Search results for 'tag:British English tag:Numbers' matching tags 'British English' and 'Numbers'

Re: Sentences of Unreal Condition

Cool Breeze — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:23:42 GMT

Vecta
"I would kill myself today if I didn't believe that tyranny and injustice must end."

Is the last sentence correct too?

Yes. Your grammar book must be very old. Some elderly British people may still use should instead of would in sentences like yours, but would is very common even in British English. Some young Americans might consider your sentence wrong!

Should is used in a number of ways but the most common use is this: If you want to catch your train, you should leave now. (= It would be a good idea for you to leave now.)

A head for figures?

Stenka25 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:10:54 GMT

StartFragment>

In 'figure' article in a dicitonary, 'a head for figures' come up two times and

6 figures [plural] British English :the activity of adding, multiplying etc numbers [= arithmetic]

â¢ a natural ability with figures

8 a person in a painting or a model of a person:

â¢ the figure in the background

â¢ A Head for Figures

I want to know what 'a head for figures' means?

It seems like the meaning of the expression can be 'be good at arithmetic' in meaning six. But in meaning eight I cannot figure out what the 'a head for figures' refers to. Does it still mean 'be good at arithmetic'?

Thanks in advance.

A head for figures?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:07:39 GMT

StartFragment>

In 'figure' article in a dicitonary, 'a head for figures' come up two times and

6 figures [plural] British English :the activity of adding, multiplying etc numbers [= arithmetic]

â¢ a natural ability with figures

8 a person in a painting or a model of a person:

â¢ the figure in the background

â¢ A Head for Figures

I want to know what 'a head for figures' means?

Thanks in advance.

Re: would

Mr Wordy — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:26:48 GMT

A) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else would induce the abdominal pain.

I haven't studied English grammar as systematically as you probably have, but to me the sense is 3 (repetition in the past). Look at this alternative:

B) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else induced the abdominal pain.

This means that if she ate anything else then she got the pain. If sentence B already means this, then what is the word "would" doing in sentence A? It can only be giving us the sense that this event had happened a number of times, and, presumably, that this is how she discovered that it induced the pain.

Part 2

1 in 10 Asians are infected with ...

This is an old "chestnut" (something that is debated over and over). My (British English) opinion is that "1 in 10 Asians are" is more natural (though I do not think "is" is incorrect). The plural "are" agrees "in spirit" with the subject, which obviously refers to many people, rather than needing to literally agree with "one". Others may take a different view.

Re: Shall I write my name and address at the top right side of my Motivation Letter..?

Yoong Liat — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:23:10 GMT

MrPedantic
I'm afraid we are a feckless and idle nation.

MrP

Hi MrP

I'm in no position to comment on what you said, but what I know is that we've quite a number of members who are British English speakers. What has happened to them? I certainly miss them

Best wishes

Re: Like apples and oranges

Mister Micawber — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:28:35 GMT

.
From Wikipedia:

LIKE APPLES AND ORANGES

The idiom is not unique. In Quebec French it may take the form "comparer des pommes avec des oranges" while in european French the idiom hesitates between "additionner des carottes et..." something else which can be "des pommes de terre", "des navets" or "des choux". In Latin American Spanish usually is "comparar papas y boniatos" or "comparar peras con manzanas." In some other languages the term for "orange" derives from "apple", suggesting not only that a direct comparison between the two is possible, but that it is implicitly present in their names. Fruit other than apples and oranges can also be compared; for example, apples and pears are compared in Danish, Dutch, German, Spanish, Swedish, Czech, Romanian, Slovene, Luxembourgish and Turkish. However, apples are actually more closely related to pears â both are rosaceae â than to oranges. In fact, in the Spanish-speaking world, a common idiom is sumar peras con manzanas - that is, "to add pears and apples". The same thing applies in Romanian where a popular idiom is a aduna merele cu perele - that is again, "to add apples and pears".

Some languages use completely different items, such as Serbian "ÐÐ¾ÑÐµÐ´Ð¸ÑÐ¸ Ð±Ð°Ð±Ðµ Ð¸ Ð¶Ð°Ð±Ðµ" (comparing grandmothers and toads) or Romanian "baba Åi mitraliera" (the grandmother and the machine gun) or "vaca Åi izmenele" (the cow and the longjohns) or "tiganul si carioca"(the gypsy and the marker), while some languages compare dissimilar properties of dissimilar items. For example, the equivalent Danish idiom, "Hvad er hÃ¸jest, RundetÃ¥rn eller et tordenskrald?" translates word-by-word as "What is highest, the Round Tower or the volume of a thunderclap?" In British English, the phrase chalk and cheese means the same thing as apples and oranges. In Argentina, a common question is "En quÃ© se parecen el amor y el ojo del hacha?" which translates into "What do love and axe eye have in common?" and emphasizes dissimilarity between two subjects; in Colombia, a similar (though more rude) version is common: "confundir la mierda con la pomada" - literally, to confuse shit with ointment.

A number of more exaggerated comparisons are sometimes made, in cases in which the speaker believes the two objects being compared are radically different beyond reproach. For example "oranges to orangutans" "apples to dishwashers" and so on. In English, different fruits, such as pears, plums, or lemons are sometimes substituted with "oranges" in this context.

