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

Re: Speaking Teaching Books

Tanit — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:01:54 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

But in such whole sentence or paragraph, I find it difficult to speak fluently. For examples, sometimes words connecting to words (the last sound of word will connect to the next one) must have a rule.

Hi,

You can hear how different sounds are linked (in British English) from the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/pron/progs/prog1.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/pron/progs/prog2.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/pron/progs/prog3.shtml

Re: which accent?

Marvin A. — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:52:06 GMT

To tell you the truth, I've never heard any foreigner (unless they learned English when they were very young, or had lived in an English speaking country for at least a decade, and had extensive, and personalized accent coaching) ever be able to pull off either an American or British accent. "British English" and "American English" consist of 3 parts--accent, spelling, and lexicon.

As for accent: when people learn an American accent, they learn what is known as "General American"--an accent based on a generalized Midwestern accent, spoken in the 1950's Narrowly definied, this accent is only spoken by very old speakers (80 year olds) in the Midwestern and Western portions of the US, and in a couple of 90 year olds in Canada. Broadly defined, it is spoken by everyone in the Midlands US, the North Central US (North Dakota and surrounding areas), the Western US, and Western and Central Canada (BC to ON). It is also spoken by many newscasters. If they learn "Received Pronunciation" then they learn sort of the upper-class sounding accent in England, that is considered overly posh to some. Both RP and GA are very much alike, except in the overall place of articulation. As a speaker of North American English, it would be *very* difficult for me to pull of a convincing RP accent. I would need long and intensive accent coaching. Even actors are notorious for doing very lousy RP accents.

There is however something called a Mid-Atlantic accent, which is very easy to do. It sounds exactly like a British RP accent to Americans, and exactly like an American accent to British people. It uses the American vowels and consonants which correspond to British ones, but uses the American place of articulation. If you aren't a native speaker of English, unless you honestly *do* sound like a native speaker, most people won't be able to even tell if you are speaking "American English" or "British English". It just depends on how your own non-native accent compares to an American or British accent. For example, almost every Japanese speaker I've met learned American English, but they sounded like they were speaking "British English". The reason was simply that they could not make the vowel sound that exists in the word "hat", nor could they make even a reasonable approximation of the North American English retroflex final "r". Thus, even though they learned "American English", they sounded just as British as they sounded American. So, they could have just as easily learned RP, and they would have ended up with the same accent. So, unless you really do have a native sounding accent with no interference from your native accent, it is not going to make a bit of difference whether you learn American or British English--and if you are so good at imitating accents (unlikly), you should be able to do them both--certainly better than I, as a North American, can fake an RP accent.

The next aspect is spelling. There's American spelling, British spelling, Canadian spelling, and Australian spelling, and New Zealand spelling. First of all we have to keep in mind that spelling has nothing to do with pronunciation, and the fact that a word spelt in one form of English is pronounced differently in another has nothing to do with spelling. The spellings of words are simply national unofficial norms and customs. There are two categories--high frequency, and low frequency words. You can often read several pages of text and not have a clue as to where it was written based on the spelling. The high frequency words are the most important. The low frequency words are written much less frequently, and thus people hardly notice if there are differences in the spelling, and most people in all of the English speaking countries don't care too terribly much. For example, the word [ mIdiv@l ]. I have a hard time remembering how to spell this word. In American spelling, I believe it's spelled midieval or something like that, and in British spelling, mediaeval. I doubt anyone would really care how you spell it this word, in fact many Americans spell it the British way, because the American version looks ugly. So, as for these types of low-frequency words, it really doesn't matter how you spell them. The high frequency words on the other hand, spelling is much more important.

You have to remember, though that everyone will understand these words just fine whether you use the American, British, Australian, or whatever spelling, it's just that some that have not been exposed to the other form, will consider the other form incorrect--American schoolteachers are a good example of this, and they will usually mark your paper if you use, say a British spelling, to let you know that it's spelled differently in America. Most of them don't really care, actually, they just want to help you. I'd say it's probably the British who are the most uptight about spelling, because they tend not to like Americanisms. Canadian English technically has no "official" spelling. Both American and British spellings are accepted, but even so, there is a general trend in how many people spell words, and thus we can say that there is a distinct spelling. so, anyway the only words that you need to worry about are the high-frequency words (as for the low frequency words, just spell them the British way--Americans really won't care--and if they do, tough.)

