Avangi wrote: They seem to be right! How about this? You are going to do your homework even if you have to sit there all night!

CalifJim wrote: A native tells me that it does occur in such as the second example. The native must have misunderstood the question. Does it No. , and if it does, why? And is it widespread? No. "gonna" has to be followed by a verb. London isn't

Jon Salt wrote: "A beer please" is hardly a fair example, and is easy to teach at the same time as "I would like a beer please". The point is that "Give us a pint, would you?", or whatever, is not worth teaching in most classes. Who

Jon Salt wrote: I think educating yourself can be fun. Are education and fun mutually exclusive? Note the "only for" in my post.

<I agree. I would go so far as to say that the non-native speaker who speaks native-like English with a noticeable accent may well be regarded as speaking "worse" English than the non-native speaker who speaks English out of a text book.>

Jon Salt wrote: Thanks, Mr Pedantic. Let's imagine we are talking about a bar. A ESL student may enter and say "I would like a glass of beer please". The student will sound stiff and formal, but they will get a beer, and so what? There are

<If students are able to make themselves well understood using simplistic, "quaint" English, then that is a huge achievement. > But I'm not talking about the English such students pick up along the way, but about situations where

<I bet that Milky's students can speak perfect idiomatic English right from after having one or two lessons with him though. > What's your definition of "idiomatic English"? And why

<"He posts on a linguistics forum for fun. What a nerd!"> If he posts only for fun, how could that be considered as educating himself?

MrPedantic wrote: Noirkid72 wrote: Quite simply, on the 30th of January either your grammar is technically wrong or you don't actually have to pay your tax on that day; maybe you just planned to buy your disc on the 31st and you don't want