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:34:01 GMT

Hello, another English teacher here. I have been teaching English in China for about 2 and a half years now and also speak fluent French, decent Spanish and am learning Chinese (not as hard as you may think once you get the hang of those tones, easy grammar). Now I'll start off by saying that English seems to be an incredibly easy language to communicate with (and by this I mean to give the general idea of what you're trying to say). However, if you want to learn English like a native speaker then it's a completely different story. The pronunciation CAN be difficult to learn depending on your native language and also the age you attempt to learn it at. Training your tongue and mouth to move the same way a native speaker does can be difficult to do, especially if you're like many of my students who got their start at an older age or didn't have good teachers. I've also noticed that my younger students are able to mimic my speech much easier than the older ones speaking, both of whom are studying at the same level. I started learning French when I was 4 years old (Quebec French, I'm Canadian) and because of the quality of my teachers and my young age I was able to become quite good with my pronunciation. With my Chinese because I'm learning from scratch from native speakers my pronunciation is also decent (notice I said decent, not great, although when speaking Chinese I'm always understood). Native language has a lot to do with it too as the sounds you use in one language may be very different for another. I've taught in both the north and south of China and find that the people all have the same problems. Chinese people have problems with s (they often pronounce it as a sh sound) and with closing their mouth for the letter m ("sometimes" is a nightmare for them and they often say it like "suntine"). L and R can also be troublesome. One can't forget sentence stress as well as well as linking words together to make it go smoothly.

The vocabulary can also be a pain. Someone here mentioned 150,000 words in the English language but the number is actually much higher. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) contains over 600,000 definitions. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged contains 475,000 main headwords and it is believed the language grows by 25,000 words a year. Don't believe me, check Wikipedia. There's also the difference in spelling and vocabulary between the different forms of English. British English and American English use different words and the words that are the same can be spelled differently. American English and Canadian English essentially share the same vocabulary to a large degree but the spelling of Canadian English in many ways is closer to British English. British English is pretty much the English form most Asian and European countries will learn but American pop culture will also have an influence, not to mention the American economy and it's impact. This can all be very confusing. To the person saying they are tired of using "well" as in "well, then..." there are many substitutes you could use.

The grammar is also a nuisance. It's not the hardest of things but certainly isn't the easiest. Sure French has a gender attached to all of it's nouns (which I hated when learning it), but English still has more exceptions to it's rules that need to me memorized. So many even native speakers have trouble with it. A language like Chinese that may seem hard to speak actually has very simple grammar. For example if you wanted to ask someone where they are you would say "ni zai na li" or simply "ni zai nar" (you where?). To ask a question in Chinese you merely ad "ma" to the end of a statement. "Ta hui shuo zhongwen" is "he/she speaks Chinese whereas "ta hui shuo zhongwen ma" is "does he/she speak Chinese?". Also in Chinese as there are no forms of he or she.

It's impossible to say which language is easy and which is hard when compared to each other because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration. Let's just say that English has it's easy parts and it's ridiculously difficult parts as well. Speaking at a native speaker level can be done and I know people who have done this, but it takes a lot of hard work, good instruction, and a good learning atmosphere. I hope all that made sense, I stumbled onto this site a 2 in the morning and am quite tired.

Re: A group of students - number confusion

Kooyeen — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:59:24 GMT

I would have used the plural for both verbs. I was told people say "A group of children are playing", not "is playing".
I think "group" is a collective noun, and in American English it's singular: "The team is ready". In British English you might hear "The team are ready", but not in AmE.
But when collective nouns are modified by plural nouns, then everything tends to agree with the plural nouns.

So this thread really confused me... what do you guys think?

Re: correct sentence??

Ruslana — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:29:06 GMT

From answers.com:

Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive form hisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone). These forms reflect the tendency of speakers of vernacular dialects to regularize irregular patterns found in the corresponding standard variety. In Standard English, the pattern of reflexive pronoun forms shows slightly irregular patterning; all forms but two are composed of the possessive form of the pronoun and âself or âselves, as in myself or ourselves. The exceptions are himself and themselves, which are formed by attaching the suffix âself/âselves to the object forms of he and they rather than their possessive forms. Speakers who use hisself and theirselves are smoothing out the pattern's inconsistencies by applying the same rule to all forms in the set. â¢ A further regularization is the use of âself regardless of number, yielding the forms ourself and theirself. Using a singular form in a plural context may seem imprecise, but the plural meaning of ourself and theirself is made clear by the presence of the plural forms ourâ and theirâ. Hisself and theirselves have origins in British English and are still prevalent today in vernacular speech in England.

I'm for the Standard English.

Re: USA or UK

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:03:25 GMT

ScratchThat wrote:
I'm an American, but my sister has lived in the UK for about seven years now. She has kept her "yank" accent since she's been there, but she admits that some UKers tolerate the "yank" accent while others hate it. When she's talking to people who hate it, then she "tones down" the American accent.

Since she's told me there there are actually dozens of English accents in the UK, I assume that when she changes her accent she's actually changing it to be closer to Received Pronunciation. Is this the accent that is taught as "Standard British English" to students in other European countries? I wonder.

At the same time, I think the majority of Americans would find an "English accent" to be charming and melodious.

So I think the question of "which one is better?" really depends on your audience. You should first strive to be understood, then strive to impress (or, at least, not offend).

I'm surprised that anyone hated it. I just spent three weeks in London and most people were quite enamored with my accent (born and raised in Southern California) and I actually got a number of compliments from various women (no phone numbers though unfortunately).

Anyway, I'm not sure many would find a Newcastle or Glasgow accent to be "charming and melodious."