Search results for 'tag:Spelling tag:Speak english' matching tags 'Spelling' and 'Speak english'

Re: NARNIA

Tanit — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:42:40 GMT

Kooyeen
That way, you don't get a "A little bit" pronounced like it's a series of spits, but you get "A li(t)l bi(t)".

Your comment reminded me of something I listened to a couple of weeks ago. (Here's the link to the mp3 file ... warning: it's 3.3MB)
BBC Learning English has made a radio programme which consists of 12 episodes. In each episode, they analyse the way some famous non-native (but proficient) speakers speak English.
In one of the episodes, they focussed on BjÃ¶rk's English (I hope I got the spelling correct ) and discussed her usage of collocations and her pronunciation. I'm posting here only some sentences where she pronounces the t's the way you posted:

"only I did i(t) much be(tt)er" (around 0'20'')
"the most difficult bi(t) was to know it wasn't gonna be perfect" (around 1'40'')
"the happy song are a lo(t) lo(t) more" (around 02'05'')
"sort of before and after my li(tt)le lesson" (around 02'20'')

If you want to listen about the presenters' comments about this way of pronouncing the t's, listen to the clip from about 7'20'' to about 9'00''
If you don't want to listen to that, here's a spoiler

Their opinion is that, although some people say this is lazy, incorrect pronunciation, in fact it is a common feature among young people in London, and it clearly demonstrates that BjÃ¶rk has lived in England.

Re: "s" and "z"

Carson21 — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:25:56 GMT

I don't know what you guys are all on about with devoiced /z/. It's not a devoiced /z/, it's just /s/. In the example that someone above used, "vases"... I don't know about up North or across the pond (either one), but American Standard has that as /s/ in the medial and /z/ in the final. Well, if you pronounce the <a> like you do in "bratwurst" or "father", then the medial would become /z/.

Pter, the basic rule is this: final <s> becomes voiced to /z/ when it is final in most verbs and/or after a voiced stop (/g b d/ etc). It remains unvoiced /s/ for most nouns and adjectives. It also can voice when the closest (previous) consonant was already /s/. (Abuses, vases, faces, places)

Here's the other basic rule that will probably help you, even if at first it seems to be "maddening the unhelpful": In English, there are a million rules, and every rule has a million exceptions. English is probably as far removed from a loglang as you can get, so it helps to just accept what you learn at face value and imitate it, rather than trying to figure out "why". You can ask "why" all day and use up all the time where you could have been moving on to the next rule. Look at the general rule for each case, then apply it. You learn irregularities as you go (much like learning Spanish verbs).

The perfect example of an exception: assess. It has /s/ in the medial AND final. D'oh! Just have to remember that one.

As for how important it is that you learn the difference between /s/ and /z/... I don't think it's that big a deal. If the spelling shows <s>, then saying /s/ or /z/ won't make much of a difference if your goal is to just be understood. They're allophones, essentially. We could drop <z> from our orthography and get along just fine. However, if your goal is to sound like a native speaker, then, yes, it's quite important that you can make the distinction.

Last, if you pronounced all <s> as /s/... You might sound strange to most people in the UK and the northern United States (plus the commonwealth), but anywhere in the West, Southwest, South East, and Border states in the US, no one would think twice about it! There are a lot of people in those regions that speak English as a second language with Spanish as their first, and they tend to always use /s/ for <s> , regardless of typical conventions.

Re: Please could you check writing for me how tenses confusion

Clive — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:36:40 GMT

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

Think about the changes I have made. If you don't understand the change, please ask me about it.

To begin with, always use a capital I when you talk about yourself. Spell English with a capital E. And check all your spelling in a dictionary. OK?

I like to speak English because hear peoples first language is English. I don't understand the part in italics. What is the subject of the verb 'hear'?

So I have to learn it by heart.because I have to go shopping and to the doctor.

I have to talk with friends or I have to make an appointment.

We all went out to watch a film and then came back home.

It was a fantastic film.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Who's to decide the future?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:27:29 GMT

Milky wrote:
That is because you, though claiming your thoughts on the matter of English and easiness are subjective, seem to want us all to agree with you. Your posts on the matter, before you began backpedaling, seemed insistent that you were right, on a gemeral level, about English.

