English Topic ;)

Paula

You've right. But not only in Poland learning foreign languages looks that. Most of european countries have such problems. It's one of the reasons, I'm glad my children will learn in Finland. (If I have children, of course... xD). Their education is one of the best in Europe. Wink

But now I'm just searching some nice Finn. Okey, just Finn. Nice Finns are only in my imagination... xD

Hazel

Now who 'przyzna się' that use google translate xd ?

Paula

I won't! xD

But, really:
I'm using Google Translate almost never when I'm writing. And, when I do it, I'm just searching for some quite difficult words. ('Cause I'm too lazy to search words somewhere other). xD
If you thought about reading... I use GT really often, 'cause I really often read many texts written in English. And I also search only some words, but I'll tell you in a secret, that when I'm reading something in Finnish I have to use it to understand something more than words which means, for example: "yes", "no", "thanks", "life", "death" or "silence". xD

And, when I was writing this, I didn't have to use GT.

Hazel

>D Are you learning Finnish ? I see that you like everything which is Finnish xD And I must admit that sometimes I use GT too xd But only if there are difficult words ' 'a tak to' I write words that I don't know in Polish xD And I'm sorry for my terrible english ^^" xd

Nimrodel

Unfortunately, I'm not so good in english... But now, during my holidays I want to watch english films in the original - today I started. I watched 'The Secret of Roan Inish', very nice irish film in the fairy climate. I recommend it. Smile

Halt O'Carrick

It's very interesting. I'll going to see this film espiecially becouse I like fantasy. Very Happy

On this holiday I learn English words. Maybe it will be better than last year. Very Happy

Tradicionally I'm sorry for my horrible English. Very Happy

Paula

I'm learning. And I don't unerstand their (Finnish) method of connecting two words into one. 'Cause it's so... without rules... and strange.
No, I don't. I dislike the band 'The Rasmus' and, hm, hate? (I'm not sure it's good word for it - not in the sense I do not know it - I'm actually not sure I really hate it) the band The Sunrise Avenue. Bleuh! I think they are terrible. And I can't understand, that in Finland the alcohol is sold with 'cards'. It's so strange. So I can't also love/like that, 'cause my brick (that thing I have instead my brain) can't comprehend that system.

Nim, I probably haven't watched that film, but I'm not sure.
I also have one question: the Irish accent didn't disturb you in understanding?

Learnig words. Halt, you reminded me, that I have to (finally!) momorise my 50 Finnish words. But I'm pride of myself, 'cause I still remember the most difficult one: New Year's Eve = Uudenvuodenatto. xD

Nimrodel

Paula · Wysłany: Wto 20:49, 12 Mar 2013 Temat postu:

So, this topic has almost died. We'll make it alive again, if we do something with it, I believe. Smile

So... Maybe let's talk about...

One topic, which is hidden in my head now, is Apocalyptica. I've already discovered this band and, wow, they're genius. Something I really like. Classic music + metal = symphonic metal. And I'm sure you know, I love this kind of music. So... you probably understand my love to them...

Especially, that my beloved NW has some problems with their furture...

And what are your new music discoveries? Write. Smile

LadyPauline26

Yeah, Paula. You're right! This topic is dead. Three years had passed and your words are still so true... But I want to be like... Forum Hero ;-;. And make this part of our webpage alive and beauliful again!
So there is a question for people who learn English and have never said anything here. How long have you use this language? On which level you are (or you think you are)? Very Happy

Or maybe... do you like this subject in school? To start the converstaion... I'm the student on Jagiellonian University in Krakow and I study English Philology*, but please... don't be shy, because of it... I make mistakes like seven-year-old child; in spelling, in grammar, and in pronunciation sometimes (fortunately, you cannot hear it)... and I think it's complitely normal. It is definitely no reason to be ashamed and say nothing.
What's more, I hope writing here will help us make our English more fluent and maybe we can share some general knowledge or trivia :3.

