Topic: The english language improvement thread - page 2. (Read 13049 times)

So, here's what I did to one of your posts. It's not perfect, but I wanted to leave as much of the original as possible. Your posts are good, much better than what the children of today are writing on social media. You have enough skills and knowledge to self improve, just keep using the language and you'll get better. Those minor mistakes will start disappearing, you'll see.

Hi, firstly thank you for helping those in need, I believe I am among them. I'm trying to get more quality posts, so I can rank up. I read the forum as much as I can to learn. I know that beside understanding technical matters, language and expression are also very important to attract readers. I must confess, I use translation tools regularly, to help me with spelling. Can you please tell me what should I fix? Maybe you could also check some of my posts if it isn't too much to ask?

It would mean a lot to me, thank you.

Just to put things in perspective -

Suppose a group of four English speaking people are having a discussion about cars, and a fifth person forces himself into the conversation with almost non-existent English skills. He demands to know how he can claim free money from the government to buy a car without working for it. This money will have been taken from the taxation paid by the English speakers.

It's starting to feel as if this is the approach taken by many new members ( but not all ), and some of us are starting to resent it. Their interference in the conversations on the boards is spoiling it for those of us with a primary interest in Bitcoin.

Making sure you're understood is more important than having perfect English. But sometimes the mistakes/oversights just get in the way of a clear meaning. I'm sure people would just ask for clarification then, no?

Do you mean negative trust comments or comments in a thread? I think that we shouldn't use trust to rate people's language skills.
Commenting in a thread can be explained. Imagine that you want to read a thread and find yourself scrolling through posts that are unreadable. All you can get out of them is Bitcoin ***** Bitcoin **** me like**** good Bitcoin. And all this when there's google translate and your local subforum. Some people have to either put minimum effort into their posts, or use the appropriate local sections.



Of course, since it's no longer allowing shitposters to rank up and you're not even trying to hide that it was your main reason for registering.

So true, also to not be concerned (too much) about making mistakes when talking or for that matter, when writing.  It's be repetition that one will improve.  Also it's a good idea to try and immerse oneself in English by listening to English speaking radio, reading articles written by native English speakers and watching vids with native English speakers. 

The more one immerses themselves in it the better one will become.

As a non-English native, I have found that the best ways of improving one's English is a simple but uneasy trick, which is to write and speak it as often as you would like to get better at it

I wonder who put negative comments on those whose control of the English language is sub-par.  I really don't think we should be picking on those who's first language in not English.  We should be understandable and help them instead.

Great Idea for a thread!

I want to improve my English as well, let alone grammar and punctuation

Learning by doing is the best way for me, but maybe others are more into observing/reading...

Also, a good way to improve your English (in my personal opinion), is to use apps like Memrise or Duolingo.


And don't forget, everything you learn gives you another advantage in your life.
So keep learning every day, it's worth it.



 

I realize that my English can't be said to good enough, because English is not my primary language, but i tried my best to improve it day by day.
The things that i do to improve my English :
1. Listen to a music/song , try to sing it, and translate it to my native language so i can know the meaning of that song's lyric.
2. Watching movies with my native language subtitle , but i tried to not looking to the subtitle, focused to the movie and the sound, and when i don't know  the meaning of they talking about, then i look to the subtitle.
3. Chatting with someone that can used English so well or correctly, even i'm not sure if they can understand my bad english, but i oftenly said "please correct my english if something is not correct"

What do you think about it? Do you have any other ways to improve English language?

But this in an English language thread.

Did you men this post?


I would have said -

I'm using "Grammarly for Firefox" as an addon, not only it does correct spelling, but some grammar such as tenses, prepositions, and others. I hope this will help someone who has bad English like me.

As you can see, I edited this reply thanks to Grammarly.

Punctuation is not my strongest point, so you may need a second opinion on my post.

There is a good site that will help non-native speakers https://languagetool.org

One thing I notice a lot, and this was the case also when I had my Asian helper who is from Taiwan, and that is many times the use of 'the' in connection with a noun.   Looking at google it says the is an article

  "The word "the" is one of the most common words in English. It is our only definite article. Nouns in English are preceded by the definite article when the speaker believes that the listener already knows what he is referring to."

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about.  Instead of saying or writing 'I went to the store' I see or hear 'I went store'

'I was writing the report' versus 'I was writing report'   'Let's (contraction of Let us) go to the beach' versus 'Let's go beach'. 

I think the reason for this is many languages have a different way of structuring sentences and don't use the article 'the' and that is ingrained into one's brain. 

To remedy this I think it takes doing a lot of reading and listening and time.  I hope this helps.

I'm gonna be honest, I have been using the English language every day for a few years now, three or so, but I still find myself worried about my spelling and especially my vocabulary, I believe there are many people like me who just learned the idiom by pure practice and use, no courses and other sorts of formal training.
What are the mistakes you often see around here regarding grammar and general knowledge? I'm going to keep them in mind so I don't repeat when posting. Any other advice you could give is welcome.

