The art of learning a language

English as a Second Language New ESL Forum Member?
1

Hi,
My name is Kelly I am from England and I live in Germany. I am an English language teacher, I am a fanatic about R&B, Soul, Funk and Jazz music. I have lived in the USA, Hawaii, France and Luxembourg. My background is radio and TV journalisum and as radio (DJ) and TV announcer.
Radio is now a hobby, I am on-air every Friday at 20:00 CET till 24:00 with a Black Music show. www.caibaradio.net then click on Tune In.

Music is a form of communication, and the music in the language you speak is important to annouce to your listening partner that you are happy, sad, nutral, troubled serious etc etc…

When speaking a foreign language remember it is not what you say, it’s the WAY in which you say it.

Language in it’s written form also has music, the music is created via “puctuation marks” i.e. . , ; ? ! “” - – etc…

Remember, you want the reader of your letter/email to read and understand it they way you wrote it and the way YOU want them to understand it, not the way they read INTO it.

You should be very carefull when using these marks, if you place, for example, a comma in the wrong place you can change the entire meaning of the sentance:

VERSION 1:
A woman, without her man is nothing.

VERSION 2:
A woman without her, man is nothing.

If you take a small pause when you read the comma both of the above sentances will “SING” the correct and intended meanings, the message is clear.

Version one - could - have been written by a man, however, saying that, version 2 could have been written, by a woman? Maybe? (please note the punctuation marks)

So I hope you find this of interest. Learn and communicate!

:wink:
Kelly

2

Hi Kelly,

The way you got introduced to this forum is awesome. Welcome aboard. You really have some interesting stuff to share with us. Keep sharing.

Thanks,
Samrat

3

Hi People of the world

It’s me again with some tips and observations on how we use and see the languages.
First of all this;

“Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef but the wrod as a wlohe.”

HHHHHmmmm, interesting!!

Then, there is the extreme;

"The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceeded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as “Euro-English”. In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year,when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e"s inthe language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such asreplasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz year,ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zervil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!”

Ok, now that you have stopped laughing, lets get to the real thing, PREPOSITIONS.

These little guys will get you into trouble if you use the wrong one!!! They are not flexible there is no grey area and they mean what they mean, try, for example, to explain the prepostion “in” without using the word “in”. You’ll find it is not possible because in is in and out is out, a little bit in or out is not possible and has a different meaning.

Next time prepositions of movement :slight_smile:

Be good to each other and try to understand each other, this is the only place we have to live so lets communicate with one another.

cya

Kelly

:lol:

4

Hi,

You say you are an English teacher - don’t let the side down! I refer to the rogue apostrophe in it’s written form. Here’s hoping it was just a typing mistake.

Alan

5

Hi Dave,
OOPS!
I must say that I didn’t notice that one at all, I have been reading a book on punctuation called “Eats Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss. I think some of it just got lodged on the 's. Thank you for the comment.

Kelly

6

Who’s Dave? By the way what about nutral - carefull -sentance - lets - conceeded ? Incidentally you go on about the comma but the title of the book is Eats,shoots and leaves.

7

Hi Alan,
Well Dave, err sorry Alan I was replying to another response and naturally his name is Dave.
I certainly must concentrate a little harder on what I am doing in the future, again sorry for the error.

Blow me down, it’s just not my week is it, when taking a closer look at the title on the cover of the book I saw this lovely little comma. Maybe the stress is showing I need some time off work, stress does get to you sometimes.

Many thanks

Kelly

8

Hi Kelly,

I certainly enjoyed your hilarious dissertation, which I’ve only just read as I’m new on this site. Let’s only hope English (or any other language, for that matter) will never be officially mutilated…

9

Joining Kelly, I would say that it is not only punctuations and prepositions that can change the meaning of words but also articles. Image two situations by trying to understand the meaning of the sentences below:
a) to seat in the front of the car
a) to seat in front of the car

Thanks

Zahir Ahmadov

10

Hi Ahmadov,

I’m a bit confused. Do you mean ‘to sit’ And I think you mean: Imagine two situations …

Alan

11

Thanks a lot Alan,
I sometimes confuse “seat” (noun) with “sit” (verb) but I understand their meanings. The problem with “imagine” was just my typing mistake.
By the way, I have decided to read all the pages in the “English Teacher Exlanations” and “English Grammar and Vocabulary” sections and save all new words, word combinations, as well as your comments and explanations in a separate Word document. I want to benefit from this web site as much as I can. Users could do this inside the web site itself, i.e. in space allocated for them, if they were offered such opportunity, instead of in a different document. I offered this under “Feedback and Comments” a few days ago, but did not get any reply. I believe that this would add to the popularity of your web site. Can you tell me what you think about this?

