Language and the brain

Let me start today’s article by telling you about Phineas Gage, an American railroad construction foreman who, in 1848, had a three-and-a-half-foot long tamping iron rod driven completely through his head to then land fifty yards away from him. This was a rather spectacular event and most of us would probably assume that no one could recover from it. Well, Phineas did survive, however. Although his friends and family observed some changes in his behaviour, no apparent damage to his senses or speech could be determined and Mr Gage’s language abilities remained unaffected. Looking at his damage we can safely assume that wherever the language ability is located in the brain, it certainly isn’t in the left frontal lobe. We will then talk about tongue tips and slips and how these are being considered possible clues to the way linguistic knowledge is organised within our brain.

"Scalpel sister, we’re taking the brain apart"
Let’s forget about the right hemisphere for the time being and discuss where particular language abilities are located in the left hemisphere. We know this as, since Phineas’s time, a number of discoveries have been made and because people who had damage to those specific areas of brain then accordingly had also language disabilities. These areas are as follows:

Broca’s area – crucially involved in speech production
Wernicke’s area – understanding of speech
The articulate fascilus – a bundle of nerve fibres connecting Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area
The motor cortex – controls the articulatory muscles of the larynx, tongue, jaw and face

Tips and slips of the tongue
Behind the brain structure and the way our linguistic knowledge is organised within it, there are possible clues to why occasional speech production difficulties occur. We all experience them every now and then and perhaps more often after a night out. I bet you know the phenomenon when you feel like you know the word but it just won’t come to you when you want to use it. You might even have an accurate phonological outline, you might know the initial letters and how long the word is. This partial recollection you have suggests that our word-bank is partially organised on the basis of some phonological and semantic information while some items are trickier to be retrieved than others.  Sometimes when you finally seem to remember the word you articulate it only just to find that you got it wrong while there are often strong similarities between the target word and the mistake. These are normally referred to as malapropisms, after Mrs Malaprop in a play by Sheridan who constantly produced near-misses for words.

A similar type of speech production difficulty is the slip-of-the-tongue, also known as Spoonerism after an Anglican clergyman, Rev. William Spooner. Most of our slips involve interchange of two initial sounds in a phrase. Sometimes this might be done for comical effect like in memorable quote by Oscar Wilde Works in the course of the drinking classes. It has been argued that slips of the tongue aren’t random and that they indicate the existence of different stages in articulation of linguistic expressions and that our brain slips first failing at organising the message in the correct order before it gets out of our mouths. Sometimes we can also experience so-called slips-of-the-ear in which we mishear a word or phrase which would analogically suggest that the brain tries to make sense of the auditory signal it receives and again, occasionally fails at it.

The road to fluency

Hi. My last article received a great deal more attention than I could have ever hoped for; and for this I’d like to thank you all as my message has been spread. I appreciate all the comments and e-mails you were kind enough to send to me, it seems that my criticism of the pseudo-polyglots was justified. 

I speak English fluently

The war I’m waging against the pseudo-polyglots has spread as far as LingQ, an online language-learning community. It was there that I met Lilac, who, as one of many, complimented me on my English and also suggested that it would be a good idea to write an article on how I learnt it. In fact, unlike so many others in the language-learning blogosphere, I am actually fluent in a second language and, therefore, I presume I must know what fluency is and how one can achieve it. If you’re expecting some magic pill here or some three month/one year solution I’m going to have to disappoint you. Reaching my current level in both written and spoken English has involved a great deal of work.

First step – work, more work and… some more work

I remember attending English classes when I was younger and although I didn’t learn much I was exposed to English to a certain degree. I started taking things more seriously when I was about to graduate from high school and needed to take my matura (the Polish equivalent of GCSE) in a chosen foreign language. It was hard work; I remember nights spent home alone with a dictionary and grammar textbooks.

As it turned out, all my efforts paid off and at the age of 19 I passed my matura and scored 76% in English. Hours of study gave me the foundations for being able to communicate effectively. My vocabulary was nowhere near my current level, but rich enough for me to get by. I had a basic understanding of English grammar and my accent was very thick. I decided to move to England. As it turned out my language skills were only just good enough…

News flash

Right, so I moved to England. I was indeed equipped with the basic skills and I could converse in English, but it didn’t change the fact that I was absolutely terrified when I first heard natives speak to me and I don’t think I understood any more than about 50% of what was said unless repeated slowly and more clearly at my request. I knew that I’d thrown myself in at the deep end and it was a sink-or-swim situation. There was no option but to adapt… I could, of course, leave but it’s not in my nature to give up!

A mistake made by many a foreigner

I socialised a lot with the locals and this was key to acquiring English. Many people go abroad thinking this will somehow miraculously make them speak a foreign language. It doesn’t work like that. I’ve met Poles, Russians, Chinese, Spanish and many others who emigrated to the UK in little cliques or families and then tended to remain within these communities, working and living together – speaking their own language the majority of the time. The two Russians I shared a house with felt at home in their little enclave, speaking in Russian, eating Russian food and continually cursing in Russian too. Despite the fact that they had both lived in England for much longer than me, their English was dire. I made a point of not getting involved with fellow Poles while in England and would rather socialise with the British. As time went on I felt increasingly confident and understood much more of what was being said to me.

Serious killers don’t have any pennies on them

Don’t worry about any errors you might make when speaking in a foreign language. These are inevitable and sometimes of entertainment value. Every time I was asked for pennies in the shop, I'd blush as when pronounced it resembles the Polish equivalent of penis.  I suspect that Spanish speakers might be similarly surprised upon seeing pene on Polish menus (Polish for a certain type of pasta but Spanish for penis). Yummy! I also remember confusing a serious killer with a serial killer and one of the kids I used to teach English described an unfortunate event from his mum’s life as follows: My mum broke her rib and got laid in the hospital.

Fluent in body language?

Socialising is fun so the hard work I remembered from school soon evaporated from memory. I was becoming fluent at English and guess what? I wasn’t even trying! Pseudo-polyglots claim to be able to speak a foreign language pretty much straight away, skipping any hard work or intense exercises. That’s utter drivel. I’d never buy their useless e-books but I’d gladly pay to see them attempt to speak Polish without any initial study; better than any comedy methinks. If it weren’t for my past efforts I would have never been able to communicate in English at all. You need to memorise basic vocabulary at the least and learn about general grammatical concepts first… unless your aim is to, while speaking, completely exhaust yourself by gesticulating wildly!

Next step - more studying…

In total I’ve spent over 2 years in the UK, living and working in different environments and regions of the country. I have socialised with British people from various social classes as well as with many foreigners. While working as a client service administrator I familiarised myself with both formal English and office jargon. I learnt slang and idiomatic expressions - first those typical of the south of the country where I used to live in Cambridge and then in Welwyn Garden City (Hertfordshire near London), then those typical of the north (Cumbria precisely). When I returned to Poland and started studying English at University I realised that a lot of habits I’d brought back from England I needed to get rid of. Colloquialisms, slang expressions, regionalisms and even variations of British accents are frowned upon when your teachers expect you to speak coherent RP English, also referred to as Oxford English. Living in England was a lot of fun, but studying is now helping me select the positive aspects of what I acquired unconsciously and what, perhaps, I’d be better off without in order to speak academically-correct English.

