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

Re: a(n) university ??

yizhivika — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:38:19 GMT

Yes, Yankee's comments above pretty much speak for British English usage, as well as for American English. The initial u in the 'consonant' examples given by Yankee is invariably pronounced as yoo.

As for British usage of 'An historic(al)', you will still occasionally find it, and I think one is supposed to drop the h when pronouncing it, i.e. "An 'istoric(al)", but I suspect it'll die out eventually, and we'll all use "A historic(al)" instead.

Re: TO REALISE / TO REALIZE

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:43:11 GMT

Actually folks, you are confusing a variation in British spelling with the variation between British and American English. The -ize ending is a variant of British English spelling preferred by the Oxford University Press (and I believe until recent years by The Times). Hence it appears as the first choic in the OALD mentioned in an earlier post. The whole issue is summarised in Wikipedia under "Oxford Spelling".

Re: Standard spoken English

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:04 GMT

Something to chew on:

THE NOTION OF STANDARD SPOKEN GRAMMAR

The term âstandard grammarâ is most typically associated with written language,
and is usually considered to be characteristic of the recurrent usage of adult,
educated native speakers of a language. Standard grammar ideally reveals no
particular regional bias. Thus âStandard British Englishâ grammar consists of items
and forms that are found in the written usage of adult educated native speakers
from Wales, Scotland and England and those Northern Irish users who consider
themselves part of the British English speech community.

The typical sources of evidence for standard usage are literary texts, quality
journalism, academic and professional writing, etc. Standard grammar is given the
status of the official record of educated usage by being written down in grammar
books and taught in schools and universities.

Spoken transcripts often have frequent occurrences of items and structures
considered incorrect according to the norms of standard written English. However,
many such forms are frequently and routinely used by adult, educated native speakers.

Examples of such structures are split infinitives (e.g. We decided to immediately sell it),
double negation (e.g. He wonât be late I donât think, as compared to I donât think he will
be late), singular nouns after plural measurement expressions (e.g. Heâs about six foot
tall), the use of contracted forms such as gonna (going to), wanna (want to), and so on.

Standard spoken English grammar will therefore be different from standard
written English grammar in many respects if we consider âstandardâ to be a
description of the recurrent spoken usage of adult native speakers. What may be
considered ânon-standardâ in writing may well be âstandardâ in speech.
Speech and writing are not independent. Although some forms of spoken
grammar do not appear in writing (unless in written dialogues), there is
considerable overlap and there is an increasing range of forms appearing in
informal written texts which previously were only considered acceptable in
speech. In 120 the presence of typically spoken grammatical forms contexts as emails and internet chat-room exchanges is discussed.

From: The Cambridge Grammar of English (GCE)

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Cool Breeze — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:49:26 GMT

When I attended school in the late Middle Ages, I never wondered whether I was taught British or American English. I suppose I was taught both: differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. I find it strange that anyone would like to confine his knowledge of the language to just one variety. Why on earth? And how could that be possible? I have seen him is both British and American! I don't know how it could be possible to learn just one variety as they are so similar, after all. The dialectal differences in Britain are far greater than the differences between British and American English, as I have said before in some other thread.

Brits understand Americans even if they have never been taught American English, and vice versa. If a Finnish teacher of English has spent a lot of time in England or the US, he may be more familiar with one variety and may thus want to emulate British or American pronunciation in his teaching. The students can't help hearing both because all the texts in the books that are used are recorded on CDs by native speakers, who include Brits, Americans, Canadians, Australians and even the occasional Indian. All these nationalities are employed in nationwide listening comprehension tests as well.

When a Finn is enrolled in a university, few of the books on the syllabus are in Finnish unless he studies Finnish Philology or Finnish History or something similar. If he studies social sciences, biology, medicine etc. the majority of the books are in English. In some cases he may be able to choose a book in another language also, usually Swedish, German or French. As a rule, it is safe to say that university studies are not possible if you are unable to understand scientific books written in English. These books may be written by Britons, Americans, Finns, Germans, Spaniards or people representing other nationalities because English is the leading language of science and no university can function properly without English. Some of the visiting lecturers and professors don't speak a word of Finnish!

It seems utterly trivial and futile to me to try to concentrate on just British or American English when one just can't manage with only one variety and the differences are so small.

Cheers

Re: please correct my MOTIVATION LETTER for POST MASTER

Clive — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:34:31 GMT

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

I don't have time to look at your writing in detail at the moment, but here is one quick comment.

When I read I desire to apply for the two year post-master program, I actually read the rest of your letter while thinking 'He wants to completely change his field and work in a post-office'. This is because one meaning of this term, at least in British English, is 'the manager of a post-office'.

Are you sure that 'post-master' is the term that is normally used for what you want to do?

Why do you want to write a letter in English to a Dutch university? Is that what they require you to do?

Best wishes, Clive

Re: CONSUME GAS

Monalisatuan — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:55:30 GMT

Hi Mr Anonymous again !

Perhaps , there is a slight difference between British English and American English and you are using the latter.In USA you don't use this or that expression , but in UK they do use it. So that 's the problem we , Asian students , are facing .Sometimes we don't know whether a sentence written or said by us is correct or not . Someone in this forum says it is odd , but dictionary says ok . Who should we believe ? A world- famous Dictionary like Longman can't be wrong . It is being used by many advanced level university students the world over and the persons who answer in this forum can't be wrong .either because they are native speakers .I think it's best for us , the leaners , to learn both ways , British and American .

