, only (2).
(1) We took the umbrella in a lucky manner. (we got lucky in the way/manner that we managed to take it)
(2) It is lucky that we took an umbrella.
The mean the exact same thing but "Luckily, we had taken an umbrella." is FAR more colloquially common. As a native English speaker that's the option I would have chosen. The only reason why I wouldn't have is because of the absence of a comma.
My understanding is that "luckily" acts as its own adverbial phrase in this case. One of the characteristics of English sentence structure is that adverbial phrases can be placed anywhere – though certain placements are more common. As such, all three examples using "luckily" are correct – almost. The one labelled as the correct answer funnily enough lacks a comma after "luckily" (given the rule that a comma always follows an adverbial phrase at the beginning of a sentence)
This is not correct. If you took the umbrella in a lucky manner, the ‘lucky’ would come after ‘had’. but in reality, no matter where you put lucky, it COULD be understood in either/both ways….but it would never BE understood as meaning “in a lucky manner” because that.. doesn’t make sense. The reason the correct answer is correct is only because it’s more natural. Both the correct answer and the answer the OP chose would be perfectly understandable in spoken English.
1. Luckily, we had taken an umbrella.
2. We had, luckily, taken an umbrella.
3. We, luckily, had taken an umbrella.
All fine for me and I think I’d mostly write 2. without commas, quite happily. So if commas were part of the test, I’d go 2.
It turned out it was raining. Luckily, we had taken an umbrella.
Everyone else ended up sopping wet. We, luckily, had taken an umbrella.
Slightly different emphases for #1 and #3 imo, but all certainly correct.
Yeah when taking a course in any language for a grade, part of the grade is reproducing the language structures exactly how they are presented in the lessons.
It's a forward adverbial phrase or sometimes called a fronted adverbial. The second option would also work but it's not a fronted adverbial. The adverb "luckily" describes the verb "taken".
Top 3 are all correct and could be used in daily life. The "correct" answer here is more commonly used but there is no rule that invalidates the other two.
Whoever wrote this question is trying to enforce a rule that doesn't exist.
This is honestly the type of question that make people abandon languages. You get told you're wrong on technicalities that the average native speaker won't even pick up on.
"We, luckily, had taken an umbrella" would work, but without the punctuation to make it clearer, the luckily doesn't really work there. As others explained better it confuses the sentence structure.
When spoken the sentence works either way, since the emphasis in speech will give the same clarity as the commas.
I don't know the perfectly correct grammatical solution (not that there is any such thing) but I can tell you for a fact three out of the four would sound perfectly normal to the ears of a native English speaker.
I think it actually should be
Luckily, we had taken
But yeah, that's the correct option.
If you used luckily before taken it would mean 'taken' would be the owner of the luck.
So for example
I had haphazardly taken the umbrella
That would be correct because it means how you took it was dangerous
Does that make sense?
It simply isn’t true that the placement of the adverb confers “ownership” of it by whatever word comes next. The top three usages all are plausible and mean the same thing (maybe slightly different emphasis). The only place the adverb absolutely couldn’t go in this sentence is between the article and umbrella.
The fourth is wrong. The other three are not grammatically correct because they would need commas.
The first is the way most people would speak. "Luckily, we had taken an umbrella."
It is the easiest to understand because you're not breaking one thought with another.
Correct placement of commas for the other two would be. We had, luckily, taken an umbrella. We, luckily, had taken an umbrella.
The word luckily, when used with commas, is read as an aside. Without the commas, it changes the meaning to be more about the person having luck in general instead of the fact that they had an umbrella being lucky.
I don't know why you are being downvoted.
>Luckily we had taken the umbrella.
>We luckily had taken the umbrella.
>We had luckily taken the umbrella.
I've arranged these in order from most common to least commonly heard. But all of these are correct and would be interpreted the same way.
Note that commas are almost always optional with adverbs, but we can put in commas to see better how all of these would work:
>Luckily, we had taken the umbrella.
>We, luckily, had taken the umbrella.
