Search results for 'tag:Accents tag:English grammar' matching tags 'Accents' and 'English grammar'

Re: AMERICANS PLEASE HELP!!

Kooyeen — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:19:02 GMT

First of all, you need some grammar too, because I noticed typical Asian mistakes, or non native constructions anyway.

Anonymous
i'm live in PRC <-- I live in...

Here's the best tips I can give you:

1 - Get a grammar book, and read it, learning the most common structures. "English grammar in use" by Cambridge University Press seems a good one.
2 - Learn how to recognize the sounds of vowels and how to speak like a native speaker. I used "American Accent Training", by Ann Cook. It is one of the best.
3 - Practice, replacing your first language with English every time you feel like it. You should start to think in English.

Point #2 is the most important. I improved my listening skills by at least 50% (from understanding 25% to understanding 80%). The link is http://www.americanaccent.com/ ,if you want to take a look.

Re: can't;can

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:17:16 GMT

Hi,

according the British rules it isn't correct to use can't, there is only cannot.

This is not accurate. Most Britons use the contracted form "can't" in rapid and informal speech. The British pronunciation differs somewhat between different British accents, the RP norm is /kÉË nt/.

there is no double negation in English grammar.

I would agree that double negation in English is non-standard in all its native-speaker varieties, but it would be wrong to claim that it does not exist in English grammar as it is certainly used by a number of native and non-native speakers.

Re: Which of the following dictionaries would you recommend?...

Kooyeen — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:40:35 GMT

Hi,
my English is not good at all, really, but I'm improving. If you want to know how I improved and how I'm improving, then... let's just say I used to read some stuff in Practical English Usage by Michael Swan and English Grammar in Use (Cambridge University Press), but then I stopped relying on grammar books. They are oversimplified, confusing, and often too prescriptive, even those that claim to follow a descriptive approach. So I can't recommend any grammar, because I have yet to find a good grammar, and I think I don't really need one anymore. I don't think a bunch of rules to keep in mind is the key to fluency. However, I think the grammars by Cambridge University Press are acceptable, to get started.
Then I learn a lot in this forum, asking, writing, reading natives' answers. Dictionaries help me a lot too. I use the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster, all online versions. I use the Merriam-Webster mainly for pronunciations, the others help me with collocations, patterns and examples.
American Accent Training by Ann Cook helped me improve my listening skills. The problem is that I don't read much, so my vocabulary is extremelly limited, and therefore this limits my listening skills too. I hope I'll soon be good enough to rely mainly on spoken English (listening), which I believe is the best source of reliable English for ESL students.

Re: Language-related misunderstandings

Cool Breeze — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 22:19:03 GMT

I took a summer job in England to learn English after I had graduated from school. My duties included serving drinks from the hotel pub to people who preferred to have their drinks in the lounges next to Reception. I had been there just a few days and was getting accustomed to many things that differed from what I was used to. You might call it cultural acclimatisation.

I was on duty one afternoon when a British couple sitting in the TV lounge wanted drinks. Hearing a lot of British accents in a short time hadn't made it at all easier for me to understand different varieties of English from all over the British Isles. I thought the man wanted a gin and ale, and I don't remember what his wife ordered. A gin and ale seemed like a rather strange drink to me but it didn't bother me for long. These people cooked their food in the most mysterious ways and I had no shower in my bathroom, just a bath tub, so who was I to judge their drinks!

The Spanish bartender, Manuel, who had been in England longer than me (seven months), wondered about the gin and ale, but gave it to me. When I took the drinks into the lounge it turned out that the man had ordered ginger ale, not gin and ale. I had never heard the word because in Finland no one drinks ginger ale. And I was too young to know about all kinds of drinks anyway.

Of course I offered to take the gin and ale back to the pub but the man said he was actually thirsty and would gladly drink the gin if I brought him a tonic water for a mixer. I did that on the house.

Other than this misunderstanding, I did just fine on the job. I had a good grasp of English grammar but the various accents caused me some problems. And of course my vocabulary could have been larger when I began working.

Re: Standard English is an elitism of one sort, do you agree?

nona the brit — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:15:32 GMT

I think that there are two issues being confused here with 'standard' English. Standard English with regards to grammar and so on, and a standard English accent.

