English as a second language: a personal account

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Squidoo teaches me English

Squidoo is quite good for my English. All those lovely homey topics. My English is excellent (if I may say so myself) when it comes to complicated issues. I sometimes feel it's easier to talk about spirituality in English than my native Dutch: I've been reading about these topics in English for quite a while now.

But the weather. Will I ever feel comfortable using words like 'sleet' or 'hail'? I'm not even sure about the spelling (though my spelling checker isn't protesting)

What English Words or Phrases are you struggling with? 

This is especially for visitors of this lens whose first language isn't English. What English have you learned on squidoo (or elsewhere)? What words to you struggle with at the moment?

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    somos somos Dec 6, 2009 @ 7:19 pm
    i am native Spanish speaker, but have gone to school all my life in the USA, one thing i still struggle with English is the spelling, since it isn't phonetic, for example, cough, (really ou and gh?) and i can never spell definitely, also, why all the double consonants like in the word exaggerate, i always forget if it's double g or double r. thank goodness for spellcheck. Spanish is more user-friendly, you just write it like it sounds!
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    Abhilasha Abhilasha Nov 14, 2009 @ 11:05 am
    English isn't my native tongue and in the language i speak in I went to the park would be by translating the words "I park went" so i often say sentences backwards. Is there any exercise to help me?
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    spirituality spirituality Nov 16, 2009 @ 11:24 am
    Just practice. For instance you can keep a diary in English about all the things you did that day - and make sure you are very conscious about the word order. Good luck
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    DaveWalters DaveWalters Jun 12, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
    English is my native tongue, but I have been in China teaching it as a second language for a few years now. I think I have probably learned more than my students :-) The subtle and detailed nature of langauge is something we often ignore when we never had to spend time learning it. Learning a language is such a dense undertaking, I can truly appreciate those who learn another language.
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    Brahim Brahim Mar 7, 2009 @ 7:34 am
    english is my second language i have been learning it for ren years ago and amlooking forward to master oral aspect
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Crochet - aka 'haken'  

As a kid I was into crafts bigtime. So of course I learned to knit and I learned how to crochet (is that a verb?). But I learned in Dutch. The one year I went to school in the states did teach me the word for 'brijen' - to knit - but not the word for 'haken', which the two lenses below teach me is crochet. Thanks bethd821...

How about Biology? Blackberries or black berries? 

I'm good at biology - in Dutch. But blackberries (Thanks Brenda for telling me it's not actually two words 'black berries'). I used to pick them when I was a kid. But the Dutch word is very different: Braam, Bramen. What we call a black berry (zwarte bes: two words) is more like a black red berry (no idea what rode bessen are called in English). So using the word 'blackberry' brings to mind the wrong berry and the wrong plant. Very confusing.

 

Alright - this lens is about blackberry jelly. Still, it has a great picture of what the fruit looks like: for me, as a learner of English that was enough.

Great Stuff on Amazon 

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Practical English Usage

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Blackbirds or black birds? 

Similarly: blackbirds (again: one word apparently). I've read about them for a long time - they figure in literature a lot. I've also seen them around, they are quite common here in the Netherlands. But we call them merel.

So I never knew what a blackbird looks like. I never had a picture in my head when reading about them. Merels (plural of merel) don't actually figure in our literature much - and aren't seen as romantic. So the association is weird. I was never sure what bird to picture. After all - there are other black birds as well: ravens, crows etc.

But thanks to squidoo I now know what to picture :)

 

You really have to look hard on this lens. But way down the middle there's a picture of a black bird in characteristic pose. As I said: that's a 'merel' in Dutch.

Struggling with English - online 

English as a Second Language, Oll Raigth! - WFMU's Beware of the Blog
Years ago I saw a South American actor?whose name I don't recall?on a talk show. He was discussing the difficulties of learning English and he said that, to Spanish-speakers, English sounded like barking dogs.
A Beta Release Microsoft Research: ESL (English as a Second ...
The Microsoft Research ESL Assistant is a web service that provides correction suggestions for typical ESL (English as a Second Language) errors. Such errors include, for example, the choice of determiners (the/a) and the choice of ...
ESL - English as a Second Language - Teach English in Taiwan ...
Tesljobs.com is an international ESL job board, ESL Teachers resume board, community collection of teaching resources and teaching articles.
No Better Time Than Now to Teach English Abroad | Education
They are defined as follows: English as a Foreign Language (EFL), English as a Second Language (ESL), Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), and Teaching English to Speakers of Other ...