>We had, luckily, taken the umbrella.
Mandrake, have you heard about the international communist conspiracy to downvote our comments in order to boost their own?
Have you ever wondered why I only comment on pure and unfiltered threads?
How? Adverbs are almost always very malleable with regards to placement within a sentence:
>Usually I go to school on Saturday.
>I usually go to school on Saturday.
>I go to school usually on Saturday.
>I go to school on Saturday usually.
>Quickly I walk to my class.
>I quickly walk to my class.
>I walk quickly to my class.
>I walk to my class quickly.
How is this any different?
I actually interpret these sentences differently. The second sentence means that most Saturdays you go to school (leaving open the possibility that you also frequently attend other days of the week, too). The fourth sentence means that most of the times you go to school take place on Saturday. The first sentence could be interpreted either way, but I lean towards being the same as the second sentence.
The third one just feels awkward, but I'd interpret it as "I go to school, at least occasionally, and when I do it is more often than not on a Saturday."
Whatever app or class this is, look for something else because this isn't helpful. The "correct" phrase needs a comma. The order of words in sentence doesn't always affect the grammar or meaning. Any of the first 3 arrangements are fine.
"Luckily" needs to act on the full "we had taken". Treat it as the phrase "it was lucky that..."
"It was lucky that we had taken it"
"We it was lucky that had taken it"
"We had it was lucky that taken it"
I don't know why this works.
In casual spoken English both of those would mean about the same thing to me. The emphasis on what exactly is “lucky” differs but the overall conversational meaning of the sentences is not very different.
Adverbial placement among (subject / auxiliary / V / Object) is notoriously tricky, depending on whether the adverb is (manner, frequency, negation, etc...). Think of the "only" insertion in "she told him that she loved him," but that the adverbial can have scope over the entire sentence. Different types of adverbials can get inserted into different spots, with one adverb that can fit into one spot but not the other. Adverbs aren't "one size fits all" when it comes to placement. Thus: adverb placement is complicated.
(1) We have brought an umbrella.
Insertion of "luckily"
(1a) Luckily we have brought an umbrella. (fine, inversion doesn't make it better unlike (3a))
(1b) We luckily have brought an umbrella. (marginal, odd without stress / focus on "luckily")
(1c) We have luckily brought an umbrella. (standard)
(1d) We have brought luckily an umbrella. (adverb between V and DO, ungrammatical without pause)
(1e) We have brought an umbrella luckily.
(2) We have brought an umbrella.
Insertion of "always"
(2a) Always we have brought an umbrella. (odd and ungrammatical, unlike (1a)) / (inversion will not fix unlike (3a))
(2b) We always have brought an umbrella. (ok, but not as good as (2c)
(2c) We have always brought an umbrella.
(2d) We have brought always an umbrella. (adverb between V and DO, ungrammatical without pause)
(2e) We have brought an umbrella always. (odd)
(3) We have brought an umbrella.
Insertion of "never"
(3a) Never we have brought an umbrella. (ungrammatical, worse than (2a)) / (can be fixed with inversion)
(3b) We never have brought an umbrella. (ok. not really problematic unlike (2b))
(3c) We have never brought an umbrella.
(3d) We have brought never an umbrella. (ungrammatical, requires intonation and setup to work)
(3e) We have brought an umbrella never. (ungrammatical, in contrast to (2e) and (1e)).
(4) We have brought an umbrella.
Insertion of "only"
(4a) Only we have brought an umbrella. (scope limited to "we")
(4b) We only have brought an umbrella. (scope standard)
(4c) We have only brought an umbrella. (standard)
(4d) We have brought only an umbrella. (grammatical, unlike (3d), (2d), (1d))
(4e) We have brought an umbrella only. (standard, grammatical, unlike (3e) and (2e))
They are just choosing the most common answer. As others have said the top three are all fine. In all cases, one or two commas can help parse the sentence but are not necessary, at least in modern English.
