English 101

REDY

REDY

Duty Caller
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
5,434
Location
Praha
Hello, because I and some others(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=344369) want improve their English language, I created this thread. Unlike other 101 threads, there is one advantage - you dont need write bilingualy. There should be some differences between American, Australian and British English, so different views are welcomed.

My experience with English is quite bad. Our class was divided to better and worse part, of course that I was in worse one. We had nearly every school year different teacher and besides one teacher from Australia the quality was poor, not in English but in teaching skills. My marks were around C. I am not sure what system you have in Angloamerican world, we have marks 1-5 where 1 is best and 5 is worst, so I presume that you have A-E. In leaving exam I achieved B because good theme (horror and fantasy in English literature). In abroad I was quite young, when I participated in school trip for week in London my English skills were too low to improve my English. Todays I would take advantage of that trip much better. In Slavic countries(Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland) I havent needed English because in tourist places people could speak basic Czech and even when couldnt, languages were too close. In other trips I was as small child without any foreign language skills (Italy, Switzerland) or for very short time(Austria, Germany). In university there were some other exams. Translation of 150 pages to Czech (I chose history book about John of Gaunt, maybe you noted that I asked for help there), discussion with native speaker (we had terrible raw about America´s role in world, so he rather wrote my mark to not meet me again) and abstract from lectures in English. There are few English courses, its quite problem get there and its too boring.

Please fix :)
 
Gelion said:
I am not, obviously, a native speaker, but as with a language there are areas you know better and those you know worse, will try to help with what I can. Here's whast I would do.
Click to expand...

Hello, because I, and some others(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=344369) want to improve their English language, I created this thread. Unlike other 101 threads, there is one advantage - you dont need to write bilingually (or you need not write bilingually). There should be some differences between American, Australian and British English, so different views are welcomed.

My experience with English is quite bad. Our class was divided into better and worse parts, (and) of course that I was in the worse one. We had Nearly every school year we had a different teacher, and besides one teacher from Australia, the quality was poor, not in English but in teaching skills. My marks were around C. I am not sure what system you have in Anglo-american world, we have marks 1-5, where 1 is best and 5 is worst, (new sentance here?) so I presume that you have A-E. In leaving (graduation?) exam I achieved a B because of a good theme (horror and fantasy in English literature). In (When being or simply) abroad I was quite young, when I participated in a school trip for a week in London, and at a time my English skills were too low to improve my English. Todays I would take advantage of that trip much better. In Slavic countries(Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland) I havent needed (needs tense correction, hard for me to see which one to use) English because in tourist places people could speak basic Czech and even when they couldn't (here could not is better aesthetically), languages were too close. In my other trips I was either as small child without any foreign language skills (Italy, Switzerland) or for very short time (Austria, Germany). In university there were some other exams. Translation of 150 pages to Czech (I chose a history book about John of Gaunt, maybe you noted that I asked for help there), discussion with a native speaker (we had terrible raw about America´s role in world, so he rather wrote my mark (not sure what it means) to not meet me again) and excluded me abstract from lectures in English. There are (also?) few English courses, but its it is quite a problem to get (in?) there and its too boring.

Please fix :)

Gelion said:
I hope what I changed is comprehensible. Cheers :)
Click to expand...
 
I am not sure what system do you have in Anglo-american world, we have marks 1-5, where 1 is best and 5 is worst,
Click to expand...

Corrected the lack of alpha-verb missed by Gelion.

In Russia, BTW, it's 5 which is the best and 1 which is the worst.

I haven't needed (needs tense correction, hard for me to see which one to use)
Click to expand...

I didn't need - perfect tense doesn't belong here.

discussion with a native speaker (we had terrible raw about America´s role in world, so he rather wrote my mark (not sure what it means) to not meet me again)
Click to expand...

Apparently, the examiner told REDY that he (the examiner) didn't want to meet REDY again, and gave him the lowest pass mark.

and abstract from lectures in English.
Click to expand...

That I can't understand.

There are (also?) few English courses, but its it is quite a problem to get (in?) there and its too boring.
Click to expand...

Looks more like
There are also few English courses, so getting there is a problem, and besides, they're too boring.
Click to expand...

It depends on the difference between "few" and "a few". "Few" means "very small, unacceptable amount", while "a few" means "a satisfactory amount".
 
Please note, that there are a vast number of ways to say the same thing in English. I rewrote your text in a way that is more common, but I tried to leave your sentences as unchanged as possible. I mean that I tried to not change which words you used. I wrote some comments in your text in [].

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

REDY said:
Hello, because I and some others(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=344369) want improve their English language, I created this thread. Unlike other 101 threads, there is one advantage - you dont need write bilingualy. There should be some differences between American, Australian and British English, so different views are welcomed.
Click to expand...
Hello. I, and some other people, want to improve our English, so I created this thread. Unlike other 101 threads, there is one advantage - you don't need to write bilingually. There should be some differences between American, Australian, and British English, so different views are welcome.

My experience with English is quite bad. Our class was divided to better and worse part, of course that I was in worse one. We had nearly every school year different teacher and besides one teacher from Australia the quality was poor, not in English but in teaching skills. My marks were around C. I am not sure what system you have in Angloamerican world, we have marks 1-5 where 1 is best and 5 is worst, so I presume that you have A-E. In leaving exam I achieved B because good theme (horror and fantasy in English literature).
Click to expand...
My experience with English is quite bad. Our class was divided into parts, the good part [do you mean the good students?] and the bad part. Of course, I was in the bad one. Nearly every year, we had different teachers. Other than one teacher from Australia, the quality was poor. I mean their teaching skills, not their English. My marks were around Cs. I am not sure what system you have in the English speaking world, but we have marks 1-5 where 1 is best and 5 is worst. So I presume that you have A-E. In the exit exam, I achieved a B because it had a good theme (horror and fantasy in English literature).