We may speak a regional (non-standard) English accent (this is what the only 12-15% figure is talking about) but most people still use primarily standard English grammar etc, particularly in writing. I don't have a standard English accent but I do use standard English 'the language', if you see what I mean. At least most of the time. I don't think there is anyone without a few regional/class slang or dialect words. Even the URP people have their own little selection.

Learners should definitely learn standard English 'the language'. There is nothing elitist about it. Everyone uses it bar the very uneducated. When it comes to accent, you have to pick one of them, and standard is the most easily understood by everyone. There are English accents that even other English people have difficulties understanding. It would be pretty pointless to choose to learn one of those. You couldn't find any English accent that was spoken by the majority of people here, we have so many. I'd say 12-15% probably makes it one of the most common accents, if not THE most common accent, spoken in England.

For example, in my local area a lot of people use glottal stops and drop their h's. (I try not to). It is a non-standard accent. However, when they write those words, they don't spell them in a funny way, they use standard English spelling.

Re: Native-speaker intuition.

Cool Breeze — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 08:36:44 GMT

Englishuser wrote:
A non-native speaker who has immersed himself or herself with highbrow literature written in a foreign language could very well have a more vivid vocabulary and a better knowledge of the grammar of the language than the average native speaker. At least as far as the 'standard version' of the language is concerned.

Englishuser

Hi Englishuser

I agree, learning the grammar of a language can be relatively easy for a person who is familiar with the grammatical structures of his native language. As far as I am concerned, English grammar was a piece of cake for me even though it differs considerably from Finnish grammar. It was easy because there is so little of it; an English word has very few forms: write, writes, writing, wrote, written. That's all there is written as single words. Of course has written, having written etc. exist in addition to the five basic forms.

However, in Finnish, for instance, you need six forms just to say something affirmative in the present tense, a different inflection for every person (I, you, he, we, you, they). You need another six forms to ask a question etc. Nouns have more than a hundred forms and an adjective has hundreds of inflected forms. Some English people have said to me they don't belive me when I say that. That's because they think the languages they may have some knowledge of, usually German or French, are as complicated in structure as a language can be. They know of nothing else.

What is difficult about English are the countless idioms and spelling.

By the way, when I am abroad I try not to sound British or American even though I have been told that I am able to mimic the American accent quite well. Finland was never a major country in world politics or colonization and I often get good service just because people don't really know anything about my country. They have no preconceived notions.

I was once having a drink in a hotel bar in New Orleans. The man sitting next to me asked me: "Where do you come from?" I said: "Finland." He said: "Which state is it in?" So I got wise and a couple of days later when a fiftyish woman asked me the same question, I said: "I'm from Europe." Her face lit up: "That's marvelous! I've got relatives in the same country."

Cheers
CB

Re: ways to imrpove my english

Goodman — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:26:55 GMT

Friendshipz wrote:
hi all, i am from singapore, currently studying in polytechnic, in other terms if i am not wrong, it is called a college.

i came from a chinese speaking family,where i speak chinese all the time at home which makes this one of the main reason why i am not fluent in english, back in high school, my result for english langauge is always at the bottom of the class.

just about 1 years ago, i tired to shove up my foundation in english language by reading through some online source and forum.
eventhough people had advised me that the best solution to improve this language is by reading newspaper and story book, however, i felt very reluctant to do so.

i visited forum like animesuki that allows me to actively participate in some dicussion and at the same time, i will pick up some words that i did not understand the meaning.

i am very new to this forum since this is my first post, from now on, i will be glad that you guys here can help me in the journey of learning english language.

if possible do give me some suggestion and advice on what should i do to improve this language, something which is very entertaining at the same time. i am not looking to write queen language,just want to write and speak well in english.

side note: i have been learning japanese for the past 1 year, i am currently learning both of them at the same time.

From the same background as your, I also had the same experience. I had said it many times, here and other forum, English is particularly hard for Asian learners for the simple fact that our own language is not made up of alphabets and spoken very differently in terms of tongue and jaw muscle movement and pronunciation. Additionally, English grammar works nearly entirely opposite from ours. That said, itâs not completely impossible to learn and master written and spoken English. There are several critical elements learners must have in order to achieve the goal. Itâs a long commitment and one must have perseverance, determination, patience, and the what-ever-it-take attitude. You canât have a thin face or fear of people laughing at your accent or grammar because if you do, chances are you will be discouraged to practice or use what youâve learned. If we have these requirements established, we already won half the battle. The other half is to maintain constant English exposure to our ears and eyes, meaning listening to good radio programs, watching TV programs like Discovery or The History Channel etc, and reading good English materials. The more we are exposed to English, the more our senses get accustomed to the sound and sentence structure and thus our subconsciousness is reprogrammed to function in English. The most difficult part to non-native Asians is spoken English and speech patterns. I used to spent 30 minutes a day practicing my speech by repeating after TV program narrators or commentators. This allowed my tongue and jaw muscle to develop and adapt to the correct pronunciation and intonation. Thatâs my own experience and how I developed my English skills. It may not be an orthodox approach for others. But it sure worked for me. I hope this helps you as well.