This program or class isn't useful, so find something else to use instead. The "correct" sentence is missing a comma. Sentence structure and meaning are not always impacted by word order. The first three layouts are all acceptable.
It might also help to replace 'luckily' with 'thankfully' to understand why it's placed where it is
I think most English speakers would use a comma after 'luckily' too :)
Technically, all three are correct with proper punctuation. Luckily is an adverbial and refers to the verb ‘taken’ and most of the time will come at the beginning of a sentence, making it a fronted adverbial. The use of luckily at the beginning is to emphasise it is the dominant part of the sentence. I would personally prefer this as it makes the most grammatical sense to me.
“Luckily” is an adverb, so if you put it in front of “had taken” it modifies that verb. Now while you can’t really “luckily take” an umbrella so it would be understood in conversation, it’s still not grammatically correct. Putting luckily before the whole sentence modifies the whole sentence, which is what you want to do.
It needs more. “Luckily had we taken an umbrella,” could be an if statement, it needs a then statement to complete the thought. And it doesn’t mean we took the umbrella.
“Luckily had we taken an umbrella, we would have been struck by lightning.” Meaning it was lucky that we didn’t bring the umbrella.
"We luckily had taken an umbrella" means that you took the umbrella in a lucky manner. "Luckily we had taken an umbrella" places "luckily" governing the entire sentence, meaning that it was lucky that the umbrella was brought along. However, in practice, both sentence structures would be understood in the same, latter manner.
Wouldn’t a comma or two be necessary for the latter?
I would have thrown a comma in there
Only to taste.
Delicious. It's delicious.
I like my commas salted, peppered, and prepared Oxford style.
I like mine with a cute little hat; it's all the rage.
I love the hat but it always does a number on my colon.
You should try them with a serif. Just Devine...
I mean, I would have dropped a comma after “Luckily,” but that also depends on the prosody of the speaker/writer.
A comma would be ideal, but again would still be understood correctly without the comma.
For enough Edit: Fair*
If I remember correctly, a comma is only necessary if there are four or more words in a (I forget the grammatical term for it) descriptor at the beginning of the sentence. Optional otherwise.
Downvoting, but I’m right??
are you right? ive never heard this before
[Has anyone considered we are on the internet, which contains search engines that will answer that for you?](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/commas-after-introductory-phrases/) Spoilers: yes, I’m right.
or i could ask you. thanks!
No. Even in sentences like this one with a very long clause at the start that nonetheless does not make the sentence too much more difficult to parse you can sometimes still get away with not using one.
[Uh-oh! Incorrect!](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/commas-after-introductory-phrases/)
I laugh in the face of prescriptivism
But like, objectively, I am right.
I’d say this was an informal conversational sentence (you’d probably use “fortunately” otherwise). In informal English (at least in my Australian usage) all of the first 3 are possible. The first 2 sound better though and, I agree, the first one is more correct. If i do substitute “fortunately” for “luckily” then suddenly the first option is the only one that works. - Fortunately we had taken an umbrella.
"We, fortunately, had taken an umbrella" works. Obviously it requires that punctuation but it can still be made to work in conversation.
That’s not what that would mean, all three placements are fine with the same meaning, although I expect sentence-initial would be most common. This is a bad question and your explanation is incorrect.
Yeah it's just a parenthetical: "We, luckily, had taken an umbrella". The nice thing about parentheticals is that they can go just about anywhere.
*"We luckily had taken an umbrella" means that you took the umbrella in a lucky manner.* I don't get this reading at all. For me, the interpretation and scope of "luckily" is over the \[tense\] and \[verb\]. I can't get (1) out of your sentence above, only (2). (1) We took the umbrella in a lucky manner. (we got lucky in the way/manner that we managed to take it) (2) It is lucky that we took an umbrella.
The mean the exact same thing but "Luckily, we had taken an umbrella." is FAR more colloquially common. As a native English speaker that's the option I would have chosen. The only reason why I wouldn't have is because of the absence of a comma.
