Re: Please check for me this discursive essay !

Grammar Geek — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:01:14 GMT

Hello redneon,
Highlights show potential problems. Remember to leave a space after a period or comma. English-speaking country, with a hyphen. You need some articles here and there.

Topic: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of studying English in an English-speaking country

Bilions of people around the world study English as their foreign language. Many of them attribute a fluent English learner to living in an English speaking country, whereas others believe that there are many obstacles when studying overseas. Therefore,this essay will discuss about the benefits and negatives of studying English in an English-speaking country.

The first argument in favor of studying English in an English-speaking country is that students can enhance all their English skills with the support of good facilities. Firstly, surrounding environment with full-time speaking English wherever students go may help them improve speaking and listening dramatically. Furthermore, they have enormous oppotunities to approach a new culture and the modern living style in most English speaking countries. Those lead to the deeper understanding in English and indirectly make students' reading and writing skills become better. In brief, English skills will rise up when students live in an English speaking country.

Although there are some advantages, studying English in an English speaking country still have some disadvantages.

The primary negative for studying English in an English speaking country is that there are various obstacles when living alone in the new country. Many students who have not left their home before feel shocked with the new culture and they usually find difficult to live independently because of the lack of family support. --That was a very well-written sentence! In addition, most English speaking countries are developed. As a consequence, many students may encounter with the lure of the fashionable and luxurious society and they plunge themselves into that society without concious thinking. This needs a bit of development. Are you saying that will fall into the hedonistic lifestyle of the decadent Americans? What are the real dangers you're talking about?

Another disadvantage of studying English in an English speaking country is the financial problems. Living overseas for many years in order to studying may cost a large amount of money. For example, the aggregate of living cost and tuition fees for one year study in Australia may cost around 30,000 dollars. Moreover, the cost can increase each year as a result of inflation all over the world and that can be a burden for students' family finance.

In conclusion, this essay has identified both positive and negative aspects of studying English in an English speaking country. Despite the advantages to improve all English skills, it still have a pressure for students and their family. Consequently, students should think carefully about studying overseas to make sure that they can adapt easily to new environment. You list only "adapt" but you mention the financial aspect too. I think you should add something about that to your final sentence.

awesome poem, that is really hard to pronounce!

Jane Greco — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:41:06 GMT

TEST YOUR SKILL

Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in the following poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

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Re: Please check for me this discursive essay !

awesome poem, that is really hard to pronounce!