How should you do it?

I won’t give you the answer to that question, but remember to never let anybody dictate to you what learning methods are best. You need to work it out for yourself as we all learn differently. I used to teach English and I could easily observe that some of my students remembered things better from writing them down, some from reading them out and some from hearing me say them. I think what’s important is to use a variety of learning processes. Nowadays study material in foreign languages is readily available and I find that listening to the radio or watching some television in your target language is helpful as you get used to real language in use. Finding yourself a tutor is definitely a good idea too. I’ve recently started learning Spanish and although I’m making great progress on my own I’ve arranged for lessons with a native Spanish speaker. Iván, if you’re reading this: Muchas gracias por tu ayuda. Eres el mejor profesor de español del mundo. It’s worth having a tutor even just to have somebody to ask about your doubts or confirm your assumptions. Whatever you do, just so long as it works for you that’s all that matters. Don’t let the pseudo-polyglots tell you flashcards are a total waste of time and studying is bad for you and that the only way you should learn is the way they do, as that’s about one of the most ignorant things one can hear from them.

Good luck with your studies everyone.

Polyglots or Polygloats?

Not so long ago I wrote an article What do you understand by fluency in which I criticise the pseudo-polyglots, as I like to refer to them. There were two people in particular I had in mind when I penned this short piece; however, I didn’t reveal their names at the time for various reasons. Today I would like to advise you against falling for these gentlemen’s dubious guidance, especially if parting with your hard-earned cash is involved. I find their practices highly immoral and, quite frankly, I despise the fact that they lie with impunity to their readers, leading them into thinking their tips will facilitate learning a foreign language in an incredibly short period of time.

Recently I've become aware of more and more pseudo-polyglots who claim to be able to learn languages within relatively short time spans. This idea appeals to people of the 21st century where everything must be instant. Some are even stupid enough to pay money to the aforementioned pseudo-polyglots for their precious tips on fast language learning. (…) I don’t understand what happened to good old scepticism and critical thinking ability. Are we humans just becoming increasingly gullible?

First polyglot under scrutiny…
Benny, also known as @irishpolyglot, has a popular blog, the url of which reads fluentin3months. That really is amusing when you consider the fact he has never actually learnt any language to a level anywhere near fluency in 3 months – read the list of languages he speaks and you'll find that he learnt them for much longer than that (e.g. German, he studied at school for years, even though he claims he couldn't speak it at the age of 21. It was at this point that I dared to question his skills and, I think, with good reason).

His definition of fluency is more confusing than all the seasons of LOST put together and couldn’t be further from the actual definition that can be found in a dictionary, which, I suspect, Benny does not possess. I wouldn’t even waste my time reading the utter rubbish he regularly thrusts down the throats of the hundreds of people who visit his website; however, there is something about him that won't permit me to just walk away without a fight. You’ll be as surprised as I was to find about the fact he also makes people pay money for his e-book.

I confronted him online several times not only on his website where he banned me after my first comment, but also on Twitter and another person’s blog where he called me a troll for touching on subjects not related to the actual article on which we were commenting. But tell me, where and how should one approach Benny if everyone gets banned and blocked for aiming words of constructive criticism at him? The article you’re reading now is therefore intended to be a warning for you. I don’t have anything to gain from writing it – I certainly don’t ask you to pay me for it. What he does is against my beliefs and all I’m trying to achieve is to open up people’s eyes. As many people as possible.

To see the article of his on which I commented - click here. I’ll leave you the link to his website and let you judge this pseudo-polyglot for yourself. Is the $57 he wants for the book money well spent? I’ll let you judge this yourself too...

Polyglot – illiterate in several languages?
The other pseudo-polyglot I wanted you to become aware of is @yearlyglot. I haven't wanted to talk about him in the past for personal reasons, but now I have no qualms about it. Unlike his colleague, Irishpolyglot, Yearlyglot promises his readers that one can learn a foreign language and speak it fluently after just one year! Perhaps this miracle takes him a bit longer than 3 months as he seems to get distracted by several languages at once – this year’s mission of his is Turkish, however, as he claims on his blog he not only learnt Polish within the last 2 months but also started speaking Macedonian… after reading just one article about it on Wikipedia! His e-book about learning Italian costs $26. I’m not happy to reveal more than necessary about the aforementioned gentleman, however, more attentive Twitter followers will probably know that we met up in Poland. What remained a secret until now is that I had to assist in the simplest of activities such as buying tickets and ordering food due to his poor language skills. Now listen – I heard him speak Polish once, namely when ordering a coffee in a restaurant. This involved him saying "Jedna kawa, proszę". Yearlyglot, however, didn't mention any of this at all on his blog. Imagine how surprised I was to read as follows:

While in Poland, I was able to buy food and drinks and train tickets. I was able to ask for directions and understand amounts and times. I found my way around and even gave directions to some Poles. When I didn’t understand something, I was able to ask in Polish for its meaning, and usually understand the explanation.

None of this is true. Furthermore, Yearlyglot eschews conventional learning techniques and says:
"Stop buying books. Stop studying." A little bit of study never harmed anyone, especially if you want to do more than order a cup of coffee.  Perhaps, this guy should learn a bit more about the grammar of his own language too. It’s a "definite article", not a "definitive article". Once I had pointed out his mistake he not only kept arguing his point but wouldn't even bother to check if what he said was correct and nonchalantly asserted that I was the one making a fool of myself. Sadly for him, it was the other way round and... the greatest ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about.

Are we really this gullible?

So, why are people taken in by the polyglots? Well, we like to take the course of least resistance. If there is an easy route we'll take it. The polyglots want you to believe that you can bypass all the hard work by way of purchasing their e-books and shave years off the length of time that it would normally take to speak a language fluently. I wonder if they can perform other miracles too? How about turning water into wine, or failing that, reasonably priced petrol?

It's all smoke and mirrors though. Their claims are usually grossly exaggerated. Either that, or they neglect to tell you about their related learning experiences or about their epic failures.

What really irks me about these self-professed polyglots is that they seem to think they are some sort of oracle when it comes to language learning and they won't even consider the possibility that conventional learning methods are not only valuable but perhaps even better than the methods they advocate. According to Yearlyglot, flashcards are a waste of time as he states on David Mansaray's blog. What about if you make the flashcards yourself? The mere act of making them is helping you commit the words/phrases to memory, how can that possibly be a waste of time? You should use the methods that work for you. Don't allow yourself to be dictated to by the sort of people who seem to revel in the fact that they can speak several languages badly.

This is not a personal attack. These, I believe, are just a couple of examples of pseudo-polyglots. Be wary! There are plenty of others out there, along with the guys on TV selling useless kitchen gadgets or instant weight-loss schemes, waiting to get into your wallet. I'll leave you with this thought - if something seems too good to be true then it probably is. The same applies to learning. If you put in the effort you'll reap the rewards and pseudo-polyglots' assistance won't be missed.

Step by step grammar 8: Interjections

Interjection, also referred to as exclamation, is used to express an emotion e.g. oh! shh! oops! and it is usually to be found at the beginning of a sentence.

Ouch, I stubbed my toe!
Hey! Don’t be moody!
Oh no, I lost my key again.

Interjections are also used to fill in the pauses in sentences, and then they express hesitation e.g. er, um, hm.