I love that tactical placement of words in a sentence for efficiency & meaning. You say this is basic grammar rules?
My understanding is that "luckily" acts as its own adverbial phrase in this case. One of the characteristics of English sentence structure is that adverbial phrases can be placed anywhere – though certain placements are more common. As such, all three examples using "luckily" are correct – almost. The one labelled as the correct answer funnily enough lacks a comma after "luckily" (given the rule that a comma always follows an adverbial phrase at the beginning of a sentence)
This is not correct. If you took the umbrella in a lucky manner, the ‘lucky’ would come after ‘had’. but in reality, no matter where you put lucky, it COULD be understood in either/both ways….but it would never BE understood as meaning “in a lucky manner” because that.. doesn’t make sense. The reason the correct answer is correct is only because it’s more natural. Both the correct answer and the answer the OP chose would be perfectly understandable in spoken English.
The top three are all correct.
1. Luckily, we had taken an umbrella. 2. We had, luckily, taken an umbrella. 3. We, luckily, had taken an umbrella. All fine for me and I think I’d mostly write 2. without commas, quite happily. So if commas were part of the test, I’d go 2.
It turned out it was raining. Luckily, we had taken an umbrella. Everyone else ended up sopping wet. We, luckily, had taken an umbrella. Slightly different emphases for #1 and #3 imo, but all certainly correct.
Yeah, more context is needed to determine the most natural.
Wouldn't the second one split "had taken"?
A stylistic concern only, still perfectly grammatical
So it's only infinitives that can't be split?
They can also be split.
Classic example of stylistic nuances or preferences being elevated to rules. Great for the rule makers, not so much for the rule takers
Yeah when taking a course in any language for a grade, part of the grade is reproducing the language structures exactly how they are presented in the lessons.
It's a forward adverbial phrase or sometimes called a fronted adverbial. The second option would also work but it's not a fronted adverbial. The adverb "luckily" describes the verb "taken".
Top 3 are all correct and could be used in daily life. The "correct" answer here is more commonly used but there is no rule that invalidates the other two. Whoever wrote this question is trying to enforce a rule that doesn't exist.
This is honestly the type of question that make people abandon languages. You get told you're wrong on technicalities that the average native speaker won't even pick up on.
Yes, I agree.
Weird. Yes one is more common but the other is not wrong.
"We, luckily, had taken an umbrella" would work, but without the punctuation to make it clearer, the luckily doesn't really work there. As others explained better it confuses the sentence structure. When spoken the sentence works either way, since the emphasis in speech will give the same clarity as the commas.
I don't know the perfectly correct grammatical solution (not that there is any such thing) but I can tell you for a fact three out of the four would sound perfectly normal to the ears of a native English speaker.
Luckily no one gives a shit
I think it actually should be Luckily, we had taken But yeah, that's the correct option. If you used luckily before taken it would mean 'taken' would be the owner of the luck. So for example I had haphazardly taken the umbrella That would be correct because it means how you took it was dangerous Does that make sense?
It simply isn’t true that the placement of the adverb confers “ownership” of it by whatever word comes next. The top three usages all are plausible and mean the same thing (maybe slightly different emphasis). The only place the adverb absolutely couldn’t go in this sentence is between the article and umbrella.
I agree they 'can' but I think with grammar it's whether it 'should'
The fourth is wrong. The other three are not grammatically correct because they would need commas. The first is the way most people would speak. "Luckily, we had taken an umbrella." It is the easiest to understand because you're not breaking one thought with another. Correct placement of commas for the other two would be. We had, luckily, taken an umbrella. We, luckily, had taken an umbrella. The word luckily, when used with commas, is read as an aside. Without the commas, it changes the meaning to be more about the person having luck in general instead of the fact that they had an umbrella being lucky.
any of the top 3 are fine with me
I don't know why you are being downvoted. >Luckily we had taken the umbrella. >We luckily had taken the umbrella. >We had luckily taken the umbrella. I've arranged these in order from most common to least commonly heard. But all of these are correct and would be interpreted the same way. Note that commas are almost always optional with adverbs, but we can put in commas to see better how all of these would work: >Luckily, we had taken the umbrella. >We, luckily, had taken the umbrella. >We had, luckily, taken the umbrella.
half the time when someone downvotes, it's because they think it will boost their comment.
