Alfonso

It sounds promising, though I've never tried the pimsleur method myself before, but this thread kind of made me curious, I'll do a little research on it. 

I just downloaded and installed BYKI and half my fonts have changed to a "cursive" version. Kind of annoying.

Has anybody else encountered this? If so, did it go away with a restart (I skipped the restart process) or do I have to try to contact the people who made it?

What kind of computer are you using? It might have something to do with your resolution. I'm using BYKI 4 Express, what version are you using?

Do you get your and you're confused? I personally think that it's pretty easy to remember which one to use, but I see it incorrectly used a lot. Mostly by people my own age. You're is there for you are. I think the apostrophe makes it easy to remember, but not everyone agrees. Do you have trouble with this or have you got it down pat? 

In the past I had trouble with your and you're. I actually use the exact same technique of using the apostrophe as indicator that it means you are. I never had a problem with the two since.

Welcome Dari, nice of you to join us! If your here to learn English well you've come to the right place. I'm sure you'll find a lot of resources here to help you gain a firmer grasp of the English language.

I do a double take whenever I see "doughnut" instead of "donut". I don't know why there are two extremely similar words for the same item. It's just confusing.

Yeah, I've come across the same thing a few times before. I think originally it was called a doughnut because its made of dough, and as time went by, people simplified the word to donut. I don't think its correct to spell it as donut though.

I might live in Florida. Is Spanish used widely in that state? I'm just curious. There's also a chance I might be forced to learn the language haha, if my fiance gets me to live in Colombia. It does sound very interesting and we do share words with Spanish so maybe it would be much easier than say, French.

Spanish is actually very popular in Miami, some people even joke about Spanish become the official language of the state. In my opinion, Spanish is much easier to learn and speak than French. It would be a good idea for you to learn Spanish.

That's what I thought. I get it now, thanks for clarifying that folks.  :grin:

I got a lot of words I wish I used more often. One the comes to mind is diabolical.

I'm a pretty fast reader, mainly because at this point in my life I do a lot of reading. I tend to make more reading errors when I read out load though. I remember a time in my life when I was a really slow at reading, those days I didn't do much reading. In conclusion, I think reading speed has a lot to do with how much and how often you read.

What is the one mistake that you can't stand in English?

Personally, I hate when people use "ignorant" to mean "rude". It is actually comical because they are being ignorant by misusing the word ignorant.

Well, being rude could also be a result of ignorance. There is a difference with a person who is cultured but decided to be rude and a person who doesn't know any better.

When ending a sentence with an abbreviation or acronym, like F.B.I., U.S.A., Ph.d., Sr., Jr., etc, what would be the correct way to write it? For example,

John works for the F.B.I..  or John works for the F.B.I.

I guess my question is, if your sentence ends with an abbreviation or acronym that would normally have a period in the end of it, do you write the sentence with two periods or disregard the period in the end of the abbreviation or acronym?

I like to think of vocabulary as the ability to use the most appropriate words to deliver your message accurately. I've always been told, even as a child, that reading is the best way to improve your vocabulary.

I can't remember this happening to me before. I've seen situations like this in TV and movies though. I guess the best thing to do is just ask. My cousin, who is of Spanish decent, can speak decent Chinese, since his girlfriend for many years is from a Chinese family that speak mandarin at home. Don't judge a book by it's cover right?

Subtitles and dubbing does add some negative effects to films. The thing is there's a lot of good films out there and if your not familiar with the language of the film, your have no choice but to just bear with it. Also, I always though subtitles can help with learning foreign words and phrases to a certain extent.

Slang can be fun, given the right time and place. I just think its important to know when to use slang, and not speak slang 100% of the time. For instance, slang is fine in an informal gathering with friends, but not if your working with someone professionally.

Bonjour! Welcome to linguaholic. We have a lot of fluent Spanish speakers in this forum, and a lot of resources for learning / re-learning Spanish. I'm also on a quest to learn Spanish myself, right now I could probably speak enough Spanish to save my life.

Hello Hardison, welcome to the forum! There a few German speaking member here that might help you get back your fluency in German. I guess its hard to remember German when your not speaking it every day, like with every other foreign language.

I think the Internet has caused this phenomenon.  Twitter, texting and facebook all encourage the use of short words with few characters.  The result is pathetic abbreviations with a high amount of misspellings. 

My pet peeves are "their" "they're" and "there" and "it's" versus "its".  Really though, there are a million more common spelling errors.  Part of the problem is reliance on spell check.  And the fact that hardly anyone reads anymore.

I agree with you here. Hardly anyone reads, I myself do most of my reading online, when I read on paper its probably the news paper. I kind of miss reading a book now that I think about it.

I had this problem too before. Alot is not a word. The term is spelled as a lot. Same thing goes for the terms, a little, a bit, a few, a ton.

Its not that confusing at all. I Did receive is the correct answer. Come to think of it, I can't see any valid used for "did received", it's just plain incorrect. The word did already indicates the past tense so changing receive to received is pointless.

The first thing I actually read cover to cover, if I remember correctly, was a early set of X-Men comics. The first English book I read has to be one of the Hardy Boys books.

Animal Farm is my favorite work written by George Orwell. I like the use of an allegory to reveal all the flaws within communist Russia. I like how he choose roles to suit each animals. I like how how he portrayed the sheep and the ducks as being stupid, and as a result, were easily brainwashed the likes of Boxer and Napoleon. This was a very important lesson for me to learn even in seventh grade in high school. I learned the importance of thinking for myself, and not allowing others to place ideas within my head without me analyzing and critically thinking through them first to decide whether I should accept them or not.

That's my favorite George Orwell book too. It speaks a lot about the evil side of the humans race.The Road to Wigan Pier is also really good, it made me appreciate life more.

Is Animal Farm by George Orwell considered a short story? If it is, that has to be my favorite.

I've always noticed a few words that I tend to use a lot at a certain points in my life. Thinking about it, right now I use the words about, likewise, and the phrase your kidding a lot in my conversations. I think it has to do with your subconscious picking up terms of people you talk to a lot, or what you read and watch on media. 

I think the meaning the term "gangsta" is evolving, I'm sure what Rihanna meant was just the flashy, high class style of the late Princess Diana. I'd like to say, you can't compare the Rihanna to Princess Diana, especially in terms of class and style.