Englisch- thread

[Shepherd]

hi folks,

Quite a good idea to open this thread. I confess, i´d never took a lesson. My writing of the (us)english is only a matter of guessing. Speaking it is rather easy for me.
I´d learned it by hearing and trying to repeat. Some old songs and movies where helfpul to facilitate the practising and to enrich my vocabulary, ... to this day a lousy one.
Anyway, i never had a problem to order a burger with fried potatoes or to cuss awfully about things that went wrong - thats the most important, aint that right ?
Only when i began (to try) to read Mark Twain in his original tongue, i stopped imaging, that i ever would be capable reading Joyces Ulysses in a correct british. Would´nt i ? I guess no

[Mygga]

@ Shepherd: It's all a matter of training. :)

[Punzeline]

@ all who are trying to speak/ write better English:

Having taken English to a fairly high level at school, it might be hard to believe that I really had a lot of trouble learning English at the beginning. At school, all there ever seemed to be was grammar (and grammar tests), vocabulary (and vocabulary tests), and everything in writing. We rarely listened to the audio tapes that accompanied our English textbook, instead our teacher read it to us (and even if her English was good, she was NOT a native speaker). Also, we only had to read it aloud in class one time or so. Pronounciation, and English speaking skills altogether weren't important to get good grades.
Weeeeeell, it all changed when my parents got me all the audio tapes that went with the textbook and I listened to them, over and over, just skimming over the vocabulary section to get a grasp of what was actually being said there... and then, after knowing what it was all about (and that was not difficult, the stories were quite simple, really), I just listened, listened, listened. And I started reading out loud, to my stuffed animals, and all of a sudden the "th"-sound came out quite nicely. And my grammar improved. Because I just "felt" what was right. In grammar or vocabulary tests, my grades got better, not quite as good as the ones in free writing (where we had to write simple sentences ourselves and not stupid exercises where you had to fill in the blank spaces with the appropriate verb form - forms I know had a name, but none that I cared about, I just KNEW which form was right).
So, when I got bigger, I never studied a vocabulary list again. Nor did I learn the names for the tenses. Instead, I just listened to the audio tapes, knew how to pronounce them, and together with the stories, I studied words in action (or in context, I think it's called).
Soon, I rarely used a bilingual dictionary anymore. I got to know the Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary where all words are explained in English. That's actually why I used to completely f**k up translation exercises because I simply wouldn't know the word in German fast enough, for all I ever knew was what the sentence meant, and I couldn't be bothered with the meaning (and translation) of single words in it!

Nowadays, with the whole internet full of English, and (internet) shops selling DVDs (with subtitles...), books and everything else in English at a reasonable price - the world is OPEN for English learners. You can listen to radio from English-speaking countries, watch video clips in English, study on-line language courses, read English blogs, news, you can make "pen pals" (or rather, e-mail pals), you can even talk to English-speaking people over Skype for free.

Isn't it great?

There are language (self learn) courses called Assimil which implement the "assimilation" method (learning the language like you learned your first language). It makes learning new languages for learners like me easy, and fun!

And for anyone who would like to read books with "good" British English, I'd recommend Agatha Christie books (especially the Miss Marple ones, because I guess everyone knows the plot of these). They are not too difficult, and all the sentences seem to me like textbook British English.

Have fun!
punzel

[Lady Nivea]

Zitat von Shepherd

...i never had a problem to order a burger with fried potatoes...

Did you ever order a coffee in Canada with a british accent? What you get is a Coke . Well, I did anyway. And so I learned to pronounce the british 'kofi' the way the Canadians do: 'kaafi'...

[Shepherd]

Looks like there´s a luxemburgish influence in the Quebec-airea Canadian "kaafi" is called "Kaffi" in Luxemburg. I recon, that the luxemburgish name of this liquid has been influenced by the french "café" und the german "Kaffee".

btw, i prefer listening to canadian english rather then to their french "quebequois". It sounds to me a bit like "Express-Creol".

[Lady Nivea]

Well, I don't remember how Quebequois sounds like. All I know is: I didn't understand a word.

It was in the late seventies when I went to Canada as an au-pair. I was in a place called Burlington, somewhere between Toronto and the Niagara Falls. The family I lived with moved there from Montreal just a few weeks earlier. The kids went to a French speaking school and I thought that was great, as I would be able to practice Englisch as well as French. I wasn't... Trying to help the kids with their homework, the six-year-old suddenly said to me: "I thought you can speak French..." Thank you very much you nasty little horror!

At least the little one found it quite funny teaching me to pronounce specific words correctly. For example: three. No-one whose native language is not English can pronounce this word without stumbling over his own tongue. First you need to squeeze your tongue between the teeth for the 'th' and then move it back quickly into your throat for the canadian/american 'r'. You are lucky if your tongue is not knotted by that time. The little one taught me how he pronounced it. He didn't say 'thrii' as I did, he said 'the-rii'. It's really easy pronouncing it that way.

Well, the test was quite good. The book under the pillow works
Now I need to learn vocabulary - job specific ....

I decided to try a vocabulary trainer .... with your own words in database. There are a lot of freeware offers in internet.

Another way would be to create their own database with Access or OpenOffice Base .... I wanted to try, but I am too lazy ....

If you want to know, how to build a vocabulary database, try this tut:

Mehrsprachige Vokabeldatenbank [Access im Unternehmen]

Mostly I have problems with the forms, creating the database itself with all relations is easier

Have fun (would the American say ... it is the only sense of life .....)

[Mygga]

Why so complicated? Excel works as a database, too.
Just a question of design...

Mygga

I don't think so ??? Really ? I thought Excel just has tables, which cannot connected in the special way, that there ist no redundance of data.
And what about the forms for querys ?
In my opinion Excel is not a database ... you just have a sheet for a normal table ...

[ann_a]

are there still any English speaking forumels?
I didn't read this topic so I continue alone

How did you learn your English?
What are you thinking about spring?