Re: :::::: HOW TO SPEAK AND LEARN EGNLISH ::::

Exclusive — Thu, 04 May 2006 22:16:55 GMT

Part I: Want to 'neutralise' your accent?

Many deserving candidates lose out on job opportunities because of their vernacular accent.

Can I 'neutralise' my accent?

Yes, you can. All you need to do is train yourself to speak English as comfortably and perfectly as you speak your mother tongue.

How do you train yourself? By inculcating certain practices in your daily lifestyle. These will get you closer to sounding like a native English speaker and equip you with a global accent -- and you will speak not American or British English, but correct English.

This is the first step to learn any other accent, be it American or British or Australian.

Lisa Mojsin, head trainer, director and founder of the Accurate English Training Company in Los Angeles, offers these tips to help 'neutralise' your accent or rather do away with the local twang, as you speak.

i. Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them.

When you are watching television, observe the mouth movements of the speakers. Repeat what they are saying, while imitating the intonation and rhythm of their speech.

ii. Until you learn the correct intonation and rhythm of English, slow your speech down.

If you speak too quickly, and with the wrong intonation and rhythm, native speakers will have a hard time understanding you.

Don't worry about your listener getting impatient with your slow speech -- it is more important that everything you say be understood.

iii. Listen to the 'music' of English.

Do not use the 'music' of your native language when you speak English. Each language has its own way of 'singing'.

iv. Use the dictionary.

Try and familiarise yourself with the phonetic symbols of your dictionary. Look up the correct pronunciation of words that are hard for you to say.

v. Make a list of frequently used words that you find difficult to pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language well to pronounce them for you.

Record these words, listen to them and practice saying them. Listen and read at the same time.

vi. Buy books on tape.

Record yourself reading some sections of the book. Compare the sound of your English with that of the person reading the book on the tape.

vii. Pronounce the ending of each word.

Pay special attention to 'S' and 'ED' endings. This will help you strengthen the mouth muscles that you use when you speak English.

viii. Read aloud in English for 15-20 minutes every day.

Research has shown it takes about three months of daily practice to develop strong mouth muscles for speaking a new language.

ix. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes.

Many people hate to hear the sound of their voice and avoid listening to themselves speak. However, this is a very important exercise because doing it will help you become conscious of the mistakes you are making.

x. Be patient.

You can change the way you speak but it won't happen overnight. People often expect instant results and give up too soon. You can change the way you sound if you are willing to put some effort into it.

Quick tips

Various versions of the English language exist. Begin by identifying the category you fall into and start by improving the clarity of your speech.

~ Focus on removing the mother tongue influence and the 'Indianisms' that creep into your English conversations.

~ Watch the English news on television channels like Star World, CNN, BBC and English movies on Star Movies and HBO.

~ Listen to and sing English songs. We'd recommend Westlife, Robbie Williams, Abba, Skeeter Davis and Connie Francis among others.

Books to help you improve your English

Essential English Grammar by Murphy (Cambridge)
Spoken English by R K Bansal and J B Harrison
Pronounce It Perfectly In English (book and three audio cassettes) by Jean Yates, Barrons Educational Series
English Pronunciation For International Students by Paulette Wainless Dale, Lillian Poms

more info: www.ingilizcepratik.net

Re: GIRLFRIEND-TO-BE

Thethenothere123 — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 01:24:35 GMT

1. For wife-to-be/husband-to-be we typically use "fiance(e)." The version with a single "e" is for a male and the version with two is for a female. Note that there's an accent over the first "e" which I can't post because the forum doesn't allow the use of copy/paste (English keyboards don't have letters with accents).

Like one of the previous responses stated, using "girlfriend-to-be" or "boyfriend-to-be" sounds presumptious (as well as strange) and if used in a conversation, the people you're talking to will look at you oddly. However, if you still want to communicate that idea, I would suggest using "my future girlfriend/boyfriend" as it sounds more natural (at least to me).