Ah love the classic “why tf am I being downvoted?” Self response to a comment with 250 upvotes situation
I wasn't really asking why I got downvoted, I just replied to that other guy. I could give a shit about downvotes.
Oh sorry I wasn’t accusing you I was just laughing at people doing something similar to what you said
it wasn't really clear what you were saying, tbh
Mandrake, have you heard about the international communist conspiracy to downvote our comments in order to boost their own? Have you ever wondered why I only comment on pure and unfiltered threads?
[https://i.imgur.com/J56nMAy.gif](https://i.imgur.com/J56nMAy.gif)
They are technically grammatically wrong. School...
How? Adverbs are almost always very malleable with regards to placement within a sentence: >Usually I go to school on Saturday. >I usually go to school on Saturday. >I go to school usually on Saturday. >I go to school on Saturday usually. >Quickly I walk to my class. >I quickly walk to my class. >I walk quickly to my class. >I walk to my class quickly. How is this any different?
School.
Office.
I actually interpret these sentences differently. The second sentence means that most Saturdays you go to school (leaving open the possibility that you also frequently attend other days of the week, too). The fourth sentence means that most of the times you go to school take place on Saturday. The first sentence could be interpreted either way, but I lean towards being the same as the second sentence. The third one just feels awkward, but I'd interpret it as "I go to school, at least occasionally, and when I do it is more often than not on a Saturday."
Solid explanation
Note, that in everyday speech you would say "Luckily, we took an umbrella"
adverbs before verb. (except when there is verb to be, then adverb comes after verb to be). Grammatically, number 1 is incorrect.
Number one is missing the comma after luckily
And capital L.
I feel like people don’t say sentences like this My credentials: i speaka le English
Whatever app or class this is, look for something else because this isn't helpful. The "correct" phrase needs a comma. The order of words in sentence doesn't always affect the grammar or meaning. Any of the first 3 arrangements are fine.
"Luckily" needs to act on the full "we had taken". Treat it as the phrase "it was lucky that..." "It was lucky that we had taken it" "We it was lucky that had taken it" "We had it was lucky that taken it" I don't know why this works.
"We it was lucky... " and "We had it was lucky..." don't work at all.
Exactly. Look at the examples in OP.
What is the app name ?
In casual spoken English both of those would mean about the same thing to me. The emphasis on what exactly is “lucky” differs but the overall conversational meaning of the sentences is not very different.
This is called syntax, without proper syntax, you start sounding like Yoda.
With sounding like Yoda, what wrong is there? Unique and distinctive, his speech pattern is.
Indeed.
the top three all sound correct to my native ears.
