Tubby's Head, Cornwall
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Tubby's Head, Cornwall
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17 comments so far...
Very superior use of English, Sonja!
This is way off the scale! I teach advanced level and proficiency level students, but I think you are super-hyper-califradjistic-level English!
David.
Mary Poppins suggested we need to use or even make up words that are long and not at all understandable to sound educated whilst we are not, or what was this song about again? Anyway, the idea of a governess with well developed telekinetic powers is just to awful to dwell on it, leave alone the idea she sings on top of that.... downright scary!
My casual and vernacular use of your language is a rather mixed bag I fear, sources are different realities with native speakers, very few of which are brits, the rest american of assorted regions and education levels, and rather often from some exotic specialized fields of interest.
And none of my official english teachers from grade 5 to 10 where real native speakers, only one spent her holidays regulary in your country of orgin and there always in the same comunity by people of many nations. And I liked to read strange stuff in the english language from a very young age, not the usual modern one, rather much more older literature than school required, and I sticked with it, when new in the USA I bought at once mostly paperbacks whose authors where long in the public domain. Later I mostly stopped buying paperback novels at all and started to read lots of free gutenberg project stuff online.
So of course, my english has gone a tad off the usual you would expect in a german -- LOL
I hadn't thought of Mary Poppins as scary but I see your reasoning!
Without having had native English teachers, I find your standard of English to be a tad astonishing really!
One thing not clear to me; do you currently live in Germany or the US? I think the former, simply because of the times of your comments (unless you are a night owl!).
All best wishes,
Andy
I agree with what you say. I learnt French from 7 years old and went to France every summer in my teens. By my early 20s and after a year working in France after university, I was pretty fluent. Then I didn't use the language after that and it has gone! I dare say after a week in France I could get by but my written French would take much more effort.
But at that early age I had a facility. I moved to Spain after the age of 50 and it is an entirely different kettle of fish! I can get by with the necessities but as to any degree of fluency - no, I just haven't got it!
By the way I now have a private photo of my mum's garden with all that tech stuff on it. Many thanks for another good idea!
Have a good week.
Best wishes,
Andy
Before that I lived at several destinations of eastern europe, where we also had to speak a lot of english, as that is a language more people learn at least somewhat on the side in school and my command of the local languages there never got to the level of my school english, in fact, I tend to mix my czech, russian and serbo-croatic half-knowledge usually so badly for its similarites that my all purpose slavic serves no propper purpose at all but to amuse or bemuse the poor slavs exposed to it.
Anyway, I spent in my young adult years quite some time in the one or other "gostinica" for contractors from capitalist countries, comunicating with other school-english speakers, westerners as well as translators, personal and native groupies which also widens the horizon to different specific pronounciation interpretations and sentence-building bloopers.
So I am not sure if I can agree with Fizgig about non-nativespeakers learning a language usually more correctly. I guess there are, even if that is now sort of political incorrect to say so, people from very different educational backgrounds and motivations, and everyones path is an other. And not everyone who uses english regulary has ever spent a lot of time amongst native speakers. Others did, but they just wont try to keep in training, so to speak. It may be true on a certain level, that uses english as the new latin. Those that make exchange in science, bussiness and politics happen.
I can tell you that my husbands technical english in his own field is great, and his general ways to get along with americans and make some smaltalk knowing where the taboos are is also good enough his boss apreciates those abilities. Yet he would never comunicate in written english with anyone he does not know from real life just for fun, read a novel in english that could also be bought traslated or use english as preference for a website skin when there is a german version. When unleashed on an english speaker in real life he will do better than me anyway.
I can greet according to the time of day, ask for the menue and such instant sentences without looking it up. I can sing several old folk songs I learned from dad when I was very little although I only in part understand which word means what on it's own in them, but then I berlized my way around Mlada Boleslav and all of Bohemia as 20 year old, never getting much right when varying sentences from the tourist's language book to suit everyday living needs. I learned a lot of vocabulary and to pronounce it in the nominative. I cooked with our landlady who was very interested in being our best friend and learned many recipes and words, and i still can tell you czech names of the odd things used in the kitchen, meats, veggies, spices, tools, but I never could really get word endings in the different cases right as you need for talking sense.
English is just so much easier knitted, if you know what I mean....
All very interesting.
'Edwardian public school English' is just my attampt to imply an exaggerated pomposity of speech where all the distinctive 'upper class' pronunciations are milked for all they are worth!
Even posher, if that were possible, than BBC English up to the 1960s, and the Queen's speech until about 30 to 40 years ago when she moderated her posh accent a little, either deliberately (as many posh people did to avoid being ridiculed), or subconsciously!
=D
The first thing I would identify as british in the spoken language, is the evil "th". As a young kid in 5th grade with metal brackets on the teeth and a fairly dim teacher right fanatic about it, I was very afraid of the english lessons, it almost put me off for life!
I never got great at it even after brackets went, I just stopped at once as soon I regulary talked casually english to people not grading me any longer but sure not apreciating to be spit into the face, especially when a bit alcohol was involved. And you know what -- the sky did not fall sans "th"!
Then, after I started reading some modern american english on a regular base and joined Compuserve during our USA based times getting active in fora with native speakers from all over America, the British Isles and the rest of the Commonwealth, I realized I pick up new figures of speech and write sometimes like the one person or the other, depending on the topic, the mood and pure chance. I tried to loose that again when I realized it, but I had made a friend there on Compuserve, actually a professional assistent to a pen club member that had first read and typed books from a very famous original author for decades, so she likely was the expert -- she opined that I should just relax, it would be making sense and render the language more flexible and expressive. Fighting it would be just a loss. After all use of words is important in many ways, not only human comunication, but reinforce a meaning to oneself as well as others.
And a storm on the coast, well after this idea, it would be best adressed with some british understatement as to not encourage it to much to blow.... or it's photographer to go yet closer to the edge next time... LOL