Search results for 'tag:Vocabulary tag:American English' matching tags 'Vocabulary' and 'American English'

Re: it's ten of 5.00

Yankee — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:04:08 GMT

Hi Openmind

Have you ever considered changing your moniker to "DoubtingThomas"? (Just teasing you a little!)

To put it in the simplest possible terms, using 'of' instead of 'to' when telling time is basically simply a matter of replacing the word 'to' with the word 'of'.

Since of basically follows the same "rules"/pattern as to, I'd say an Ameican ESL teacher is likely to treat this usage of of a bit like an idiom since it is usually covered only after the basic mechanics of time-telling with 'to' have been mastered, and also because this usage is a special characteristic of American English. (By the way, the words til and before are also sometimes used instead of to). As I mentioned, I would not expect this usage to be covered in a beginner level lesson on telling the time. Therefore, by the time an American teacher presents the usage, there is no need to rehash all of the basics of how to tell time in English. If I went into all of the basic details of telling time with students who had already mastered the basics, they'd not only be bored silly, but would probably think I was nuts to boot. On the other hand, if I had a beginner-level group and attempted to teach them 'to', 'of', 'til' and 'before' all at once, they'd only end up totally confused -- and they'd probably think I was nuts, too.

This usage of 'of' does tend to be a spoken one since people normally use numbers rather than words when writing the time. In other words, in written English you're likely to see 5:45 instead of 'five forty-five' and '(a) quarter to/of/till/before six', or 2:55 instead of 'two fifty-five' and 'five of/to/till/before three'. However, if you read novels (by authors such as Steven King, for example) or spend time talking with lots of Americans, you will be able to see/hear this usage of the word 'of' in action.

Here is a German ESL site that mentions the use of 'of' instead of 'to':

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/vocabulary/time

And here are some more sites to look at:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/08/telling-time-and-dates.html

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ask_about_english/pdfs/aae_ag_uk_us_070424.pdf

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Cool Breeze — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:49:26 GMT

When I attended school in the late Middle Ages, I never wondered whether I was taught British or American English. I suppose I was taught both: differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. I find it strange that anyone would like to confine his knowledge of the language to just one variety. Why on earth? And how could that be possible? I have seen him is both British and American! I don't know how it could be possible to learn just one variety as they are so similar, after all. The dialectal differences in Britain are far greater than the differences between British and American English, as I have said before in some other thread.

Brits understand Americans even if they have never been taught American English, and vice versa. If a Finnish teacher of English has spent a lot of time in England or the US, he may be more familiar with one variety and may thus want to emulate British or American pronunciation in his teaching. The students can't help hearing both because all the texts in the books that are used are recorded on CDs by native speakers, who include Brits, Americans, Canadians, Australians and even the occasional Indian. All these nationalities are employed in nationwide listening comprehension tests as well.

When a Finn is enrolled in a university, few of the books on the syllabus are in Finnish unless he studies Finnish Philology or Finnish History or something similar. If he studies social sciences, biology, medicine etc. the majority of the books are in English. In some cases he may be able to choose a book in another language also, usually Swedish, German or French. As a rule, it is safe to say that university studies are not possible if you are unable to understand scientific books written in English. These books may be written by Britons, Americans, Finns, Germans, Spaniards or people representing other nationalities because English is the leading language of science and no university can function properly without English. Some of the visiting lecturers and professors don't speak a word of Finnish!

It seems utterly trivial and futile to me to try to concentrate on just British or American English when one just can't manage with only one variety and the differences are so small.

Cheers

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:34:01 GMT

Hello, another English teacher here. I have been teaching English in China for about 2 and a half years now and also speak fluent French, decent Spanish and am learning Chinese (not as hard as you may think once you get the hang of those tones, easy grammar). Now I'll start off by saying that English seems to be an incredibly easy language to communicate with (and by this I mean to give the general idea of what you're trying to say). However, if you want to learn English like a native speaker then it's a completely different story. The pronunciation CAN be difficult to learn depending on your native language and also the age you attempt to learn it at. Training your tongue and mouth to move the same way a native speaker does can be difficult to do, especially if you're like many of my students who got their start at an older age or didn't have good teachers. I've also noticed that my younger students are able to mimic my speech much easier than the older ones speaking, both of whom are studying at the same level. I started learning French when I was 4 years old (Quebec French, I'm Canadian) and because of the quality of my teachers and my young age I was able to become quite good with my pronunciation. With my Chinese because I'm learning from scratch from native speakers my pronunciation is also decent (notice I said decent, not great, although when speaking Chinese I'm always understood). Native language has a lot to do with it too as the sounds you use in one language may be very different for another. I've taught in both the north and south of China and find that the people all have the same problems. Chinese people have problems with s (they often pronounce it as a sh sound) and with closing their mouth for the letter m ("sometimes" is a nightmare for them and they often say it like "suntine"). L and R can also be troublesome. One can't forget sentence stress as well as well as linking words together to make it go smoothly.

The vocabulary can also be a pain. Someone here mentioned 150,000 words in the English language but the number is actually much higher. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) contains over 600,000 definitions. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged contains 475,000 main headwords and it is believed the language grows by 25,000 words a year. Don't believe me, check Wikipedia. There's also the difference in spelling and vocabulary between the different forms of English. British English and American English use different words and the words that are the same can be spelled differently. American English and Canadian English essentially share the same vocabulary to a large degree but the spelling of Canadian English in many ways is closer to British English. British English is pretty much the English form most Asian and European countries will learn but American pop culture will also have an influence, not to mention the American economy and it's impact. This can all be very confusing. To the person saying they are tired of using "well" as in "well, then..." there are many substitutes you could use.

