Improving my English

[wayfarer]

Hello to all,
I am Giulio, a 40-year-old man from Rome, Italy. More than one year ago, I was starting to learn Spanish: I wrote on this forum for a couple of months and several users helped me to improve. Then I continued practicing it, on January 2012 I started to take individual lessons and now I have became quite fluent, for us italians is not excessively difficult to learn Spanish.

Now I came back to this forum with a different purpose: I want to perfectionate my English!! I want to do it also for reasons related to my working activity. Actually, I write in English quite often: I have some friends here and there in Europe and sometimes I also write on some english-speaking forums. So I don't lack english practice, there are two problems though:

- Most of these friends are not native english speakers and so probably they also make mistakes, or they use expressions and constructions that don't belong to current English;

- Almost nobody corrects me, and so I never know whether I make mistakes!! Some time ago a guy from London told me that I sometimes use the wrong prepositions.

So, I wish that on this forum users will help me to discover the weaknesses that I still have in my english knowledge, and to make further progresses.

Thank you in advance!!

[Premium]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Hello to all,
- Almost nobody corrects me, and so I never know whether I make mistakes!! Some time ago a guy from London told me that I sometimes use the wrong prepositions.

Hi Giulio.

I have that same problem as well. I have several sites, which explain that very well, but i don't get it.
I'm quite sure people will help you here.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Hello to all,
I am Giulio, a 40-year-old man from Rome, Italy. More than a year ago, I was starting to learn Spanish. I wrote on this forum for a couple of months and several users helped me to improve. Then I continued practicing it. In January 2012, I started to take private lessons and now I have become quite fluent. For us Italians it's not excessively difficult to learn Spanish.

Now I have come back to this forum with a different purpose - I want to perfect my English!! I want to do it also for reasons related to work. Actually, I write in English quite often. I have some friends here and there in Europe and sometimes I also write on some English-speaking forums. So, I don't lack English practice. There are two problems, though:

- Most of these friends are not native English speakers and so they probably they also make mistakes, or they use expressions and constructions that don't belong in current English;

- Almost nobody corrects me, and so I never know whether I make mistakes!! Some time ago a guy from London told me that I sometimes use the wrong prepositions.

So, I hope that in this forum users will help me to discover the weaknesses that I still have with my English knowledge, and help me to make further progresses.

Thank you in advance!!

Welcome back!

I corrected your mistakes and suggested alternate wording here and there. There are more natural ways to say some of the things you wrote, too, but I didn't provide them.

[wayfarer]

Hello Rusty,
thanks for your kind reply. I remember that you also corrected me some Spanish when I was starting to learn it in summer 2011. The mistakes you found suggest that I still have some way to go in perfecting my english, we never know foreign languages well enough. Every time I will take note of the mistakes users will point out, so that I won't repeat them in the future.

The construction "help to" + infinitive is not correct? I have heard it sometimes.

Thanks again!

Originally Posted by Premium

Hi Giulio.

I have that same problem as well. I have several sites, which explain that very well, but i don't get it.
I'm quite sure people will help you here.

Hello Premium, you also have problems with prepositions, you mean? Yes, they are difficult in every language, because there is never an one-to-one correspondence between languages, for example the preposition "to" in italian translates in many different ways depending on the context.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Hello Premium, you also have problems with prepositions, you mean? Yes, they are difficult in every language, because there is never an one-to-one correspondence between languages, for example the preposition "to" in italian translates in many different ways depending on the context.

Yes, they still are. I don't have the same problem with Spanish, though. I think it's easier. I still make mistakes in German, contrary to my native tongue, which is not as complicated.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

... Isn't the construction "help to" + infinitive is not correct? I have heard it sometimes.

There's nothing grammatically wrong with the construction. (Note that I didn't strike through the word 'to' like I did with most of the other corrections in 'silver'.) The bare infinitive (the infinitive without the 'to') just sounded better in that sentence (to my ears, at least).

Happy learning!

[Premium]

Originally Posted by Rusty

There's nothing grammatically wrong with the construction. (Note that I didn't strike through the word 'to' like I did with most of the other corrections in 'silver'.) The bare infinitive (the infinitive without the 'to') just sounded better in that sentence (to my ears, at least).

Happy learning!

Do you mind correcting mine, too, please?
I'm quite sure i did some mistakes.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by Premium

Yes, they still are. I don't have the same problem with Spanish, though. I think it's easier. I still make mistakes in German, as opposed to my native tongue, which is not as complicated.

Originally Posted by Premium

Do you mind correcting mine, too, please?
I'm quite sure I made some mistakes.

There you go.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by Rusty

There you go.

Would be "contrary to" or "unlike" wrong?

Thanks for correcting, Rusty

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Premium

I still make mistakes in German, contrary to my native tongue, which is not as complicated.

A confusing statement, because you have given German as your first language.

Originally Posted by Premium

Would be "contrary to" or "unlike" wrong?

You could say "unlike in" (colloquial)though Rusty's correction is the best.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by Perikles

A confusing statement, because you have given German as your first language.

You could say "unlike in" (colloquial)though Rusty's correction is the best.

At first, i learned Albanian and Serbian. I learned German when i attended school. I only speak Albanian and Serbian at home, so i mostly speak German after all.
I wasn't sure if i should state three languages as my native language, as i know German the best. I never had any Albanian or Serbian lessons, if you would ask me something regarding grammar or such, i couldn't give you an answer.
So, i thought i'd state German as my native language.

[Awaken]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Hello Rusty,
thanks for your kind reply. I remember that you also corrected me some my Spanish when I was starting to learn it in the summer of 2011. The mistakes you found suggest that I still have some way a ways* (see note below) to go in perfecting my english,. we never know foreign languages well enough. Every time I will take note of the mistakes users will point out, so that I won't repeat them in the future.

Note: "a ways" is an informal item used in American English that is grammatically incorrect, but is used in common speech. I do not know if the phrase is used in British English. I only used it to maintain the original meaning as closely as possible.

You could rephrase the sentence as: " I still have some work to do in perfecting my English."

Good luck! I will try to help as often as I can.

[wayfarer]

Thank you Awaken, during the last year I often frequented* a British chess website and so my present English is probably more British than American :-) I didn't know the expression "still have a ways to go", on Google there are millions of occurrences either of that expression and of the expression "still have some way to go". So they are both used very often, probably the first is American, and the second is British.

*Is the expression "frequent a website" correct? In Spanish and Italian frecuentar/frequentare is used, but in English I'm not sure.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Is the expression "frequent a website" correct? In Spanish and Italian frecuentar/frequentare is used, but in English I'm not sure.

Yes, it's correct. We don't use it as much as 'I visit ... a lot', though.

[Awaken]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

Thank you Awaken, during the last year I often frequented* a British chess website and so my present English is probably more British than American :-) I didn't know the expression "still have a ways to go", on Google there are millions of occurrences either of that expression and of the expression "still have some way to go". So they are both used very often, probably the first is American, and the second is British.

*Is the expression "frequent a website" correct? In Spanish and Italian frecuentar/frequentare is used, but in English I'm not sure.

I hear it used sometimes, and it is certainly correct as a statement. However, "I go to a chess website" or "I visit a chess website" are both more common.

[captainwireman]

"For us Italians, it is not excessively difficult to learn Spanish."

You did ask sir!