I know we are not complitely anonymous people and we know each other for years or, at least, for months... but it's not the place to share the whole story of your life, but rather to study quite beautiful and very useful language.

Let's start :3.

*It is not very good translation from Polish, because in English the word "philology" means something quite different, but... ok, everybody understands :3.

Evans

..oh. I had no clue there was a topic like that on the forum ;__;. Good to know! I don't have any inspirations to be a hero (these times are behind me) but I can try to write something, why not :3.

Soooo... I have a problem with determinating how long have I been using English. I began to learn it when I was... like 4, 5 years old? Now I'm nearly 18, so quite long D: But naturally it's not like I used it a lot back than. To be honest, I think that I had a breakthrough when I was in sixth grade. I was flustrated back than since cartoons I was watching were online only with English dub. Soooo I ws impatient and started watching them. Naturally I didn't understand everything, but after watching one episode several times (I had a looooot of time back then) it started to become more and more clear :3. A year later I became interested in A&M fandome and started watching subbed anime with English subtitles and reading English manga(s?). Later I decided to read normal books in that language. Young adult books, so not very demaning, but always something. And what can I say... I really, REALLY recommend this way of learning. I'm not saying it has to be M&A - naturally movies, programms et cetera will also do. But... My friends often ask, how do I know how to say something. How can they study, 'cause they want to be able to "feel it". And I can say nothing else but "spend thousands of hours listening and reading" :I (They're not very happy :3.) And I think it's a good idea to start with some kids' stuff. They're usually easier and less formal, so really useful :3. (But!

when talking about formal English... I always remember a charachter from my favourite TV series. Never seen or heard anyone like him. And his constant "indeed"

.)
I'm on advanced level, at least according to my book Very Happy

. Buuuut my spelling mistakes are awful :3. As I said before, I learned mostly from cartoons and such, so I often know how to say something, but not how to write it. Oh, and my punctuation is terrible. *English-punctuation-hater* And my prononciation could be better, but the same goes to my Polish, to be honest. So I prefer talking to writing :3.
*And that's why I apologise for possible mistakes here. I'm afraid I'm not able to check my post because of all this red underlining.*

Werak

Ok, I'll try to write here something... whaaaa, I'm so scared ;___; I don't know if I'll send it... It must be so awful... Ok, I'm ready :3 Let's get it started

I started to learn English when I was in primary school... probably in first or second class, I'm not sure. My level... I have no idea Very Happy

According to my student's book, It's a "pre-itermediate", whatever it means :3 I'm in high school on profile with expanded English, and I'm glad that I'm there. I really want to improve my English, because I love this language and I want to speak English fluently. I think that my pronuncation is very good and I'm proud of it. My English teacher was fascinated, when she heard me the first time, so it must be good Very Happy

I know, I'm so modest... but I'm writing everything what comes to my mind, and in my mind I'm assuming :3 That's not my fault, It's an illness :3
As I said before, I love English, so I love English lessons, too Very Happy

I really like to use this language, and that's a good chance to using it. So, why I'm afraid to send this... I don't know Very Happy

And that's all what I want to share :3 Goodbye, everyone :3

Ps: This red underline is so annoying... I have the impression that everything what I wrote is wrong ;_____;

LadyPauline26

The same problems with trying to make the message correct... I recommend to copy it and put to the "Notatnik" ;-; or to Google Translator. It's also good idea 'coz it does not translate the words which have one (or more...) missing letter and you can see that there's a typo somewhere.

Aaaand... I wanted to write anything to start more interesting conversation, but it's quite difficult to find the topic we did not discuss on c-box or elsewhere. To be specific, I don't try to create "Under The Oak's Leaf" number 2 here, but talking about only about our skills in English or school problems can become a little bit boring before long. So maybe we should decide how to use our messages to share some knowledge about pronunciation, vocabulary and so one.
Therefore, I would like to create a method to make conversation here more useful. I'll copy my Phonology teacher's words: "Are you with me?" And have you any ideas how to do it? Because I really doubt that there's a sens in writing about nothing here. That's what I think.