If on the other hand, you really want to be consistent and spell everything the American way, just get Microsoft's en-US spell checker. Unlike the Canadian or British one, there is no controversy regarding Microsoft's en-US spell checker, and thus it could be said to be the final authority on American spelling (I'm serious. No American would argue with it.) So, the only important words with varients, are those of the or/our class; the er/re class, and the -ize/-ise class. These are the only ones that will get anyone worked up over.

If I were you, simply consider your audience. If you're writing for a British audience use -our (colour, honour) and -re (centre), and if you're writing primarily for an American audience use -or (color, honor) and -re (center). Truthfully, it's mainly the British people that get emotional about these words, because they don't like to see Americanisms all the time, and Americans usually don't care, they just either haven't seen the British form before and think it's just a misspelling. On those two examples, the current trend in Canadian English is to follow the British spelling (colour, centre). When it comes to a few words in American English, the British spelling is regarded as classier, and thus the following words are often spelled like in British English in the US especially for places: Theatre, Centre, Harbour, and Glamour. Note, it's pretty much only these 4 words especially "Theatre". You'll find about the same number as "Theatres" in the US as you'll find "Theaters". You may find a city "Centre", although it's less common than "Theatre", and many businesses use the word Harbour. "Glamour" is far more glamorous than "Glamor"--in fact I don't think I've seen the word "glamor" very often.

When it comes to -ize/-ise words, I believe -ize is considered correct for all varieties of English. -ise however is quickly gaining ground in the UK, and -ize is sometimes even mistakenly assumed to be an Americanism. Most newspapers and magazines now use -ise, for example. The Oxford English Dictionary still lists the -ize form first. I believe that -ise is more common in Australia and New Zealand. -ize is the only acceptable form in the US and Canada (although -ise is sometimes [rarely] used in Canada--usually by people originally from somewhere else.)

So, anyway, if I were you I'd learn both spelling varients just so you know them--the high frequency words are not at all hard to learn. Just consider your audience when you're writing, and be consistent (I'm not, but I just like to be different, for my own personal entertainment. [Of course I'd never hand in paper to a teacher, or for anything important using an odd concoction of American and British spellings--as people would just think I was a bad speller.]) Do as I say, not as I do )

The third thing to learn is the vocabulary differences. You can also just describe what you are talking about, or try to use alternate words. If I were you, I would simply avoid any deliberate Americanisms, or Canadianisms, or Briticisms, or whatever, or learn all of them.

So, in conclusion, it doesn't matter too terribly much which variety of English you want to learn. I myself, would suggest that you learn both, and what the differences are between them, and as long as you don't overwhelm yourself with the differences (they're fairly small ultimately), if you learn both, you can adapt to the person you are talking to and be more easily understood. If you want to learn a particular one, learn either one, it makes absolutely no difference, because no one will take you for a Englishman or an American, nor will you sound like one or the other to native English speakers. You'll still sound like you're speaking German-English or Italian-English or whatever you are. Until people say you sound like a native speaker, you needn't worry. Besides, if you really want to become very proficient in English, you'll have to live in an English speaking country for a while, and you'll pick up the local accent anyway, which more likely than not will not be Upper RP or conservative General American.

As for speaking in a mix of British and American accents, to tell you the truth, I doubt many native speakers would notice... They'll just be thrilled that you're doing the best you can to try to communicate with them, and as long as they can understand you--and General American and RP are the most easily understood forms of English for native speakers to understand.

(edited to insert paragraphs to make reading easier)

Re: Please correct my mistakes in business letter!

nona the brit — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:20:31 GMT

Dear Mr. Ericson! Do not end a salutation with an exclamation mark. In US English use a colon :, in British English use either a comma or nothing.

As you are already aware, Football Club âShahterâ(Donetsk) is about to build a new 5-star stadium, which meets all official UEFA requirements and will have no euqual anyway in the Ukraine. The new tender process has been completed and we are glad to invite you to provide the services of General contractor.

Your second paragraph is not clear. Is the company you are writing to making the presentation? How can you invite them to something they are doing themselves? Are you inviting the contractor along to a presentation being organised by the football club? Do you want the contractor to give a presentation at this meeting? At the moment you are mixing up all these ideas and it doesn't make sense.

