Search results for 'tag:Learn English tag:Punctuation' matching tags 'Learn English' and 'Punctuation'

Punctuation-commas and so on

bhikkhu1991 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:28:57 GMT

The following is an extract from 'Things Mr Bean does every Monday morning' that is found in Learn English Online -free beginners course-Unit 3,Lesson 11.

He gets up at 6.15am, and goes to the bathroom. He usually has a shower, then he has a shave and brushes his teeth. He eats breakfast at about 7.00am. After breakfast he reads the newspaper.

Hello,

1. Is the extract above punctuated correctly?

2. Why are commas required in the first and second sentences?

3. Why does the last sentence have no comma after 'breakfast'?

Thank you.

With best wishes.

Re: I Want To Be Fluent English Speaker How Please?

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:58:38 GMT

Hello to all,

I believe that to learn English depends of the interest of individual and depending of the English knowledge you wanted to learn. like for instance, if you want to speak English all you have to do is to listen very carefully to some tools such as CD, DVD, tapes etc. either audio or video, any kinds of topics as long as educational and knowledgeable and while you are listening just follow and speak what they are talking this is a training of the tongue or tongue twisting trying to develop proper accent, pronunciation, intonation etc, if any words you donât understand have your dictionary besides you and open it. next step just prepare any topics as guidelines [ prepare the main topics, sub topics and conclusion] prolong, elongate and expound the topics you wanted to discuss make it in English version at first you might have the difficulty to speak but try and try until your English would connect and connect at this point your trying to bridge the gap. What is needed in English is that at least you have many words to know {synonym and antonyms} is what i mean.

The basic training of English is that you have to speak English by any topics. I understand that for a person who lived {not speaking country have the difficulty to speak English} on my behalf, English education must start first on basic like for instance if you need English conversation find a person who could talk with you English, or else speak and talk English with yourself even if someone listening at you and say something you are a fool forget it. What is needed is you learn something and speak English. if you have the difficulty to write English just read books literatures etc at this point you can get many ideas and your vocabulary broadens, watch the period, punctuation, commas, etc, if you are not a good English listener try to listen English teachings, news whatever that could improve your English, the four pillars of English are: reading. Speaking, writing and listening, if you have this all then you can speak English although not fluent as what others did but at least you can communicate via reading, writing, listening and speak. Fluent English would follow donât give up keep trying until success.

I am a Filipino not an English speaker, writer, etc but in terms of communication i could communicate. For to me to learn English depends on individual. If we have the basic then we have to improve, have the desire, act on it, and apply no need a tutor individual interest is vital here. Donât be shy to speak English if the English is crooked and someone laughs at you accept it consider yourself that you are not an English person, perhaps the person who laughs at you donât know how to speak English and even to communicate with. Thereâs a saying goes: a noisy person have little knowledge than a silent one. in this world what is important is communication regardless of races, nationality and religion. a crooked English is better than nothing, a crooked or a carabao English has the opportunity to become fluent rather than nothing. but if you have nothing at all nobody blames except yourself, your making your own fate and destiny donât blame your parents and the government its your own decision for what you are now, your right decision now will be your future someday but if you donât plan or decision today do you think you have something to expect in the future. To speak English needs perseverance, long patience and determination to reach the goal this is fundamental requirements. people who cannot speak English has less opportunity to go abroad particularly in the open country, and thatâs the reason why I wanted to learn English even basic for this is my only tool to go to other countries if opportunities permit.

From Philippines,

Rene

Re: english idioms website

Tanit — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:26:14 GMT

Hi Ablat and welcome to the forums!

As for the website, I'm afraid they've got a few mistakes on their homepage ( ".this is your best place to learn english without the teachers.just trust yourself,you will be succeed. ! ...... you can do everything" [sic]). Their use of punctuation, capitalisation, "succeed" doesn't create a good impression.

please help me to make aphorism. In learning you learn from...

Jackson6612 — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:48:02 GMT

Some years ago when I started to learn English my teacher used to make me write entire passage. In the start I really hated him. I thought he is just making me to waste my time. But gradually I started to realise that every time I wrote entire passage things became more clearer to me. I could know the importance of punctuation marks. The structure of English sentences became more evident. Although he also made me to do exercise given at the end of every passage but writing down entire passage by hand was more helpful. Please check my aphorisms. Your suggestions are always welcome.

In learning you learn from every little bit of work you do.

Writing things make you learn a lot.

please ,help me to correct my paragraph.

