An English thread.

Hi all,

I am opening this thread to encourage all participants to write in English here. The topics discussed in here could be as simple as talking about the weather, and as advanced as cultural or global issues.

With much regret, this thread will accommodate those with relatively advanced English skills to participate, but itâ?Ts for all to learn from these participants. The reason is to maintain a minimal level of communications instead of making this thread another grammar/vocabulary thread, which I believe exists already.

In saying that, I donâ?Tt mean to discourage your participation. By all means, express yourself, but if others in the thread correct your English, please donâ?Tt be offended. We are all here to learn and itâ?Ts my hope to facilitate this thread.

Following these goals, condescending posts will not be tolerated. If you spot a negative or condescending posts, please ignore them to discourage the posters from further disrupting this thread. All posts are subjected to errors, being that grammatical or word choice, so please donâ?Tt be offended if someone fix your English. As a facilitator, I am willing to spend time and give comments on your post if you so desire, but I will not act as a referee to fix errors in your post.

If each post is treated seriously as a piece of writing, chances are you will catch your own mistakes before others do. So be clear and try your best.

Again, the main goal here is for all of us to learn from one another.

Humbly yours,
GenDo

Hi,
Your idea sounds interesting. However, I somehow feel like it is open for discussion (in English of course). Is it what u have in mind? I think we need a specific topic to start. In other words, can u examplify what u were saying, pls? Thank you!

Thousand of English tutorials here: www.leuchong.com.

do u need to advertise everywhere

Hi mtt_2503 and everyone,
First of all, just ignore that spam post. Since we don''t have administrative privileges on ttvnol, we can''t just remove those spams. Request: if a site administrator happens to see the spam in this thread, please help us removing them. Thank you!
Second, thank you for your suggestions. I can easily see that any original ideas would explode to huge and endless discussions. Sometimes, these discussions could also be so useless that there''s nothing to learn from. I agree with you that we don''t want this thread to come *****ch a state.
Now, I want to give a few suggestions for us to write about in order to share our opinions on English and our studying of English. Do you like studying English? Why and why not? Describe your favorite English teacher, and why he/she is your favorite. Describe one of your positive/negative experience in the process of learning English, and how that experience encouraged/discouraged you from studying English. Describe a unique technique you use in your studying English, discuss how it helps you, and argue why your technique is good for others as well.
Remember, you can pick any of the above ideas or an idea of your own to write about. One paragraph on a simple topic would be sufficient. Of course, longer posts are much welcome!
In general, I hope to make this a healthy and positive thread so that each of us could learn something from.
Your writing doesn''t have to be formal as if you were *****bmit it to be graded. However, if you use more of conversational English style, please refrain from using obscure slangs, profanity (dirty words), and one liners.
So let''s get this thread moving and let''s share our experiences by practicing writing. I am sure as time goes by, there will be more ideas and topics to be written and discussed about.
Best,
GenDo

Hi every one and Gendosan
I love your idea, this thread can help everybody improving English writing skill and grammar.
I''m learning English now and try to write something every day. As a girl who has a chicken English level likes me, this thread is really usefull.
In fact, I studied Chinese in university for 4 years and did not practise English for a long time. That''s the reason I''m very regret now. English is the most important language in the world, but I did ignore it.. so sad to me.
At this moment, I''m participating a pronunciation class. The teacher''s in deed cute and young, and she helped me to find out interestingness of studying english. I spend all my time reading, writing and correct my pronunciation every day. I really enjoy it ^^
Thanks a lot and please give me some advice, your comment is a great encouragement to me.