I would indeed like to think that I am right, on a general level, about the number of forms an English noun has and fully understand that four forms may be difficult for a nonnative learner of English in whose mother tongue a noun has only one form. Everything is relative.

I wonder what has given you the idea that I consider English easy and that I am backpedalling now? I have mentioned twice that the spelling is difficult and the idioms are difficult. What I consider easy is the grammar, of which there is so little. That's why it's easy to acquire a working knowledge of English. Mastering English is just as difficult for me as it is to master any other language I have ever studied. A friend of mine puts it nicely: It's easy to speak English badly. These are just my personal opinions and I am definitely not trying to impose them on anyone.

I have mentioned in other threads that difficulty is relative: what is easy for some may be difficult for others. I already think about difficulty the way you want me to think about it.

Re: How to make sentences?

Yankee — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Maverick9211 wrote:
I can't differeniate between ~~abt~~ nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.

I am not very bad at English. I do understand English very well. I can speak English, but not in fluently. I can't write it very well. Let's ~~make~~ do it this way: You give me some topic and I will write 10-20 lines about that topic. Then you will ~~come to know~~ be able to see where I am lacking or what ~~is the~~ my problems are. Or you suggest what to do.

Hi Maverick

Judging from your posts here, spelling, capitalization and punctuation are some of the things you need to improve.

If you want to practice grammar, you might try English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy.

Your idea about posting a few sentences isn't bad. You can post sentences for correction, but you should limit the number of sentences you post in each thread to a maximum of about 5. You can write about any topic that interests you. You can also post specific questions. This would be a specific question, for example:

What is the difference between "I do speak English very well" and "I speak English very well"?

Re: help for my thesis about english as a global language.

Cool Breeze — Thu, 10 May 2007 13:38:44 GMT

Hi Newforspeed

Welcome to the forums. Anyone with some knowledge of English can tell that you didn't write your questions yourself. Someone else did that for you, but I'll give you some answers anyway.

1. There were only 4.5 million speakers of English in Shakespeare's day. There are three major reasons for English having become what it is.

One: The British exported their language in the colonial days. (Some other languages got exported as well.)

Two: By the time English was taken overseas, it had become extremely simple structurally. Of the languages I have studied and of whose grammar I have some knowledge, English is by far the simplest. This makes it easy for nonnatives to acquire a working knowledge of English even though mastering the language is just as difficult as it is to master any other language. (The only problem is the inconsistent spelling.)

Three: About 100 years ago, the economic rise of the USA began and that contributed to making English number one. It gradually replaced French and Spanish in the western world. These two languages had been more important than English in the 19th century. In Finnish schools English 'dethroned' German in the 1950s, by the way. French remains an important language in diplomacy.

2. Not in the foreseeable future.

3. Economic growth does not depend on language. China has had massive economic growth for years and few Chinese speak English.

4. To some extent, yes. Not all minor cultures will disappear, though.

5. No. The natives will understand each other as well as they do now and the rest of the world will understand each other as well - or badly - as they do now. Many Brits don't undertand other Brits at the moment.

6. Languages have come and gone before. I can't see why English should be blamed for the disappearance of languages. Many languages die out owing to a lack of speakers, not because these people start to speak English all of a sudden.

7. Not any more than whatever has been a 'danger' before. All living languages have always changed. Nothing living remains constant for hundreds of years. A language that changes is not in danger. Language can take care of itself. For example, in Old English there was only one relative pronoun. That wasn't enough, so other relatives developed. Change doesn't always simplify a language.

8. ?

9. The Internet is one of the factors that promote the use of English.

10. No doubt many native speakers of English delight in the fact that their language is the lingua franca. We have nothing to worry about because of that. Every other English-speaking stranger I talk to has an inferiority complex due to his nonexistent command of other languages.

11. It is neither.

12. I wouldn't call it a danger. It's an inevitability that all languages have always faced and will always face. Nothing lasts forever. We need not worry about that, though, it's too far in the future.

13. No.

14. I wouldn't rate a scholar very high just because he speaks English. A writer who writes in English has a larger audience than one who writes in a small language and therefore he stands a better chance of being recognised. He is more likely to get rich and become famous than other writers.

15. I don't think all nations will want to have just one officia language in the EU.

16. Yes, in the foreseeable future. I think it will have lost some of its importance by the year 5275.

17. It makes sense to teach languages. One of the consequences is the fact that there will be more multilingual people. The more languages people speak, the better they understand one another and foreign cultures.