Interjection is not grammatically related to any other parts of the sentence and is often followed by an exclamation mark.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the series so far. We’ve covered parts of speech and next week we’ll be moving on to verb tenses. Have you subscribed to English Focused yet?

What do you understand by fluency?

Recently I've become aware of more and more pseudo-polyglots who claim to be able to learn languages within relatively short time spans. This idea appeals to people of the 21st century where everything must be instant. Some are even stupid enough to pay money to the aforementioned pseudo-polyglots for their precious tips on fast language learning. No, their tips won’t work like some magic pill and you won’t turn into a fluent speaker of a foreign language in a couple of weeks’ time. You want to speak a foreign language fluently? Let me give you my tip… for free! What about you try the old fashioned way and actually make an effort? I don’t understand what happened to good old scepticism and critical thinking ability. Are we humans just becoming increasingly gullible? Copy-paste from Google Translate and a video in which you read out some pre-prepared text in a foreign tongue is not what I understand as the ability to speak a language fluently. Perhaps it’s all about how we define fluency then. The "polyglots" will conveniently use their own definition of the fluency so as to satisfy their need for goal-achieving. The rest of us, however, will know we are fluent when we can sustain a lengthy conversation in our target language. Don't kid yourself; this is more likely to take years rather than months. The younger you are and the more effort you make will hasten the point at which you realise you really are fluent. Good luck.

So you think Polish is hard?

The truth must finally come out. I’ve heard enough of this utter rubbish about how difficult Polish is. If you’ve tried to learn Polish and failed to achieve decent levels of communication and understanding  this means you're either not trying hard enough or are just plain stupid. You can’t just say English is easier, because it isn’t! Sure there are grammatical concepts in Polish that are absent in English but don’t forget this works both ways.

Although some grammar books claim there are 16 tenses in English this isn’t true. It doesn’t make it any easier though as there are two tenses (present and past), four aspects (simple, progressive – also referred to as continuous, perfect and perfect-progressive). This is a formidable combination for foreigners, difficult enough to confuse us along with the very unclear rules surrounding the tense usage. I mean…. There are differences even between BrE and AmE as far as tenses go so are we supposed to get the right ones? Ugh. Now compare that with Polish: three tenses (present, past and future – couldn’t be any more obvious, right?) and two aspects (imperfective and perfective – pretty straightforward and all it takes is to learn the correct verb forms). We like it easy, don’t we?

Foreigners cringe when they hear about seven cases in Polish and I agree this can be a nightmare to grasp for a native speaker of a language that lacks this concept but all it means is that you’ll need to make an extra effort and pay a bit more attention to it while learning. On the bright side Polish has no articles. YES! YES! YES! (I hate articles in English and even though I’m super fluent I still make mistakes when using them).

Stop moaning. People always point to something difficult in every language and the sad ones use it as an excuse for not learning it. Fail! Fail! Fail! What I hate even more are Polish people spreading these rumours about how difficult our language is. No, it isn’t! Put this silly point of national pride behind you. The fact we have lots of consonants is not a problem, we are all humans and if my speech organs are capable of articulating something, yours are too no matter where you come from. I might have struggled with my th in English but here I am pronouncing it like a native. Make the effort! Polish, being almost fully phonetic, is actually easier than English, if you slowly pronounce each and every single letter in a word you’ll pronounce it right (NEVER the case in English, in fact even native English speakers don’t know how to pronounce certain words e.g. schedule).

 No language is hard. Depending on your native language, some languages can be easier for you. However, it doesn’t make them easy for everybody. I would probably find Czech much easier than English and similarly if you’re a native English speaker you will find German easier than Polish.  Lastly, I wanted to say it’s a pleasure to learn Polish. Why? Because most Poles you meet when you come here will be amazed to see you’ve made the effort to try to speak Polish (even if only a little Polish). We’re quite nice chaps, really!

So…. What are you still doing? Get back to studying Polish. I don’t want to see you back around here again until you’ve learnt some more. Good luck!

Second language acquisition

Children who are exposed to two different languages at once are indeed able to acquire both of them simultaneously but certainly the majority of people have only one native language they learnt in this process of "sponging".  Furthermore, the foreign language we learn in later life will be very rarely assimilated to the same degree as our native tongue even if studied for years. The puzzle here is how are children able to acquire languages so effectively and why does this skill apparently die out as we grow older? Why do other mental abilities and systems of knowledge we might be familiar with in our lives only ever develop in adult brains e.g. mathematics, physics, psychology. Children seem to have an unfair advantage, a spark of genius, when it comes to perfecting their first language acquisition. How is this possible?

Learning vs. acquiring

Of course, we may say that learning strategies of adults differ from those employed by children. There is an important distinction between learning and acquiring. Learning a language is an unnatural process and results in knowing “about” language whereas acquisition refers to developing the ability to speak a given language while using it everyday life. The latter normally brings much more success. Even under perfect conditions putting a person into a foreign country and forcing them to interact socially for long periods rarely results in the ability to speak L1 and L2 at matching levels.

Critical Period

There must be some crucial moment in our life, the so-called Critical Period that once passed, it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible to acquire or learn a foreign language to perfection. To illustrate this point let me introduce the story of Joseph Conrad who, despite not becoming fluent in English until he was in his twenties, went on to write novels at a level remarkably higher than most native English speakers but… until he died he retained a very strong Polish accent in his spoken English. This might make us think about how, perhaps, some features of a language can be acquired more easily i.e. grammar and vocabulary than for example pronunciation.

Emotional Reaction

What I find intriguing is that there is also some type of emotional reaction in adults who are naturally more self-conscious than young children, which seems to reduce the levels of L2 acquisition. This might have to do with fear of pronouncing words and even single sounds that seem strange and unnatural in their native language. This would explain why foreigners often struggle with English th sound and why English speakers of Polish can’t deal with sz or ś sounds. It’s not like our speech organs are built any differently or our tongues are too stiff to explore new ways of positioning. Fear might indeed be one of the reasons or perhaps the inability to acquire a foreign language fully stems from the fact that we consciously or unconsciously dislike a language or its speakers. If we move to another country and don’t align ourselves with its culture and inhabitants or have particularly bad experiences while living there we might be less likely to “pick up” the language on quite the same level as we’d like to in different circumstances.

I recently wrote about first language acquisition and received several interesting comments. I’d love to hear from you this time as well. Do you think that first and second language acquisitions differ from each other and if so, on what terms? And finally, more importantly, what methods of learning simulate first language acquisition in order to improve the effects of our efforts? 

Step by step grammar 7: Conjunctions

Conjunction joins two words or sentences together. A few examples in bold can be found in the sentences below:

Lucy smokes and drinks a lot. Attractive she may be, but nevertheless stupid. Would you really go out with someone like that or rather find a girl you can have a conversation with?

We distinguish a couple of types of conjunctions depending on their function. Some of them join two single items e.g. Tea or coffee? Others introduce a dependent clause to our utterance e.g. He kicked the oven door in fury; therefore, it was then broken.

I hope this was easy. If you haven’t subscribed to English Focused yet do it now as there’s more to come. Next Wednesday we will explain what an interjection is. 

First language acquisition

Some of you might know that I have recently moved into a new flat in sunny Kielce, city in the south of Poland. I still haven’t met all of my new neighbours but I was pleased to find out that there is a married couple next door with three lovely children. Their 8-year-old put a smile on my face, the day I first met him, when he said Jest Pani bardzo ładna (You’re a very pretty lady). I thought it was cute and wondered about how nice it is to be a kid and be able to say exactly what you’re thinking without worrying about social awkwardness. My new admirer’s little sister struggles with language a bit more. I asked her how old she was and she replied with Mam 3 roki (I’m three years old – this should be Mam 3 lata in Polish as plural from year – rok is irregular – lata). Children make mistakes such as that one by logical analogy as normally in similar words in Polish plural would be indeed created by adding –i e.g. smok – smoki (dragon - dragons) or krok - kroki (step - steps). The newest addition to the family – another little girl is still an infant and makes no more than cooing and babbling noises. So… all of them three kids communicate on different levels.

How do we do it?

All normal children, regardless of what culture they are born into develop their language skills at roughly the same time. The theory has been suggested that the language acquisition develops together with learning motor skills and kids first learn words for laying down, sitting up, crawling, being held up, eventually standing up and walking. This means that we learn language as babies while doing physical activities. At the same time, however, studies demonstrate that the child’s early environment has a huge impact on their linguistic development and this indeed differs from one culture to the next. N. Chomsky describes language development as language growth and sees it as growing just like parts of baby’s body. 

Caretaker speech

The fascinating thing I noticed is that the parents next door help their children in their language acquisition by so called caretaker speech – simplified expression of ideas, full of diminutives, rhetorical questions, repetitions and all manner of what we understand as baby-talk. In English it includes words such as daddy, mummy, poo-poo, doo-doo, pee-pee. The difference can be, however, seen in the way my neighbours speak to their oldest son – here their speech is a bit more elaborate as he certainly is able to understand more than his younger sisters and also uses more language. They don’t do it consciously but they change into teachers and are extremely flexible with switching from one level to the next depending on which child they’re talking to. I guess this skill must be buried deep in our brains and we intuitionally know how to mentor our offspring.

Let me know how it’s going!

Without sounding too creepy I’m trying to keep my eye on the family next door as I find it extremely interesting how their children assimilate language. Those were just first few things I've noticed so far and I’m eager to find out more. If you ever wondered about the process of first language acquisition feel free to share your views. I’d especially love to hear from parents about their children’s learning process. Thanks!

Rhetorically Speaking 4: Similes

Similes are when you compare something or someone to something else. The idea being that you choose something to compare to which is renowned for the characteristic you want to describe. For example, you might describe a person, who is very tough, in this way:

He is as hard as nails
(Nails are by their very nature tough)

Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Many similes make reference to members of the animal kingdom

As stubborn as a mule (mules are characteristically stubborn)
He took to the task like a duck to water (water is the duck’s natural environment)
He was like a bear with a sore head (you might use this expression to describe someone with a bad hangover, bears are supposedly mean and grumpy, and one with a sore head even more so)

The examples so far have used like and as when making the comparison. Not all similes use this construction, here an example from Shakespeare’s writings:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

When you want to say that something is distinctly lacking in a certain property or the opposite you might use an ironic simile:

It’s as clear a mud

Next week we’ll be looking at a related subject, metaphors.

One for the Road?

The English are very fond of their drink. If you plan on visiting Britain you might want to brush up on some drinking terminology, so that you can “fit in”, so to speak.

First choice to make is the choice of venue, usually at home or pub. Or more accurately where to start drinking, it’s not uncommon to start drinking at home, before going to the pub to get hammered, then on to a nightclub to get completely legless. Of course some people prefer to drink in the street, you can typically spot winos, with their drinks wrapped in brown paper bags drinking in public.

Drinks are commonly bought from the supermarket or a shop that specialises in selling alcohol known as the off-licence, or offy. You might buy some plonk (cheap wine) or maybe some alcopops (sweet-flavoured drinks popular with young people).

Image: Nicholas Tarling / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You should try to arrive at the pub during happy hour, because there are often special promotions on drinks. In practice this may last longer than an hour, but when happy hour is nearly over it’s not uncommon for people to rush to the bar to get the cheap drinks. Don’t forget that the term bar is not only a name for a posh pub, but also the place where you queue to get your drinks. The person serving you is a barmaid if female and a barman (or bar steward) if male.

There are various levels of alcohol-induced intoxication, pick one before choosing your alcoholic drinks. There is tipsy (only slightly impaired), merry (happy because you’ve had some drink), getting blotto, pissed or shit-faced is usually reserved for those who don’t have jobs to go to in the morning.

If you are driving you will probably want to order a soft drink such as lemonade or cola. If you’re staying for a while you might order a refreshing shandy. This drink is half lemonade and half lager or beer of some description, usually served in a pint glass.

If you want to talk to members of the opposite sex you might need some dutch courage (bravery brought about by drinking alcohol). You might invite someone back to your place for a coffee (usually sex, but not always) or a nightcap (an alcoholic drink before bedtime). In the morning the person you took home might not be the supermodel you thought they were, in scientific circles this effect is known as beer goggles - people look more attractive the more you drink.

Drinks come in various sizes. Beer, cider and lager comes in pints (568ml) or half-pints (halves). The stronger drinks, spirits such as whisky or vodka (voddy), come in what is known as measures. Order a single, a double, a triple or higher. Ordering larger amounts than this is pointless, the bar staff will ignore your order and give you what they see fit, safe in the knowledge that you are too drunk to notice the difference.

Half an hour or so before the pub is about to close (technically known as chucking-out time) you will hear a bell, sounding last orders. This is your last chance to get a drink (or one for the road). When last orders are over, you’ll have a certain amount of drinking-up time, then the staff will be keen to get you out of the pub, shouting “Haven’t you got homes to go to?” and sighing loudly.

Somehow you will find your way home, regardless of how paralytic you are. You may wake up in the middle of the night with a telephone in one hand and a kebab in the other. Do not be alarmed, this is perfectly normal. In the morning you will swear “Never again!”. This resolve doesn’t last long usually and you may be tempted to have the hair of the dog (another alcholic drink in the morning supposed to cure a hangover).

I hope you have learnt some useful phrases and, as they say in the adverts, please drink responsibly.

Step by step grammar 6: Prepositions

A preposition works as a link between other words. It usually indicates some sort of relationship to the object it refers to – whether to do with time or space. Words such as in, on, to, with, under, above etc. are all prepositions.

The flower is on the window sill.

I’ll visit you before Sunday.

It usually occurs inside a prepositional phrase i.e. preposition followed by a noun phrase such as into the city, after the movie. In some circumstances prepositions appear in the construction called preposition stranding where they are not followed by a noun e.g. where are you going to? Come in. There are also certain verbs that are followed by a preposition and we refer to these as phrasal verbs – fixed constructions of single verbs and prepositions - e.g. make up, fall out, switch on.

I hope this was easy. If you haven’t subscribed to English Focused yet do it now as there’s more to come. Next Wednesday we will explain what a conjunction is. 

It's not what you said. It's how you said it.

