Hi, I am new to Alibaba,

I am a Canadian currently living and working in Dubai (2.5 years) as an English teacher but moving to Shanghai November 1.

The purpose of this thread is to keep my grammatical skills sharp and to provide an opportunity for those of you studying English to ask any English-related question you want. I will try my best to draw from my English instructing experience to answer your question, and I encourage other native speakers to join in.

Hope you find this helpful!

Replying to [Leosun]:

Hi Leosun,

Sorry for the delayed reply. Yes, I know what you mean. There are different differences between cultures when it comes to writing styles.

For example, I remember in Dubai many of the Arab students would write extremely long sentences, using lavish vocabulary. They told me that Arabic writing is often written this way to be poetic.

Unfortunately, writing this way in a foreign language can prove to be disastrous! Long sentences provide increased opportunity for mistakes.

As a general rule, I usually advise my students to keep their sentences short and concise and to link them using cohesive phrases, such as:

As you can see,
Even though
But
Because of this
As a result
It is obvious
Without a doubt
However
Coincidentally
Surprisingly
...etc

By using phrases such as these to link short sentences together, you will deliver your message in a much more effective way. Plus, you will minimize the chance of mistakes. In effect you 'kill two birds with one stone'!

Having said that, I do not want to discourage you from using new vocabulary. There are some great books available that focus solely on bolstering the English student's vocabulary abilities. With the help of these resources, a teacher and a good thesaurus, you'll be composing masterpieces in no time!

Good luck!

Your pal,

Ryan


PS - Simple English IS beautiful!

Replying to [EnglishRyan]:

Hi! I am a Chinese from Hong Kong and I heard from our teacher in the old day saying that "simple English is beautiful, or Simple is a beauty." Something like this....
As far as I know many Chinese think in another way: using difficult words and words with profound meanings could show to others they are very good in the English or high standards, at least they believe it.
Even some are reading the dictionary and try to find some very old and complicate words or verbs or nouns to compose their essay or articles. It's like our Chinese writing:using some old expression form or words which you cannot find them so often in today's all kind of printing materials. These types of Chinese will be very happy when they hear someone don't know and ask . Superior feeling , high quality enhance their inner happiness. What do you think? Excuse for my poor expression.

Replying to [EnglishRyan]:
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for your kind reply.
If you don't mind. I would like to have those great books to improve
the volcabulary....
Please give some names when you are free.
Best wishes!
Leosun

Replying to [Leosun]:

Hi Leosun,

Sorry for the late reply. I went back to Canada and just returned to Shanghai yesterday (hope you had a great holiday!)

I recommend you check out these books:
Enterprise (British series)
Market Leader (the material is a little boring, but it has some great vocab building sections)
SpiderWords (or maybe called WebWords - I have seen these books here in Shanghai at the Foreign Bookstore on Fuzhou Lu, they are written in Chinese and English)
The Vocab-Vitamin Vocabulary Booster
A good thesaurus

And these websites:
www.breakingnewsenglish.com (Excellent resource, however I do not think it is accessible from China)

www.worldwidewords.com (New words everyday)

Good luck!

Replying to [EnglishRyan]:
First to wish you a lot of happiness for 2008! Thank you again for your kind introduction for those great books.
I will check and study deeply.

By the way,how do you feel Shanghai?
If you love this great city, may I suggest you to do something to help Shanghai. I learn from the TV program introduced an American ,who retired and stays in Peking now. He is the English "corrector" ,who checks currently in Peking from big roads to small streets, trying to locate those expressions and writings in English from the posts, advertisments and boads which hanging in front of each shops and restaurants, gardens, road signs and indciators for local or tourists and re-write them with the assistance of the concerned department. You can find many of these signs are poorly translated in the meanings, of which many foreigners do not understand at all.
I forgot his name, but this gentleman also gaves a great assistance to the Peking City for he teaches the old people English in the parks and gardens. And some of these old people can speak simple English and act some volunteers to introduce historial sites to tourists in English.
Imagine more Chinese can speak simple English and use simple words with a correct writing and clear expressions in the surrround environments, less misunderstanding and better for everybody.
Of course, it is a big job and not easy, but you can promote this idea while you teach the English in the university.
I would like to see a good start if you can be an assistance to this great job or project soon.
If someone from the Shanghai and work for the concerned department from the Government , why not give a hand?
Best wishes to all.
Let's improve our English together!

Replying to [EnglishRyan]:

I am Kicha from India. You can learn Englilsh by reading some good books. Learning is a never ending process.

It is said that reading makkes you a full man. You can accumulate knowledge by reading only.

Now with the advent of Computers there are various website available.

Pl be in touch with me. I am good teacher.
My e-mail ID is : ramki44@yahoo.co.in

Have a Nice Day

Replying to [EnglishRyan]:

DearnRyan,

Leaning English Language is very easy. You daily devote about 2hours by reading good books. Now with the advent of Computers and Internet you can learn any thing. Remember that learning is a never ending process.


Till death one can learn. It is said that Readig makes you a full man.

I am a good teacher and learning is skill. There is saying that Knowledge is power.You can if you are very serious of learning anything.

To start with can you understand the meanings of the 4 words mentioned below.

1.) SEE, 2.) LOOK 3.) WATCH, 4.) OBSERVE


Please respond.
My e-mailID is : ramki44@yahoo.co.in

Replying to [Kicha]:

Hi Kicha,

Thanks for your post. I am not quite sure I understand - what subjects do you teach?

Ryan

Replying to [Leosun]:

Hey Leosun,

Wow, thanks for sharing the info concerning your proofreading friend - I would love to be involved in a project like that.

In the same vein, I have heard of English Corner in Shanghai but have not had a chance to visit yet. A friend and I are going to try to get over there this weekend sometime.

Hope 2008 is treating you alright!

Ryan

Replying to [EnglishRyan]:
Dear Ryan,
Thanks for your kind reply.
I think you can have a good position in Shanghai if you are interested to contact the concerned departments and tell them such story happened in Peking. Sure those officials will be interested to coordinate with you. Meanwhile you can try through the Shanghai English corner for such an idea.
Thanks in advance to help our people!!
Best wishes.
Leosun

Just poking my head in here......in the interests of helping people out, how picky are we being with grammatical errors? Missing articles, mis-conjugated verbs, etc?

Is the purpose here to make things only as clear as necessary to be understood, or to correct mistakes, some of which I've found to be quite repetitive from a variety of Far East natives?