Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by MisterF on October 7, 2008 at 7:18pm

my problem with speaking English is just getting people to understand the abstract concepts I'm discussing :)

Permalink Reply by Susan Liu on October 8, 2008 at 2:11pm

i need a practice partner.hahah........

Permalink Reply by Icy on October 8, 2008 at 6:56pm

Cant remember enough words.
Bad pronunciation.
Always forget to use Past Tense.
Wanna be good at my business english!!!!

God, so many...

Permalink Reply by Thor on October 9, 2008 at 7:53am

hmm I find this a problem no matter language and who I am speaking too.

MartinF said:

my problem with speaking English is just getting people to understand the abstract concepts I'm discussing :)

Permalink Reply by Thor on October 9, 2008 at 7:55am

When I have time I'd be more then happy to help anyone by msn or something, right now I have too much sparetime. waiting for op.
Icy said:

Cant remember enough words.
Bad pronunciation.
Always forget to use Past Tense.
Wanna be good at my business english!!!!

God, so many...

Permalink Reply by Thor on October 9, 2008 at 8:12am

I feel like making a comment about the essentials. Since I live in a city with a high percentage of foreign workforce I know alot about the problems with foreigners learning new language. Now first off youre not foreign but the english speaker is. So I think they all have some understanding about bad language skills. Make sure you pronounce keywords good, and preferrable most words more or less good. To avoid misunderstandings. Grammarfaults is sometimes annoying but don't cause so much trouble as not knowing what word is said. Just to mention one thing I noticed walking the tourist traps near bund. People always shouting cheapoo cheapoo. Where in the world do they get the idea of adding "ooo" sound to cheap or any word for that matter. One time I got so annoyed after a pretend girlfriend said it too many times, I asked why she did it, but never got a good answer.
I can mention one personal problem. On my first dates with my current girlfriend she often wanted to say the food in this place is spicy. What it sounded like was this : spensive: I always assumed she meant expensive as it's an almost match in pronounce. This made her angry as chinese girls dont like men to complain about money. (unless I am fooled again) Anyways try to work on pronouncing to avoid misunderstanding.

Icy said:

Cant remember enough words.
Bad pronunciation. Always forget to use Past Tense. Wanna be good at my business english!!!!

God, so many...

Permalink Reply by annika on October 9, 2008 at 7:43pm

yes, i agree no more.

sometimes i can only understand what my foreign friends said, but i can not express what i want to say!

it is really a boring thing!

Permalink Reply by dustin on October 12, 2008 at 7:10pm

In terms of remembering words.. you can try an online program called Anki.org you can google the program/website, but it is a great review tool because if you know the word well, it won't come up for a while, but if u've totally forgotten, it will come up sooner.. quite a useful tool assuming u put in the 10-20 min. or so everyday..

as for bad pronunciation.. assuming that u know how to pronounce the word in the first place (which u may find on the online dictionaries where it looks like a "speaker") I would suggest reading things out loud. You'd be surprised how much this can help with your fluency in terms of rhythm and stress. If you can read it, then you can try to practice it more maybe at work..

forgetting to use past tense isn't the biggest deal.. it won't usually create too much of a misunderstanding.. but ya gotta practice..

hope that helps.. =0)

Icy said:

Cant remember enough words.
Bad pronunciation.
Always forget to use Past Tense.
Wanna be good at my business english!!!!

God, so many...

Permalink Reply by Icy on October 13, 2008 at 1:20pm

THX for ur advices.
anyway, i will try it. hope i can be better.
and one of my worst prounce problem is i cant find out the different of n and l, it's hard for me, just like " last name ", maybe the others will think i'm talking about " nast lame".

dustin said:

In terms of remembering words.. you can try an online program called Anki.org you can google the program/website, but it is a great review tool because if you know the word well, it won't come up for a while, but if u've totally forgotten, it will come up sooner.. quite a useful tool assuming u put in the 10-20 min. or so everyday..

as for bad pronunciation.. assuming that u know how to pronounce the word in the first place (which u may find on the online dictionaries where it looks like a "speaker") I would suggest reading things out loud. You'd be surprised how much this can help with your fluency in terms of rhythm and stress. If you can read it, then you can try to practice it more maybe at work..

forgetting to use past tense isn't the biggest deal.. it won't usually create too much of a misunderstanding.. but ya gotta practice..

hope that helps.. =0)

Icy said:

Cant remember enough words.
Bad pronunciation.
Always forget to use Past Tense.
Wanna be good at my business english!!!!

God, so many...

Permalink Reply by Janice on October 14, 2008 at 5:21pm

i'm not afraid of making mistakes, all i need is practice,,,practice makes perfect!

Permalink Reply by ivy4ever on February 12, 2009 at 9:09am

my problem is i need someone to talk with in English everyday , hmmmm...yes ,thats it .

Permalink Reply by Mike Shoring on February 14, 2009 at 7:35am

ni hao Ivy...perhaps you could help me with my mandarin.....zhongwen.!!
my english is very good....actually i may come to shenzhen or Shanghai to teach.
anyway if you need help then maybe i can.
I grew up in Scotland and live in Canada (Vancouver) last 34 years!
zaijian.

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