Mark Skype Teacher

Thanks for your comments on this everybody. Agreed that the structure 'In Spain, the worst thing is Spaniards' doesn't sound right but as far as I have studied in terms of grammar, it seems correct in English. I'd say, it can be argued that a person can be a thing. A 'thing' is all that exists, otherwise there is nothing. But since we don't usually call people 'things' perhaps I am wrong. Blaveloper's second example doesn't work in terms of the meaning the student wished to have. This sentence sounds better as a native which is what the student wanted to get over: 'The worst thing/aspect about Spain is the Spaniards/the Spanish people'. I don't believe, at this instance, the sentence 'In Spain, the worst thing is the Spaniards' is necessarily wrong grammatically, however it does sound odd.

Thanks. My student actually said and I should have put this in the original sentence: 'In Spain, the worst thing are Spaniards'. I corrected her to 'In Spain, the worst thing is Spaniards' or 'The worst thing in Spain is Spaniards'. Given the grammar rule I have presented above, the last 2 options seem correct.

Hi! Good morning! I´m just double checking this grammar point. This doubt came up in a Skype English class with a Spanish student. Which is correct? 1. The worst thing IS Spaniards. 2. The worst thing ARE Spaniards. Since a singular subject takes a singular verb, whereas a plural subject takes a plural verb, I believe option 1 to be correct. However, as a native, and I am sure natives would not be sure, option 2 sounds OK too! For an exam I would definately go for option 1. Any opinions?? Many thanks. Mark

Thanks for the responses to all. Yes in real life no one cares but an examiner for an English exam probably will care. Whilst they may be both correct, as a native, I still think '11 weeks of holiday' sounds better. Have a good day!

Hi all, Was speaking on skype to a student and I said this term 'I had 11 weeks of holiday per year when I worked in France'. I'm wondering if it would be correct to say 'holiday' or 'holidays' in a structure like this. As a native speaker and grammarian, I'd always say 'holiday' here. Just sounds better and correct. Would anyone have an explanation on this? Of course, I'd use 'holiday' in a structure like this 'I'm on holiday nextweek' and 'holidays' in this: 'I had 3 holidays last year'. Any input much appreciated. Have a great day!

hey Trellum, Thanks for the offer but I-m managing to get through it... have a great day

Hi everyone, I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is a difference between usage of 'to realise' and 'to notice', and if so, what would that be? When could both words be used for the same sentence? I have found this at: http://www.f.waseda.jp/vicky/students/help/mistakes/realize.html notice: to see, hear, or feel something He spilled the tea, but Mrs. Whitley did not notice. You may notice a numb feeling in your fingers. He was too tired even to notice how tired and hungry he was. Did you notice him leaving the party early? realize 1: to know and understand the importance of something Do you realize that you are an hour late? I realize how much she means to you. None of us realized the danger we were in. realize 2: to start to know something that you had not noticed before I suddenly realized that he was crying. Later, we realized that we had met before in Paris. I realized then how hungry I was. Tim didn't realize his mistake until the next day. --- With the sentence 'He spilled the tea, but Mrs. Whitley did not notice.' You could use 'realise' here too. Anyone know why that may be? Many thanks and have a good night. Mark

Yes i'm using different books and websites.. yes it is quite a task. I'm on page 4 out of 18! Bye for now! Thanks!

Hi all, For a mini Spanish phrase book where the target audience is English speakers I have to write the phonetic sounds of the Spanish so the English speakers can pronounce it well. I do not want to use the IPA standard. I want to use something like this, for example: Spanish: ¿Cómo estás? Phonetic transcription: koh-moh estass? Wondering if there is an online guide or dictionary for this. I have found one for the IPA standard at http://easypronunciation.com/en/spanish-phonetic-transcription-converter#result but this is not what we are looking for. Any help much appreciated. Have a good weekend.

I have taught Business English and still do. Apart from some vocab I may have to look up I find it easy to do as I am a business person, have studied business at uni and quite enjoy it actually. In most cases teaching Englis isn't well paid but in some circumstances it can be. We pay our teachers quite well for online teaching but it only works out well if they reside in a low cost of living country. I understand in Thailand and Korea pay is good.

Yes in the phone configuration I used to have it on French but no longer. I'm a Brit living in Ecuador. Where I live there are about 4,000 US citizens, mostly retired. Amazingly a huge amount of them, having lived here for years speak very poor Spanish. I guess they have little need to. Happy Easter

I didn't give up Norwegian per se. Just chose to go down the Spanish route instead. I guess I stopped it temporarily. Learning 2 languages at the same time is quite a task.

hey spanglish interesting on italki rates, they vary quite a bit.. there's a couple of things I'd suggest in addition to your good list for those on a bit of a budget. We suggest these for those wanting to learn English with us... 1. Language exchanges in local cafe (offline)... great practice for really getting involved with the language and you can get more in with the local culture for the price of a coffee (I live in Ecuador and maybe should give this a shot). 2. Video games... I love them and play them in French/Spanish for maintaining/improving in these languages with subtitles on. I know there tends to be a stigma with video games but you need to have fun learning a language as the 'camino' is pretty long and you will get distracted if you are not enjoying yourself at least to a certain extent. Hope that helps.

OK thanks to all for your responses. Have a great day.

Hi all, I have a doubt about the following sentence: "I recommended her to change the language course although her child is complaining". 'Although' sounds odd here however it seems the grammar says it can be used in this structure. I think 'even though' is much better but I can't find out why. What is true is that 'although' and 'even though' mean 'in spite of the fact that'. However, I don't know the difference in the quoted sentence above. Can anyone shed some light on this? Many thanks. Have a fabulous day.