|
|
 Tue Dec 27, 2005 17:59 pm Learning english in europe |
|
|
Hello Conchita,
Nice to meet you here. You seem to speak fluent English. Support us by commenting on mistakes in our posts.
I find lots of Spaniards and Germans to speak English well. They say the Italians are the most and the French are the least enthusiastic nation to learn English in Europe. Any comments? |
|
Ahmadov
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 287
Location: Azerbaijan
|
|
| Tue Dec 27, 2005 20:57 pm Hello and merry Christmas from Spain |
|
|
| Ahmadov wrote: | Hello Conchita,
Nice to meet you here. You seem to speak fluent English. Support us by commenting on mistakes in our posts.
I find lots of Spaniards and Germans to speak English well. They say the Italians are the most and the French are the least enthusiastic nation to learn English in Europe. Any comments??? |
Hello Ahmadov,
Pleased to meet you, too, and thank you for your kind welcome.
You are right about the Germans: they tend to speak English quite well: after all, English is a Germanic tongue, like Dutch or the Scandinavian languages. On the other hand, I would have thought that Spaniards, like the French, are among the least enthusiastic language learners, generally speaking of course (luckily I'm not in that group!). I wonder if there is a good excuse to that, but I'd like to point out the following, in an attempt to somehow justify this unfortunate fact:
If you want your children to learn a foreign language relatively well here - either English, German or French, you have to send them to a private, bilingual and awfully expensive school or 'dispatch' them abroad (Ireland is 'in' right now). Furthermore, all of the foreign films, soaps, TV documentaries, etc. are translated into Spanish (I'd rather not comment on the translations...), so you may easily grow up here without ever hearing a drop of English, contrary to what happens in many other countries and unless you live in a place like Majorca or Marbella. Imported books are terribly expensive (God bless all secondhand book shopkeepers! - or should it be: secondhand bookshop keepers  - but there again, the concept 'secondhand' is not at all part of the Spanish culture - the famous Spanish pride, perhaps?). Satellite TV is no better: you can't get many free English or French speaking channels (you do get loads of German channels, though - this, for instance, is when I'm glad I grew up in Switzerland. So, no wonder I have to insist so much on the right pronunciation in my classes, which I must say I enjoy enormously. Speaking of which, I should perhaps be thankful for this state of things, as I teach languages for a living!
Cheerio!
Conchita
P.S. Sorry about all the brackets and hypens. According to my daughter, I seem to do the same when I speak, as I often don't come directly or quickly to the point. |
|
Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
|
 |
| Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:42 am Hello and merry Christmas from Spain |
|
|
.
Hello Conchita, and welcome. Don't be sparing of the brackets and dashes-- I use them a lot myself. Our conversations on these forums are not formal compositions (thank goodness!) and members should be encouraged to use all the punctuation they can muster, in order to compensate for the lack of face-to-face conversation.
I would suggest that you use a double hyphenation (--) to represent the m-dash, to avoid confusion. A hyphen separates word parts (pre-Raphaelite), an n-dash separates number spreads, etc (Open 9 - 5), and an m-dash indicates a break in the sentence structure (I say-- is this my hat?)
.
_________________
Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mister Micawber |
|
Mister Micawber
Language Coach
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 3992
Location: Yokohama, Japan
|
|
| Wed Dec 28, 2005 11:15 am The site |
|
|
Hi Conchita,
Just come across your comments on the site. I was delighted to hear that you enjoyed using it and also pleased that you found some of the material entertaining. It's always encouraging to receive favourable remarks as sometimes when I sit here in my small study tapping away at the keyboard, I often wonder what sort of reception the end result is getting.
Best wishes
Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Not Really |
|
Alan
Co-founder
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
Posts: 7283
Location: UK
|
|
| Wed Dec 28, 2005 21:57 pm Punctuation |
|
|
| Mister Micawber wrote: | .
Hello Conchita, and welcome. Don't be sparing of the brackets and dashes-- I use them a lot myself. Our conversations on these forums are not formal compositions (thank goodness!) and members should be encouraged to use all the punctuation they can muster, in order to compensate for the lack of face-to-face conversation.
I would suggest that you use a double hyphenation (--) to represent the m-dash, to avoid confusion. A hyphen separates word parts (pre-Raphaelite), an n-dash separates number spreads, etc (Open 9 - 5), and an m-dash indicates a break in the sentence structure (I say-- is this my hat?)
. |
Thank you for your valuable suggestions. What a luxury to have something (or should I say someone?) like your own 'live in' private teachers! At least this is what it feels like to me. I'm always greedy -- and grateful -- for any corrections on my English and I hope that I won't become a pain in the neck for you all once I start sharing my cartload of doubts. |
|
Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
|
|
| Wed Dec 28, 2005 22:42 pm The site |
|
|
| Alan wrote: | Hi Conchita,
Just come across your comments on the site. I was delighted to hear that you enjoyed using it and also pleased that you found some of the material entertaining. It's always encouraging to receive favourable remarks as sometimes when I sit here in my small study tapping away at the keyboard, I often wonder what sort of reception the end result is getting.
Best wishes
Alan |
Thank you, Alan. You may well stop wondering. I don’t want to sound too obsequious -- and I know I’m repeating myself – but this site is quite a treat to me.
By the way, I’m very fond of idiomatic expressions and imagery, which I kind of collect and compare in several languages, so in your message I particularly liked the ‘tapping away at the keyboard’ bit. |
|
Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2702
Location: Madrid, Spain
|
|
| Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:16 am The site |
|
|
Hi Alan,
I fully agree with Conchita. You and your team are doing a great job. I think what you need is to do some publicizing for this web site and invite more volunteer professional English teachers to support your work. (I guess Mister Micawber is one of them.)
I believe that with proper publicizing this web site may attract additional thousands of English learners. |
|
Ahmadov
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 287
Location: Azerbaijan
|
|
| Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:37 am Publicity |
|
|
Hi Ahmadov,
Thank you for your comments. I must support my colleague, Torsten and tell you that he does a splendid job with publicity. Without him I don't think we would be as well known as we are. He is a dedicated worker and we are both full of admiration for our technical guru, Slava.
Alan
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Cool Expressions |
|
Alan
Co-founder
Joined: 27 Sep 2003
Posts: 7283
Location: UK
|
|
| Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:41 pm Word of mouth |
|
|
I think when it comes to spreading the word about english-test.net your newsletter is doing an excellent job. Ever since I found this website I have been receiving the newsletter too and some of the issues I have printed off and shown to my colleagues. I know of at least two of my friends who have signed up for the newsletter themselves and they enjoy reading it. I could imagine that this holds true for other readers. I mean they would read the newsletter and forward it to some of their friends and so on. This is called word of mouth I guess...
_________________
Life is for living. |
|
Nicole
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 24 Jun 2004
Posts: 157
Location: Bern, Switzerland
|
|
|
| From an old noob working in China | I am Zahir Ahmadov from Mingacevir, Azerbaijan |