Best wishes

Re: second to last

Yoong Liat — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:01:17 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
<<
Is 'to' still necessary in sentence 1? Yes. Is sentence 2 correct? No.

I am not familiar with the expression second-last.
Maybe it's British. I don't know.

>>
CJ

Yes, it is British English. I've found the following:

Search Results

Oxford University Google Search

Oxford University > Search Oxford University > Search Results

second last

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Proportion read correctly for the use of final I and E to mark stress

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Most words are stressed on the second last. syllable (default option). â¢ When a word is not stressed on the second. last syllable, stress is marked ...
www.education.ox.ac.uk/uploaded/stress.pdf - Similar pages

LIBOR Market Model with adjoint sensitivities ...

... define first & second half breakpoints k_old = k_new - 3; ... ***,nbytes); sem_wait(READ_a); // load in second last set of data in two ...

Re: degrees from/with a university?

Clive — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:09:31 GMT

Hi,

A small comment.

I rather think that 'I hold a degree from Harvard' is American English. It always sounds to me like you will have to give it back one day.

British English would be 'I have a degree from Harvard'.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: schools

nona the brit — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:04:45 GMT

British English (applying to England and Wales as the Scottish education system is slightly different, although college and university are definitely used in the same way there)

state school - a school where the education is 100% paid for by the state. Parents pay nothing.

private school - a school where the parents pay a fee

public school - this refers to several of the private schools; the few very ancient and prestigious (and expensive) ones.

elementary school - term not used in British English. We use 'primary school' instead and this is for ages 5-11. Ages 5-7 may be separated off into 'infant school'.

secondary school - school for 11-16 or sometimes 18, if it includes a 'sixth form', which is where 17/18 year olds do their A levels. Not all schools have a sixth form.

grammar school - a selective secondary school, where pupils have to compete academically to gain a place. State funded.

college - this can cover a few different things. Traditionally the place where 16-18 year olds go to do their A Levels, their role has expanded over the years and you will often find adults there too. They concentrate on non-degree further education, for example, you might do professional qualifications, vocational qualifications, or A Levels, or even catch up on your GCSEs.

university - degree and post graduate studies.

Re: spoken English

Tanit — Sun, 27 May 2007 10:15:11 GMT

Hi, Kooyeen,

Kooyeen wrote:

I know you won't like my answer, but... what's wrong? That part of speech was ok. My goal is to talk like that. Ok, not really like that, but that was not "non-English", so it was ok in the end (I guess).

I never said it's "non-English", I said it was ""non-BBC English." Besides all the interruptions, changes of subject, etc, the guy had a distinctive Welsh accent, which made it more difficult for me to understand and write down each and every word... It takes really a long time to get used to non standard (BBC like) pronunciation.

Is that your goal? wow, if it were also my goal, than I'd say I'm half way through speaking like that! Just kidding, I don't want to speak that way!

Kooyeen wrote:

I'd say learners shouldn't study prescriptive grammar. And the reason is simple, no one talks the way prescriptive grammars told you to talk. We should all see the English language from a descriptive point of view ... Ok, I think there aren't any good descriptive grammars. Because the real problem is that even prescriptive grammars are biased, imprecise, wrong. And it seems 90% of all the ESL material (grammars) there is available focus on some kind of British English.

I see your point, but it wouldn't work for me. Research demands good writing skills, and what you call "prescriptive grammar" (I would call it simply grammar) is necessary for me.

Kooyeen wrote:

So the only solution for a learner is moving to an English speaking country and find a "tutor" (a friend, someone) to copy.

Yes, that's one reason why I'm here. The problem is, there seem to be at least two different languages. The difference between English as it is spoken inside the University (by teachers) and outside (in a store, a pub etc.) is kind of shocking, expecially at the beginning. I feel comfortable with the first one, but I'm still not used to the second.

Kooyeen wrote:

I haven't posted yet, but the idea was basically to create a wiki-grammar here, as a part of Englishforums. A descriptive grammar of every kind of English, from formal British to African American English, from "subject verb inversions" to "I wish I was/were". I had that idea for two reasons:
- first, I noticed there aren't any good descriptive grammars that are not confusing and have a lot of examples in context;
-second, I feel most information written here in this forum is being wasted and forgotten. There are a lot of threads about the same subject, many good old threads are difficult to find, some threads are full of unnecessary and confusing information... So, in the end, this forum contains a huge amount of information, but it is not neatly arranged.

That's a nice idea. Whenever I find a good explanation about something I have problems with, I copy and paste it in a word document, so I've already done something like that, but it's only my little, personal archive

Kooyeen wrote:

Edit to Clive: Italians? LOL, Italians don't know how to speak! Everyone says what they want, most people actually don't know what is correct and what is not. Some Italians also don't speak Italian very often (like me), so you are likely to hear very strange structures and strange words sometimes

It depends on where you go ... I've never spoken other than Italian (I mean, no dialects), as most of my friends. We do have an accent and we cannot differentiate pÃ¨sca and pÃ©sca, but our grammar is absolutely standard and clear ...