So - to make it easier at the beginning - I want to ask if there is any particular page you like to use to learn English? Have you a favourite online dictionary or something like this to find new words or check information? (I prefer to wait for your answers because sometimes I think I need to use half of the whole number of dictionaries which exist on the Internet...) So let's write about it and maybe somebody would find a new source of knowledge :3.
(I feel as if I write to people I met for the first time...)

Werak

I like this idea... But I don't know, how I would to help, because I have no websites which I'd reccomend ;__; Really... I use only Google Translate... No, wait. Sometimes I'm looking at bab.la, it's sometimes very helpfull. But that's all... Oh, I can write something about Arlena Witt... She's not a dictionary, but she's my source of knowledge about English pronuncation, so I really like to watching her on Youtube Very Happy

Aaaaand... I don't know Sad

I really want to say something more about this, but I can't, so... It must be enough :3 Have a nice day!

(I tried...)

LadyPauline26

The list of dictionaries I use is -- as I said -- quite long, so maybe I should start with the couple of them and back to the rest later. But I think that using Google Translate is not as bad as people used to think. I understand that sometimes it shows really wrong answers and mislead us, but unless you put the whole text in Polish there and translate it without thinking... it's okay. What's more, I love that on this page (?) you can list thousands of words in a column and translate it separately without deleting them, press Enter key, and than write the next phrase to check the meaning. It is very convinient when you read the book in English for example and you need to understand a lot of unknown words to see the sense in the text.
Okay... so GT is the first one. I also use bab.la mentioned by Werak, however, the problem with this website is that when you want to see the phrase in the context, you'll probably find sentences from Bible or from the texts about the law of Europen Union. I think we should make the contest: who can find the most stupid example from bab.la Very Happy

The other dictionaries I would like to recomend are Macmillan which is [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] and [link widoczny dla zalogowanych]... I know... name dictionary Dictionary... very creative

. When I chose these two, I realized that the explanations are in English there, but I should a'dd* that I use them not to translate words (mainly), but rather to check the pronunciation, reliable transcription -- which is very, very important for me -- and sometimes find the history of the words... The last advantage I said about is not the thing I need, but it's simply fascinating for me and I wanted to share this fact.
It's quite possible that you already know these pages, however, I decided to choose the ones I use everyday. Next time I will find something more niche and not so obvious :3.

***
And one very important question!
I wrote that I do not want you to be shy or to write nothing because of the mistakes. So I have to ask... can I say something about the spelling or grammar when I see obviously wrong written sentence? To be more specific... it is not that I will analyse the whole text you have wrote or talk about it like in Prose -- frankly, I do not think I can. But it's more about misused tenses, verb forms, misspelled word and so on...
Let me know :3.

*this word is written with inverted comma for purpose... unfortunately, a.d.d -- without dots, of course -- changes into add after Dorian's name... there is no other way to write it...

Evans

Yyyy... I have problems with that previous question as well Very Happy

. I gnerally use the same dictionaries as Werak. Or I just ask my living dictiorany - namely my mum Very Happy

. And if she doesn't know the word, she checks it in some computer dictionary, which isn't online - she bought it like... ten years ago? And it's so awesome Neutral

. I have no clue how it's called, but... I have to have it installed on my computer Very Happy

. It has idioms, examples (better than the ones on bab.la Very Happy

), so many meanings... And it's easy to find similar words, since they're put in alphabetical order.

And about the second question... I find it quite funny Very Happy

. You're a... yyy... mod *sorry, no clue whether I can use word "moderator" here*. So it's kind of your thing to correct us Very Happy

. I know, it's not the same. We are allowed to make mistakes here. But I have no problems with it. If you are certain about it, that is. I may find out something new. Or see how I make stupid mistakes. But! The same goes to you. Can we correct you, too? Very Happy

I'm really curious if I can point out some mistakes Very Happy

.

And I have a question as well. In your opinion, is it better to start learning new language throug listening and speaking or reading and writing? I know it's not good to seperate all these things, but... well, if you were to chose Very Happy

.