18. English doesn't enrich my country's culture in the least. English is just a language like many others, it's not a danger.

19. It's understandable that Brits, Americans and Australians - New Zealanders as well - don't want to spend time learning foreign languages as much as the rest of the world. The teaching of foreign languages is often of abysmal quality in those countries; in some cases the pupils have a better knowledge of the target language than the teacher! One might think that the English-speaking countries would do very well in tests measuring, say, mathematical skills because they don't 'waste' time learning languages. They can devote more time to science in schools.

Cheers
CB

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Marvin A. — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:55:37 GMT

and an ignorant American would look at British and pronounce practise (Br. spelling) like practize....

Highly unlikely.

Americans on the other hand, have been butchering it for centuries and should not be consulted when learning this language. It is, after all, English and not American.

Rubbish. North American English is in many ways much closer to Elizabethan English than British English, Australian English and New Zealand English.

Anonymous Australian.

Well, we could say that Australian English speakers are "butchering the language": for one thing, most of you have forgotten how to prononounce your r's; your vowels are quite different earlier forms of English, and your vocabulary has shifted quite a bit.

It is, after all, English and not American.

Well, it's not Australian either.

so it is logical that the more words one knows, the more thoughts one can have.

How is that logical? Other languages can also be quite expressive. Just because English "has" over a million words, you have to realize that many are simply restricted to medicine; others are not in common use and would be quite incomprehensible to most people. Just by possessing a copious amount of words (many of these so called "English words" are hardly native words, and are not understood by many people), doesn't mean that English is more expressive than other languages in all respects.

It (the spelling) was fixed 400 years ago

Yes, for the most part. But what I don't understand, is if someone wants to simply be able to speak English (and doesn't care about reading and writing), why don't they simply use a phonetic alphabet when learning English.

though I'm convinced once upon a time it really was pronounced "kuh-ni-git"

Actually in Old and Middle English, the "k" was pronounced (but there was no "uh" after it), and the "g" was pronounced like in the word "Loch" if you put on a Scottish accent.

Or meaby something from German: einhundertfunfundzwazig (125) - this is correct spelling, there shouldn't be any spaces!!!

Well, it's easy enough to break down, and is hardly harder than onehundredtwentyfive.

You say its easy, and yet you write 'learned' instead of 'learnt' - a classic example.

"learned" and "learnt" tend to be pretty well interchangeable.

Re: Cool Breeze thanks the Englishforums team

Cool Breeze — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:22:58 GMT

Hi Kooyeen

There is nothing to forgive! I am certainly not in the least offended by your post. In fact, I enjoyed reading it tremendously! I even agree with you to some extent on some of the points you made.

I am the first person to admit that my knowledge of English isn't as good as that of a native speaker. I know that my knowledge of my mother tongue, Finnish, is far better than my English. I am conscious of my shortcomings. May I just point out that all speakers of all living languages are learners. I learn new Finnish words all the time, and native speakers of English learn new words as these words make their way into the language. The learning process is incessant owing to the fact that languages evolve.

You say that every nonnative speaker wants to write, speak and sound like a native speaker. That is not true. I don't. I have mentioned this earlier in my posts in other threads. I have always thought it paradoxical that even though English has an extremely large vocabulary, native speakers are in many situations limited to a few fixed phrases that they 'must' use to sound natural. I don't necessarily want to sound 'natural'. That's why I don't always conform to generally accepted phrases and idioms.

Nor do all others. In the Far East, for example, an English dictionary has been published which contains such words as farang and actsy. They say they have colonised the English language. English is the lingua franca these days, and whether native speakers like it or not, it will transform in the various localities and connexions where it is used.

Another factor is what I might call national pride -- for lack of a better word. I don't want to sound British, American, Canadian, Australian or anything else when I speak English. I am a Finn and I want to sound Finnish. I know my accent is close to American English and I have been taken for an American on a number of occasions. Finland is an unknown country and I prefer it that people know where I am from when I travel. I am often in for better treatment that way. Finland never colonised anything and has not been involved in any major international wars or skirmishes recently, which means it has few foes. I never have to hear 'Finn, go home' slogans on my travels. A couple of years ago the US embassy in Latvia or Lithuania issued a warning to US citizens travelling in the Baltic countries asking them to keep a low profile and to avoid conversation in a loud voice. We all know why.

