improving my English

Mr. Pointy said:
...not to mention lead and lead, pronounced led (the metal) and leed (to show the way or to guide - among other meanings) - which can also be pronounced led in the past tense...my brain hurts! 🙂
Click to expand...



And try teaching that (among other things) to children....

I guarantee you will need lots of ibuprofen!
 
I have another question.
When do you say 'me' and when do you say 'I'? Maybe it's just me but again, it seems so random to me in some sentences. Like 'He and I were going out' or 'He and me were going out'. What is correct? I think I might have heard both
 
November
November
I would say myself and him (insert name) but i dont know how correct that is.
'He and I' is officially and grammatically correct but people who's native language is English have a bad habit of saying 'Him and me' or 'he and me' so it's not like it isn't understood, if you get me?
 
Tueuse de Vampires
Tueuse de Vampires
yup, I think I do
Frenchy Faith said:
Ditto! I HATE cases! lol I did Latin, German and Russian & I've never managed to overcome the problem! It took me 2 years of German and 3 of Latin just to start understanding how they work (I'm dumb and really bad at grammar... although compared to kids I teach, I guess I'm pretty good since I know what an adjective is LOL)... let alone learning the endings and sticking them to the words correctly!

But seriously, the verb stay the same with all pronoun, the tenses are pretty simple (just the word 'will' to put your sentence in the future, could you seriously make it simpler?), no cases, no verb endings to worry about...
Click to expand...

Yeah, so far English was the easiest language to learn for me (in the above mentioned case), but even Spanish and Latin appeared much easier than French.
French has the pronuciation disaster and all those extra letters in each word that are ignored while reading! Brain dammage here!

Hungarian, though, seems the most complicated so far, so I don't even try to study it.

As it was already stated before - listening to and singing along the songs (in English, for example) - is the best way to improve language skills - it helped me alot to finally understand the Spoken French - I could get written text at once (thanx to general European language similarities), but to recognize the actual words during someone's speech - it was impossible.

Songs+Movies = cool solution.
 
I always say "Ashley and me" or "Emily and me" but yes, its gramatically incorrect. Its "Ashley and I". But I like to bug my parents by saying it! lol!
 
On the "I" or "me" question, I've always been told to take the other person out of the sentence and use whichever pronoun would fit that way. So you'd say "I am going to the store," hence, "He and I are going to the store." Or "Why are you mad at me?" hence "Why are you mad at him and me?" (Although in that last case, I'd probably just use "us." But you get the idea.)
 
Mr. Pointy
Mr. Pointy
Five house points for a good tip...I've heard that before but had forgotten it :)
Hello🙂

me as well, i want to improve my incorret English...or is it "e"nglish?? i dont know.. please, help me.. im originally from morocco, so the first language to learn is (after arabian) french..so, i guess this forum could be a big help🙂 i like to talk to french speaking people as well, if there is any bedarf(dont know the english word)..


i look forward to talk to anyone helpful🙂
thank you in advance🙂
 
Hi, KC: It's English with a capital E. Social Suicide already has me trailing her around fixing her English, so I don't mind doing the same for you. 🙂
 
For BB threads in many languages you guys might want to visit our international forums. If memory serves me correctly, we have French, German, Spanish, Swedish and other forums, as well as a general area for all international Buffy, Angel and Whedonverse discussion.
Buffy and Angel International - Buffy-Boards
 
Hmm, my English sucks but I can give you an advice ^^:

Subtitles - Get Buffy DVDs and watch the episodes with English subtitles. If you remember the dialogues in your native language you will easily relate the English sentences to their meaning. Also, you'll be able to see how every word they say is written, which is very useful too.

I remember I used to do that with Angel and Harry Potter.

I knew every single Harry Potter line in Spanish (and now, in English, too) so, everytime I read "Now if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you can come up with another clever idea to get us all killed or worse, expelled" I just knew exactly what it meant in Spanish.

Once you know the dialogues in both languages, it's really easy to use those words during a conversation. Let's say I forgot how to say 'inteligente' in English. I just had to remember what Hermione had said. Clever 😀

It may seem really silly but it's actually quite helpful 😛
 
If you want to learn English don't get an American usage ie BTVS DVD's. For instance in English, ' you can take an item to a person, you can ask that person to to bring you that item, that person will have brought you that item, in American that person will say I will take that item to you, not I will bring that item to you '. Also the spellings of words in English colour, tyre, can be different in American English, color, tire. Then there are phrases, to shoot a gun would be American but the English is to fire a gun.
 
Then there are phrases, to shoot a gun would be American but the English is to fire a gun.
Click to expand...
I truly didn't know there was a difference there. I think I've used both- not that I talk about guns a lot- but I'm sure I have used both. Hmm, that's an interesting little factoid.
 
There is so many differences between the countries. I have a friend recently migrated from England and sometimes I dont have a clue what she is on about and vice versa!! Its not only slang that gets mixed between countries though. Like Illyrian said - spelling differs from country to country. I had an american step dad and I used to always get busted at school for spelling words the american way! Also names like "Tara", we would pronounce that as "Tar - rah" not "te- ra" .
Dont learn from my punctuation and sentance structure tho!! LOL
 
Yeah, it really does depend on if you want to learn American or British English. I, obviously, speak American English (though I do know some about British English, being a Brit. Lit. major, but not as much as a native British speaker), so if you're trying to learn British English, we should probably find another person to follow you around and correct your grammar just to be sure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom