Tia practicing English

[tiajohanna]

Hi there!

I thought this would be the best thread to practice my English scills since the language in other ones is too advanced for my level. I´m looking forward to discussing any interesting issue and hoping that you´ll correct my worst mistakes. So let´s get started! :)

* How long did you study English? Where? Why?
* Pros and cons of a common language (read English) spreading all over the world

Have a nice day!

Tia :)

[Sipriina]

Just to say that your English is great... you won't have any problems there! As discussed elsewhere, the grammar is not so important ... the main thing is that you have a go. People will appreaciate it more than anything else.

I have always found languages interesting and quite easy to learn. But ask me about maths and the story's totally different... :rollin: I studied English at school, as well as Swedish, French and German.... French being my favourite. Used to be fluent in Swedish.. but no more... :( And for some reason, English is my strongest language now... although I do find some of the American accents hard to understand. They do speak a bit funny over there... ;)

I don't see anything wrong with the fact that English is the universal language. It quite suits me... ;) But I do think that us English speaking folks should learn more foreign languages.... to be polite and interested in other cultures.

You're doing good Tia.... enjoy the ride! :allright:

[Leena]

Tia, at least you have some basic knowledge in English. When I started working for an American company early 70's, I had to learn it all, since I never had English at school. I promised them to speak it in six months and with the help of my little red book (dictionary) and wonderful co-workers I achived my goal.
I still speak German, the language I learned for five years. Swedish, that I had also for five years at school is pretty much "gone".:(

Sipriina, what do you mean, we speak a bit funny over here???:confused:
I think, the way Brittish pronounce some words, sounds really weird.;)

The schools here are starting to put a little more effort to teach Spanish and French, but most kids still think:"Why should we learn an other language, since everybody speaks English".:(

Like Sipriina said, to learn foreign languages would be polite and good way to learn about other cultures, but try so sell that idea to Americans?:rolleyes:
I don't think so.:cry:

Tia, your English is great and it will improve even more, when you speak it daily.:) Soon you write a book in English about your interesting travels allover the world.:)

Folks, you can correct my worst mistakes also, since my "streetenglish" is far away from perfect.

[Lissu]

This is just for you, Tia.
I usually don't like to write in English here. Some of you guys are very judgemental and even now when I'm writing this I'm so leary about my mistakes. It's quite scary. To the point that I feel giddy. :nut:
Well, this is not something new because I did fail my matriculation exam (that big yo testi in English, whatever it is?). It wasn't a big thing for me actually. I swore I would never speak English in my life because I didn't need the darned thing. That same year I went to England and stayed there for a while. Needless to say I got hooked. But I still feel like I'm not good enough with my English. My shrink (F.C.) would say that it's the trauma from the past.

But now gotta go. I have the Spanish composition to write. It's a silly topic. An editorial letter. You can say either yea or ney to bicycles in your story.
Me, I say yea. Bicycles rock. How do you say that in Spanish? ;)
:wave:

[tiajohanna]

Thanks to my wonderful Swedish, German and Russian teacher I´ve always been interested in studying languages, combined with the fact that I have some kind of talent for that. And my maths :shock: worse than poor... that makes me wonder why I work with payroll administration. :shock: No, that´s not the whole truth, I think, because logical thinking helps a bit. ;)

Having a universal language makes the communication easier but still I think that people should learn the language (or at least some phrases) of the country they visit to show respect and interest in their culture. When I visited Turkey for some weeks ago I learned some phrases like Hello, Thank you, The bill please and Bye bye. It wasn´t easy but great fun. Once a waiter started speanking Turkish to me, but after seeing my face he must have understood immediately that I didn´t understand a word of his harangue.

Leena, it must have been really tough to start working in your profession without speaking the language of the customers properly. How did you manage to explain all the complicated thingies ;) about the pills and stuff? Bringing a dictionary to the work is a good advice. Maybe I´ll also buy or borrow some book with economics vocabulary. That´ll help.

To be honest I prefer the UK accent, too. It sounds more enjoyable to me. Cockney, Welsh or Scottish amuses me a lot even if I don´t understand that much of it. LOL

Lissu, if I can “make myself a fool” (only joking!) by trying to write in English so you shouldn´t have any problems! I´m sure your English scills are excellent! Errare humanum est, ¿verdad amiga? “Bicycles rock” Well, I dunno. ;) Las bici(cleta)s reinan o algo parecido quizás. Good luck with your monografía!

[Tero]

Your English skills are pretty good, and we have Word anyway, which will be happy to misspell things for you. ;)

[tiajohanna]

Tero, I´m very good at misspelling the words myself, so I don´t need that much help with that. :D Noticed right now that you spell skills with a k and not with a c. I´m glad to hear that you think that my English is not that bad but I started this thread to improve it (not to hear how excellent I am). ;)

How about you? How did your career as an English speaker start?

One thing I have noticed here in Sweden is the way people treat you if you do/don´t speak Swedish with an accent. If your pronounciation is bad, people don´t listen to you or take you seriously. That makes me very angry. The accent doesn´t mean that you´re stupid or something. :wry: (I don´t have any, so maybe I shouldn´t care, but I can´t stand that they are so narrow minded)

[Nille]

English isn't very difficult per se, but it's hard to memorise all those idiotic idioms. Luckily, this's a problem only when talking to 'natives', a fairly rare event, even in England. :rolleyes:

[cosmichd]

I don't know what it is, but it is so easy to notice every mistake done by somebody else, my own mistakes just go by unnoticed. It has been several years now when I last time spoke english. Of course you read and hear it many hours a day, but it is not the same: your active vocabulary gets worse if you never practise it. I think it is time to visit some Irish pub again. ;) Yes, there you can practise english your language and relax your tongue...why haven't I thought it earlier? :D



edit: added word "know" ;)

[Lissu]

Ok, let's practice/ practise, or exercise/ exercice, and license/licence. Those are tricky ones. I get confused with those like I'm still lost with the articles. Often I forget them or maybe I never really learned to use them correctly.
Because in Finnish there are none or they are there, but they are so intertwined into the words.

Nille, how is it a rare event to find "natives" to chat with in England. How interesting! Here are a plenty of native talkers either in spanish or in english. Pretty much like pick your choice.

BTW, I've noticed that many message boards in English are full of bad spellers. You guys, don't have anything to worry about. It's actually amazing that many Finns can become such good communicators in English considering how difficult Finnish is.

[Leena]

Leena, it must have been really tough to start working in your profession without speaking the language of the customers properly. How did you manage to explain all the complicated thingies ;) about the pills and stuff?

Tia, I used to work at bank, first Deutsche Bank for several years, then American Express, that's where I learned most of my English. Well, having American boyfriend helped some too. Later I worked for a while at Chase Manhattan Bank.
I have worked at the pharmacy only the last ten years.

[Tero]

How about you? How did your career as an English speaker start?


I was 12 and wanted some ice cream. My parents told me to go to the stand and gave a dollar. I said one VANILIA ice cream. The guy said HUH? Me: ONE VANILIA ice cream (points with finger). OH, you mean VANILLA!

[tiajohanna]

English isn't very difficult per se, but it's hard to memorise all those idiotic idioms. Luckily, this's a problem only when talking to 'natives', a fairly rare event, even in England. :rolleyes:
Wild guess: that means "i sig själv"? Sounds like latin or something :confused:

English is quite easy to learn at the beginning. The more you know... it gets more and more complicated. You realize that you can make plenty of mistakes. In German it´s the other way round. It´s blood sweat and tears during the first couple of years, but after you´ve learned the grammar, it´s not that difficult anymore.

I´m equally surprised as Lissu... Why is it hard to find some natives to talk to in the UK? My impression (as a tourist - have only visited London) is that they are friendly and outgoing people.

Tero, that´s a good start. :D

Cosmic, so after some pints you can speak any language, you mean? ;)

Leena, so how come you changed your career?

[Nille]

"per se" is indeed Latin, with English pronunciation ("pö sei"). I happen to like that idiom, for some reason.

[Tuomo]

I have a short break from work as my printer is working on a huge file, so I decided to do a short visit at Etusivu and write a line or two.

I've been to New York before and to be honest, I hated most the Indian/Pakistanian accent that I heard all over the city. It's so damn difficult to figure out what's in the taxi drivers mind as they all tended to be foreigners that had no history in the US an therefore didn't have very strong integration with the country. The language was the most horrible thing but they didn't even have very good knowledge on geography either.

I went to London a couple of weeks ago to do some work there for a Finnish magazine. It was somehow an unpleasant surprise to find out that there are quite many Pakistanian people working in London, especially in cheap hotels/hostels.

The foreigners in London were very helpful and friendly and I did and do respect and appreciate that. After few days I even started to understand what they spoke. And it is true that people who I spoke to did not always understand all my sentences so that I had to repeat few things in interviews.

I watched Indian MTV in Israel 1999 and I just couldn't watch it like longer than few minutes. I had no clue what the video jockeys said even if they were all speaking some sort of English.

Sure it's important to speak and not care about all the mistakes but sometimes you just get tired of people who have no capability of pronouncing any words as they should be pronounced. Tero wrote few years ago that I'm a racist. Probably this is a race-prejudiced message too. Still I find it more comfortable to talk to native or proficient speakers.

[cosmichd]

I was 12 and wanted some ice cream. My parents told me to go to the stand and gave a dollar. I said one VANILIA ice cream. The guy said HUH? Me: ONE VANILIA ice cream (points with finger). OH, you mean VANILLA!

I remember when my sister was five years she went to the corner shop to buy one "jätski". When she came back with a large chunk of something pale wrapped in paper, my mother bursted to laugh. The seller had heard "läski", and that he sold to her.

[cosmichd]

Cosmic, so after some pints you can speak any language, you mean? ;)



Yes, or maybe not any language, but at least finnish, albany???, serbo-croatian??? and japan and sami. It's been tested a couple of times. Do they speak albany in Albania? How about srvo-hrvetsky, as they write it, how is it written in english? Don't google! I noticed something, when I wrote the word "google"...it was coloured red for a couple of seconds! What the heck!!! This is Firefox....some liaison with google, I guess?

[cosmichd]

Cosmic, so after some pints you can speak any language, you mean? ;)



Yes, or maybe not any language, but at least finnish, albany???, croatian??? and japan and sami. It's been tested a couple of times. Do they speak albany in Albania? How about hrvatsky, as they write it, how is it written in english? Don't google! I noticed something, when I wrote the word "google"...it was coloured red for a couple of seconds! What the heck!!! This is Firefox....some liaison with google, I guess?

[tiajohanna]

Do they speak albany 1 in Albania? How about hrvatsky 2, as they write it, how is it written in english 3? Don't google!
1 I guess not, since you ask. ;)
2 Yes, I hope.
3 In English, you mean? ;) Det här är överkurs. I´m supposed to practice English and not linguistics. :shock:

[Tero]

Do you speak Firefox, Cosmic?

[tiajohanna]

No, he doesn´t. He only speaks Google and Babble after dreaming of the Irish pints. ;)

[Zzeus11]

Y'all yankees...
..few examples of the r e a l english..

Exclamations: "Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit."

Good Things/Compliments: "Gooder than grits."

Descriptions: A bothersome person is "like a booger that you can't thump off."

Insults: "She's uglier than homemade soap."

General: "Yesum, I'm comin'."

"Nome - 'No' "


Remember -- speaking Southern is sorta like speakin' Klingon; it's as much an attitude as it is a language!!

[tiajohanna]

Oh my... can´t we just talk like civilised people. ;)

Or should I tell my new boss that she´s uglier than homemade soap, what do you think? :D

[Tero]

Will also teach you bad English: Is you is, or is you ain't my baby?

[tiajohanna]

Long time no see, Tuomo!
That sounds quite corny, but I couldn´t think of any other way of saying it. :)
I guess you´ve been busy with that great book of yours. What´ll be your next project?

It seems that the indians and pakistanies are not your favourite people. ;) Since their language is so different from English (and they have a long tradition of pronouncing it in their special way) they usually have a very strong accent and that hinders the understanding or sometimes makes it totally impossible. Talking to natives is easier in that sence, maybe, and more rewarding if you think of practicing your English. What I meant was that many a times people don´t have the patience with a person who doesn´t speak fluently or even while you´re speaking your mother tongue they are restless and eagerly interrupt you to fill in your sentences. That annoys me.

BTW, we have an interesting theme on the Swedish TV tonight: languages. I read in the newspaper for example that there are about 6000 different languages in the world today. I wonder, how they are counted... how to differentiate languages and dialects, I mean. The origin of modern languages and the fast disappearing of the old ones (two per month!) will be discussed in the program.

[Tuomo]

I guess you´ve been busy with that great book of yours. What´ll be your next project?

Well, the book was a long project but actually all the work I have keeps me busy at the moment. I mean, the past couple of months have been very exciting time. I just recently got hired to Luontokuva (http://www.luontokuva.org/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=839) magazine and it also seems that my visit in London was just a beginning of business travelling. The feedback I've been given has been incredible. See, I did a special report from London for Pikseli (http://www.pikseli.fi) magazine. People have loved the first two stories that will be published in the upcoming issue. The whole project was originally my idea and I had quite lot pressure on making it a success story. If I'm lucky, I'll have an opportunity to do similar reports in other countries and - even better - get hired to bigger magazines/newspapers with these credits. For a freelancer and a student like me that would be a real boost to my career. But, we'll see.


It seems that the indians and pakistanies are not your favourite people. ;)

Well, the people are always nice and I found the Pakistani hotel in London quite sympathetic. But it just that I always face difficulties on trying to understand this people. And that's annoying.


I read in the newspaper for example that there are about 6000 different languages in the world today. I wonder, how they are counted... how to differentiate languages and dialects, I mean.

Well, I think it's a question of grammar. Real languages do have a grammar that differs from other languages. Dialects instead relate to the original language and don't have much of their own except the different vocabulary.

[tiajohanna]

I just recently got hired to Luontokuva magazine and it also seems that my visit in London was just a beginning of business travelling. The feedback I've been given has been incredible. See, I did a special report from London for Pikseli magazine. People have loved the first two stories that will be published in the upcoming issue./---/ I'll have an opportunity to do similar reports in other countries and - even better - get hired to bigger magazines/newspapers with these credits.

Wow, that sounds really great! I´ll cross my fingers for you! :)

[tiajohanna]

Well, I think it's a question of grammar. Real languages do have a grammar that differs from other languages. Dialects instead relates to the original language and don't have much of their own except the different vocabulary.
According to the linguistics professor (in that program I saw earlier) there is no scientific definition for language or dialect but he usually says that "a language is a dialect with army"... in other words Swedish, Danish and Norwegian could be defined as dialects but since there are states and borders that "separate the tongues", they are called languages. Interesting! :)

[Tero]

Interesting, the state and language issue. Some countries end up with two official languages, as they are equally spoken. Then you can't declare one the official language and the other merely a dialect.

Some languages definitely developed because of national borders.

[cosmichd]

My son's football coach is finnish-swedish. He coaches his son and a couple other boys in swedish, and the rest of them in finnish. To mix a bit more, there are 36 boys that were born 1997 and they are divided into four teams, plus 22 boys that were also born 1997 but have started playing later, and therefore they have to practise different things and are not mixed. One of their coaches is somalian, a father of very skinny but fast boy. He coaches his son in somalian (or whatever they speak, I don't know) and the rest of the boys in finnish. There are about 20 nationalities in Vuosaari, where I live, but only arab, somali, estonian, russian, swedish and finnish are heard daily, if you go to the shop, for instance.

At school they teach 3 different religions (lutheran, orthodox and islam), and if you don't have any religion, you attend to "elämäntapaoppi" or "the way of right living" , and two "home languages", somali and russian. Finnish children don't get language teaching yet.

[Tero]

they teach 3 different religions plus elämätapaoppi

Why is it important to teach this in school? Religion has a lot of ties to culture, but it is in no way essential to culture. You can teach Kalevala without teaching ancient Finnish religion at the same time.

I think the number of overturned grave stones at the cemetery would be the same whether they take religion or not.

I think they could teach a full course of ecology as part of the biology curriculum. We are the owners of the planet now, and our handling of it is in many cases unethical. Put some of those moral values into the kids' minds instead.

Your Mr Vihreä, Tero.

[tiajohanna]

... and two "home languages", somali and russian. Finnish children don't get language teaching yet.
Are you kidding me? ;) When did they stop teaching Finnish?

[Zzeus11]

Some countries end up with two official languages, as they are equally spoken.

What is the percentage of swedish speaking people in finland..40-50% , 20-30% or 5-10%??
I smell a rat......twice.....canada's quebecois represent less than a third of that country's population..........hmmm.....nasty smell!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tiajohanna]

What is the percentage of swedish speaking people in finland..40-50% , 20-30% or 5-10%??
5-6%, in other words about 300 000 persons, the Finns in Sweden are many more.

[Tero]

But they are a disppearing ethnic group that speaks old fashioned Swedish!

[Zzeus11]

...and in this same train in thought, wouldn't it be just lovely if the 'political scene' were to follow the same track...
good old fashioned unilingual country with finnish only lotto tickets:)

(I might reconsider)

[Piam]

Funny discussion about Indian and Pakistani accents coming from citizens of the country with probably the best pronouncers of English in the world, like Mika Häkkinen ;)

Adding to the separation-between-language-and-dialect discussion, isn't a language supposed to have its own literature as well in order to become classified as language?

[cosmichd]

Are you kidding me? ;) When did they stop teaching Finnish?

They just haven't start yet, on the second class.

[Zzeus11]

http://www.airfarce.com/audio/green/Track07.ram

[tiajohanna]

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful, and it would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with z" and "w" with " v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. "e" vud replas "i" and "y" ven apropreat.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a rele sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultes and evrevun vil find it eze tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finale kum tru.

[Eija]

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. "e" vud replas "i" and "y" ven apropreat.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a rele sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultes and evrevun vil find it eze tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finale kum tru.

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! :rollin:

[Tero]

How is that new job working out, Tia? Is it mostly written or spoken English you need to work with?

[tiajohanna]

Didn´t begin so far... It´ll be both spoken and written. I´m supposed to use English all the time because many of my colleagues don´t speak Swedish. I´ll mostly have contact by e-mail with the employees (I guess, since the mayor part of them work all over the world).

[tiajohanna]

"I´ll cc that and put it in the pigeon hole."

Exsqueeeeze meee!? :shock: Is that English... or not :confused: (I have found out what it means, but it took a while)

I love my new job even if/because there are so many things to learn. The international invironment with people from many different cultures all over the world really attracts me. It´s sometimes hard to follow the discussions, specially when it comes to the staff rules, entitlements, reconciliations, grants and deductions... terms, that I have never heard or used in my vocabulary, but I´m doing my utmost. It´s a great challenge and I enjoy that. :)

Quite funny situations occur at the beginning when you don´t know whether the collegues are Swedish speakers or not -
by looks, you can´t tell. :rollin:

[Ville]

Every now and then I come across an English word that I've been misspelling for ever and ever ;). The most recent one is "elaborate". I had been spelling it—until two days ago—"elalborate" :rolleyes:. Consequently, the the misspelling also affected the way I [mis]pronounced the word. Rather than pronouncing it i-'la-b&-"rAt I've been pronouncing it something like el'albo-reit :rolleyes:. Well, now I know... how to elaborate ;).

[Eija]

I used to have a problem in both spelling and pronouncing :rolleyes: the word "refrigerator", so for years I chose to call a fridge an "icebox" instead! :laugh:

Tongue twister; say many times and fast: Frigidaire Refrigerator, Frigidaire Refrigerator, Frigidaire Refrigerator, Frigidaire Refrigerator, Frigidaire Refrigerator, Frigidaire Refrigerator,.. :rollin:

Frigidaire (http://www.frigidaire.com/) is a refrigerator brand name. (linkki lisätty // Ville)

[Jaana2]

Eija, that is so clever :saint: I have a couple of words I hate to use. One is a BACKPACK. I call it anything between backbag to packpack. I still use the word if I have to. Nobody laughs at me------- but me myself.:D

[Eija]

Eija, that is so clever :saint: I have a couple of words I hate to use. One is a BACKPACK. I call it anything between backbag to packpack. I still use the word if I have to. Nobody laughs at me------- but me myself.:D

Me too! :rollin:

I also had a problem with the words 'toe vs toy' and 'soldier vs shoulder'.

I might have already told this story. When my new husband and I were newlyweds on our way to Florida I kept on asking him what the highway sign "LOW SHOULDERS" meant. Of course I pronounced the word 'shoulder' as 'soldier' and this devilish husband of mine kept on fibbing me that there were US Army soldiers laying low and hiding on the road sides keeping their eye on a possible enemy! Naive me! :o I believed that for years and kept on looking for them! :rolleyes: I never saw the first one!! :D My husband still teases me about that! :laugh: :rollin:

[Aapeli]

Well, I was trying to schedule a recording with my friend Phil who comes from Birmingham, UK. At that time I was still doing my studies and tried to explain how busy I was.

"Yeah Phil, you are quite right, we ought to do this one ASAP, but you know it's spring and we have a lot of tents, so..."

Phill (with a vague smile): " A lot of tents?"

"Yes, loads of them, I don't know how will I survive... hey... wait a minute; Did I say tents?"

Phill (with a wide grinn): "Yes. But I took the freedom to suppose you meant tests..."

:p