In Dialects^x, Grammar^x

hehe, yeah, the difference is very UNsubtle! For all intents and purposes, Cantonese and Mandarin are 2 completely different languages. They're related, so they share a lot of common grammar rules and have some words that are similar...I'd say they're about as similar as French and Spanish. ...

It's about the same in German as it is in English as far as I can say. In spoken language, people very often put the preposition in the end of a sentence - in standard German though, it wouldn't be actually wrong but should be avoided. For example: Ich weiß, wo sie herkamen. (informal, but very...

Hi iverness, the site you linked to deals actually with foreign-language-accents. What I was talking about is rather special dialects, regional variants of a language within the language. Standard German is more or less a constructed language which is based on some middle-east German accents,...

the combination of slight mistakes and grandiose turns of phrase, like the 'my dear friends' bit leaves a bad taste. i don't know if she's a native speaker or not, it's hard to tell, you should hear some of us over in England- wouldn't understand a word, it's taken me quite a while to understand...

I agree with Mike. Your two suggestions works, for me at least. So Nawal should really give it a try. One day many years ago, I realized this from my observation: a Chinese friend of mine could speak so well because he had used English since his birth. He was exposed to only one language most...

Do you really think so, Mike?? I don't think American English is worse than the British one. Also Americans use "correct" spelling, they use American spelling, they use American enunciation and also American grammar -> all these also have been standardized, as a guideline you can use the...

They do speak German, yes - I was just referring to his nationality and I hope you don't see him as a philosopher. He might have impressed people while he was holding speeches, but: His speeches were simply built and structured, the reason why they were such engrossing was because he held them...

Introduction taken from http://www.ead.ufms.br/letras/Literature/01-Origins_Of_English.pdf Origins of English (up to 1066) Historical Background Before the time of the Roman colonization in A.D. 43, Britain was populated by Celts and Britons, relatively primitive people without organized...