You are partly right as to what I consider my 'main reference point' regarding correct usage. It is usually native speakers when the use of a word or an expression is in question. When grammar is involved, we must bear in mind the fact that many authoritative grammar books were written by nonnative speakers such as Otto Jespersen and R.W. Zandvoort. Of course that does not mean that grammar books by natives are no good.

Please feel free to post a reply, Kooyeen. I look forward to it! As a matter of fact, I'm counting on getting one!

Cheers
CB
PS: I hope no one minds my spelling of nonnative. I have not been able to find a hyphenated non-native in any dictionary.

please help me with my essay

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:04:47 GMT

hi everybody, i need some help with this essay for my class, english is my second language, and this is the first time i take a class in english. please review my grammar and my spelling, thanks a lot!! I don't have a tittle for it yet, so i take suggestions! thanks again for your help guys.

I believe in multicultural lives. I believe you can be from one country, but being from two, three or more cultures at the same time. Thatâs what happened to me.

Iâm an American girl and look like an American girl; but I donât sound like one. Iâm not one, or maybe I am, but not at all. I was born in this country and just lived here until I was a three-year old toddler, thatâs when my culture started expanding.

We moved to South America, to small country called Venezuela. It was time for me to learn Spanish so I could attend to the kindergarten. So this was the deal: mommy is the authentic Cajun girl, so she would only speak English, daddy is the Latin guy so he would speak to us only in Spanish. That was my parentâs strategy to make my sister and me have the advantage of being bilingual. Ok, good deal, we speak two languages; but what about our cultural lives?

It was time to start going to school, I remember my first day at school, and it was something completely different. Instead of playing âgo fishâ we had to play with a toy called perinola, instead of playing with Barbies we had to play with robe dolls. It was a whole new world to me: I started facing the Venezuelan culture.

My dad, he was raised in Venezuela, but not as a Venezuelan. My grandparents immigrate from Portugal right after World War II; theyâve lived in Venezuela for more than 50 years, and theyâre still absolutely Portuguese. Thatâs how European people are, very strict with their culture, they donât allow intromissions into what they believe in; once theyâre built thatâs the way theyâll be until the end of their days.

I would go to school and have my Venezuelan life. Then I come back from school at 12:30 and spend the whole day with my mommy in the American way; I had to switch from Spanish and robe dolls to English and Barbies. It would be 5:30pm and it was time to make the second switch of the day, daddy was here, it was time to change to Spanish, finish quickly all my homework, take a bath and look nice. For dinner it wouldnât be fried chicken it would be fried platains, no chocolate chip cookies for dessert, it was time for molasses cookies. It was time to be a European girl.

It didnât stop there, my dadâs family doesnât speak Spanish at all, they do a mix of Spanish and Portuguese, something that in Venezuela is called âportunishâ, itâs not Spanish but itâs not Portuguese, somewhere in between. After living with my grandparents since I was eight years old, I caught even more the Portuguese lifestyle. A very straight one, where girls only play with dolls and are not allowed to get close to a ball, where I would eat fish instead of chicken, and forget about rice or potatoes, they only do sweet potatoes, yucca and a lot of vegetables that I never got to like.

I was eight years old and I already had a big mix of culture going on in my life, it was like having three different lives at the same time, I would be called by the same name, but I would have to act and be different on each of them. I grew up with it, feeling like I didnât belong to any culture; it was and still is confusing. While living in Venezuela, I wouldnât feel Venezuelan. Now I live in America, and I donât feel like one of you. Even worse, I donât feel like a European girl either. I have a little bit of everything and everywhere, I can speak three different languages and cook three different traditional menus.

I used to feel like I was from everywhere, that I belong a little bit to every culture that I have, but the truth is I do not belong to any of them. I do not have a defined culture; I am not from a specific culture.

I just belong to my own mixture of cultures.

Re: Countries speak English as Native Language

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 07:55:34 GMT

wow! all of these comments have totally opened up new doors in my mind, especially the last one about singapore...

i knew many people all over the world spoke english as a means to communicate amongst travelers, but i had no idea the language was so prominant in so many places! as if i didnt feel ignorant enough, posting on an english website and not using apostrophes where necessary, or even spelling words right for that materr.

knowledge sure is a dubious thing.

-eckshollisecks