Intonation provides speech with an amazing degree of expressiveness. We often hear people say ‘it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it’ – intonation allows us to detect sarcasm, helps us to read one’s true intentions and is therefore a crucial element of communication even if hidden beneath a layer of words and phrases. We have pitch, volume and speed as ingredients, and rhythm and pauses as spices for every sentence that comes out of our mouths. These are the auditory properties of sound which don’t show in writing so to express them linguists invented a special transcription.

Transcription

There are two categories of intonational transcription, analogically to the broad and narrow segmental phonology transcriptions. A broad transcription represents phonological analysis of the speaker’s pitch and in a tonetic-stress marking system a mark is normally placed before the stressed syllable. A narrow transcription on the other hand is represented by a varying series of dots, sometimes a line that corresponds with speaker’s pitch of voice – top and bottom lines represent the pitch range. Each dot on the diagram stands for one syllable where big dots are stressed syllables. This type of transcription is referred to as interlinear tonetic.

Loudness – a nightmare for non-native English speakers

Loudness as a prosodic feature is to do with the stress pattern of a word and can often bring about a change of meaning e.g. record (verb) – record (noun). If you ever heard me speak you would know that I’m not a native speaker of English judging by my mixed up stress pattern. This seems to be a huge obstacle for many speakers of English as a foreign language and is indeed a measure of super fluency. Loudness depends on intensity of energy occurring in a sound and this in turn is related to the pressure of the air coming out of our lungs. What makes it trickier is that in English there are certain influences on intensity and loudness such as with open vowels which always are of greater intensity than close vowels. This, of course, comes naturally for native English speakers whereas foreigners need to adapt to their system.

Functions of intonation

The most obvious role of intonation is of course to express our emotions and attitudes i.e. happiness, sadness, impatience, anger, surprise and practically everything we can think of. Its grammatical function is to help us read whether what somebody said was a question, exclamation or perhaps just a statement. In this case it is a substitute for punctuation. Sometimes intonation can help us achieve our goals, especially if these involve public speaking. Charismatic masters of prosody have a much easier time convincing people or sometimes even manipulating them. In this group we can normally find politicians, preachers, teachers, religious leaders, lawyers and many more.

Guide to Style Guides

Some of the better quality newspapers such as The Guardian and The Times provide style guides for the benefit of their journalists. The idea being that all the articles appearing in their publications should be consistent in terms of punctuation, spelling, capitalisation and use of language. The guides are usually made available to the public in book form and/or on the internet, such as The Times style book. If you’re into this sort of thing it can make for fascinating reading.

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Usually the style guide writers also advise on topical issues, such as how to spell Colonel Gaddafi’s surname out of the 32 or more possible options (strictly speaking it’s an alliteration of his name from the Libyan original).

Apart from useful guidance on where to place hyphens and suchlike the style guides often provide a list of “banned words”. This isn't often, contrary to what you might expect, a list of swear words and terms. Instead, it is something that the guardians of good writing practice find far more heinous, namely clichés, tautolgies and sensationalisms such as

Brutal murders - all murders are brutal so that word isn’t needed
Innocent victims - victims are by their very nature innocent
Jaw-dropping

The tone of these style guides can be quite amusing. For example, Americanisms are frowned upon and and so are seemingly politically correct terms such as chairperson. The word “toilet” is on the banned list too, this obviously has lower-class connotations, despite it being the word that you will see on the door of public toilets.

So, the higher quality press has style guides that aspire to keeping their journalistic standards high. Do the gutter press have style guides encouraging sensational headlines, stereotyping and stating the obvious. Do men's magazines provide guidance to their journalists on how to objectify women, relate their tales of excessive drinking and the best way to describe bodily functions. Maybe they do, but somehow I think these are the sort of guides less likely to be made available to the public.

Defending the Queen's English

What is it about American phrases and spellings that some Britons find so offensive?

Extremists (loyalists even?) might refer to British English as “The Queen’s English”.

You lazy Americans are distorting the language and thereby insulting the Queen. Our Queen! Treason! Off with their heads!

Why lazy? Does it really take all that extra effort to type the u in “colour”. Having said that, the addition of that letter u does little to help some of my countrymen pronounce the word correctly. All too often you will hear “culler”, which has an entirely different meaning.

There are occasions when British spellings win out. Take for example “meter” (a measuring device) and “metre” (a unit of distance). Here there is a useful distinction in spelling what are two essentially different, but related, words. Hang on, maybe it’s not so useful after all. Americans favour imperial measurements just as much as the British and will rarely measure distance in metres anyway (aside from the fact that the context will usually tell you what sort of meter we are talking about). The only difference being that the British occasionally get forced to use the metric system by those nasty bureaucrats in Brussels.

Other British objections to Americanisms are also arbitarily unreasonable . Take these two examples that follow a similar structure

Write me (surely that should be write to me?)
Call me (this is acceptable and call to me is a mistake you’ll often hear non-native English speakers make)

The differences between American and British English are relatively few considering the number of words in the English language. There are the obvious choices between words such as “sidewalk” and “pavement” or “elevator” and “lift”. American pronunciation is an area that causes a certain amount of consternation for me. Do I pronounce “schedule” as skedule or shedule? I honestly don’t know any more. I really do watch too many American films and sitcoms.

This is where the American z (zee to Americans, zed to everyone else) can come in useful.

Initializing (American spelling, the letter in pronounced as a z)
Initialising (British spelling, pronounced as a z, but written s, pure crazineness!)

Let’s not get carried away with this useful aid to pronunciation, otherwise it could have far-reaching rezults.

From reading the article so far you might think I am more in favo(u)r of American English than British English. Perhaps, but right now I’m in the United Kingdom, drinking tea and complaining about the weather and advocating the use of British English, original and best!

Rhetorically Speaking 3: Irony

In Search of Irony

A couple of books I’m reading at the moment have made references to “ironic t-shirts”. This got me to thinking, what exactly is an ironic t-shirt and for that matter, what exactly is irony.

It turns out that there are three main types of irony...

Verbal Irony

This is when you say something while implying something else. For example if there's a massive rainstorm outside and you say “What lovely weather we’re having!”. You are being ironic.

Dramatic Irony

When the readers or viewers are aware of a character’s situation and the characters themselves aren’t this is dramatic irony. In “Romeo and Juliet”, for example, Romeo is distraught because he thinks that Juliet is dead. He then kills himself. We as readers know that Juliet is not in fact dead, so that’s dramatic irony.

Situational Irony

Ah, my favourite type of irony. This is when a situation leads to results that would not normally be expected. Classic example

President Reagan was struck by a bullet that bounced off the presidential car. This is ironic because the car was bullet-proof (and probably bomb and missile proof too) and in normal circumstances would protect the president from bullets.

Irony in Popular Culture

In my quest for examples of irony I was led to popular culture and this sketch from Blackadder

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

Ok, this was just a simple play on words, but amusing nevertheless.

Apparently Americans “just don’t get irony”. Does this extend to Canadians too? Perhaps. You would think that Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” would be a great place to find some ironic scenarios. You’d be wrong. As Matt Sturge points out in this article most of what she mentions in the song is just bad luck/unfortunate timing:

Attempts at describing irony: 11
Successful attempts: 2.5

Irish comedian Ed Byrne showed he really knows what irony is all about: "The only ironic thing about that song is it's called 'Ironic' and it's written by a woman who doesn't know what irony is. That's quite ironic."

