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erikao1o

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Everything posted by erikao1o

  1. I taught ESL for awhile, and I still tutor ESL at this time. My biggest pet peeve is when students do not capitalize the letter "i". Instead of writing "I" they write "i". An example of this is: "i walked to the store" instead of "I walked to the store". It drives me crazy!
  2. Poetry breaks grammatical rules all the time! If you ever read anything by e.e. cummings, you will see that most if not all of his poetry breaks a lot of grammatical rules. In fact, his name does not even have any capital letters! You think that it would be spelt E.E. Cummings, but the correct way is with all lowercase letters.
  3. I imagine that flirting in a foreign language can be very difficult! A lot of flirting relies on jokes, sarcasm, double meanings and even sometimes being a bit mean in a joking way. I speak French, but I don't know if I would be able to flirt in French. There is so much slang and sexual words that I don't understand, I feel as if I would be completely lost!
  4. What an interesting question! I'm not sure what languages would be the most useful, but here are the five that I would choose. I chose English and French as I am a Canadian citizen, and both would be very helpful for me. 1. English 2. French 3. Spanish 4. Chinese, either Mandarin or Cantonese, I'm not sure which one is more useful 5. Arabic
  5. I tend to call people something to do with a "bum", although I'm not sure if that qualifies as explicit or not! I tend to use "bumhead" and "bum" a lot when I am insulting someone. Although I do usually put an explicit word before I use the more appropriate one!
  6. I get a lot of anxiety when I have to speak French too, so don't worry you're not alone! I find that the more you practice and the more you study, the more confidence you'll get in yourself. As an ESL teacher, I've encountered a lot of students who got anxiety or were too shy to speak English in front of me, due to the fact that I was a native English speaker. I would always try to get them to relax and remind them that I was there to teach them, and not to judge them. The more you speak a language, the better you get at it. It takes time, and there are some rude people who will simply be rude about it, try to ignore them and continue your quest for knowledge!
  7. I would say I use an online dictionary at least once a day. I often come across words that I don't know the meaning of, and I can't stand not knowing what they mean! I also sometimes have to review the definition of a word before I use it, to make sure that I'm using it correctly.
  8. My mom has this for Dutch. Her mom (my grandmother) was born in Amsterdam, so my mom grew up hearing Dutch all around her and visiting the Netherlands a hand full of times. She can now understand most of the conversations that are going on around her in Dutch, but she can't really speak the language. I've been trying to encourage her to study Dutch and learn how to speak and read it well, but she doesn't seem that interested!
  9. I use so much slang when I'm talking to my friends! To a person who is just learning to speak English, how we talk would definitely be difficult to understand. A lot of the words we use have double meanings, and some things are even inside jokes. I can't imagine trying to listen to the crazy things we talk about!
  10. Madame Bovary is definitely a classic. I remember reading in it my grade 12 French class, and unfortunately I found it to be very boring! I thought that the main character was totally un relatable and that the story moved at a very slow pace.
  11. One I can think of is, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!" which means that someone is starving. When I was teaching ESL I taught my students "a piece of cake" which means that something is very easy. They loved using that idiom and would tell me how all of our work was a piece of cake!
  12. I've heard that it's best to have children listen to different languages as early as possible. Children tend to have clearer and more authentic accents if they grow up listening to a foreign language being spoken by a native speaker. I've heard of parents putting on French or Spanish TV for their young children to listen to, which can help their child develop excellent accents.
  13. It would definitely be helpful if there was a global language, it would be a lot easier for everyone to communicate with each other. Although it would be helpful, I don't think a global language will ever exist. People love their own languages too much, and languages are strongly linked to culture. I can't see people giving up their distinct cultures just to make communicating easier. I think that English is the closest we have to a global language at this point.
  14. I think that it would be really interesting to study Latin. My high school didn't offer it, but another high school in my district did. I think it can be really helpful if you study any of the Romance languages, as they are based on Latin. It's definitely an interesting skill to have!
  15. I think that everyone has a bit of shyness about them when they're learning a new language. I taught English in South Korea, and I found that a lot of my adult students and adults that I met were super shy about speaking English in front of me and making mistakes. I found that children were the exact opposite, they didn't care what mistakes they made at all! In the case of learning a new language, it would be great if we were all more like children!
  16. I have never been able to get into any books by Jane Austen. I've read a few of her books for school and have watched some movies of her books, but I just don't find the stories that she writes interesting at all! Maybe it's the time period that they're set in, but I just find it all rather bland and boring.
  17. From what I understand, there are a bunch of different accents and dialects in Spain. I've been doing some research about Spain, as I plan to teach there in September. While I was researching, I found a website which mentioned how difficult or how easy the Spanish spoken in each of the regions of Spain was to understand. I found it funny and informative that a language could vary so much in one country!
  18. I've just decided to start learning Spanish again as I am thinking of moving to Spain to teach English in September. I learnt Spanish for two years in highschool, and I found the language fairly easy to learn as I already had an intermediate knowledge of French. Spanish is very useful, it's one of the most spoken languages in the world!
  19. I use "lol" a lot, especially when I'm texting with someone or talking on facebook chat. It helps when you're trying to convey that you're joking about something, or that you're trying to be funny. I find that a lot of the time, sarcasm and other forms of humour can be lost of text message and on the internet.
  20. I'm always really nervous before I write any exam, even if I studied a lot and am super confident in my abilities. I find that I have problems being in a waiting room before an exam starts, I always pick up on the nervous energy that everyone else is giving off. I try to wait somewhere private and just try and calm myself down.
  21. Unfortunately, I always think in English. I've been told my old teachers that once you start thinking in a language it makes it much easier to communicate in that language. I hope to one day be able to think in French and Spanish! I remember when I was younger and studying French there were times when my thoughts were in French, I long to get that back!
  22. When I was teaching English in South Korea, we were always encouraged to teach the children using songs. I taught my kindergarten class a whole bunch of pop songs, from One Direction to The Beatles and they loved all of them! Sometimes the kids would ask what certain words meant and I would be able to explain them to them by referencing one of the songs that we had learnt.
  23. I would say that I'm a fairly fast reader. I have learnt to read quickly though all my studying and reading in university. Whenever I'm reading something with a friend, I always find that I finish reading a lot faster than they do. Sometimes I have to slow myself down and read a little bit slower, as I often miss important parts of books!
  24. Even though she only wrote one book my favourite American author is Sylvia Plath. The only novel she wrote was "The Bell Jar", but she is also known for writing a lot of poetry. I think "The Bell Jar" is one of the most beautiful books ever written. Plath writes beautifully, and her prose seems to flow really naturally.
  25. I just finished reading "Crime and Punishment", which is quite a long book! I am very proud of myself for finishing it. I found it to be a little bit difficult to start, but there were definitely parts of the book that were very interesting. Unfortunately, I didn't think that the book had a very good ending. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in taking on a classic novel.
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