LadyPauline26

*Question about my mistakes: yes. I really don't like to show the lack of knowledge, but I know that I myself cannot write everything correctly. I check my posts about four times before sending and write them very carefully to do not copy the situation I have at every exam when I can make mistakes worse than in secondary school.
But when you find any mistake... just write about it. I try to do not dry Very Happy

.
(I mean cry... but this typo is funny, so I won't correct it :3.)

But the situation with pointing your mistakes is a little bit different. I know I am a mod, however I haven't the same attitude to my work here and somewhere else. In normal posts written in Polish I just edit the message and do not tell users about it. Here I want to make people aware of the ill-written sentences publicly which can be quite unpleasant. (Or not publicly... it can be told privately of course.)

And going back to the more important question... I prefer a listening-speaking method, definitely. I think that we can learn new language faster and more naturally when we use it this way and it is probably easier to remember some expressions when we hear them from someone's mouth. What is more, I believe that when you start with speaking it will be rather simple to learn about spelling, but not the other way round. English spelling is confusing, of course, but I'm sure that this method would be more effective eventually. Maybe not in school... but in the real life Very Happy

. And in my opinion the approach to learning can be completely different when you see that the things you are taught about are useful and you can express something with them. When you just look at the definitions and write -- generally boring e-mails to your imaginary friends from UK about what you ate -- you will probably lose the positive feeling to the language Very Happy

.
I really regret that lessons in schools are too short (or maybe classes are too big) to give everybody chance to say something in English everyday. There is a huge number of the words I remember because somebody repeats them again and again, but when I see them on paper it's like... what the hell is this?
So now you know my opinion :3.

Aaand... my Civilisation Of British Isles lecture will start soon, so I should finish.
And I realized that there is no time to check it. Ok, so maybe later :3.
(Five hour later... Checked. Sent.)

Werak

Ok... I have enough time to write here something :3 I had no idea what I should write, but I'll try. Why not :3

How I prefer to start learning new language, you asking... well, I choose listening and speaking Very Happy

I love learning accents, that's very important to me. Writting is fun, too, but I really enjoy speaking. Moreover, when I'm listening, I remember much better particular phrases than when I'm reading it. Beside this, learning languages through reading and writing reminds me of student's books with awful and unnatural dialogues and texts... I hate them ;___; Happily, now I have fantastic books with great dialogues which sometimes makes me smile Very Happy

English is a beautiful language which you can express everything... I'm crazy about english idioms and other this stuff Very Happy

I was thrilled when I discovered how many ways you can make somebody stop talking

Except well known "shut up" you can tell "pipe down", "save it", "clam up", or directly "stop talking"... I know, it's nothing special, but... It's magical

And... May I have a question, too? :3 I'm sure you know somewhat idioms, so... could you tell about your favourites? Very Happy

That would be fine by me, I'll learn a new one Very Happy

And of course you have to correct me, Lady (You, Evans, too, if you want) Very Happy

Why not

So... I can correct you... in that case, I'll do it

lessons in schools are to short (or maybe classes are to big)
So... bring it on, you can repay me for this Very Happy

LadyPauline26

When it comes to the punctuation or the use of vocabulary your English is quite ok, however, I see some problems with the syntax (it is the order in which you put the words in a particular sentence). "I have enough time to write here something" --- like in this one. "Here" should be placed at the very end. I'm not sure if it's a real mistake, but for me it seems to be unnatural. Some sentences just don't sound... English Very Happy

. But it is hard to explain without using terms like "subject", "object", or "subordinate clause" and "deixis" and I don't feel like an expert in grammar, so I decided to show you just the most obvious exaples in the future Very Happy

.
(And here you have another sentence with a different type of mistake: "great dialogues which sometimes makes".) (And thank you for showing the part of my text... I do not know why I always forget about this second "o"... It's not the first time Very Happy

.)

