Search results for 'tag:Vocabulary tag:Synonyms' matching tags 'Vocabulary' and 'Synonyms'

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: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:30:34 GMT

As a native English speaker (well perhaps not entirely native, I was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S. at the tender age of 7) I would have to say that apart from the obviously difficult aspects of the English language such as tenses, an unorthodox phonetic system employed in the language and infuriating exceptions for just about every single rule, the two most puzzling features are the Verb+Participle+Preposition combinations and the sheer vastness of the vocabulary. Observe the former...

come+up+with

come+down+with

come+foward+with

come+out+for

come+down+to

Five different constructions which would be clear as day to any native speaker, are nevertheless mind-boggling to someone who is learning the language. Notice how they all start with "come", and then imagine that sort of illogical word-scrambling applied to every verb. Daunting, isn't it? Don't know how to break it to you folks, but I haven't even scratched the surface.

Now as to the latter, I am more than happy to have dictionary.com present proof of this phenomenon in my stead. Let's take a look at the word "jump". I mean, how many possible synonyms could there be for this word? Well, one simple search can help us find out. Here's the link:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/jump

40 entries for the first definition alone. FORTY. Forty different ways to say jump. But when you break it down, do all 40 words have the same meaning? Of course not! Nosedive means to jump into something headfirst, as in a pool of water or (if you're very unfortunate) onto a hardwood floor. To spring is to jump up energetically, with an almost almighty "lurch" (another word for jump right there :P) whereas to "bob" means to make jumping motions without every actually taking your feet off the ground. The list goes on and on. No other language I'm familiar with has such variety when it comes to synonyms, be it for seemingly uncomplicated actions or deep philosophical concepts.

Although English is my native language, I am also a nearly native speaker of Russian (I give credit to my parents for preserving the language of the "motherland" and passing it on to me) and fluent in German. I find Russian to be an incredibly expressive language with just as many (if not more) nuances as English, and its ability to convey feelings of dislike, anger or downright hateful fervor (i.e. swearing) is, in my experience, unmatched. German is an incredibly logical language, and once grammar constructs are mastered, relatively straightforward in its application. Mastering German grammar is a challenge however, and word order is an utter nuisance in some situations.

Just my two cents.

Re: Vocabulary questions

Philip — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:59:23 GMT

Doll wrote:

Hello everyone,

I was doing a vocabulary test and I couldn't solve a few questions. Unfortunately, I don't have the key. I hope you will help me.

Thanks in advance.

Here are the questions: 1- Not only did she ..... from Christianity to Islam but she also changed her name before marriage. A) go through B) go with C) go to D) go over E) go for. I looked up the meanings from dictionary but I really couldn't find something meaningful but Ä± guess it may be go through because the other prepositios doesn't sound good to my ears before from.

2-Viewers often find the paintings of the photo-Realist school somewhat disconcerting. In this sentence they want us to fins the synonym of the underlined word. A) rather B) thoroughly C) very D) instrinsically I think it should be A because the other ones sound funny in the context.(At least to me)

3-No other newspaper columnist has managed as yet to rival Ann Lander's popularity in terms of readership. This is a find the synonym question too. A) though B) in spite of this C) even D)so far I think it should be so far but I don't understand the usage of as yet here. Is it a kind of reduction?

4- A group of soldiers refused to..... the new government, thus leading to discord in the country. A) admit B)accept C) surrender D) recognise E) vizity I guess it should be either accept or admit but the two words confuse me. I looked up their meanings and both of the verbs are used to explain the other one in the dictionary. However, accept says choose me to me.

1. I would say 'convert'. But of the choices you give, I guess D is the best (it should be 'go over to Islam from Ch.."

2. Your choice is correct.

3. Again, you are correct.

4. You're on a roll!

Vocabulary questions

Doll — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:44:02 GMT

Hello everyone,

I was doing a vocabulary test and I couldn't solve a few questions. Unfortunately, I don't have the key. I hope you will help me.

Thanks in advance.

Here are the questions: 1- Not only did she ..... from Christianity to Islam but she also changed her name before marriage. A) go through B) go with C) go to D) go over E) go for. I looked up the meanings from dictionary but I really couldn't find something meaningful but Ä± guess it may be go through because the other prepositios doesn't sound good to my ears before from.

2-Viewers often find the paintings of the photo-Realist school somewhat disconcerting. In this sentence they want us to fins the synonym of the underlined word. A) rather B) thoroughly C) very D) instrinsically I think it should be A because the other ones sound funny in the context.(At least to me)

3-No other newspaper columnist has managed as yet to rival Ann Lander's popularity in terms of readership. This is a find the synonym question too. A) though B) in spite of this C) even D)so far I think it should be so far but I don't understand the usage of as yet here. Is it a kind of reduction?

4- A group of soldiers refused to..... the new government, thus leading to discord in the country. A) admit B)accept C) surrender D) recognise E) vizity I guess it should be either accept or admit but the two words confuse me. I looked up their meanings and both of the verbs are used to explain the other one in the dictionary. However, accept says choose me to me.

Re: Is there a synonym list available as text file?

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:43:25 GMT

I have a new application for auttocorrect, which is normally used to instantly correct common spelling errors such as changing teh to the. You may also know that you can add your own entries and even add abbreviations. When I type "fi", for instance appears on the screen. fe = for example; st = such that, etc. There are seemingly unlimited shortcuts you can add, but there are even more applications such as auto translator and auto paraphraser.

To create a translato, you would simply program each word to the equivelant in another language. For example, if I changed autocorrect to change house to casa and vice-versa and then added hundreds and thousands of additional words, it would be instant.

