miguel_jieb

Recently, or for the past year, I've been finding it really difficult to get into any book or written work deeply enough for me to enjoy it. There are required pieces of texts that were compulsory for me to read, but I never really enjoyed it despite having been an avid reader in the past.

Are there any favourite books of yours or such that you would recommend to get me out of this rut?

Am I right in my impression that you have been into books in the past but have lost the fire? But whether or not I'm right, I just have some pieces of advice here my friend Aishe. 

You could start by reading Antoine de Saint Exupery's The Little Prince. It's a thin book with pictures. I'm not treating you as a kid Aishe. The book may seem to be for kids because of the illustration but actually it's not. It is a simple book with a deep meaning. Many people quote this book.

After reading this, you could read George Orwells, "Animal Farm". It's a classic book, which, I think was written to indirectly attack the government during the time of the author.

Then, you could read Paolo Coelho's "The Alchemist". This is a wonderful novel packed with lessons.

This is a step-by-step reading program that could ignite the fire within you for reading books. I hope these help my friend. 

I have to say that the fiction which inspired me was Paolo Coelho's "The Alchemist". It's a story about a man who went on a journey to find a treasure. On the journey, many life lessons could be taken. It's a wonderful book with plenty of lessons. One of the lessons I got from it is, "Happiness comes when we see and experience the beauty of the world that God made without losing the values that we treasure."

I don't know if it inspired me, but a book that made a deep impression on me was Animal Farm by George Orwell. It's actually considered a novella since it's rather short. It's a quick read but really moving. The whole book is an allegory for the Bolshevik Revolution with all of the characters representing a person or a group. I highly recommend it.

I've heard of this classic book too. I received so many good feedback about it. I hope I could find someone to lend me one.

I walked slowly towards the bathroom afraid that he might have discovered my secret at the bathtub. I took slow, silent steps. I heard the shower curtain move. I grew more cautious as I approach the bathroom.

The word "check", a bank related term, is the spelling used in American english. However, from what I know, it is spelled "cheque" in British english.

In my point of view, it's safer to use "cheque" rather than check if we mean of the thing used in bank transactions. Why? This is to avoid confusions and misunderstanding since check could mean many things but cheque refers to nothing more except that which is used n bank transactions.

There's a widely used phrase that amuses me. I just noticed it when someone brought it up in class. Have you heard the phrase, "Like for example..."? It's redundant to say like and example at the same time. The correct phrase should be, "take for example", "for example", and "like".  Am I right? :grin:

Most often, I feel tense before examinations. I am the type of person who studies a lot and yet, before taking examinations, i have that feeling that I have not studied enough and I review further giving some persons the impression that I cram. This perhaps is caused of my fear to get low scores. What I do is calm myself down by taking deep breaths (not the exaggerated noticeable ones) and pray for the Lord God's guidance.

I text often in shortcuts since, by doing so, I save time. However, I do admit that there is a down side to this. Sometimes, I make shortcuts as an excuse for me because I forget how to properly spell words. But, I check them afterwards so I'll be corrected. I text in correct spellings and punctuation marks when I text important messages like advice or suggestions to someone's assignment or project.

I don't have a problem with these words being added to the dictionary (although, what is "tweep"?). A dictionary should reflect the common words of a language, and over time reflect their change in usage. These new additions simply reflect the current trends of today's world. I'm sure 'Internet' and 'telephone' were at one point thought strange to be in a dictionary, yet they've become commonplace today. Give it a few years, and some of these new slang words will seem like nothing new.

Well said, I do agree with you. These words were strange sounding in the past but they widely used now-a-days. Yes, dictionaries should reflect what people say. To put something in the dictionary is to provide a word with a concrete definition, that is, to put them on the map.

Nope, not a story, but actually writing did help me learn the language.  I wrote about things familiar and close to me, like for example my life and that kind of things.  Writing can help, but what you write about makes a big difference.  For me it was like that, since I was never able to learn using grammar books or at school (not like we had the greatest English ever o anything like that, lol).

I think feeling deeply immersed in your learning experience is the key here, to feel a real interest and the excitement that comes after realizing you just communicated with another human being in their own language and you were understood by the person!  Nothing more thrilling than that!  That's why I think char rooms and writing mails is great for students.

I do agree. Immersion is the key. I'll cite two examples from my experiences.

First, I live in a country with so many dialects. I attended a class on learning a dialect that was used in the place where I was to stay for some time. I got a background of their dialect however I only remember some words and up to the time that I left the place, I was not able to speak their dialect. Why? Because I was not able to converse the people native to the place. Most of the time, I was only with people who spoke my own dialect.

However, in my second experience, I lived in a community with various cultures and languages. There were Filipinos, Thais, Vietnamese, Papuans, and a Cambodian. I tried to focus on trying to learn the Pijin language. Conversing with them was very effective. I learned that through constant communication, we would not only learn the proper words to be used, but also learn the proper pronunciation and intonation. Immersion also provides a support group that would constantly correct you and encourage you to do better. It's a warm and wonderful learning experience.

The previous story ended when Alberta's mother grew pale with fear. The same story continues. The same rules apply. Let's continue the story adding one to two sentences only. This is a part of practicing English in a creative way.   

The day that Alberta's mother feared the most came. She had no other option but to reveal her deepest secret to her daughter, Alberta. 

It's not always "combining two sentences" - it's combining two 'clauses', like this:

"There was a big dog outside. The cat meowed" - These are two independent clauses. So you can combine them with a semicolon.

"There was a big dog outside: the cat meowed" - You've combined the two sentences and gotten rid of the 'pause' between them (the full stop).

Neither do I use it. Since them, I'm uncomfortable in using semicolons.

I just recently noticed that in this thread, "semi-colon" has a hyphen when it should not have any. This is what makes this website great. I'm learning a lot and I still want to learn more.

Going to back to the thread, I'm grateful for your explanation. It's one of the uses based on what I researched. It's a good example.

Hi. I'm not a native English speaker but I'be been a part of the editorials staff of different school publications. I wrote on this thread not to brag but to be helped myself. I still want to learn more. I want to unlearn the things I thought was correct so if you have corrections, I'd be greatly happy to accept them.