Toetoe — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 18:54:01 GMT

hi,

our teacher asked us to write a paragraph about the reasons why i wanted to learn english.i will be glad if somebody helps me to correct it and to omit my mitakes(including punctuation).

here is my paragraph:

Because of many reasons caused the actual world's conditions i took the decision to learn english.In a world ,that can be considered as a global village,english is the world lingua franca.as it is pratical and not complex ,it is spoken everywhere.In many countries,english had been choosen to be the primary language , in a way to solve the problem caused by the variety of local dialects.In india for exemple ,english is the official language alongside hindi.Another reason is that the importance of english in my country is increasing .This language is occuping more and more space in our school system.In some jobs ,speaking english has become an obligation.Also ,as english is the worldwide language ,many hitorical and idiological books are translated to it ,therefore learning it will allow me to find out new cultures and to enrich my knowledges. Finally,,learning english today has been inescapable ,neverthless we have to hold on our mother tongue.

Re: Punctuation in academic presentations (bullet point lists)

Grammar Geek — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 16:07:32 GMT

You're very welcome. I have found that I am not particularly skilled in helping foreign students learn English, because so many of the questions are about "why" and I don't know why - just what is. And some of these grammar terms seem esoteric to me. But I am a technical writer for a living, so your types of questions (which are really a matter of style more than grammar) I can actually answer!

Re: usage of AND and comma

Goodman — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:46:46 GMT

Hi everyone,

This a wonderful forum; both for people with English knowledge and learners that want to improve. A lot of you in my opinions are experts. I consider myself the latter. Although I have used English for years, I am still trying to refine it. Since we all learn English from different teachers and various sources, itâs safe to say that the answers sometimes may differ. As for the punctuation question, I think the COMMA before the âandâ needs not to be there because the âandâ implies that itâs the last item.

i.e. I had a delicious dinner tonight at the restaurant which included a shrimp cocktails as appetizer, a cup of cream of mushroom soup, a Ceasar salad, broiled salmon as entrÃ©e and topped it off with a slice of cheese cake with a cup of Cappuccino.

However, I do see many people adding a COMMA before the âandâ itemizing. Does anyone see it differently ?

Are there any more errors ?pls help!!!

Shasam — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 03:34:17 GMT

G (grammar) SP( spelling) T (TENSES) P (punctuation) PR( preposition)WO (word order) V ( vocabulary)

I am 46 years old and married for twenty years .We have got three children,one soon and two daughters .There are

six, eight and eleven years old.I am an electrical engineer and worked for a company who manufactured machines for procession

automatically.

At first, I am going to learn English in Great Britain.It's very important for my job.Then, I would like to have a little compagniy with

about ten coworker for myself.If it isn't possible,i'll manage a department who developed high technology machines.

I became the test sheets for complete and return directly at you .You phoned at your agent about my course at your school in

Bristol.Very thanks for your trouble .I'm happy to come at your school and i'm sure to learn better English.I don't know my flight

numberon 5st March.I would let you as soon as possible.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

soon-son(sp),there-they(Sp).,electricalengineer(Electrical Engineer) (P),worked-work(T),who-which(G),manufactured-manufactures (T),to have-to open (V) compagniy(SP),coworker-coworkers(G),who -which (G)developed- develops(T),very thanks-thank you very much (WO),come at -come to(P) 5st-5th(G) let you as soon-let you know as soon....

I have corrected what i know and i'm not sure how to correct the sentences -,I became the test sheets for complete and return directly at you.You phoned at your agent about my course at your school in Bristol.

Are my other corrections o.k. help please!!!!!

Re: I Want To Be Fluent English Speaker How Please?

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:22:20 GMT

Improving your motivation

Before you start reading, you should know this: Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. Therefore our method is not just for reading; it is for reading and doing.

You need two things to learn English well â passion and effective learning methods â and passion is the more important one. Why? Because passion makes you want to learn English; the learning methods only tell you how to do it faster.

If you love learning English:

You will do it regularly and spend more time on it.
Learning English will be easier for you. It will be easy for you to remember new words and grammar structures. It's because the brain easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a "normal person" to memorize all these facts, they would never do it.)
We know you may not love learning English. And even if you love it, you will sometimes not want to do it. This is how human psychology works â sometimes we are so lazy, bored, and tired that we don't want to do even the things that we like.

Here is what you can do when you don't feel like learning English:

Imagine yourself in the future
Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.

You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have done it.

Remember that you are already good
You already know some English (you're reading an article in English right now). That's a big success! Now it's time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.