Hi Renjugirl,
Welcome to this thread! I think you have a great idea to try to write something every day. That practice will definitely improve your writing skills over time. However, I would like to bring the challenge up to another level: make sure that whatever we write every day will be in correct English, so that we will not make the same mistake again. Otherwise, we may fall into the case where we could write fast and a lot, but of poor quality.
Today, I want to share one of my methods of learning pronunciation. I would pick a short, easy to understand piece of writing in a book with a audio tape (back then, we still used audio cassettes). The read the passage out loud, record my voice. Then I play it back. I have to admit I dislike my own voice in a recording, but I have to listen to it (smile). However, as I listen to my own voice, something becomes very clear: I can pick out the words I pronounce incorrectly right away. When unsure how to pronounce a word, I would play back the tape that came with the book.
If you have a teacher who could give you advice and/or criticism, you will progress very quickly.
I am looking forward to reading about your and others'' experiences.
GenDo

My favorite teacher is the one most of my classmates hate because he was really strict and demanded serious working spirit. Though he has just graduated and started teaching us English for a few months, his reputation both positive and negative spreaded as fast as a kite-flying among all freshmen in the faculty. He''''s superior than other teachers in the same field. He earns the highest respect from other teachers. However, in the eyes of the students, he is a nightmare. Every class, he brought tons of handouts that are the exercises for us to do in class and at home. The expense for copying handouts of his subject are always higher than others . He asked us to write essays everyday and never let us go until we finished the exercise . But...I still like him because he''''s still nice to me. He he. What impressed me most is the day I came late to the examination room. He was the supervisor of the next class and saw me come late. What a shame! I was really embarrassed meeting him there . Of course, I had to stayed outside and waited for the next subject . Well, different from what I had thought, he came give me his chair and went into the class leaving me with amazement and gratitude. He''''s now studying overseas as some of my friends said but he will always be put in a very good part in my memory about English & teachers
Được mtt_2503 sửa chữa / chuyển vào 00:40 ngày 09/08/2008

Hi mtt_2503,
I really like your writing style. It flows rather naturally and effortlessly. Clearly, your teach has taught you very well. I particularly like your kite simile for it breathes in a fresh air to your writing. Though there are a couple of expressions that could be refined, your casual style is very effective in telling the story about your teacher.
I guess the bottom line is that hard work pays off, right? Once you learn something to a comfortable level, you will get more interested in the subject. English is one example. I hope more people learn English they way you do: to improve oneself, to open up to other''s cultures and ways of living, and to be ready to both seek and catch opportunities once they arrive.
Best,
GenDo

Now, I want to give a few suggestions for us to write about in order to share our opinions on English and our studying of English. Do you like studying English? Why and why not? Describe your favorite English teacher, and why he/she is your favorite. Describe one of your positive/negative experience in the process of learning English, and how that experience encouraged/discouraged you from studying English. Describe a unique technique you use in your studying English, discuss how it helps you, and argue why your technique is good for others as well.
I asked some of my friends to share their experience in learning English. Here is some ways that you might use for reference.
One is from my teacher. Practise writing everyday (a complete essay or a short paragraph) and use therasus dictionary to avoid the same words in a short paragraph are one tip. The other is reading and jotting down phrases that you think are helpful to your writing. He was sucessful and now he is studying overseas.
One is from a friend. He started learning English when entering uni as at highschool he learned French. He shared his own experience about listening skill. Listening to English everywhere and everyday is his tip. He listened to VOA whenever he works. It is to get familiar with the accent, to train your reaction since they speak really fast and you have to write down the word necessary in the blank provided as in IELTS test. Guess what? He got 8.0 out of 9 for listening and 8.5 for reading
One is from a classmate. He learnt English by watching movie as it is one of his hobbies. He can watch movie for hours. First, instead of turning on Vietnamese subtitle, he used the English one. Gradually, he turned it off. It can be difficult at first but he didn''t give up. He even watched a film a few times just to understand it. Cartoon is his pastime also. When he is bored to death with movie, he turns to cartoon which is much funnier and easier to listen to. Even if you don''t understand what they say, you cannot resist on hearing the kid''s voice. It is so cute. Now he can watch movie without English subtile and understand its content.
Hope that you can learn something from them as different people have their own way of learning the language.