I think the most important thing for anyone to do who wants to get better at using English is to listen to it as much as possible, try to use it whenever possible and don't worry (too much) about making errors, just try to learn from them.  For learning how to get better at writing it, take classes and/or read as much material in English.  It's amazing how much information will go into your sub conscious by doing that, almost like osmosis in a way.

Also take advantage of all the software that is available to help, try to find someone who's better at English than you to go over what you're doing wrong.

I honestly don't think it's wrong to use the help of Google Translate to post as long as that person understand basic English.  I think most non-native speakers understand when they're reading English, but they may have a hard time trying to put their thoughts in English.  So they could actually start to write in their native language, then use Google translate, and then go back and fix some of the errors.

Just for the record,to all readers:
If your english isn't that good, but your main language is Turkish or German, I would love to help you with a translation, for free of course !
So as long as you dont have a whole whitepaper to get translated I offer you my help !

Btw, to the thread moderator: very good idea !

I suppose that my point really is that modifications and subset restrictions around the world make the learning and spelling of English harder. The sibilant "ass" derived I assume from "arse" can cause confusion if a person thinks of an ass as a fool or donkey like animal. There are many variations of English from Ugandan to the French based Canadian, and many of them are found on the internet. It is unfortunate that English is losing some of its richness and subtlety as American becomes ubiquitous.

While that may be true in Great Britian I can assure you that here in the states to, too, and two all sound identical when used in conversation.

Regarding the above mentioned words, two of course is the pronunciation of the letter 2.  Too is used to indicate an excess such as 'I had too much to eat last night' or 'I was driving too fast and almost crashed!'

To is a bit more difficult to easily outline so I'll go to the dictionary for some help with its definition.

to
to͞o,tə/
preposition
preposition: to

    1.
    expressing motion in the direction of (a particular location).
    "walking down to the mall"
        expressing location, typically in relation to a specified point of reference.
        "forty miles to the south of the site"
        expressing a point reached at the end of a range or after a period of time.
        "a drop in profits from $105 million to around $75 million"
        (in telling the time) before (the hour specified).
        "it's five to ten"
        approaching or reaching (a particular condition).
        "Christopher's expression changed from amazement to joy"
        expressing the result of a process or action.
        "smashed to smithereens"
    2.
    identifying the person or thing affected.
    "you were terribly unkind to her"
        identifying the recipient or intended recipient of something.
        "he wrote a heart-rending letter to the parents"
    3.
    identifying a particular relationship between one person and another.
    "he is married to Jan's cousin"
        in various phrases indicating how something is related to something else (often followed by a noun without a determiner).
        "made to order"
        indicating a rate of return on something, e.g., the distance traveled in exchange for fuel used, or an exchange rate that can be obtained in one currency for another.
        "it only does ten miles to the gallon"
        Mathematics
        indicating the power (exponent) to which a number is raised.
        "ten to the minus thirty-three"
    4.
    indicating that two things are attached.
    "he had left his bike chained to a fence"
    5.
    concerning or likely to concern (something, especially something abstract).
    "a threat to world peace"
    6.
    governing a phrase expressing someone's reaction to something.
    "to her astonishment, he smiled"
    7.
    used to introduce the second element in a comparison.
    "it's nothing to what it once was"

infinitive marker
to: to

    1.
    used with the base form of a verb to indicate that the verb is in the infinitive, in particular.
        expressing purpose or intention.
        "I set out to buy food"
        expressing an outcome, result, or consequence.
        "he was left to die"
        expressing a cause.
        "I'm sorry to hear that"
        indicating a desired or advisable action.
        "I'd love to go to France this summer"
        indicating a proposition that is known, believed, or reported about a specified person or thing.
        "a house that people believed to be haunted"
        forming a future tense with reference to the immediate future.
        "he was about to sing"
        after a noun, indicating its function or purpose.
        "a chair to sit on"
        after a phrase containing an ordinal number.
        "the first person to arrive"
    2.
    used without a verb following when the missing verb is clearly understood.
    "he asked her to come but she said she didn't want to"

Regarding the use of 'Americanisms' as I'm an American that is only to be expected.  Our country is famous for integrating words from the entire world and Americanizing them.  With our huge melting pot of millions of people from every conceivable part of the planet living here and becoming part of the American dream it's only natural that we absorb, digest, and I guess in your opinion, mutilate many words. So be it, we're basically the Borg of the written and spoken word.  Of course we owe our written and spoken heritage to the Anglo Saxon roots of our culture, nourished in the mother country which many of us still hold close to our hearts.

P.S.  In the United States we don't write colour, we write color and pronounce it just as it's written, that's the case with many words that in English English end in our, usually not the case here.