Ok, but you asked us about idioms.
So... I don't use them very often. I like those obvious ones you can put in almost every text or conversation. Things like "learn something by heart" or "once in a blue moon". These are the expressions I'm so used to that I don't even pay attention to the fact they have an idiomatic nature. I was more fascinated in the idioms in the past, but now I prefer to learn some more practical phrases which enrich my language I use everyday during classes (like: "it goes without saying" or "sick and tired"). I like to know the meaning of these exotic ones, but when I have to produce a quick and precise answer there's no time to introduce some fancy and funny constructions. Usually, I prefer to be specific and use more simple phrases.

Nevertheless, I have a set of idioms I learnt in the beginning of my high school when -- for the first time in my life... - I had a normal teacher who was able to make me absorb the knowledge of grammar or vocabulary... and not just sit on my chair pretending I'm not there.
These are:
-beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
-curiosity killed the cat,
-to do something with flying colours (which is probably my favourite one).

But they are rather widely known, so here you have some more rare examples:
-to spill the beans (say something which was supposed to be a secret),
-to be on your last leg (be very tired... or when you're going to die)
-the click doesn't sound (probably it's not an idiom, but I like the metaphorical meaning of it... for example when someone is doing the sensless things thoughtlessly, and is not able to realize it... this "click" is the moment when they start understand something Very Happy

- it's probably not official, but I really like it :3).
Maybe you know them, but I heard about them for the first time approximately four months ago, so they are relatively new for me..

Now you should list your favourite ones :3.

Evans

"I was more fascinated in the idioms - If we are to show our mistakes, there's a wrong preposition, since "fascinated" goes with "by" or "about", as far as I know Very Happy

. The Internet told me it could also be "at"... Well, never heard of it, but dunno. (And about this "dunno", I've decided I want to put coloquial English here. Do you mind it?)
(And sorry if I get too obsessive with showing mistakes... I know I can be quite terrible. Like today my mum checked my homework, even though my teacher had already given me a top mark... and she found such beautiful mistakes as "it make" Very Happy

.)

Aaaaand to be honest, I'm not sure whether I can remember all of these... But I have a few phrases I really like. Usually I know of them because I've heard them in one of my favourite TV series

. Like, for instance... well, I like the obvious ones like "over my dead body". As for others... I think "to kick the bucket" is great Very Happy

. And "two fries short of a Happy Meal" is hilarious

. I'm not sure whether it's official but I still love it. As far as I know, it means to go crazy - not sure if it has more meanings.
What else... ah, I know. I like the ones which have two parts but you can say only one and people will know what it is about. Like the one Lady wrote - "curiosity killed the cat". Did you know the ending of this phrase is "but satisfaction brought it back"? Very Happy

And two more of this kind which I like are "when in Rome (do as Romans do)" and "birds of a feather (flock together)".

And thanks for the enlightenment, Lady Very Happy

. I've been hearing this "sick and tired" for so long, but I never knew how to write it, since I thought it was something like "sickin' tired" which made no sense. So thank you Very Happy

.

(Ok, the last one! "To be away with the fairies" means to be absent-minded :3.)

LadyPauline26

Now you should share some of your favourite idioms with us, Werak Very Happy

. I went dry* and have no more ideas. I can check some lists of the expressions like these and find something I know and like, but -- as I said -- it's not my cup of tea (

). So I better change the topic a little bit. (BUT! At the very end I can a-dd** that for some reason I love the idiom "to sit on a fence"... I don't remember any situation in which I used it, however, it's nice, so I still wait to an occasion :3.)

And the topic I'd like to introduce is about our weaknesses and things which are rather easy to us when we have to learn something new. And I'm not asking what we prefer to do, but what are our strengths and weak points when it comes to English. The question about the most or the least favourite things about this language will be taken into consideration in the future :3.

*I just want to clarify that I... again... am not sure if this expression is correct or even exist, but I found it in one of the episodes of the tv series I've watched and I quite like it, so I try to use it from time to time waiting for someone to tell me if it isn't wrong Very Happy

.
**It is written in this way on purpose. It's necessary...