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

Re: Hey Guys, Need Help

Tanit — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:37:47 GMT

Hi,

New2grammar
Could you try to convince me why the abrupt change of tense makes sense?

Why should it make sense? After all, we're talking about English grammar!
Anyway, somebody says it's an instance of unreal past ...

BBC Learning English

We sometimes use past tenses to describe things in the present or future that are imagined or unreal.
It's time we went.
We are using It's time... here to say that something is not happening, but it should be happening. Compare also the following:
It's time we left. Our son will be home soon and he doesn't have a house key.
It's about time you started looking for a job. You can't depend on us all the time. It's high time you started to fend for yourself.

...we can use the construction it's time to or it's time for + object + to as alternatives to the unreal use of past forms to express this idea:
It's time for you to think seriously about what you want to do in your life.
It's time you thought seriously about what you want to achieve in your life.
It's time to reflect on how you want your life to proceed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv347.shtml

UNREAL PAST

The past tense is sometimes used in English to refer to an 'unreal' situation. So, although the tense is the past, we are usually talking about the present, e.g. in a Type 2 conditional sentence:
If an elephant and a mouse fell in love, they would have many problems.
Although fell is in the past tense, we are talking about a hypothetical situation that might exist now or at any time, but we are not referring to the past. We call this use the unreal past.
Other situations where this occurs are:

after other words and expressions like'if'(supposing, if only, what if);
after the verb 'to wish';
after the expression 'I'd rather..'
(http://www.edufind.com/English/Grammar/IF10.cfm)

... and somebody says it's subjunctive. See also:
http://www.englishforums.com/English/ChangingTenses/dqcdx/post.htm
http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhichSentencesAreCorrect/zjbhp/post.htm

Excellent English Grammar & Business lessons in details

emvs — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:44:20 GMT

A good site to start learning English: http://www.englishhook.com

Verb Recommend+Infinitive forms

Instructor1955 — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:30:37 GMT

Hello taechers

While taking some English grammar tests, I have come across this sentence :

"If you don't already have them, we recommend you buy copies of both if you are serious about learning English. "

I know that's grammatically correct, still, Talking with my American colleagues at work,they were all saying the verb recommend is always followed by an infiniteve verb with "TO". For Example :" The Doctor recommended him to loose weight "

What's your opinion?

Regards

The Instructor1955

Re: internet sites are the best source

Mister Micawber — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:49:23 GMT

I think that Internet sites are the best source for learning English grammar because there is no single book which covers all topics of grammar as Internet sites do. Therefore, I suggest that you study grammar from the Internet and not depend on your grammar book.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 10:26:00 GMT

Milky wrote:
Cool Breeze, is there any concrete evidence which shows that English was any more difficult to learn in the past than it is now?

I don't think I can answer that question. There is only evidence that English grammar was more complicated in the past. What is easy for some may be difficult for others. For example, people who have a good ear for music usually have fewer problems with the pronunciation of English but may struggle with its grammar. For some learning English grammar is a breeze but they can never get the pronunciation right.

In my opinion it goes without saying that the fewer inflections there are, the less time it takes to learn them. For myself, I am living proof of that - it took me less time to learn English grammar than Latin grammar.

Some say that learning the German adjectives is a tough job. People who say that have never studied a grammatically complicated language.

CB

Re: English lessons- free online???

Kooyeen — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:16:49 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

I have been looking for any free english lessons online?
Do you maybe know any good adresses ?

Umm, no, not free. I know there are many teachers who teach conversational English on Skype, you join a small class and then you practice. But you have to pay! There are a lot of websites for learning English grammar for free, anyway.

Re: What is the most obstacle to your spoken english?

Shatzy — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:09:24 GMT

As for me the biggest obstacles in learning English are mainly the other languages that I speak, I mix them up aaaall the time. Especially French is very unhealthy to my English grammar;-) because a lot of words are written the same way and others are not, such as endings like -ance, ence etc. That's really tricky to me. And those darned prepositions, I often don't know if it's correct to use "for","to" or "of" in certain situations since in my mother tongue their usage differs a lot. I guess the best thing we can do to overcome these obstacles is simply to keep going and trying and practicing as much as we can, and not to be afraid of making mistakes.

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: Change English As You Wish

Cool Breeze — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:20:32 GMT

Thank you to all those who have posted their suggestions to my little imagination game. Some have taken it very seriously thinking they would have to relearn English after the 'changes'. This was meant to be just a game, not for those wo take everything seriously, and of course in this game everybody automatically speaks and writes the new English fluently without having to learn anything.

In the colonial days several European languages got exported as taking peoples' lands from them was considered a virtue and something to be proud of. This resulted in some languages being more dominant than others. Spanish and French were the most important languages till the end of the 19th century when the USA rose to be No. 1 in world politics and commerce. The foundation for English as the lingua franca had been laid.

The world should be thankful. There is no such thing as an easy language; every language is difficult if the learner aims at perfection. However, there are grammatically and structurally far more complicated languages than English, and we should consider ourselves lucky it's only the spelling that drives us nuts about English, not inflections.

Here are the changes I would make to English:

A. Spelling: Grammar Geek, Alienvoord and Englishuser would all make changes to the spelling, and indeed so would I. I think Englishuser puts it nicely: "I'd certainly change the spelling of words with an 'irregular' spelling, that is, words whose pronunciation can't be determined basing on how they're spelt." I would also accept more than one spelling for a word in many cases.