Anyway, back to those elusive ironic t-shirts. Ordinary t-shirts may turn out to be ironic if worn in the right situation. Take for example these ironic t-shirts to get arrested in. Strictly speaking artistic irony is when an artistic work refers back to earlier art.

My search for ironic t-shirts led me to this design, "Pop Art is Dead". Maybe this is the ultimate in ironic t-shirt design? The t-shirt is ironic in the artistic sense (referring to the pop art style) and situationally ironic (because it’s using pop art imagery while at the same time saying it’s dead). So it seems that not only is pop art still very much alive, but irony is helping to keep it that way.

Types of comma, and rules surrounding them

The isolating/bracketing commas:

The most common type of commas and they are used to show a weak interruption in the sentence, something we could put in brackets hence the name. They usually occur in pairs although sometimes one of them won’t show.

He was, I thought at the time, a decent enough person.
I never realised, however, how much effort it will take to go to University.
Alfred Charles Gimson, born in 1917, was an English phonetician.

The easiest way to check whether you need commas is to imagine a given sentence without the interruption you’re trying to mark. If it still makes sense – commas should be there e.g. He was a decent enough person is still a sentence even after removing I thought at the time.

A listing comma:

It can be replaced by and or or:

I like eating bananas, watermelons and kiwis. / I like eating bananas and watermelons and kiwis.
I will go to Italy, Spain or Portugal. / I will go to Italy or Spain or Portugal.

A joining comma:

It is used to join two complete sentences into one and is always followed by and, or, but, while and yet.

I went to college, and my husband did as well.
I must have forgotten about my homework, or there was no homework at all.
I loved him, but he turned out to be a psychopath.
She was a good and loyal person, while his new girlfriend is a lying cheat.
The train was running, yet I felt I was stuck in the same place.

A gapping comma:

It is used when omitting words already used in a sentence in order to avoid repetition.

I dyed my hair black, and my sister, red.

Bear in mind the comma before and is a joining comma, whereas the one before red is a gapping comma (used instead of repeating has dyed her hair).

Step by step grammar 5: Adverbs

An adverb is a word that we use when describing a verb. It usually ends in –ly and answers the questions: how? (quickly, carefully) When? (recently) How often? (regularly, weekly) . Most adverbs are formed by simply adding the aforementioned –ly to the end of an adjective e.g. slow – slowly, patient – patiently, smooth – smoothly etc., however, there are exceptions too e.g. good – well, fast – fast.

We said that an adverb describes a verb. Look at the following examples:

I walked slowly. – slowly describes the verb walked – how did I walk/in what manner did I walk? Slowly.
I recently purchased a new vehicle. – When did I purchase that new vehicle? Recently.
I frequently exercise. – How often do I exercise? Frequently.

I hope this was easy. If you haven’t subscribed to www.englishfocused.com yet do it now as there’s more to come. Next Wednesday we will explain what a preposition is.

I are Hulk, I has no grammar

Some people tend to think that knowledge of vocabulary is key to being able to speak a foreign language and that grammar is of less importance. Let me tell you that this isn’t true. We use grammar in everyday speech, whether we want to or not.  If meaning were to be contained within just the word, then we should be able to understand the following utterance without fail:

SPOT

Well, we don’t understand it at all, do we? The problem occurs because there is a number of possibilities and every one of us can understand it in a different way.

A spot as a small part of different colour than the main part? A spot as a place? A spot as a small quantity?

We can’t possibly guess which sense is implied without any context given. But linguistically, giving context is giving a sentence and to give a sentence we need grammar.

There was a little black spot on my yellow summer dress. This nightclub we went to turned out to be quite a hot spot! Would you like a spot of tea?

With sentences everything becomes clearer. That means, with grammar everything becomes clearer. We are able to make sense!

We need to study grammar which is by no means of less value than other domain of knowledge, however, it is unfairly looked upon. Language is involved with everything humans do and to understand language is to understand grammar, the very basis of it. With no grammar, language would be like a house with no foundations. No other species has this incredible skill and ability to speak yet we, so often, carelessly neglect it. Furthermore, a first to understanding a foreign language is knowing the grammar of your mother tongue. You will find, that other languages have nouns, verbs and adjectives too and without knowing these terms it’s much harder to understand new linguistic concepts.

There is a significant difference between knowing grammar and knowing about grammar. We all ‘know’ grammar - you understand what I’m saying and you can express what you want to say too. If you are a native English speaker, then you have learnt this grammar unconsciously whereas if you studied English as a foreign language then you not only know its grammar but you probably know about it too. Hence no surprise the latter often know a lot more about the English grammar than the former. If never taught to do so, it is incredibly difficult to explain the grammatical terms and processes as they are plainly abstract ideas. And at the same time - it is just as difficult to understand them.

I used to get really frustrated with people who asked me about Polish and its grammar without having the slightest clue of how their own language works in the first place. They just seem to think there really is a magical pill I can give them so that they will suddenly grasp all of it. Once I started using terminology that is absolutely a must-know when discussing language and which they obviously failed to understand, they would look at me as if I lost my ability to speak at all and was making inarticulate noises instead. Argh! Then of course they’d say I’m showing off. Really awkward and really frustrating. Don’t do that to foreigners! Make a bit of effort instead. Websites such as English Focused are here to help you out. Have a look at our Step By Step Grammar Series, a painless walk through those seemingly difficult grammatical terms. Good luck!

Avoid common mistakes in English 3: Coming and Going

When talking about their travels and commuting I often hear non-native speakers of English incorrectly use coming when they should be using going. So, which is the right one to use?

This is where it gets slightly complicated, because it depends on factors such as

The place you’re going to
Where you are
Whether the person you’re speaking to is already at that place (or likely to be there)

Basically

You go to see people
People come to see you

So, if you’ve failed to arrive at work one day the boss might call or text you (remember here the place where you work is often just referred to as “work”)

“Are you coming in to work today?” (the boss is at work so you are coming to them)
Or, maybe, you are making a call to explain the situation
“I’m really ill, I won’t be coming in to work today”
(the choice of coming or going is from the perspective of the person you’re talking to, in this case the person who you are talking to is/will be at work, this even applies if you are leaving a message on an answering machine or talking to someone who won’t be going in to work until later)

Suppose you are talking to your friend (who isn’t connected to your workplace)

“I’m not going in to work today”
(In this case you might consider going to see your friend and say to them: “I can come and see you instead”)

Finally, you may have heard a few expressions relation to coming and/or going

“I don’t know whether I’m coming or going”.
You would use this expression if you were confused and had too many things to think about. The idea being that a very confused person wouldn’t be able to decide if they weren’t coming or going.
“I can’t keep up with his comings and goings”
Here comings and goings means general movements and activities.

Hopefully, now that you’re armed with that information, you’ll be able to correctly tell people whether you’re coming or going.

