4 ms·

as said. i am moving to london. and spoken language is not the problem. its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar

davidw 16y ago
> and spoken language is not the problem. Well, the bit about sounding too 'German' in the pitch indicates it is. So that will help. > its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar Are you doing that on purpose, or simply not trying at all? * The first word in a sentence, and proper nouns (names, mostly) are capitalized in English. * its -> "It is" or "It's" * "writing, spelling, and grammar." with at least one comma (the second is optional) and a full-stop (period) at the end of the sentence. That stuff doesn't seem all that difficult to me: I know that German has some of those same rules, like starting a sentence with a capital letter.
andreasklinger 16y ago
Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your argument. Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this kind of a starting point.
- davidw 16y ago
  (You missed the 'reply' link) Yes, that definitely looks better! The fact is that you will surely make a few errors, so not capitalizing and the other 'intentional' errors compound those that naturally creep in, making the whole thing look like a big mess.
  - DanielStraight 16y ago
    Agreed. If you don't bother to follow the rules you already know, how do you expect to learn more? It's not like native speakers don't have problems writing correctly. At one point, I couldn't spell the word "necessary" to save my life. One day I decided I would simply refuse to write any word I didn't know how to spell without looking it up. Now I can spell almost every word I know without looking it up. I got a D (a very bad grade) on my first college essay. On every other essay I wrote, I made absolutely certain I wasn't making the same mistakes. I got a B+ (second-best grade) or A (best grade) on every essay after that. Aside from that, I would say immersion is the best thing you can do. Immersion, not language courses, is how native speakers learn to speak like natives. Devote an hour (or more) a day to reading modern English fiction and an hour (or more) to reading modern English non-fiction. Write about what you read. Ask native speakers to review what you've written. Don't just ask them to find mistakes, ask them to rephrase anything that sounds awkward how they would say it. Fluency is imitation. What you want is to say things the way a native speaker would say them, not just to say them grammatically correctly.
    - andreasklinger 16y ago
      Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.

davidw 16y ago

> and spoken language is not the problem. Well, the bit about sounding too 'German' in the pitch indicates it is. So that will help. > its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar Are you doing that on purpose, or simply not trying at all? * The first word in a sentence, and proper nouns (names, mostly) are capitalized in English. * its -> "It is" or "It's" * "writing, spelling, and grammar." with at least one comma (the second is optional) and a full-stop (period) at the end of the sentence. That stuff doesn't seem all that difficult to me: I know that German has some of those same rules, like starting a sentence with a capital letter.

andreasklinger 16y ago

Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your argument. Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this kind of a starting point.

davidw 16y ago
(You missed the 'reply' link) Yes, that definitely looks better! The fact is that you will surely make a few errors, so not capitalizing and the other 'intentional' errors compound those that naturally creep in, making the whole thing look like a big mess.
- DanielStraight 16y ago
  Agreed. If you don't bother to follow the rules you already know, how do you expect to learn more? It's not like native speakers don't have problems writing correctly. At one point, I couldn't spell the word "necessary" to save my life. One day I decided I would simply refuse to write any word I didn't know how to spell without looking it up. Now I can spell almost every word I know without looking it up. I got a D (a very bad grade) on my first college essay. On every other essay I wrote, I made absolutely certain I wasn't making the same mistakes. I got a B+ (second-best grade) or A (best grade) on every essay after that. Aside from that, I would say immersion is the best thing you can do. Immersion, not language courses, is how native speakers learn to speak like natives. Devote an hour (or more) a day to reading modern English fiction and an hour (or more) to reading modern English non-fiction. Write about what you read. Ask native speakers to review what you've written. Don't just ask them to find mistakes, ask them to rephrase anything that sounds awkward how they would say it. Fluency is imitation. What you want is to say things the way a native speaker would say them, not just to say them grammatically correctly.
  - andreasklinger 16y ago
    Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.