2. You can use work and job interchangeably in combination with the adjectives "good," "nice," and "excellent" (excellent would be used for something done exceptionally or extremely well). For something done exceptionally well, you could also say "awesome job," although it's more informal than the previous examples. Also, the degree of expression and intensity that you have when saying them will communicate the level of quality.

Just as a side note, in your first sentence, the word "and" should be removed. I'm not entirely sure why, but it makes the sentence sound incomplete. Hopefully someone with better knowledge of English grammar can tell you.

3. I would use "Her refusal of my love" for the first part of the sentence, followed by any of these: "hurts me so much," "pains me so much," "pains me greatly," or "hurts me greatly."

4. I defer to the previous posters on this one.

5. The sentence sounds kind of awkward as it's written, but there are a lot of different ways you can rewrite it. I would use "I hope that someday she'll be touched by my true love and accept it." Note that the sentence is talking about the future and "accept" has no "s" at the end. Normally, the word "will" comes before the verb to indicate that something occurs in the future, but it was already used in the sentence, and accordingly, doesn't need to be used again.

I hope that helps!

Re: Inferior dialects?

Randy_Tam — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:36:48 GMT

I am not quite close to 'homeless'. I am living at my aunt's home because my granny invited 3 of her siplings to stay... aiya, according to my parents this is going to last 2 weeks or more. I am currently using my uncle's PC just to get here and take a look at what you say. Though I cannot come here as frequently as I used to.

Looking at dictionaries for meanings, phonetic representations whatever does not mean you are forming rules of some sort. I am sorry I didn't include this in describing what a native speaker's going to do with a dictionary... lol. This is especially true with languages belonging to the Sino family, the orthography of which is ideographic, for which reason the phonological form can hardly be guessed just from its shape (I remember I read a passage during my F3 Chinese lessons called <æ¼¢åççµæ§>, in which the author asserted that there's a kind of Chinese letters, the å½¢è²å, whose pronunciations could be guessed. I can hardly agree with this. Even an L1 speaker of Chinese, without prior training, can hardly succeed in this.). This is also true, to a certain extent, of English because of its hybrid source of etymons (... um... I mean the root of a lexical item. I don't really remember the English jargon for it): French, Old English, German, Irish, Greek, Latin... all contribute to the English language as it is today, leading to the lack of consistency between the orthographical and phonological forms of English words. These little 'cracks' of course can not be formulated by the human cognitive system (simply by means of conjecture, etc).

Language is of course not a science, but the STUDY into it can be, just as one may well argue whether translatology is an art or a science.

I am not really sure whether university English courses lay more stress on the scientific side of languages than on the cultural side thereof. To the best of my knowledge, this is not the case. Both are given equal stress. I come to this conclusion from information available to me. Lingnan University, where I am taking my undergraduate yr1 course in Contemporary English and Education, and Chinese University, where a friend of mine is currently a yr2 student in English, both have introductory courses into 'English Grammar', as well as introductory courses into literature in English. The workload is virtually the same for the 2 parts, at least in yr 1. But as the course goes on, more such courses as 'language and culture' or 'sociolinguistics' are available, making the curriculum more relevant to the relationship between language and social factors.

But your statement is true in that Hong Kongers are culturally more and more illiterate, being ignorant not only in foreign cultures but also in their own. Their ignorance in local culture being irrelevant here, I'd like to suggest some plausible reasons why language education from a cultural perspective is losing its ground.

1. It appears students are less motivated (in their learning) these days. What I mean by this is that days at school become more and more dreary: schooling is more or less a long toil, against which students devise one of the most primitive countermeasures known to man --- go have some sleep and look for your Juliet in your dream, handsome Romeo.

But this 'countermeasure' has its roots in that at night students have to attend tutorial classes, which they deem even more useful than classes at school. They having had such classes head back home have their dinner, do some homework and perhaps some reading as well, and, hey mama, I need time to play and relax a while. Voila, time to sleep puppy, it's already 0300 in the midnight. Frankly last year when I was having my A Level, I spent almost 7 hours everyday after school just to revise and read something more (I didn't take tutorial classes, save for economics), it was already 1200 when I returned home from the self - study facilities. It was hell. All this lead to a persistent fatigue in students.

