Never had it crossed James's mind that he would at some point have any kind of problem with this new employee he had just taken on. He came across a decent guy. No evident signs that could possibly give away his inability and lack of experience for such a job. He was taken in by looks and that would subsequently unleash undesirable consequences. Nonetheless, on the surface, it seemed he had made a good choice. So he granted this newbie a sought-after position in the company. Such that would take much more hard-work than all the other members of the staff were willing to put in. The first week started off just fine. But a few days later on, things turned sour. No one, not even the well-experienced boss that had ruled the company for no less than 15 years, would know how to approach the upcoming problems.And that led to the company's irrevocable downfall. 听起来自然吗？

Question

Never had it crossed James's mind that he would at some point have any kind of problem with this new employee he had just taken on. He came across a decent guy. No evident signs that could possibly give away his inability and lack of experience for such a job. He was taken in by looks and that would subsequently unleash undesirable consequences. Nonetheless, on the surface, it seemed he had made a good choice. So he granted this newbie a sought-after position in the company. Such that would take much more hard-work than all the other members of the staff were willing to put in. The first week started off just fine. But a few days later on, things turned sour. No one, not even the well-experienced boss that had ruled the company for no less than 15 years, would know how to approach the upcoming problems.And that led to the company's irrevocable downfall.  听起来自然吗？

krynn25 · Accepted Answer

@BR97 (For suggestions on word use I used *asterisks* to highlight them.)

•He had come across a decent guy. 
•There had been no evident signs...
•He'd been taken in by looks....
•Nonetheless, on the surface it seemed like he'd made a good choice at the time.
•He'd granted the newbie a sought-after position in the company, assuming that he would *take on* much more *work* than all the other members were willing to put in.
•The first few days had started off...
•But a few days later, things had turned sour. 
•No one, not even his *highly experienced* boss who had *led* the company for no less than 15 years...
•And that would lead to the company's irrevocable downfall. 
(or you could say "eventual downfall")

krynn25 · Answer

Firstly, let me say that this was written at a very advanced standard. Like close to native level. Really good.

I have a few comments that mainly relate to tenses and word choice, if you are interested.

krynn25 · Answer

@BR97 Ok, a lot of my corrections relate to use of the past perfect tense, which is used in storytelling to provide details of events that happened before the main narrative, which I assume is written using the past simple.

In some parts of your story you already use the past perfect tense so my comments are just to make the usage more consistent.

In some places I put "he'd" instead of "he had" as it sounds more natural.

Firstly, let me say that this was written at a very advanced standard. Like close to native level. Really good. I have a few comments that mainly relate to tenses and word choice, if you are interested.

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Firstly, let me say that this was written at a very advanced standard. Like close to native level. Really good.

I have a few comments that mainly relate to tenses and word choice, if you are interested.