Help krys learn English right now !

[Socrates]

OK, digger760, this is your thread. ;) Come on and make my day. Teach me the secrets that lie in your dictionnary... Spelling, grammar, verbs' use, everything... except US English. Use this thread whenever you want to correct me, but please quote my mistakes first.

Go on, and don't hesitate to rightfully spam. [goodjob]

[Shabbaman]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

dictionnary


It's "dictionary".

[Beam]

Well, US English doesn't exist one of my UK friends told me once. There is just English and Some Sort of English. ;)

[anarres]

www.m-w.com is a very good site (including the thesarus).

Down side is that it's an american site, but I can't find any free UK ones. :(

[Plux]

Why ask Digger, when he doesn't even know whether to write 'weather' or 'whether' in a sentence such as this ?;)

Sorry digger, I saw you misspell it once or twice, and it's been haunting me ever since. Glad to finally get this off my chest :)

[Shabbaman]

btw, isn't digger irish? ;)

[digger760]

I'll let you all in on a little secret and another "not such much of secret"

I failed high school English (i got 44%), but apparently for Engineers of the world that is not unusual. I did well enough in Chemisty Physics and Math that they let me into Univeristy

I never now whether I am talking about the weather or whether i am talking about sheep(wether). Well here is a little something to help:

The climate is made up of “weather”;
"whether" it is nice out depends on "whether" it is raining or not.
A "wether" is just a castrated sheep :)

The not so big secret is that I'm Australian [Aussie flag]

[Melifluous]

quote:Originally posted by anarres

www.m-w.com is a very good site (including the thesarus).

Down side is that it's an american site, but I can't find any free UK ones. :(


A thesaurus surely ;) , but the best I have found for a mixture of words is www.dictionary.com (also contains a thesaurus).

I hate the way Americans ignore all the 'u's in the language.

Its Harbour and Armour ye bastards.

"know" is to understand.
"now" is this point in time.

"just" is a concept of fairness.
"jsut" is a strange german way of spelling it.

"Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not"

Melifluous.

PS. Please don't get me started on there, their and they're.

[Darkness]

quote:Originally posted by Melifluous



"just" is a concept of fairness.
"jsut" is a strange german way of spelling it.


[lol]

[Socrates]

Best spam thread ever ! [lol]

I have a scientific formation, got good marks in maths and physics and the rest was mediocre, but I nonetheless love languages... or should I say : I'd love to love them (to quote the Beatles [hmm] ). French and English are both of fair interest for me right now. I also have no problem speaking of spelling mistakes, vocabulary, and even punctuation... And I'm always in mood to write posts in the best way I can.

Shabba, I hesitated once again, for "dictionary". I was haunted by the double "n" we use so much in French, and so I got it wrong. [blush2]

digger is Aussie ? Is this OK, or do I have to ask anar, Meli, DrA and col ? (no offense to my Dutch friends)

[Melifluous]

OK Couldn't resist.

Here is a sentence to explain the various there's...

"They're going over there to get their kicks"

Easy huh?

They're = abbreviation of they are.
There = positional adjective.
Their = possessive noun.

C'est facile!

Melifluous

[Socrates]

Yeah Meli, but at least for me that's old news. ;) For your information, I've been 6 months to Ireland when I was 14. :) I was in a boarding school which was looking like an old castle, not far from Naas (if I remember correctly), in county Kildare. But I was very disappointed to get 10/20 in English (as 1st language) at the baccalauréat. [blush2]

Anyway, English is better learnt abroad than at school, and it surely is the same for other languages.

[romeothemonk]

quote:Anyway, English is better learnt abroad than at school, and it surely is the same for other languages.
In my mixed up Western U.S. English I would say the previous statement as follows.

Learning English abroad is better than in school, and surely it is the same for other languages.

Not entirely sure if learnt is a word. Even if it is, using past tense verbs is highly regarded as a no-no. Take with a grain of salt from an engineer. (I am the engineer, I am not suggesting you hunt down a train jockey to borrow salt from.)

[Pastorius]

to learn - right now I am learning - yesterday I learned - and I have learned to type :D (edit: unlike Killer [lol] )

My take:

It is better to learn English abroad than at school, and that goes for other languages as well.


And then to the part that is peculiar with the actual meaning of the sentence, no matter the form:
Why do I get the feeling that abroad means traveling, and not studying abroad? Is that intentional?

[Donovan Zoi]

Please take this in the good spirit that it is given, but "powa" is spelled "power." I'm only trying to help. [surf]

[romeothemonk]

@Paalikles, I think that the lack of studying abroad is due to the lack of studying. My brother went to study Math in Budapest at the University. We was there for 5 months, and the amount of studying that other kids did as opposed to drinking and whoring was minimal. The difference was straight A's vs C's and D's.
I have no desire to go to another country, as I have difficulties dealing with some stuff in this country. Fortunately in Rapid City, a physical beatdown is an acceptable method of dealing with problems and miscommunication. I have never used it, but I have seen it done repeatedly. My size and intimidation factor helps me deal with the problems of evil jerks. The other good thing in this area is that everything is mano el mano.

[Socrates]

I thought it was "learnt", isn't it an irregular verb ? Or did Mr Bush change that when he was Governor of Texas ? :D

I thought it was "to be at school"... Mr Charles Thompson wrote a song called "Weird At My School" when he was the Pixies' frontman.

DZ, I said "powa" because that's the way Americans say it and write it in the end. And because everyone finds American people cool, we all use it too.

[digger760]

quote: I was in a boarding school which was looking like an old castle, not far from Naas

Naas[eek]...not to far from where I live and/or breath

[Socrates]

quote:Originally posted by digger760

Naas[eek]...not to far from where I live and/or breath

Oh. [:o] On another hand, you can't be real far from any place in Ireland when you live in Ireland. [jumpD] Mmmh, shouldn't it be "too far" in your post ? :D Don't know if it will tell you anything, but the boarding school was called "Clongowes Wood College" (waoh, some website says it's the most famous one). On that year 1994 "we" (well... they [mischief] ) reached the Rugby College Championship Final (or whatever that was called) ; there was a draw (17-17), so we replayed it one week later, but lost to some college located on the Dublin coast... :( The 2 final matches were played at Lansdowne Road. We had ugly purple colours for our team (and college).

Continue to educate me here, digger (and others). [goodjob]

[Pastorius]

it is not independant, it is independent

which also implies: independence, not independance

afaik, a pendant is a necklace thingie

[digger760]

quote:On that year 1994 "we" (well... they [mischief] ) reached the Rugby College Championship Final (or whatever that was called) ; there was a draw (17-17), so we replayed it one week later, but lost to some college located on the Dublin coast...

That could have been Blackrock College who beat you. Brian O'Driscoll, is the Captian of the current National Team, he comes from Blackrock. And based on the years mentioned in your post, he could have been playing against you.

I have never heard of the college you went to. It could be on the far side of Naas from me.

[Socrates]

Yeah, Blackrock College sounds familiar to me... With blue and black colours ? [hmm] And... O'Driscoll ? That'd be awesome !!! [eek] Note : I was in the public, not on the playfield. [groucho] I essentially tried rugby once, in the end of a very cold afternoon in January... Now I watch it on TV. :D

[digger760]

they are blue and white (horizontal stripes..but i guess the blue would look almost black in wet weather) and there guernsey could have changes light over the years