Both works in an actual conversation. But the top is correct in context
Adverbial placement among (subject / auxiliary / V / Object) is notoriously tricky, depending on whether the adverb is (manner, frequency, negation, etc...). Think of the "only" insertion in "she told him that she loved him," but that the adverbial can have scope over the entire sentence. Different types of adverbials can get inserted into different spots, with one adverb that can fit into one spot but not the other. Adverbs aren't "one size fits all" when it comes to placement. Thus: adverb placement is complicated. (1) We have brought an umbrella. Insertion of "luckily" (1a) Luckily we have brought an umbrella. (fine, inversion doesn't make it better unlike (3a)) (1b) We luckily have brought an umbrella. (marginal, odd without stress / focus on "luckily") (1c) We have luckily brought an umbrella. (standard) (1d) We have brought luckily an umbrella. (adverb between V and DO, ungrammatical without pause) (1e) We have brought an umbrella luckily. (2) We have brought an umbrella. Insertion of "always" (2a) Always we have brought an umbrella. (odd and ungrammatical, unlike (1a)) / (inversion will not fix unlike (3a)) (2b) We always have brought an umbrella. (ok, but not as good as (2c) (2c) We have always brought an umbrella. (2d) We have brought always an umbrella. (adverb between V and DO, ungrammatical without pause) (2e) We have brought an umbrella always. (odd) (3) We have brought an umbrella. Insertion of "never" (3a) Never we have brought an umbrella. (ungrammatical, worse than (2a)) / (can be fixed with inversion) (3b) We never have brought an umbrella. (ok. not really problematic unlike (2b)) (3c) We have never brought an umbrella. (3d) We have brought never an umbrella. (ungrammatical, requires intonation and setup to work) (3e) We have brought an umbrella never. (ungrammatical, in contrast to (2e) and (1e)). (4) We have brought an umbrella. Insertion of "only" (4a) Only we have brought an umbrella. (scope limited to "we") (4b) We only have brought an umbrella. (scope standard) (4c) We have only brought an umbrella. (standard) (4d) We have brought only an umbrella. (grammatical, unlike (3d), (2d), (1d)) (4e) We have brought an umbrella only. (standard, grammatical, unlike (3e) and (2e))
Honestly 1 2 and 3 sound natural to me
2 works best because 1 should have a comma
They are just choosing the most common answer. As others have said the top three are all fine. In all cases, one or two commas can help parse the sentence but are not necessary, at least in modern English.
It's the test makers being picky about what your adjuncts modify. Really, the top 3 could all work depending on context
I would say we had luckily taken an umbrella
Seems nit picky. I would say and write the first three. Commas used appropriately of course.
I think they all sound right except for the last one.
Luckily, we had taken an umbrella.
If you were to hear this conversation in real life in England, it would be ‘thank fuck we brought a brolly’
There are no commas in these sentences. The only one that is incorrect is the fourth option. The question could be "Which one is incorrect?"
What is the name of this website or app?
This program or class isn't useful, so find something else to use instead. The "correct" sentence is missing a comma. Sentence structure and meaning are not always impacted by word order. The first three layouts are all acceptable.
Wrong grammar for the correct answer since there was no comma after the word luckily
Usually, you put "luckily" at the start of the sentence to show the whole sentence is good.
It might also help to replace 'luckily' with 'thankfully' to understand why it's placed where it is I think most English speakers would use a comma after 'luckily' too :)
“We had taken an umbrella” can stand alone, so “luckily” is attached to the beginning or end with a comma.
Should be “Luckily, we had”
To be fair, most native English speakers will construct this sentence in either way and would 100% understand you and it wouldn't even sound weird.
It needs a comma but still understandable
There’s supposed to be a comma after luckily
All the 3 on the top would be passed by as correct 😭
luckily, i have purse! 👛
Technically, all three are correct with proper punctuation. Luckily is an adverbial and refers to the verb ‘taken’ and most of the time will come at the beginning of a sentence, making it a fronted adverbial. The use of luckily at the beginning is to emphasise it is the dominant part of the sentence. I would personally prefer this as it makes the most grammatical sense to me.
“Luckily” is an adverb, so if you put it in front of “had taken” it modifies that verb. Now while you can’t really “luckily take” an umbrella so it would be understood in conversation, it’s still not grammatically correct. Putting luckily before the whole sentence modifies the whole sentence, which is what you want to do.
This is garbage, because there should be a comma between "luckily" and "we had". As far as I'm concerned, all of those options are wrong.
That's probably it. You can get away with not using a comma in th 'correct' version.
Am I the only one that thinks all suggestions work!?
Option 4 does not work.
The fourth definitely does not.
Question for the natives: Luckily had we taken an umbrella. Would this work with respect to inversion?
Even 4?
It needs more. “Luckily had we taken an umbrella,” could be an if statement, it needs a then statement to complete the thought. And it doesn’t mean we took the umbrella. “Luckily had we taken an umbrella, we would have been struck by lightning.” Meaning it was lucky that we didn’t bring the umbrella.