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Discussion Forum : General Topics : English Grammar - Help please

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 Re:

Dorcas,

Goodness Sister, are you an English teacher because if you are could i get free lessons. It's incredible how you break it all down. Wish i knew like you do and thank you for your response. Most helpful:-)But i fear i have a long way to go and at my old age i don't see me understanding it all in the time frame i have left.:-P

 2007/9/20 9:20









 Re: English Grammar - Help please

running2win asked

Quote:
Do you personally use an before your 'H' nouns?

I think so and I agree it sounds slightly better. When I'm writing, I'd be more likely to notice and follow the rules. I certainly do some of the time, but if an adjective beginning with a consonant is before the noun, then it's unnecessary.

Quote:
If I understand it correctly the H's were silent in old english as they are in french because of the french influence on the english language which is why in classic english you use an before 'H' nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

I hadn't thought about this but it makes sense. French did other things to English also, because they had difficulty with 'sn'; so the 's' disappeared in those constructions.

Also, 'an' may be a corruption of 'a' preceding nouns commencing with 'n'. An example I read was that the snake was originally known as the nadder, but it became 'an adder' when written English caught up with spoken English. Someone has to decide!

English is still pronounced in a wide variety of ways over here. The Scots have made a clear separation between 'the Queen's English' which they must speak and learn to write and spell in the classroom, and, the many dialects used in homes. In England, this distinction has been less clear, I think and some experiementation in the 1970s did lasting damage to the national consciousness of both grammar and spelling.

By the way, I think North Americans have done a fine job of preserving English, considering the competition it has had from other language groups.

 2007/9/20 10:21









 Re: English Grammar - Help please



Julian asked

Quote:
are you an English teacher because if you are could i get free lessons.

I'm not really an expert but I was taught a great deal more at primary school (in my day), than has been commonly taught until the last ten years over here.

I've done a little work on understanding how to communicate the essentials when I was a volunteer in adult literacy, but I'm not qualified to degree level. Far from it. However, if you're serious about needing help, please keep in touch, and if I am certain of the answer to the questions, then I'll do my best to share them with you.

There are some good resources online, but some of the parents on SI who are home-schooling will be able to give you more detailed technical answers on some intricacies, than I.

Quote:
i don't see me understanding it all in the time frame i have left.

Well... believe it or not, 80% of English is regular. The difficulty many of us face is that 20% hotch-potch of spellings and exceptions retained from long-lost languages. However, if you're not actually [i]afraid[/i], much can be demystified.

 2007/9/20 10:33
PreachParsly
Member



Joined: 2005/1/14
Posts: 2164
Arkansas

 Re:

Wasn't there a thread on here one time teaching the basics on English?


_________________
Josh Parsley

 2007/9/20 11:55Profile









 Re: Englsih Grammar - please help


Preach asked

Quote:
Wasn't there a thread on here one time teaching the basics on English?

The only other thread I started was called 'Presenting the Apostrophe'.

I've been thinking of reviving it to revise and clarify some of what may not have been as clear as it should, in my initial enthusiasm. :-?

 2007/9/20 13:06
hmmhmm
Member



Joined: 2006/1/31
Posts: 4994
Sweden

 Re:

the Apostrophe............i forget that always :-) maybe because it is hardly ever used in my mother tongue....

Please "revive" it or link to it sister...


_________________
CHRISTIAN

 2007/9/20 13:10Profile









 Re: English Grammar - Help please


hmmhmm said

Quote:
the Apostrophe............i forget
... Please "revive" it or link to it sister...

All right... Tomorrow, brother, if that's ok ... :-)

 2007/9/20 14:09









 Re:

Quote:

dorcas wrote:

...English is still pronounced in a wide variety of ways over here. The Scots have made a clear separation between 'the Queen's English' which they must speak and learn to write and spell in the classroom, and, the many dialects used in homes. In England, this distinction has been less clear, I think and some experiementation in the 1970s did lasting damage to the national consciousness of both grammar and spelling.

By the way, I think North Americans have done a fine job of preserving English, considering the competition it has had from other language groups.

That's interesting about the Scots, Linn - never knew that.

Brother Christian, your English is excellent, and far more correct than most of us who have English as a first language.

The type of English seems to take on the rhythms, word order etc of the original language of the area, or the first language of the person. For example, in my home area there's Welsh-English (or "Wenglish" as it's been called), which can sound strange ot other people. My great grandfather, who was Welsh speaking, used to talk about the "pony mountains", meaning "mountain ponies", the feral horses that roamed the moorland in the area.

And an English person would be confused when we say things like, "I won't do it now, I'll do it again". "Again" here means "later".

When in Uganda I found that they spoke English differently too, and you had to start speaking like the local people or you wouldn't be understood!

For example the word "stubborn"... I was in the truck one day with an African friend, and the road was very bumpy. He said, "this road is very stubborn"!

Or someone might say, "That man is not serious!", meaning he was acting stupidly. Because in their culture it's a deadly insult to call someone stupid. That caused a serious misunderstanding on one occasion, because in my part of Wales we tend to call all sorts of things, as well as people, "stupid", meaning, ridiculous, or that something doesn't make sense. A lad from this area used the word in talking about the best way to do something and badly offended the African lady he said it to, though he meant no harm.

And to say that someone is fat is to them a compliment, because fat = healthy in that culture, while "slim" is the local slang for AIDS.

I find different languages and cultures fascinating, though I'm not very good at remembering words of other languages.

The African language where I was had almost no adjectives. All except about 6 true adjectives were derived from verbs. A verb would have prefixes, suffixes and infixes in a precise order, until you would sometimes lose the original root word almost completely. For example, "I did not give them to him" would be one single word based on the verb "give". And there were different past tenses for whether something happened recently - such as a few minutes ago, a few days ago, or a long time ago.

Mistakes can sound very funny. I sometimes confused the lady who helped us in the house by telling her what I thought meant "Don't cook supper". Eventually I discovered I was actually saying "You [i]never[/i] cook supper"!

Recently I bought an mp3 player, for wearing in my exercise class (to drown out the rock music). One instruction tells you to "[u]longly press[/u] >// to stop...".

 2007/9/20 16:58









 Re:

Oh no, not a thread on apostrophes. I've enjoyed observing writing styles and in some cases have wondered if the lack of apostrophes may be a case of the Member's account being over-riddened [taken over] by someone else doing an SQL Injection, where apostrophes are non-existent.

All jokes aside - two weeks ago I found myself 'trying' to do a Search on the Origin of the English Language and for dates of origin. All that I have found was one statement - that the English language is a combination of many other languages and that was all.
Would any of you members have a source or knowledge yourselves of this history?
Thank you in advance.

 2007/9/20 17:24









 Re: English Grammar - Help please


HE_Reigns asked

Quote:
Would any of you members have a source or knowledge yourselves of this history?

Are you looking for factual detailed information, or a more general attribution of the commonest language roots with a few examples of each?

The BBC has a radio series investigating aspects of the history of English in England, but I have the feeling it is not a systematic documentary.

 2007/9/21 10:32





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