Search results for 'tag:American English tag:Learning English' matching tags 'American English' and 'Learning English'

Re: When "an English" fails you.

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:27:41 GMT

<Having regard to the heading of this thread, I take the professor's comments to be made in a context where he is discussing "Englishes" and not literary criticism.>

MrP's reply to that comment would be: 'You only have a feeling about the professor's "intended effect" in the very statement in which he emphasises the importance of knowing a speaker's "intended effect".', but I agree with you.

<On the other, if they do that, they cannot complain if they produce a text aimed at other speakers of the language who use different a different variety and who misunderstand it or fail to understand it at all because of differences between the varieties.>

Would you say the same of those native British and American English speakers, for example, who attempt to maintain and market a form of English that may not be to the taste and needs of other groups of English speakers?

<However, any choice needs to be an informed choice and the reason they are learning English needs to be taken into account.>

I agree. I find that many native British and American English speakers make massive assumptions about which form learners will choose to learn.

<What needs to be avoided is a community, or a small section section of a community, deliberately creating its own "English" in some misguided attempt to produce some variety that is peculiar to the community.>

If that variety is only meant for "home" or intranational use, what's the problem?

Re: When "an English" fails you.

AlpheccaStars — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:22:06 GMT

Forbes
Having regard to the heading of this thread, I take the professor's comments to be made in a context where he is discussing "Englishes" and not literary criticism. I think they are highly pertinent. One the one hand, it is perfectly in order for a community to adopt another language, do what they like with it and insist that their variety of it is "correct". On the other, if they do that, they cannot complain if they produce a text aimed at other speakers of the language who use different a different variety and who misunderstand it or fail to understand it at all because of differences between the varieties.

Many of the quotations posted in this forum suggest, with some degree of justification, that those who are learning English ought to have a choice of the "English" (that is which of the "Englishes") they learn. However, any choice needs to be an informed choice and the reason they are learning English needs to be taken into account. I only add that I think the problem exists more in the minds of academics than in the real world where compromises are always worked out. What needs to be avoided is a community, or a small section section of a community, deliberately creating its own "English" in some misguided attempt to produce some variety that is peculiar to the community.

Oh Forbes, you have hit a nail on the head!

I haven't been a member but for a week, and have already fallen into that sticky wicket of "British English" versus "American English".

And sometimes I suspect that there is a "new grammar" out there, kind of like a "new math," just waiting to say "gotcha!!!" to those (like me) who learned grammatical jargon, sentence parsing and diagramming many many moons ago..

Re: Newcastle accent?

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:06:08 GMT

I wouldn't necessarily recommend someone learning English to learn a regional accent at all - not even south-eastern or estuary English (and that's not because I am from Newcastle, and biased (although I am from Newcastle!).

People from different UK regions use different accents and dialects, and while some are regional, others are social. The kind of Standard English (SE) which people talk about is an example of a social form; it's the language of formal situations, education, news, and so on. People can use this dialect, and a local one interchangeably, depending on their situation - it's called code-switching, and is a phenonmenon common to many languages. While that is a dialect, Standard English does not have an accent, although for many people it is associated with Received Pronunciation (RP; sometimes known as Queen's or BBC English). In fact, SE can be spoken in any accent, and RP is the natural accent of only a tiny proportion of people in the UK.

For a learner of English, the choice of accent depends on how they will use English - whether they will live in the UK, or an English speaking country, for how long, and so on... Personally, I have never been in favour of 'neutralising' learners' accents, as it is part of their identity - although it is necessary for speakers to be understood clearly by others. There are also social and identity issues concerned with the use of local accents which, for learners, could cause problems or misunderstandings. By that I mean, for example, not everyone from Newcastle speaks 'Geordie' - part of the use of accents and dialects is concerned with how people are located (in terms of the social construction of identities) in their local societies.

If any English accent (or perhaps pronunciation is better) is to be learned for international use, the most effective may be a Standard American English one, for that is the most widely used.

Anyhow, this thread seems old - but thanks for making me think about this topic!

Cheers mara, whehey the lads, gan the toon an all that!!!

Re: Is English the Next Latin?

Kooyeen — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:56:58 GMT

Cool article Barb!

Ruslana
By the way, Tanit, I knew a Chinese once, and he told me Chinese was not so difficult as it might seem at first sight.

Yeah right, Lana, LOL! A Chinese said so! Did you ever find an American who started learning Chinese after high school and said... "Oh, yeah, it's so simple!" Pretty much impossible!
Seriously, my opinion is that English is already an international language and the most important one for global communication, and I don't think anything is going to change soon. Because I know tons of Chinese people who are learning English, are improving, use it for work, study it in school because it's mandatory... How many Americans do the same, learning Chinese? And Europeans? And if you want to be a famous singer or band, are you going to sing in English or... another language? Chinese? Nope, everyone is singing in English, even if it's not their native language.
Chinese seems the only language that is likely to become very important, as of now, but there are so many difficulties in learning it that it seems almost impossible that all the world will try to learn Chinese well, and become fluent, and making it the most important and used global language for international communications.
What I think is likely to happen is that English will be spoken throughout the world, also as a second language, and there will be lots of dialects: Chinglish, Arabenglish, Spanish-English... And not all of them will be mutually intelligible. But hopefully there will be a couple of dialects that will be the mainstream ones, used in international communications, etc. Now the most important dialects are American English and British English... One day maybe Chinese-English will be the most influential and important one, who knows?