FC Â«ShahterÂ» takes upon itself all the travel expenses including transfer, meals, and accommodation.

Thank you in advance.
Looking forward to your reply.

Closings

My2sense — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:58:55 GMT

Just my take on it.

Let's look at the structure of an e-mail or a letter for that matter. Simply said you have 3 parts.

1. opening or greeting

2. body

3. closing or ending

NOTE: greeting means hello and not good-bye.

As was pointed out " yours faithfully " is out of style but it still is in use especially in British English. However, as was also pointed out, there are an alternatives that are used in both British and American (North American) English.

1. More formal --- Sincerely yours, Yours sincerely, or even just Sincerely

2. less formal--- Sincerely, Kind/Best/Warm regards, Regards, *Best wishes

3. informal --- Best (wishes), Regards, * Just write your name *, See you, Thanks, etc., etc.

Forum: General English grammar questions (EFL / ESL)
Posted: Nov 11, 11:35 PM [GMT 1]
Post Subject: Re: Best regards, Kind regards, or Yours sincerely, - which is correct
Post author: Clive

Hi Benny,

Welcome to the Forum.

Email is still new enough that conventions are still evolving. It's far from universally agreed that the conventions for regular, non-email business letters will simply be automatically followed in email. Email began as an informal. 'short-hand' medium, and in fact most people still seem to be influenced by this. I don' think it will ever be as formal as non-email.

As regards how to end a business, non email letter, here's what I think. 'Best regards' and 'Kind regards' both seem to me suitable only for a personal letter to a friend. I see little or no difference between 'Best' and 'kind' here.' Yours faithfully' tends to sound old-fashioned today, and is seldom used. By far the most common is 'Yours sincerely'.

So, what to put at the end of a business email? Some people don't put anything at all. Others feel they should put something, as to them it feels wrong to just stop. I feel like that, here on the Forum, that's why I always end by putting 'Best wishes, Clive'. It's not a great choice, but it's relatively friendly and that's the habit I got into. But I'm not writing a business email.

You could just put nothing, except for a nice concluding paragraph. Or perhaps your name and/or the name of your company. Or maybe, you could put 'Regards'. I'd omit the 'kind/best' myself, and I'd only say 'regards' to someone I already know.

In a way, it doesn't matter too much what you put, because I don't think people much care what you write. They don't consciously read it, they see so many different endings and they themselves don't know what to write or to expect.

I'm sorry not to be of more help to you, but the whole subject is still in flux.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: PARAGRAPH CORRECTION

CalifJim — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 19:58:05 GMT

Americans only use "practice" for both noun and verb, so I'll leave that aspect of your question to others.

People are practising cricket (Or: Cricket practice will be held) this Sunday at 9 am at the Student Recreation Complex grounds*. Anybody who is interested in practising the game before the (omit) next week's tournament is invited to join the practise match. This will be a good training session to learn the game for people who haven't played before!
(*This may be American. I don't know if British English uses "ground" in that case.)
CJ

Re: Past Perfect Again

SpoonfedBaby — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:22:04 GMT

Goldmund wrote:

Speaker B says

"I just found this website."

*He found the website recently. In British English you may also say Â«I have just found this websiteÂ».

"Iâve not looked at it much yet."

*He expects to look at it again, therefore he uses the present perfect. The present perfect means that the act of looking at the website relates to the present.

"I studied English using another website."

*The simple past is correct. His studies are finished. Therefore they do not relate to looking at this website. Therefore there is no need to denote the temporal relationship between studying English and looking at this website.

Hello Goldmund,

I have difficulty in understanding the last paragraph of your explanation. Please, would it write it again in another way? I think there is something under my eyes that I'm missing because of my lack of comprehension.

The speakerB was me. I may go back studying English using the website I (referred /was referring?) to in the sentence âI studied English using another website.â If I donât find another good website, I will go back there. I still need to study English. But as you said, the study I mentioned is not related to the new website I have just found. Now, that you know that I still need to improve on my English, can I still keep the verb tenses as they are in this short dialogue?

Here is the dialogue again (but with "I've just found" instead of "I just found.")

SpeakerA says, âThis website is full of English mistakes.â
SpeakerB says, âI've just found this website. Iâve not looked at it much yet. I studied English using another website.â

Many thanks,

SFB