The grammar is also a nuisance. It's not the hardest of things but certainly isn't the easiest. Sure French has a gender attached to all of it's nouns (which I hated when learning it), but English still has more exceptions to it's rules that need to me memorized. So many even native speakers have trouble with it. A language like Chinese that may seem hard to speak actually has very simple grammar. For example if you wanted to ask someone where they are you would say "ni zai na li" or simply "ni zai nar" (you where?). To ask a question in Chinese you merely ad "ma" to the end of a statement. "Ta hui shuo zhongwen" is "he/she speaks Chinese whereas "ta hui shuo zhongwen ma" is "does he/she speak Chinese?". Also in Chinese as there are no forms of he or she.

It's impossible to say which language is easy and which is hard when compared to each other because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration. Let's just say that English has it's easy parts and it's ridiculously difficult parts as well. Speaking at a native speaker level can be done and I know people who have done this, but it takes a lot of hard work, good instruction, and a good learning atmosphere. I hope all that made sense, I stumbled onto this site a 2 in the morning and am quite tired.

Re: When I have trouble...

Kooyeen — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:36:17 GMT

Hi Anon,
what Jim said makes a lot of sense, and we discussed it a little in another thread, I think.
The point was that teaching completely descriptively is impossible. The teacher would have to say: Mr X says this, Mr Y says that, and Mr Z says another thing. Now learn what they say and then decide what to do by yourself.
Every time a teacher gives advice or suggest something, they're being at least a little bit prescriptive.
So if you want a good teacher, you need a teacher who "prescribes" the most appropriate English for you.

Now, suppose I'm 17. The better you know English, the more it should sound like English spoken by native speakers (this should be true for every language). How can I be as similar to a native as possible? If am learning American English and I imagine I am a native speaker, I should imagine I am a 17-year-old American guy. If I found an American teenager to imitate, I would learn how to speak like my imaginary native clone.

So, why would a ESL student who is 17, listen to punk rock and don't care much about school and rules in society... why would he want to have a teacher who is 50, listen to classical music, and is a literature professor? Learning English from a punk like him is probably the best way to learn the best kind of English for him.

And as for females... sometimes girls talk a little differently. Vocabulary might be different, tipical topics in conversations are definitely different, and sometimes intonation might vary (example: uprising intonation).

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Daffy Duck — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:35:30 GMT

Anonymous wrote:
Well, I have encountered this problem recently. I had been learning english for few years, then I stopped attending courses or lessons, I have been learning at home and watching American TV series and movies.. so I have picked up a lot of vocabulary. So far, so good. Then I realised, when preparing to Cambridge Exam, that I have to "forget" american words and learn british equivalents. Because now I am mixing both.. It's fine by me, as long as people can understand me. Still when passing an exam you need to be consistent, using either american or british english. It's tricky. American english surrounds us everywhere, so we're more familiar with it. On the contrary I just love british accent, even though learning british pronounciation isn't easy.

Nice to hear from you again, Anonymous It's tricky for us teachers, too. We don't even know, if it's just going to be British or American English. Few days ago, I met some students and their parents asked about teachers who can teach Canadian English. Imagine?!

Re: Does Standard American English sound more like French or German?

Bluepalms — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:31:32 GMT

Hi Thorhath,

it is interesting to know that 40% of the English vocabulary is from the French language, I could tell some examples: air, age, departement,...
But I don't exactly know what you mean with "sound the same"? Do you mean the phonetic? If so, then I'd say, that French and English don't sound the same, you can certainly tell from the "heavy" French accents native French speakers when speaking English. There must be differences in the pronounciation.

Hope I could help. Cheers,
Bluepalms

Does Standard American English sound more like French or German?

Thorhath — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:58:00 GMT

They say that 40% of Englishâs vocabulary is of French origin, but English is a Germanic language. So, I ask the question,

Does Standard American English sound more like French or German?

I would prefer to hear from people whose first language is not English.

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:56:04 GMT

Well, I have encountered this problem recently. I had been learning english for few years, then I stopped attending courses or lessons, I have been learning at home and watching American TV series and movies.. so I have picked up a lot of vocabulary. So far, so good. Then I realised, when preparing to Cambridge Exam, that I have to "forget" american words and learn british equivalents. Because now I am mixing both.. It's fine by me, as long as people can understand me. Still when passing an exam you need to be consistent, using either american or british english. It's tricky. American english surrounds us everywhere, so we're more familiar with it. On the contrary I just love british accent, even though learning british pronounciation isn't easy.

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Daffy Duck — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:04:24 GMT

Titithi wrote:
I agree with you: learning both is useful. In my country,we have learned British English and we should explain why the pronunciation of this word can pronounce in different other way or why people use "will" instead of "shall". Today , our program is changed into American English, we usually explain the difference between B.E and A.E.in pronunciation and in some cases of grammar or vocabulary.....It is not serious in lower level. Imitating is the best way to learn so we use only the CVD or Cassette with the American speakers voice while in the past we use British books and Cassette. Students often ask us some suspicious thing that they have heard on TV and on Movie, Ads.....Are they true or wrong...?

Thanks Titithi!

which of the following TTS(Text To Speech) engines are more natural?

Royal999 — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:11:53 GMT

i am Learning my Active vocabulary as American english and my passive vocabulary as British, irish, scottish, Indian, Australian and south African English.

i looking for highest quality, most lifelike and clearest TTS sound that is used in United States.

Please help me if you are Native, and answer by rating for example:
x is best, y is very good, z is good, etc or
x is first, y is second, z is third, etc.

and finally, this is the link :

http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx

Thanks.