In abroad I was quite young, when I participated in school trip for week in London my English skills were too low to improve my English. Todays I would take advantage of that trip much better. In Slavic countries(Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland) I havent needed English because in tourist places people could speak basic Czech and even when couldnt, languages were too close.
Click to expand...
I went abroad when I was quite young, when I participated in a school trip for a week in London. My English skills were far too poor to work on my English to improve them. Today, I would benefit from that type of trip much more. In Slavic countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, etc.), I haven't needed English because in tourist places people could speak basic Czech and even when they couldn't, the languages were similar.

In other trips I was as small child without any foreign language skills (Italy, Switzerland) or for very short time(Austria, Germany). In university there were some other exams. Translation of 150 pages to Czech (I chose history book about John of Gaunt, maybe you noted that I asked for help there), discussion with native speaker (we had terrible raw about America´s role in world, so he rather wrote my mark to not meet me again) and abstract from lectures in English. There are few English courses, its quite problem get there and its too boring.

Please fix :)
Click to expand...
On other trips, I was like a small child without any foreign language skills (Italy, Switzerland) or I was there for a very short time (Austria, Germany). At my university [In Britain, that would be "In university". Not in the US.], there were some other exams. Translation of 150 pages to Czech (I chose a history book about John of Gaunt; maybe you could guess [you wrote "noted". I'm not sure what you meant.] that I asked for help there), discussion with native speaker (we had a terrible row about America's role in world, and he wrote a note to not meet me again) and abstracts from lectures in English. There are few English courses. They are difficult to get to and they're boring.

Please fix that for me. :)
 
My experience with English is quite bad. Our class was divided (...)
Click to expand...

Shouldn't there be "my class"?

Czech is a very "collectivist" language; we tend to overuse 1st person plural when speaking in English. Watch it, here's the Czenglish lesson dealing with this particular topic.
 
To be honest, many of the example uses (1 and 4) of the "we" in that Czenglish page sounds more like a weird patronising register or just kind of overly elaborate or redundant, rather than outright wrong.
 
Czech is a very "collectivist" language;
Click to expand...

That's why Communism should be reinstalled in Czechia. It clearly suits the people's mentality. :mischief:
 
Arwon said:
To be honest, many of the example uses (1 and 4) of the "we" in that Czenglish page sounds more like a weird patronising register or just kind of overly elaborate or redundant, rather than outright wrong.
Click to expand...

The textbook is meant to be used by advanced students. You're right that it sometimes goes too far, but many things it deals with are pretty important.

Lone Wolf said:
That's why Communism should be reinstalled in Czechia. It clearly suits the people's mentality. :mischief:
Click to expand...

:D Too bad we're also violently individualistic when it comes to lifestyle and respect for authorities :)
 
Yeah it's certainly an observable thing worth training Czechs out of. The use of "we" or "our" is more marked, even if there are circumstances where it can be correct.

I'm trying to think why "our class" sounds so much more normal than "our town" or "our country". Nothing comes to mind. Maybe it's a subject/object distinction?
 
BTW, how weird is that when someone mixes up British and American English? I am afraid my brain isn't capable of keeping the two entirely separate.
 
I mean it in general. When you see (hear) someone mixing British and American English, does it sound weird? Will it raise an eyebrow?
 
I'm open to corrections too!

I don't know how good my English is exactly. I understand it pretty well, and have no trouble reading, although I misunderstand English far more often than Finnish. However I'm not too good at writing what I think. Simple things might be easy to say, but almost always when I try to write something more complex it feels like there's a wall that I just can't climb over.

One reason for this difficulty might be that I type English much slower than Finnish, and so I try to pack more information to one sentence. The result is that I have sometimes trouble understanding my own text afterwards. Also I used to be little shy on using "fancy" words, even when it could make the writing more accurate and clear. Now I've got over it, and perhaps moved to the other direction and use them too much... ;)

Prepositions and punctuation are hard for me too. I don't know whether I did something in Sunday or at Sunday etc. And I have no faintest idea about the rules of English punctuation.
 
Winner said:
I mean it in general. When you see (hear) someone mixing British and American English, does it sound weird? Will it raise an eyebrow?
Click to expand...
Hmm, let me put it this way.

If I read something where the writer has mixed British spellings with American spellings, it looks weird.

If I read something where the writer has mixed British phrases ("in university") with American phrases ("at the hospital") it looks weird.

If I hear a British person attempting to speak with an American accent and he does it poorly, it sounds awful. The Monty Python guys had the worst American accents ever in Flying Circus and Meaning of Life. For years, I had no idea what accents they were attempting to imitate until one day, it dawned on me that they're doing extremely bad American accents. Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoBTsMJ4jNk
Michael Palin's character at 1:50, 3:00, 3:30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp7-TDIW94g&feature=related
Graham Chapman's character at 2:30.

Terry Gilliam is actually an American and he sounds fine to me.

EDIT: This is what I was looking for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNDr4Rq9Eog&feature=related
At around 0:44, Michael Palin and Eric Idle do the worst American accents of all time.
 
Winner said:
I mean it in general. When you see (hear) someone mixing British and American English, does it sound weird? Will it raise an eyebrow?
Click to expand...

As an American, I'd probably take you for a Britfag.
A Briton would probably take you for the opposite.
 
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