Re: Fun Learning Jokes :)

Lakshwadeep — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:23:12 GMT

You, mctastic, truly didn't understand the point of the quotation that precedes the word "Handey." If you would notice, then you would have realized that "Handey" is actually the American humorist Jack Handey. Why else would someone put the word "handy" in parentheses after a quotation? Perhaps you did not realize that you are the one who misspelled: you wrote "should" as "shoukd" and also wrote "seen" instead of "seeing."

Also, for my whole life I've never heard an American English speaker use "nut" as an predicate adjective. Remember that this forum is for people who are learning English as a second language. It is unproductive to blindly criticize a word when you don't even realize it is a person's name. Please be more aware of your own mistakes before you decide to judge those of others (of which Kooyeen had none). Finally to quote from you, with better spelling, "I just thought I should let you know as you were correcting the person above you when you needed correcting yourself!"

Re: When I have trouble...

Kooyeen — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:36:17 GMT

Hi Anon,
what Jim said makes a lot of sense, and we discussed it a little in another thread, I think.
The point was that teaching completely descriptively is impossible. The teacher would have to say: Mr X says this, Mr Y says that, and Mr Z says another thing. Now learn what they say and then decide what to do by yourself.
Every time a teacher gives advice or suggest something, they're being at least a little bit prescriptive.
So if you want a good teacher, you need a teacher who "prescribes" the most appropriate English for you.

Now, suppose I'm 17. The better you know English, the more it should sound like English spoken by native speakers (this should be true for every language). How can I be as similar to a native as possible? If am learning American English and I imagine I am a native speaker, I should imagine I am a 17-year-old American guy. If I found an American teenager to imitate, I would learn how to speak like my imaginary native clone.

So, why would a ESL student who is 17, listen to punk rock and don't care much about school and rules in society... why would he want to have a teacher who is 50, listen to classical music, and is a literature professor? Learning English from a punk like him is probably the best way to learn the best kind of English for him.

And as for females... sometimes girls talk a little differently. Vocabulary might be different, tipical topics in conversations are definitely different, and sometimes intonation might vary (example: uprising intonation).

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Daffy Duck — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:35:30 GMT

Anonymous wrote:
Well, I have encountered this problem recently. I had been learning english for few years, then I stopped attending courses or lessons, I have been learning at home and watching American TV series and movies.. so I have picked up a lot of vocabulary. So far, so good. Then I realised, when preparing to Cambridge Exam, that I have to "forget" american words and learn british equivalents. Because now I am mixing both.. It's fine by me, as long as people can understand me. Still when passing an exam you need to be consistent, using either american or british english. It's tricky. American english surrounds us everywhere, so we're more familiar with it. On the contrary I just love british accent, even though learning british pronounciation isn't easy.

Nice to hear from you again, Anonymous It's tricky for us teachers, too. We don't even know, if it's just going to be British or American English. Few days ago, I met some students and their parents asked about teachers who can teach Canadian English. Imagine?!

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:56:04 GMT

Well, I have encountered this problem recently. I had been learning english for few years, then I stopped attending courses or lessons, I have been learning at home and watching American TV series and movies.. so I have picked up a lot of vocabulary. So far, so good. Then I realised, when preparing to Cambridge Exam, that I have to "forget" american words and learn british equivalents. Because now I am mixing both.. It's fine by me, as long as people can understand me. Still when passing an exam you need to be consistent, using either american or british english. It's tricky. American english surrounds us everywhere, so we're more familiar with it. On the contrary I just love british accent, even though learning british pronounciation isn't easy.

Re: sentence question

Linguaphile — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:36:04 GMT

Taiwan's English teachers can understand more why Taiwan's English learners struggle with English learning than American English teachers.

Taiwan's English teachers can understand better than their American counterparts why Taiwanese learners of English have difficulty in learning English.

Re: Would you Tell me about my errors in Pronunciation and Intonation

Kooyeen — Sun, 13 May 2007 16:45:39 GMT

Hi Farshidamani, welcome to the forum.

Farshidamani wrote:
Hi, I'm new at English and enthusiasm in learning English. I found here very friendly and hope I learn so many things from you and others. Yeah, this is one of the best forums for learners.
I have recorded my voice reading an excerpt of a short story to find out about plenty of my errors in speaking and pronuncing words. I want to improve it through recording and finding my errors. I'm learning American English.
Now I want to ask you to download this small audio file and listen to it if possible, then tell me what should I do to improve my poor English accent.

I'm a learner too, so I can't be of much help, but since I'm learning American English too, I listened to your file...
Well, you said you have a poor accent, but in my opinion it's not bad at all. I mean, it's not unpleasant to listen to, it doesn't seem to me that you have a strong foreign accent.
I listened to your file quickly, and since I'm a learner and my accent is not so good, I don't think I'm able to point out every your little mistake. Anyway, here are some things I noticed:

you pronounced "took" with the "oo" like in "cool", instead of like "cook".
you pronounced "noise" with an "s" sound at the end, instead of "z"
you didn't drop some "h's" I would have dropped, like "realizing what he had done", which I would pronounce "realizing wha dee had done". I don't think it's a mistake anyway.

You'd better wait for some native speakers though