Daffodils 

Being a country where bulbs are grown a lot - we have a lot of daffodils (though our tulips are of course more famous). Daffodils don't figure in our literature much. They shouldn't either. The word we use for them is 'narcis' - which isn't pretty at all.

In English though daffodils do appear in literature a lot. Not sure why - the flower is a bit pompous I think. Perhaps the reason why J.K. Rowling turned them into honking daffodils in the Harry Potter books.

I hear that there are actually two kinds of daffodils - and one IS called narcis in English? Or something? I hope someone can enlighten me in the comments.

 

To my relief this lens doesn't name them anything other than 'daffodils'. I mean - do I really need more confusion trying to keep up with the differences between English and Dutch?

More common plants 

One of the difficulties of cross cultural biology is simply that many plants don't exist on another continent. However, on this page I'm sticking to those things which are the same, just with different names in different languages. For instance the new English word I learned today: dandelion. Can't even think of the Dutch right now.

Medicine - speak English, will you? 

There's one subject where squidoo has so far not been able to help me learn English: it's medicine. The Dutch decided - centuries ago - to use mostly Dutch terminology when talking about disease. (They did the same in Math by the way, though a bit later. This has the consequence that the Latin terms used all over the world are not known to me - even though I studied math.)

In medicine this means that I don't know the first thing about medispeak. I don't know just what an anurism is. Or a visectimy. Judging by my spell checker - I don't know enough to know how to spell them either. I really don't need anybody to help me with English - but if I ever end up in an American or English hospital, I WILL need help just understanding what's going on.

English a second language for you too? Did I make any mistakes? What weird English do you struggle with? 

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    a_willow a_willow May 31, 2009 @ 10:12 am
    You're right! I started writing in English for Squidoo after years of no writing at all. Now, when I started to write my first lens on Croatian, I was so confused! ;) More and more often when I think about something, English words come to me first! Crazy, I know but truth! Blessed birthday to you my friend!
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    dc64 dc64 May 15, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
    Here's a poem by T.S.Watt (1954) which describes English perfectly:

    I take it you already know
    Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
    Others may stumble but not you,
    On hiccough, through, lough and through.
    Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
    To learn of less familiar traps.

    Beware of heard, a dreadful word
    That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
    And dead--it's said like bed, not bead.
    For goodness's sake, don't call it deed!
    Watch out for meat and great and threat:
    They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

    A moth is not a moth in mother,
    Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
    And here is not a match for there,
    Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
    And then there's dose and rose and lose--
    Just look them up--and goose and choose,
    And cork and work and card and ward,
    And font and front and word and sword,
    And do and go and thwart and cart.
    Come, come, I've hardly made a start.

    A dreadful language? Man alive,
    I'd mastered it when I was five.
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    tandemonimom tandemonimom Jan 15, 2009 @ 1:13 am
    I have, sadly never learned a second language (though I did study Latin in college). This is a cool lens topic! Again, congrats on making the 100 Club!
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    spirituality spirituality Sep 13, 2008 @ 8:51 am
    I have no idea what raspberries are (any lenses on the topic?) so I wouldn't be able to tell you. From a dutch perspective Rode bessen (which literally means red berry) are THE ESSENTIAL BERRY (or bes). But that's about all I know. The mysteries continue :)
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    Evelyn_Saenz Evelyn_Saenz Sep 12, 2008 @ 7:23 am
    "What we call a black berry (zwarte bes: two words) is more like a black red berry (no idea what rode bessen are called in English)."

    I wonder if those are Black Raspberries? Another possibility is that they are a different berry all together. The berries from Costa Rica that are translated as blackberries (mora) certainly are a totally different berry than blackberries here in the States.
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