American English

There are about four times as many speakers of American English as there are of British English. The differences between the two include vocabulary and idiomatic phrases but the most obvious and easily noticeable is probably in the accents. As a result of overwhelming numbers of American English speakers and the economical and political importance of the US, forms of English used in Britain, Australia, Canada etc. have become less distinct.
Historical background In the 17th century British people went to the US. They spoke a variety of different dialects but after they reached their destination, their language started to develop independently and began to have less and less to do with British English. A lot of new words were added to their vocabulary, often borrowed from Native Americans. Later on, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the language they spoke was affected by French and Dutch settlers along with various other immigrants coming to the US.
Dialects and regional differences The main differences between regional dialects are based on accent but also vocabulary used. General American English (GAE), derived from the Midland dialect group, it’s the dialect closest to standard, spoken widely in the Midwest but used in different parts of the country too. Similar but not quite the same, the Midwestern accent is common across the northern states. Northern dialects spread west from New York while New England has its own accent. The Bostonian accent is rather distinctive and spoken by rich families from the Boston area. The influence of Mexican Spanish on south-western dialects can be seen. African Americans still live in the US and their accent seems to have a lot in common with southern accents. I also found this video with an adorable British boy trying to put on American accent and it really made me laugh although he mostly tends to imitate southern accents more than anything else. These are most distinctive and often work as a stereotypical American accent. It is by no means a reliable sample of American English; however, it is really pretty funny and sweet how he tries to do it. I just love the way he says “squirrel” and “how are you doing?”!

Written American English
There is also a distinctive way in which Americans spell which British people seem to consider wrong. As long as they may accept –z- for –s- in words such as realise (realize) and –t for –d in past tense of certain verbs such as learned (learnt) they often frown upon –or- for –our e.g. colour (color), -x- for –ct- e.g. connection (connexion).There is a war over past participle of a verb ‘to get’. Americans say it’s gotten and British say it’s got. Also, American English seems to be much more direct and polite forms used commonly in British English, decorated with pleases and thank yous as well as polite questions such as would you mind if… are very unnatural to Americans. It is basically a very British phenomenon as these over-polite forms seem very fake for native Polish speakers as well.

Lingapps

I am not a professional but merely an iPad user who thought they could spare a few words about the apps I use and you can read more reviews if interested. I recommend all of these for language students and linguiphiles.

Mental Case Flashcards - £.79 / HD £2.99

Totally awesome and fun. It lets you create flashcards on your device. You can use it to learn practically anything – I use it for Spanish and English vocabulary. The brilliant thing about is that you can not only add pictures but also audio files. Some people remember things from seeing them, some from hearing so here’s the solution for both.

Accela Study Spanish | English  - £5.99

Another brilliant app based on flashcards and vocabulary learning. Depending on what version you want to get, prices vary - there are more languages available. Now, when getting one of the more pricey ones, consider whether you really will learn anything from it. I know a person who paid a lot of money for language learning apps and still can't really make any sense in their target language anyway. It is a nice supplement but not a substitute for the hard work that is studying!

Shakespeare - £0.00

Right, that’s the app that my literature lecturer recommended and that includes the complete works of Shakespeare. It comes with a brilliant glossary too. ‘’How cool’’ I thought, hurriedly downloaded it and have never used it since… That’s just me though. It would be perfect for Shakespeare lovers as well as literature students. There’s also Shakespeare Pro available, a paid app with additional features such as audio and so-called Shakespeare Passport – a virtual ticket to participating venues e.g. exhibitions.

Record - Voice Recorder - £1.19

Not professional but works brilliantly for me when recording lectures. The best part is probably the fact that you get to sync it so easily with your computer. It’s very easy to use too and does exactly what it says on the tin.

iStudiez Pro  £1.79

It lets you manage your timetable as well as keep track of your work and preparations for exams. Alarms and notifications come with it so that the app reminds you about your deadlines. Personally I don’t use it, as all of the above functions I find good enough in Google Calendar and a traditional paper one. It looks like a neat app though so might be worth trying if that’s your sort of thing. Alternatively have a go with its free counterpart - the Lite version.

Memeo Connect Reader - £0.00

This is fantastic. I love it! If you are a Google Docs user and have an iPad you know exactly how much of a pain it is to go to traditional Google Docs view in your Internet browser, right? Now, this app is beautiful and so neat! You can of course browse your files in offline mode too which is good news for somebody like me who spends a lot of time travelling and loves to keep productive on the go. I would honestly pay money for this app but guess what? It's free!

Scrabble –  iPhone £1.19/ iPad £3.99

We all know what this is. Try the Apple version and you will be stuck to your device. Believe me, everybody I've told about this app must have spent hours playing with it. It’s really fun, also when other people want to try a multiplayer option with you – pass and play/WiFi. The app is gorgeous as well and no tidying tiles is required! The terrible downside for me is that I got hopelessly addicted to it!

Miss Spell's Class– £0.00

Test your spelling abilities with some of the trickiest words in the English language. Decide quickly if the words you see are spelled correctly. Time is running! It’s a really cool app, brilliant for competitions with friends as Miss Spell gives you a grade after each go. 

Rhetorically Speaking 2: Alliteration

Alliteration is the use of the two or more words in sequence that have the same sound in their first syllables. Take this example

The snake silently slithered

Here the ess sound is repeated three times. The repetition of sounds is very pleasing the to the human ear and sentences using alliteration take on a poetry-like nature. Made-up names for cartoon characters and comic-strip heroes often feature alliteration,

Micky Mouse, Donald Duck, Dan Dare.

Then there are film and pop star names, characters in novels and fictional places,

Ronald Reagan, Janet Jackson, Peter Pan, Heartbreak Hotel

Overuse of alliteration can often become cliched. An example of this is in what we shall politely call the lower-quality press. Headlines like “Fox Found on 72nd Floor” (taken from today’s Sun) aren’t too bad, they just got lucky (and so did the fox). However, all too often, headline writers go out of their way to use alliteration and the results can sound contrived, such as this example which manages to pack two alliterations into one headline, “Can this cute cat secretly sense death?” (also from today’s Sun).

Summing up, use alliterations sparingly. Sometimes they will happen naturally. Don’t give in to the temptation of using words you wouldn’t normally use (or aren’t entirely sure of) just for the sake of alliteration. This, my dear readers, is why this article isn’t titled “Awesome and Awful Alliterations”. For once I am practicing what I’m preaching.

The True Meaning of Ignorance

My cliché-radar has been working overtime recently. There seems to be a real profileration of native English speakers who are misusing the word ignorance. I'm terribly sorry to inform you, but a person who does not reply hello to you is not being ignorant. You are being ignorant yourself, however, for not knowing how to use your own language. Although the person who is ignoring you might be ignorant about good manners, chances are they are simply being rude. The definition of the word ignorant is less informed or lacking in knowledge. We all exhibit a degree of ignorance in different areas - nobody knows everything, therefore calling someone ignorant is not even a proper insult, despite some people construing it as such.

Suppose I couldn't be bothered to speak to you because I don't like you/don't care about you - the silence is just my way of expressing get out of my face. This isn't ignorance at all, this is being honest. You turn round to somebody else and moan to them about how ignorant I am. It doesn't make you look very smart, does it? Before embarrasing yourself again please take my kind advice next time, make an extra-special effort by opening up your dictionary.

Michael Jackson stated in one of his interviews that people were ignorant if they had a problem with him sharing his bed with children. What information or knowledge were we lacking to understand his behaviour? What were we ignorant of? His famous misue of the word ignorant was subsequently spoofed by South Park.