Remember there is a lot that you don't know
You are good, but your English probably isn't perfect. You probably can't understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.

You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you've learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding "street language". Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and conditional structures.

Use your English whenever you can
This is very, very important. The more you use English, the more you will want to learn it.

Because English is so popular, you can use it everywhere. You can use Yahoo to find English-language websites with interesting information, you can watch American cartoons, you can play adventure games on your computer, you can read interesting books in English, or you can do other things that we write about.

If you do these things, you will not only have fun and learn English. If you see that a new English word lets you understand your favorite TV show (or communicate with people, or beat a computer game), you will want to learn more words. So you will learn English more, use it more, learn it more, use it more... If you also use effective learning methods, your English will grow faster than you can imagine.

Would you be so kind to correct my essay? thank you

eagertolearn — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:40:28 GMT

I'm taking a course to become an English Teacher in Spain and I have to write a summary of all the lessons I attend during the course. Once I have all the summaries I'll have to hand them in to my teacher and I wouldn't like to have any grammar mistakes. Could you take a look and check everything is OK? thanks in advance. By the way, I haven't checked my punctuation so you will probably find many mistakes in this field. One more thing, I would be interested in knowing your opinions about the things said in the essay. Here you are:

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT:
DEVELOPING SPEAKING ATTITUDES

After spending a quarter of an hour in the class, I started thinking I had gone to the wrong building or maybe classroom. Everything was completely different from any previous classes I had had at University. The atmosphere had nothing to do with the one you found at University. In this case, even though it was a Saturday morning, the students were relaxed and eager to learn. But the atmosphere was not what struck me the most. Once LuÃs FernÃ¡ndez entered the class and introduced himself, two thoughts came to my mind. First, I thought that maybe I would not learn a lot with him but at least I would have great fun. Second, I thought that was the kind of teacher I had always wanted to have when I was at school. Someone who could make the student feel at ease, which is specially necessary in an English class.
To my surprise, I did learn some valuable advice that day. One of the things he said was that in order to become English teachers we had to know more than a native speaker. I was not surprised to hear that, since I have always thought non native speakers have to be familiarised with the way grammar works in order to teach it. Whereas native speakers do not have to since they learnt English naturally and without great effort. Even though I agreed with LuÃs FernÃ¡ndez in this point, he said some things which I absolutely disagree with. For instance, the idea that we have to be aware that some of our students will never be able to learn English, no matter how hard we try to teach them. My experience in teaching English is very little but I think that anybody can learn something if he or she wants to. Maybe those who have difficulties in learning will have to work harder and will need more time than the average student but, in the end, they will get to speak English. Maybe what the teacher meant was that some students are hard to teach no matter how much effort we make because, after all, the ones who have to make the effort are the students themselves.
Some of the things that were said in class that day changed the way I teach my classes now. The teacher said that we have to get to know our students. Know what they are interested in, what worries them or what motivates them. Even though I consider I have a good relationship with my students I try to keep some distance because I donât pretend to be my studentâs friend. I do speak with my students about many things but I try not to talk about my personal life or to make them talk about theirs. Since LuÃs FernÃ¡ndez gave us that piece of advice I try to know more about my students and their likes and dislikes and I can say it helps create a better and more relaxed atmosphere.
We not only have to know our students but also help them know one another. This way they will be willing to use English to explain one another what they like or what they have done this weekend. Moreover, they will be given the chance to put into practice those structures and vocabulary we have taught them.
In order to put into practice all that was said in class, we did some exercises. The teacher told us that if our students are not concentrated and relaxed, they wonât be able to learn anything. A good way to keep their attention is to ask them to close their eyes and relax at the time we are explaining or whispering a story. With this exercise the student relaxes all his/her body and mind too. Once the exercise ends they are fresh to learn again. That day we had the chance to put it into practice and even though I was more sleepy after coming back to earth, I do think it may be an original and interesting way to create a good atmosphere in class.
Although this session was not supposed to deal with how to mark and correct our studentsâ exercises, the topic was already introduced. We were given a fill in the blanks exercise to practise modal verbs. After doing the exercise individually we corrected it altogether and realised that, in some cases, there was more than one possible answer. This way we learnt that marking an exercise is not a simple task and sometimes it is better to give a mark instead of correcting every single mistake. Specially with young students who are not interested in writing properly but in getting a good mark. Moreover, this way we safe time since correcting can take us long and, as FernÃ¡ndez said, all teachers have to find time to keep learning and studying to become better professionals.