A non native English speaker who has a better grasp of English spelling than some English people I've had a few conversations with Polish guys about correct grammar and sentence structure. Foreign people seem to give more of a fuck than natives... This country really is going to the dogs. I keep seeing people who have stuff for sell. SALE!! It is for sale
I think a lot of this is that foreign chaps get taught a lot more of the grammatical nomenclature/justification for stuff rather than just picking the language up as they go along - I remember a guy in a bar in Copenhagen asking me if he could run some English language stuff by me, having walked 2 English A levels I thought Id have no problem at all. His first question was how to rephrase a statement originally in the conditional progressive into the past perfect progressive tense - I only know these things exist from learning French but couldnt even begin to answer, I imagine 99% of native English speakers wouldnt have had a clue either. I think the difference is that while some people (myself included) are proud of the language and our ability to use it, most people dont give a fuck and just want to get a point across. Like the difference between reading and appreciating literature and digesting tabloids and looking at the pictures, if you will
You have a fair point. And I think you're right. They are taught correctly from day 1 rather than just picking it up. But people don't seem to make the effort. I understand that we have Dyslexia these days, along with other "learning difficulties", but there was no such thing when I was a kid. I was in the remedial class for spelling etc. And, I'm told, couldn't write properly till I was 6-7. Today, I would've been diagnosed with Dyspraxia (as my nephew was when he was in school) and received tuition aimed to get around it. But I was just stupid and in attentive at school. Hence I have pretty horrific GCSE results and only managed to go as far as an ND in Ag Engineering but something in me makes me want to do tings as well as I can. Spelling and grammar aren't that hard if you can read and you give a fuck.
Sometime it can help to speak another language . for example, things like 'their, there and they're' or 'your and you're' are easy for me to differentiate because when I translate them back into my native language they sound totally different . In the other hand 'this and that' are difficult as I never found two person giving me the same explanation of how to use them . Somehow native English speakers seem to naturally know when to use them .
They are both "cette/ca/ci" arent they, I guess the easiest way to explain in English is proximity - "this" and "these" suggest something is in your possession/close by, "that" and "those" are things that are further away/not in your possession
I'm not sure exactly how to phrase it, officially I only have GCSE grade C in English language, but the difference is you would use 'this' as a possessive term for an item or experience you are having first hand, and 'that' would be used in other cases. If you're holding a sandwich, while you're at a party; "Can I eat this sandwich? this is an awesome party". Recalling it the next day; "That party was terrible, is that your Imodium? I ate a sandwich yesterday which gave me explosive diarrhea and I need to dry myself out before the business meeting", etc. This is a terrible explanation but I hope it helps. Edit, Docwra beat me to it haha.
Advice / advise is doing my head in with people on this forum. Along with people still saying 'delete' meaning they've removed something. And brake / break and the whole they're / there / their problem. Mini rant over.
The whole 'bought/brought' thing has always gripped my shit and to be honest my younger brothers are probably some of the worst for it....they're all stereotypical Newport "Borrow me a fiver, is it?" boys. Appreciating that nobody is perfect and everybody has a slip up now and again, or suffers fat fingers/small keyboard syndrome etc. but it does seem ironic that the most prolific offenders can all seem to spell the word 'retard' without too many issues???
And perhaps a distinction needs to be made between dyslexics making small mistakes in written text (but can use the correct words in speech), and morons who speak the way they text type (brought argument).
Incorrect use of the word literally, as above, your head definitely did not explode. Also, one thing makes your head explode, multiple things make your head explode. Me and my friend / my friend and I. People who don't put commas before direct addresses, for example: Why aren't you eating Granddad / why aren't you eating, Granddad.
Use of accusative is a big problem - my friend and 'me' rather than 'I' is not necessarily wrong however (as a lot of people seem to believe). If you said, "Dave told my friend and me to fuck off" then that is correct. You can usually check for whether you should be using accusative pronouns by either re-ordering the sentence with same subject and object or removing the additional people, so for example "Dave told my friend and I to fuck off" becomes "Dave told I to fuck off" which is obviously fucking retarded.
