101–110 of 110 posts
I'm swiss-french and I try to practise english every day - mainly through reading and writing, as we don't speak english where I live.
In reply, I say bravo for trying to become a better writer. And if English is not your native language, don't become discouraged too soon if your progress seems slow at first. I've been very impressed by the English writing here of some people who plainly grew up speaking some other language in a non-English-speaking country. Keep practicing, and you will become better. For specific writing advice, I recommend the ne…
One way to learn a lot of those phrases is to have a little story with maybe 20 such sentences and then read the story out loud maybe 20 times a day for a few days. Then practice making the sounds correct via use of language lab where hear a recording of a native speaker reading the story and, then, correcting your reading of the story.
Can learn a lot of a foreign language that way, quickly.
So, this approach is radical: Start with reading and speaking and leave writing and grammar until later, say, after have already learned a lot of phrases. Or, in English, how does one learn I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are? Sure, not by memorizing such a table but by lots of phrases that are examples of the content of such a table. Then, when have lots of good examples, learn the rules later.
In reply, I say bravo for trying to become a better writer. And if English is not your native language, don't become discouraged too soon if your progress seems slow at first. I've been very impressed by the English writing here of some people who plainly grew up speaking some other language in a non-English-speaking country. Keep practicing, and you will become better. For specific writing advice, I recommend the ne…
http://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-Principle-Logic-Writing-Thinki...
Recommended reading, especially for anyone whom consults or writes proposals.
In reply, I say bravo for trying to become a better writer. And if English is not your native language, don't become discouraged too soon if your progress seems slow at first. I've been very impressed by the English writing here of some people who plainly grew up speaking some other language in a non-English-speaking country. Keep practicing, and you will become better. For specific writing advice, I recommend the ne…
This is a phenomenal reply tokenadult. Would you be willing to reply to the same question if I post it in http://writers.stackexchange.com/ ?
http://mlafeldt.github.io/blog/write-every-day/
The post also received a lot of comments here at HN:
In reply, I say bravo for trying to become a better writer. And if English is not your native language, don't become discouraged too soon if your progress seems slow at first. I've been very impressed by the English writing here of some people who plainly grew up speaking some other language in a non-English-speaking country. Keep practicing, and you will become better. For specific writing advice, I recommend the ne…
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, I think your writing precisely embodies what nevergetenglish was referring to. > "It is brutally hard for most people (after the age of puberty, and perhaps especially for males) to learn to attend to sound distinctions that don't exist in the learner's native language." I'm a native French speaker who learnt English in Scotland when I moved there (been living in mostly English-…
In reply, I say bravo for trying to become a better writer. And if English is not your native language, don't become discouraged too soon if your progress seems slow at first. I've been very impressed by the English writing here of some people who plainly grew up speaking some other language in a non-English-speaking country. Keep practicing, and you will become better. For specific writing advice, I recommend the ne…
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, I think your writing precisely embodies what nevergetenglish was referring to. > "It is brutally hard for most people (after the age of puberty, and perhaps especially for males) to learn to attend to sound distinctions that don't exist in the learner's native language." I'm a native French speaker who learnt English in Scotland when I moved there (been living in mostly English-…
I agree as well to the advise given to listen to locals having conversation. It is probably the best way to learn colloquial conversation skills and therefore blend within the local population.
On the accent, it is really hard to leave completely behind your native accent and requires huge amount of effort to replace it. I am not saying it is impossible, but as mentioned by grownseed, some folks will be completely oblivious to the fact that you are not a local and some other will just recognize a twang in the way you speak that isn't quite what they expect from another local.
That being said: "practice makes perfect" ;)
In reply, I say bravo for trying to become a better writer. And if English is not your native language, don't become discouraged too soon if your progress seems slow at first. I've been very impressed by the English writing here of some people who plainly grew up speaking some other language in a non-English-speaking country. Keep practicing, and you will become better. For specific writing advice, I recommend the ne…
Articles are published daily, as the name implies, and the they are not that long, so you can learn about standard English usage without spending too much time at it.
Now, he has actually iterated upon that post and did not write it from scratch, which I can tell because I recognize his writing style, and he posted a very similar comment sans the phonemics and phonetics on some of HN thread 2 years back on learning languages[1].
You'll notice trends in the structure, as he moves from his relevant story, rounds around some inline-defined concepts, and finally closes with a summarized forward outlook and pitfalls to avoid. As I said, it also helps that he already had the general idea behind this organized, combined with his experience in the area of learning a Sinnitic language.
And don't believe we're so high and mighty, if tempted. We make mistakes all the time, and as I pointed above, you may not have realized that tokenadult had an outline for this already in his head. You also may not realize that he made a mistake - the consonant cluster differentiating 'speak' and 'speaks' is not grammatical (i.e., describing relations between words) but, rather, lexical (i.e., referring to different ideas). This is an incredibly minor terminology kludge. Yet how often can that happen, escaping your notice, on a comment on L2 caching? On the exact algorithmic analysis of a bloom filter? On vague theoretical concepts such as referential transparency? Ad infinitum.
Don't overthink it too much (if you get me), just write as you did above. That is precisely how you will, eventually get to tokenadult's level.
As Alan Perlis: "What you know about computing other people will learn. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more."
What others know of X you will learn, because what's in your hands is intelligence and openness.
Peace in your journey.