Grammar question (Alex)

  I have a question for the usage of semicolon. Because when I was in senior high school, some teachers taught us about the usage of semicolon. They said that when you want to put adverb between two sentences without any conjunction, you have to put semicolon after the first sentence and put the adverb after the semicolon to connect two sentences. For instance: John is a hardworking person; however, he...

  I'm not sure whether this usage is formal or general because as you mentioned in the class. The usage of semicolon is rare.

Actually I'm not pretty sure about the answer,but I remember Peter has discussed this question earlier.He said semicolon is NOT frequently-used in English Writing.Also,my teacher told the same thing to me as your teachers did,but maybe they are just worried about the loss of marks in your exam.To be honest,I think if we wanna learn the real English,we need to listen to the opinions from native English speaker coz they know it best.So don't worry and try to express your idea clearly.And what's more,if you use semicolon in some conditions like those in Chinese,if they have the same function,I think it's OK.
Esther.;0