So, the consequence is that, even if the cultural side of language is come across at school, there could hardly be anyone listening (lol.... reminds me of my UE class. Almost 2 / 3 of our class were sleeping if no assignments were given).

2. One may well ask an old question, 'why do students opt for tutorial classes instead of school?' To this old question I give an old answer, 'because students think tutorial classes are more useful, in that they cut the craps and just get straight to the point.' ---> I didn't take tutorials so don't blame me for that. But from what I hear, from my ex - gf (...), my friends, and my classmates, this is the case.

What is meant, then, by 'craps'? ie. anything that is not relevant to the examinations ahead. Examinations, strangely enough, dominate students' minds. My classmates may well think that I am good at linguistics, and so they will immediately conclude, without exception, 'so you must score a high GPA'... Sadly, the thing that is immediately associated with 'good or bad' is a score.

Your suggestion about IELTS (that I took 2 years ago lol without attending any tutorial classes or doing preparations of any sort... just fulfilling your 'minimum requirement' when I was a 6th former) therefore, in this context, does not really render any use in determining the (always abtract) 'language standard' of English teachers. IELTS has nothing about 'culture'. Given that absurd formula (good / bad = score), and given the fact that actually there are tutorial classes given on this test available in Hong Kong, IELTS is simply another UE.

3. These lead to the 3rd possible cause: All that Hong Kong (as a physiological identity separated from its people) wants about English is to make it a little utility: the current English curriculum is concerned with how to use English (as the name of the subject suggests: Use of English), not how to appreciate English as a language or, as Sapir - Whorf's hypothesis suggests, a fruit of a culture. Think about the writing assignments: Letter to the editor, Letter of complaint, Informal letter to a friend (sharing students' own experience perhaps), and essays (on the sheer knowledge on some current social issues). Listening is more or less to make students a 'phono - type', write whatever you hear. (of course, that needs some thought... but what is needed in a real dialogue: any puns suggested? the attitude of the speaker? 'slips of tongue'? all these are absent). Oral~ haha, that's a joke. Just keep talking and make your points understandable to your partners to score high. If this is not enough, sham having some 'foreign accents'. What is the most 'important part' in English exams in Hong Kong, as an interviewee in a programme produced by TVB (name really forgotten, but the programme is great!) pointed out, is 'comprehension', not how to express oneself, accounting for the 'deteriorating English language standard' these days.

4. What makes the situation even worse is the availability of such 'lures' as PC games, movies, and the Internet (-_-... am I not surfing the net?). Students 20 years ago may take pleasure in reading fictions: Le Docteur Pascal, Women in Love, the God of Small Things (I didn't take AL E. Lit.; I really read it for pleasure), Sybil (by Benjamin Disraeli), these are all fictions that I like. But as other forms of leisure can be more easily reached today, reading (to learn from the 'experience of another person': a 'function' of literature) becomes a hefty burden from which every students wants to escape.

So... the entire 'English pedagogic machine' becomes a miserable thing brewing students who treat English as nothing more than a tool to show their 'erudition', as is observed from the fact that complaint letters written in English to the Government or to such other authorities as concerned are paid more attention to, even if the author thereof is a Hong Konger. I do not mean Hong Kongers are in their nature 'inferior' to non - Hong Kongers. What I am trying to bring out is that there exists a sort of 'linguistic discrimination', even if the government has declared equal legal status of Chinese and English. Discriminations of this sort conduce to English being treated the utilitarian way. Actually I was writing an essay on this attitude toward English when the semester started. But the 'study' was halted by the profs, on the grounds that I am but a yr1 student, so that I should leave the topic to my yr 3 (actually yr 4) final paper. Anyway, I don't give a damn anymore.

Your suggestion relative to the English curriculum is good... but I wonder if it would be possible even in the university, as the topics suggested are each already a large topic. Or are you actually suggesting it as a framework that is to be followed through during the 16 years (university years inclusive) of schooling?

I love linguistics not really because I treat language in a parochial scientific way. I am limiting 'language' to the 'essence' (leaving this undefined) because I am more interested in the common traits shared by ALL human languages. Culture... yes, that sounds great, and in my literature studies I remember I once looked into the relationship between 'gender roles' and why Alice Munro's <Boys and Girls> is written that way. But still, linguistics studied in the way I mentioned before is what I am most interested in, for which reason I am not really ok with the course I am taking and am therefore applying by non - JUPAS for CU linguistics... to see if I have a chance.