There isn't enough space and I don't have enough time and patience to cover all the tens of thousands of words this entails, but here are some examples of new spellings:

OLD                                 NEW
fight                                  fite
perceive                           perceive, percieve
tough                                 tuf
though                              tho
knight                                 nite
caste                                 cast
pace                                 pace, pase
write                                 rite

B. Grammar: English grammar is so uncomplicated due to 500 years of simplifying foreign influence (200 years of Vikings and 300 years of Normans) that English grammar really couldn't be made much simpler even if it were an artificial language. However, as a foreigner I'll continue the foreign influence and enforce the following changes.

1. I will get rid of the third person singular s and has. Henceforth we will say: He speak English. He have a car. He have asked it twice. The s is a totally needless relic and Swedish, another Germanic language, needs no verb endings for any person even though it is more complicated than English in other respects.

2. There will be no irregular verbs from now on with the exception of to be and the defective or modal auxiliaries, which will remain unchanged. Examples of new English:

OLD                                 NEW
He saw us.                        He seed us.
He has written a letter.    He have rited a letter.
Who wrote it?                   Who/Hu rited it?
I haven't hit him.               I haven't hitted him.
I ran too fast.                    I runned too fast.

3. I'll return English to its pre-Shakespearean state with regard to questions and negations. Henceforth, English will be like the other Germanic languages and questions will be asked without the totally unnecessary do auxiliary:

OLD                                  NEW
Do you speak English? Speak you English?
I didn't see him.                  I seed not him.
Did you do it?                   Doed you it?

4. All past participles can be used attributively before nouns: a rited report, a catched fish, two asked questions, a surrendered country.

5. There will be no irregular plurals for nouns:

OLD                                     NEW
two men                               two mans
many children                      many childs
these phenomena              these phenomenons
two geese                           two gooses

6. Any uncountable noun can be used as a countable if the need arises:

OLD                                    NEW
two pieces of advice         two advices
two news items                  two newses

7. I'll leave the articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and adverbs as they are. There are countless idioms where the articles are used contrary to reason and logic, but non-natives' incorrect usage seldom gives rise to misunderstandings. Besides, who am I to deprive English of all its fascination?
Those who don't like sentences like He runned too fast have my permission to say He runned too fastly if they prefer that.

8. Since there are so few inflections, the word order will just have to remain as it it with a few exceptions. For the sake of clarity, some minor changes will take effect: You Only Live Twice has to be renamed (and rerecorded) You Live Only Twice. (Fortunately Nancy Sinatra is still alive, she can rerecord it next week!)

9. Some changes in clause equivalents would make English more exact, but I am reluctant to make them. I'll let English remain somewhat inexact. It is plain impossible to make it exact in every respect without more inflections, and more inflections would make learning English a more laborious task for non-natives.

Consider these examples:

Having said that, he left the room. (After he had said that, he left the room.)
"Having said that, he did win Wimbledon two years ago." (A tennis commentator has said something slightly negative about a player, then decides to mention a positive thing about him. The sentence does not usually mean: After he had said that, he won Wimbledon two years ago. But of course it could mean that, too.)

English abounds in ambiguity and native speakers disagree on what common verbs such as the defective auxiliaries mean in some contexts. I'll let all that be as it is, I know when to give up.

Vocabulary: I'll add some short words that can be used to indicate surprise, disbelief etc. in spoken English in sentences like: He goed there? You like not it! Haven't you seed it? I won't write the words here, though, I just think English could and should have more finesse and be more expressive and colorful.

I won't delete a single word from the vocabulary, on the contrary, I'll add a way of forming a word denoting a person from a town or a village. English already has many such words but on the whole they are rather impractical: a Liverpudlian, a Memphian. Some are easier: a Londoner, a New Yorker. But what do you call a person who lives in Timbuktu?

From now on, the ending will always be er: a Liverpooler, a Memphiser, an Uppsalaer, a Hong Konger, a Tokyoer, a Timbuktuer. This will add hundreds of thousands of words to English. I'll also let you call a Swede a Swedener and a Thai a Thailander if you wish.

I have simplified the grammar a little and that should help non-native learners in particular. I have left the basic structure of the language untouched except for the disappearance of do in questions and negations. But even this is actually a minor thing since it just returns English to the early 16th century.

I have increased the vocabulary a great deal. Every three-year-old Finn knows what to call a person from Timbuktu once he is told there is such a place. English-speaking kids should be able to do the same.

Cheers
CB

Re: Generally - Position

Grammarian-bot — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 04:01:59 GMT

CalifJim wrote:

I hope I did not hurt your feelings by mentioning this, because I didn't intend to, and I would not have done so if you hadn't asked in your most recent post.

Well... CJ, that was so nice of you to consider my problems/posts so critically. Please always feel free to critize me. I will never complain. Whenever I post a problem, I always look out for your replies because they are always thorugh and they never say things like "I think that it might be right or I also use it that way bla bla bla". I (and most of the learners on this form) admire you and your effort in helping me and other learners.
Please can you give me some online sources where I can find some reading material for learning English Grammar (American). And I must tell you that I am preparing for GMAT (it may sound funny) and it requires very powerful grammar background. I strted learning grammar two months back and I started it with American Heritage Book of English and then I realizd that I need to learn a lot more before I could use that book. So, please send me some good online sources. I hope I am not wasting your time.
Thank You.

GB