Sometimes foreigners make the mistake of using ignorant as a noun. This is especially common for my fellow countrymen as ignorant is indeed a noun in Polish. Then again, in English, there is the noun ignoramus used to describe an extremely ignorant person.

To sum it up, be careful when using words you're not entirely sure about. There's a similar story with the word hypocrite, but I'll talk about it on another occasion. Take a second before you call someone ignorant and ask yourself this question: is there any specific knowledge they're lacking and therefore ignorant of?

Be Your Own Proofreader

A while back I was browsing the threads on my favourite internet forum. Some hapless fool had made the mistake of posting a thread advertising himself as a teacher of English. Needless to say, the post contained some mistakes, whether they were typos or not I can’t remember and this brought the usual guffaws from the forum regulars who have nothing better to do with their time. One of these guys posted this remark,

“Well, making those sort of mistakes won’t exactly install confidence in your pupils”

The phrase he was looking for was, of course, “instill confidence”. I discreetly PM’d the guy pointing out that he had used the wrong phrase so that he could nip in, make an edit and not make a fool of himself. Making mistakes in English when trying to ridicule someone is not a great strategy. I shouldn’t have bothered. The guy said that he was a proofreader and knew what he was talking about.

If I’d known about Brians' Errors at the time I could have pointed him in the direction of this page. Instead I told him to Google it (my apologies for using Google as a verb). Google is a very quick way of determining how popular a word is on web pages and hence in the real world. However, if you simply search Google for install confidence followed by instill confidence you might be fooled into thinking that installing confidence is a perfectly valid concept. The key here is to make sure that when searching Google for a phrase make sure you enclose the phrase in quotation marks, thus otherwise Google will search for the words in your phrase individually rather looking for the phrase as a whole.

Some people just don’t take criticism well, no matter how politely presented, and the guy refused point blank to believe that he could possibly wrong and said that he was too busy to argue the matter. Too busy badly proofreading texts in-between spouting nonsense on internet forums, no doubt.

These days there is an even better way of finding out how popular certain words and phrases are. Enter a word/phrase into Google’s Ngram Viewer and it searches its repository of over a million or so books and produces a nice graph of how often a word has been used in various books throughout the ages. You can even select which type of books you are searching from; “British English”, “American English”, “Fiction” etc. Fascinating stuff. For example, you can see that gaiety is steadily falling into disuse whereas facebook was non-existent before 1982.

We have online spell-checking these days and you can see errors underlined in red as you type. What you might not see underlined in red are the words that went astray when you rephrased your sentences. Reading your text out loud is a great way of finding errors. After you’ve finished reading it out loud pass it to a friend or colleague and get them to read it out loud too. Even then a few mistakes might slip through.

Remember to give criticism politely and accept it graciously. Acknowledge that there will always be people better educated than you (this might not apply to you Nobel Prize winners out there if you’re reading this). Also remember that just because something is in popular usage doesn’t mean it’s correct. Having said all that, hopefully there aren’t too many mistakes lurking in the articles I’ve written and if there are then I’m all too happy to have them pointed out to me. Now, I shall sit back and wait for the stream of emails to arrive...

The Importance of Spaces

You can’t see them, but you know they’re there. I’m talking about spaces. There are some pairs of words that can be used joined together as one word or kept separate with a space. The distinction can be very subtle or very marked. Here are some of the most common examples.


every day & everyday

I go to the gym every day
(Here every day is an adverb meaning on a daily basis).
I have a tuxedo for special events as well as my everyday suits for work
(Here everyday is an adjective that means ordinary, not special)
Going to the gym is an everyday occurence for me
(Here everyday is again used as an adjective, but this time literally meaning every day or pretty much every day anyway)

everyone & every one

Everyone deserves a treat now and again
(Everyone means all the people, everybody can often be substituted for everyone)
Make sure you check that every one of those envelopes has a signed cheque inside it
(We could have used all here, using the phrase every one emphasises that we definitely don’t want any missed out)

all together & altogether

I’m not altogether sure about the meaning of this word
(In this context altogether means completely or entirely, either of these words could be used instead)
I’ll do the presentation when we are all together in the same room
(All together means in the same place at the same time)

into/in to

Put the ice cream into the freezer
(Here into is used to emphasise the motion of putting something inside something else)
Governments rarely give in to ransom demands
Johnny handed his homework in to the teacher
(In these examples giving in and handing in are phrasal verbs so we need to put a space before to)

all right/alright

Alright is the less formal spelling of “all right” (more of a British-English thing)
How are you? I’m alright thanks (means I am ok, nothing much to complain about)
How was the film? It was alright (in this case it means passable, in the sense of it being average, nothing special)
Then there is the use of all right as two discrete words...
Make sure the figures are all right (i.e. correct) before you send the quotation to the customer.

all ready/already

I already ate (Already means you have done something, usually, but not always, in the recent past)
When you’re all ready I shall begin (Here all just means everyone present)

As is often the case in English if you’re not sure of something avoid using it. If a dictionary isn’t available for you to check something then you may well find a way of expressing what you want to say using words that you already know the meaning of.

Why English?

I was asked on Twitter the other day how come I decided to study English. The question struck me as practically impossible to answer as I can hardly remember how/why I started. That doesn’t mean I’ve been learning English for a very long time, quite the opposite. I simply started learning it for no big reason and without paying much attention to it. It was simply one of these things I used to to do “on the side”, similar to what I now intend to do with Spanish. There’s a faint hope down there inside of me that perhaps I will be able to speak Spanish to the same level. We may then say that Spanishfocused.com is a work in progress. For the moment though, I am studying English for certain reasons. Let me start.

When Poland was a part of the Eastern Bloc the need for English to Polish and Polish to English translators just wasn’t there. I remember one of my lecturers telling me how difficult it was to study English, obtain the materials etc. He remembers students from England coming to visit Poland in the 80’s for exchanges bringing plates, forks and mugs thinking they might not get these in Poland... We may find it amusing today but not when we realise how little communication there was between the East and the West. While Poland was behind the Iron Curtain Russia was obviously the main focus and Poles had to learn Russian at school, just like both my parents did. It is no longer compulsory and nowadays pupils learn English or German. The fact that English has now gained the status of an international language helps as it is easily accessible - not only is the internet full of it, but you can buy English books, newspapers and movies practically anywhere.

Polish to English and English to Polish translation is of great value for both sides and effects a greater understanding of enterprise and culture. Suddenly, within the last 20 years the need for Polish native speaker with fluency in English has dramatically increased and is still on the rise. Translators, interpreters, teachers... I came across this article today. The author complains of how he went to Poland and couldn’t find a single person to hold a conversation with him. This is, I suspect just a bit of an exaggeration, however, it depends on where in Poland you go. You are more likely to find speakers of English in bigger cities and tourist locations, but truth be told, the overwhelming majority of Polish people neither speak nor understand English.

Google Translate doesn’t solve the problem either. Anyone who has tried a translation engine will know that the results can often be comical and occasionally worse than useless. Anyway, my point is, for translation we need skilled and highly-qualified professionals and this is where many young Polish people, including me, see their future. Sweat and hard work seems to be followed by a worthy prize, so despite the occasional nervous breakdown I’m trying hard not to give up.

Finally, thank you for all your feedback, it always lights up my day to receive emails from you. I can't think of any better motivation.