Quote:
It's not your job to be their uninvited teacher. And on a forum like this, you could be talking to someone who does have a disability and now you'll just make them feel bad.
I agree with BOTH of you on this, and I also agree with the person who said that most people dont speak proper English because they are to lazy to try.
I am an Immigrant from Eastern Europe, and I have been living in this country for many years now.
I have never learned English in school, I learned the spoken language on the run and I tried to improve my spelling through occasional readings, however the grammar was left out from my learning. After so many years I should speak and write a perfect English, but that's far from it. Nine years ago I actually bought a Plain English Handbook so I can learn a proper grammar but it got forgotten somewhere on my book shelf......and the true is without the book I make the same mistakes over and over again without ever correcting them.
My husband is a well read American born citizen, and I use to ask him all the time to correct me when ever he knew I was wrong. That was the easier way for me to learn grammar, but because I did not made any effort to remember the corrections I always end up repeating the mistakes.
I am the only one to be blame for this. It is not my husbands or anyone elses responsibility to teach me speak a correct English, but it is my own. If I wouldnt be so lazy, and if I would only pick up that book that gathers dust on the shelf .
You see, I am very aware and conscious when I read what I write and know that it doesnt sound right. It is embarrassing !. I am an adult who writes like a child. To many I, past tense used wrong, ..etc.
I'm your best example of a poor grammar.
The problem is that I became too comfortable with my second hand English.
Many, many years ago, I had such enthusiasm in learning the language. Growing up in a communist educational system, English was the language of the free World, and I was very excited to learn it. From an outsider English has a musical and pleasant sound to it.
I use to carry a dictionary and a notebook in my pocket and write entire sentences just so I can read them back to those I was trying to communicate with. I use to write words the way I would hear them (in my own language) and then search for their meaning in the dictionary. This is how I learned to speak English. Within only few months I was able to understand and make my self understood tolerably well. Unfortunately, because my English was accepted just about everywhere as it was, I have never made the effort to improve it, and I accepted the tolerably well as part of my every day life.
If people dont raise the standard, and dont push for improvements we get to comfortable with half accomplishments and in the mean time this beautiful language gets butcher by to much slang and people like myself.
If my mother could understand my English she would have a heart attack. I was raised in a family with very strict rules of proper grammar, etiquette, and table manners. My mother was a professor and my father was a marine officer. We (the children) had to do everything by the book in a military style. Even now she corrects my posture at the dinner table when she visits, and tells me that is very rude to point with the finger at someone when you talk about that person.
It's not your job to be their uninvited teacher. And on a forum like this, you could be talking to someone who does have a disability and now you'll just make them feel bad.
I agree with BOTH of you on this, and I also agree with the person who said that most people dont speak proper English because they are to lazy to try.
I am an Immigrant from Eastern Europe, and I have been living in this country for many years now.
I have never learned English in school, I learned the spoken language on the run and I tried to improve my spelling through occasional readings, however the grammar was left out from my learning. After so many years I should speak and write a perfect English, but that's far from it. Nine years ago I actually bought a Plain English Handbook so I can learn a proper grammar but it got forgotten somewhere on my book shelf......and the true is without the book I make the same mistakes over and over again without ever correcting them.
My husband is a well read American born citizen, and I use to ask him all the time to correct me when ever he knew I was wrong. That was the easier way for me to learn grammar, but because I did not made any effort to remember the corrections I always end up repeating the mistakes.
I am the only one to be blame for this. It is not my husbands or anyone elses responsibility to teach me speak a correct English, but it is my own. If I wouldnt be so lazy, and if I would only pick up that book that gathers dust on the shelf .
You see, I am very aware and conscious when I read what I write and know that it doesnt sound right. It is embarrassing !. I am an adult who writes like a child. To many I, past tense used wrong, ..etc.
I'm your best example of a poor grammar.
The problem is that I became too comfortable with my second hand English.
Many, many years ago, I had such enthusiasm in learning the language. Growing up in a communist educational system, English was the language of the free World, and I was very excited to learn it. From an outsider English has a musical and pleasant sound to it.
I use to carry a dictionary and a notebook in my pocket and write entire sentences just so I can read them back to those I was trying to communicate with. I use to write words the way I would hear them (in my own language) and then search for their meaning in the dictionary. This is how I learned to speak English. Within only few months I was able to understand and make my self understood tolerably well. Unfortunately, because my English was accepted just about everywhere as it was, I have never made the effort to improve it, and I accepted the tolerably well as part of my every day life.
If people dont raise the standard, and dont push for improvements we get to comfortable with half accomplishments and in the mean time this beautiful language gets butcher by to much slang and people like myself.
If my mother could understand my English she would have a heart attack. I was raised in a family with very strict rules of proper grammar, etiquette, and table manners. My mother was a professor and my father was a marine officer. We (the children) had to do everything by the book in a military style. Even now she corrects my posture at the dinner table when she visits, and tells me that is very rude to point with the finger at someone when you talk about that person.