The same holds true as a paraphraser. If I make exciting change to thrilling and vice versa and add thousands of other words and phrases that mean the same thing like for instance and for example, MS Word will automatically paraphrase the document. While it would not change the sentence structure, it would be a start. You can also use it so a person's normal and boring vocabulary would instantly be changed to more powerful words.

Does anyone know how to use macros to automatically program all the entries into autocorrect? If it could cut and paste each side of the list it would be very possible and saves months of work.

john@examplepapers.com

Re: schools

Feebs11 — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:57:07 GMT

Saska wrote:
didn't know where to post this ...

Can someone explain to me, the meaning of the words in Br. Eng and Am. En?

state school = funded by the state

elementary school = [synonyms=] primary/junior school - ages 5-11 years

secondary school = senior school - ages 11-16+

comprehensive school = secondary school funded by the state and catering for all levels of ability.
grammar school = either state or privately funded. Selective intake after the age of 11.

college = too complicated! See > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College#United_Kingdom

university = An academic institution which grants degrees. Some are independently funded; all receive at least some funding from the state.

This is what I've found so far

Public School

USA/Canada: supported by the state

Scotland: supported by the local authority

England, Wales, Northern Ireland: private or independent and fee-chargin school, often single sex.

Edited by mod: Hi, Saska, your post has been moved to Vocabulary section since it's probably the best one for this kind of question now.

Re: improve / increase

nona the brit — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:20:05 GMT

Yes Tanit, you can expand your vocabulary.

Knowledge: information, facts, skill, wisdom, learning, know-how...many possible synonyms depending on context of use.

Re: improve / increase

Yankee — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:12:13 GMT

Vincent Teo wrote:
Can i say,

(a) Reading helps to improve / increase my vocabulary. Yes, and you can also 'build' your vocabulary, for example.

(b) Reading helps us in vocabulary. Your first sentence is better.

What is the similar meaning of "knowledge"? I don't understand your question. What exactly do you want to know? A synonym? Or do you want to know whether vocabulary is the same as knowledge? Or something else?

Re: How To Teach Vocabulary

Titithi — Thu, 17 May 2007 16:07:36 GMT

I think before teaching vocabulary, we need to choose active and passive vocabulary. For passive words, we only realize and don't spend a lot of time to explain them. Students will research themselves by looking up in the dictionary or guessing from the context. Thus, we have to define which word as a passive or active vocabulary to teach.
For active words, we should save time by choosing the real active words which are needed to teach. By eliciting or brainstorming, we will find out which words are really new words and which words are needed to review. Sometimes ,we have to ask directly our students which words they don't know.The best way to teach active words is setting up the context (as Mr Joe has mentioned) by realia, real object, real story, pictures, visual aids, mapped- dialogue etc...Translation is obviously one way round the problem of difficult concept ,however it's not good for grasping the meaning. A suitable mother tongue equivalent is not always available.
Besides,we can use synonym, a quick and efficient way of explaining unknown words. With simple English, we explain new words by antonym and words family including suffixe and prefixe.Gestures and mimic play an important role when conveying new words. To understand a new word fully, a student must know not only what it refers to but also where their boundaries are separate.In other words, the affective meaning of an item can vary according to the context and speaker.The meaning of a word can only be understood in terms of its relationship with other words in the language.This is why translation is the brief way of explanation and necessary in some situation but it's not suitable to target the language.

Re: Communicative English

Titithi — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:02:50 GMT

I think Communicative approach has a relation with other methods. When I began to learn English, my teacher used to explain vocabulary and grammar from a text, then we mimick her to read it. Before teaching, she had an introduction which was very interesting. She had a good accent of a speaker of the BBC. One day, I noticed that she pronounced /f/ in Athens in the title: The Acropolis of Athens.I asked her the reason,she answered me:" Today, people pronounce like this". In that day, I don't know anything about Received pronunciation, Cokneys accent etc.. I thought she read so fast that she made mistake. It's OK. I went on to mimick her but I avoided this mistake.
When I was a teacher, I used to introduce the dialogue by comparing to our real-life. For example: Can I help you? I conveyed to my students:What do you want to buy? You should be nice! Don't chase away your customer:" If you don't buy anything, go away!" It's very rude. You need to show all pens that you have had. What would you like the red pen or the blue one?I show the red pen: It's a little too bright but it's very beautiful. The girl chooses the blue pen: It's very nice, I'll take it. Pictures, gestures, real objects, explanation in simple English, antonym, synonym,family words...It's up to you. The most important thing is your students should understand. After listening the tape many times, we play the role of Mary and the shop assistant by pair work. Sometimes, we divide our class into four groups, the most fluently speakers will etablish the dialogue in front of the class. Pair work and group work play an important role in communicative approach. Any teaching practice that help students to develop their communicative competence is acceptable. Mr Joe has just given us some examples about them.
In our new programme (with the aid of Belgian experts), we should use communicative approach method to teach. If you follow entirely all of the lessons., it means you have used TLC in your class. One thing I like most is the introduction, getting started.Usually, we begin our lesson by the warm -up step. You can direct your students to sing, to play games or to do some easy and interesting exercises to introduce your new lesson such as true-false, matching, gap-fill, multiple choice....and it doesn't need to correct them. There is a mixing of the3 steps warm -up, review the previous lesson and introduce the new lesson. When playing games or doing these exercises, we should do in pair or group in order learning by teaching and use English to exchange. We should encourage our students to speak English. If the teacher doesn't understand what the students say,don't tell them at once. We need to pretend that we don't know anything and react like the wrong that students say. They will conclude there is something wrong. Mistake is OK. That's the best way to encourage learners to develop their confidence to speak English.