12

"The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government

Hi all good people of the world , hi all bad people,
I was really sad when I have read this , it is unjustice ,
it will be unjustice even with German and any normal language, language is to much political ,people never will be able put it apart, due to this situation will be many conflicts
no one nation will resign from their home made tradition
between mother and child
english is not just second language it is language second learned but playing the role of first one in too many items.
Esperanto may be a help , real modern esperanto
created from all alive languages bring peace , bring justice
Behind old Esperanto are no armies no political influances
no negotiations , what is backing Esperanto is simple idea
people who understand each other may stop fight each other or at list will be hard to misguide them.
Shame really shame millons of people are not gifted enough
to master full develop foreign langauge but them may do this wtih something like it was Esperanto, they can’t pay the price to be free and equal EU have lost again alot of time a lot of time.
After some conflicts we will see the idea does not fit
nationalism will grow and God forgive us all.
sad news sad news
Jan

13

Oh dear! Aren’t you being just a tiny bit pessimistic here? Anyway, whether it’s Esperanto or Kidie Lafafa, people would still find a reason to fight, don’t you think? It’s just in the human nature. Oops! Now I’m the one who sounds down in the dumps! And I’m not. Or am I? But it’s a fact and there’s not much we can do about it. John, wherever you are, we’ll have to go on singing your song. Not you, Jan, I mean the one from Liverpool who imagined an impossible world – impossible in this era, anyway. (I know, I know, I shouldn’t write after a certain hour, so I’ll call it a day).

Let me just add that I, for one, wouldn’t mind having to learn Esperanto or Yawarawarga or whatever.

14

Hi Jan, please try to stick to the facts. What are you doing is stir up emotions. Who said that English is the official language of the EU? As a EU citizen you should know that currently there are exactly 20 official languages of the EU one of which is Polish, your mother tongue. Another of those 20 languages happens to be English which is a good thing because it enables people from different countries to communicate with each other directly rather than through an interpreter. Esperanto is an artificial language that is spoken by a small group of enthusiasts. A language has to live, it has to grow, to develop and to change. This is not the case with Esperanto.
Jan, maybe I don’t understand what exactly you want to say? What is your point? Are you unhappy because the English language is spread so widely?
I hope to talk to you again soon.
Olaf

PS: In your profile it says you are at sea? That’s very interesting. How do you access the Internet? Satellite I guess?

15

Hi,
Norway like Holland Belgium Sweden and many many
other small but great countries ( I mean more in population
than in size ) see the matter diffrent but they suffer in the same way.
I have nothing to do
with politic but, I can see onstreets of Rome, Genova
St Petersburg, Barcelona ,Marsylie, Boulogne in Kioto or
Rio De Janerio that English there was just is "artifisial "
nobody exept small noble group is able to communicate
The is unjuctice the is due to ignorance we are a little responible for this.
Esperanto has been created more than one hundred years ago today we may create new Esperanto wich will be
fully recognized by each nation because may be built propotional from their vocublary, will be without hidden
danger to export ideaology or politic , will be language
of everybody because everybody will built him as well not only use.
I am not stirring up,
It is like in segregation politic aparheid or anything like this
if you want justice you stir up the saint order.
I am a seaman and in love with travel and everything far away from my mother country or language, what I have said is more mental mumbo jumbo for everybody
because it is no fashion and naive but this is the truth.
I was once eager to find the beautty of Brits place
years studing patience at home and first visit in London
after twenty minutes of converstion with one fellow
I got something like "You Know Polish is Quiet Simmilar To
Our Language I almost can understand You.
HOW COULD I BEAT HIM IF HE HAS TO DO ONE STEP
AND ME 1000 STEPS
I was in London no for england or no even for english girls
i was pure there because somewhere you need to start to travel nothing else.
sorry for grammar and spelling
It is sad still very sad news I will be happy to read what do you think about it.
regards
Jan

16

Holland and Belgium used to have a lot of colonies in Africa and they made other nations learn Flamish/Dutch and French. I can’t see how people in Norway, Sweden or any other country are suffering from having to learn another language. As Alanis Morissette puts it - you live you learn. You can say that the invention of the automobile was bad news which made a lot of people sad. But then again it was also good news to other people. It’s all a question of whose interests prevail. Nobody can force you to do anything. If you don’t like the English language you don’t have to learn it. You can stick to Polish and communicate with people who speak your language. That is good news, isn’t it?
Olaf

17

Hi,
nice to read that, yes I feel now much more better.
Sorry to confuse you we are all the kids of Eva and Adam
I really don’t think that vikings were much more better than Dutch or anybody (today or in the past).
The is not a point.
i believe in math I have done my homework and in my opinion foreign language is very hard to learn.
They are exemptions most probably you are one of them.
but exemption’s emphasise the general rule or maybe not?
I stick to my mother tongue and will protect it thank you
I got the point even if it is not Polish.
Brits were concerned to impose compulsory Esperanto to their schools at 90’ but have been stopped by themselves
( politics contra scholars) because why should we do something even reasonable if it will be against us ?
This wouldn’t be against anybody this will help all of us
sorry I have to finish I am unable so and so to explain my point of view just in email .
I never meant to hurt or insult anybody
but mathematics can’t be cheated it comes with final results
and underway maybe a lot of blood unnecessary blood.
regards
Jan

18

hi
i like to improve in speaking, i watch movies & i read story books but i think it is noy sufficient. can you help me?
thanks