They judge you by your language, they do
As a mentioned a bit earlier, I attended a meeting this week. An international one, in which took part people from 10 different countries. While there were 27 of us, only two were native speakers, or the so called bearers of the language.
I overheard (not to be mistaken with eavesdropped 🙂 ) that during a break between the panels, some of our colleagues were judging the intelligence of the others by… their knowledge of English. And those judges were not the natives, mind you!
So, they do not judge not only by your appearance, clothes, height, weight, beauty, what-else-not, but also by your vocabulary and grammar. They put you in these categories of theirs and no matter how well you can express yourself in your own language, you shall be considered a half-professional till you learn every rule of the English language (European English might count if you would use your charm).
Strange or not?
What a longtime English teacher Patricia Ryan wants to tell us (them) is:
Don’t insist on English!
She has a point, that lady 😉
Your not-that-grammarly perfect,
Those native speakers
I attended a meeting these past few days and got the chance to learn a pinch to a bunch (depends on your hand size) new things:
The interesting word/phrase for today is BOILERPLATE.
But what does it mean?
The term “boilerplate” has been adopted by lawyers to describe those parts of a contract that are considered “standard language”.
The word has also come into use for pre-created form letters on the Internet for things such as issues to be broached by a politician based on an issue ad, requesting a cable network be added to a system by a cable or satellite operator, or a pre-written complaint about something such as a program, book, or video game opposed by a group which created the letter, along with online petitions. Usually the greeting and the body of the letter have been pre-written, requiring the person requesting the action to only type or sign his name at the end.
British Accents
You thought there is only one, didn’t you ? 🙂
In fact, there is no “British English” – there are oh-so-many of them. If you, however, meant the official accent, you probably have in mind the RP (meaning “Received Pronunciation”), a.k.a. “Queen’s English” or “BBC English”.
Now, let us get back to the topic and take a tour across Britain:
What is your accent?
Do you like the RP or the “American” English better? What about the Aussies?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Yours truly,
Ready, steady..GO!
So, today is the day to begin, to initiate, to start off, to commence, to take to my bloggin’.
If you came here searching for a place to learn elementary English and form the very basics of your knowledge, I do sorry but it would not be very helpful. I want to create us a place where we can excel, learn new things, create a community and above all – use the language. Bit by bit, inch by inch, word by word , even phoneme by phoneme, if needed.
So… let me introduce you to an interesting piece of writing, originally published on http://learningbritishaccent.blogspot.com
English May Discourage Students from Learning a New Language
What are the factors that both motivate and impede us from learning foreign languages? A recent study by Alastair Henry at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden examines Swedish students’ decreased interest and success rate in learning languages besides English.
According to Henry, many students in Sweden prefer to use English on a regular basis, and they often use it as a resource language when learning other languages. Henry’s findings show that this negatively affects students’ motivation to learn other languages, and it can affect their actual abilities to learn foreign languages as well. Read More…
AWARDS
Just English 