By Plurals, Intonations

Hi everyoneI just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as...

Languages are always losing some distinctions and gaining new ones. English lost the singular second person pronoun "thou", but we can still make the distinction between singular and plural second person when we need to, by using "you guys", "you all", etc.In the same way, we can use "literally"...

1. There aren't any cars down here. (neutral statement) 2. There isn't a car down here. (different intonation - emphasizes the absence of cars - indicates some surprise at something unexpected - means same as "There isn't a SINGLE CAR down here." 3. It didn't catch any mistakes. (neutral...

First of all, "ass" refers to a donkey in BrE, but in AmE and Canada, is a taboo word and may be offensive. In my humble opinion, care must be taken with questions of this type; although I admitedly think these words should be discussed so that learners are aware of them. Of course, a...