The english language improvement thread

[fernandoaleixo]

I'm gonna be honest, I have been using the English language every day for a few years now, three or so, but I still find myself worried about my spelling and especially my vocabulary, I believe there are many people like me who just learned the idiom by pure practice and use, no courses and other sorts of formal training.
What are the mistakes you often see around here regarding grammar and general knowledge? I'm going to keep them in mind so I don't repeat when posting. Any other advice you could give is welcome.

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[Rkoshay]

I'm gonna be honest, I have been using the English language every day for a few years now, three or so, but I still find myself worried about my spelling and especially my vocabulary, I believe there are many people like me who just learned the idiom by pure practice and use, no courses and other sorts of formal training.
What are the mistakes you often see around here regarding grammar and general knowledge? I'm going to keep them in mind so I don't repeat when posting. Any other advice you could give is welcome.

One thing I notice a lot, and this was the case also when I had my Asian helper who is from Taiwan, and that is many times the use of 'the' in connection with a noun.   Looking at google it says the is an article

  "The word "the" is one of the most common words in English. It is our only definite article. Nouns in English are preceded by the definite article when the speaker believes that the listener already knows what he is referring to."

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about.  Instead of saying or writing 'I went to the store' I see or hear 'I went store'

'I was writing the report' versus 'I was writing report'   'Let's (contraction of Let us) go to the beach' versus 'Let's go beach'. 

I think the reason for this is many languages have a different way of structuring sentences and don't use the article 'the' and that is ingrained into one's brain. 

To remedy this I think it takes doing a lot of reading and listening and time.  I hope this helps.

[Xal0lex]

There is a good site that will help non-native speakers https://languagetool.org

LanguageTool is a proof­reading service for English, German, Polish, Russian, and more than 20 other languages.
LanguageTool identifies many grammatical and stylistic issues that a simple spell checker cannot detect.

[Jet Cash]

Did you men this post?

I'm using "Grammarly for Firefox" as an addon not only it does correct spelling but some grammar like tenses, prepositions, and others. hope this will help someone who had bad English like me.

if you see I edited this reply thanks to Grammarly

I would have said -

I'm using "Grammarly for Firefox" as an addon, not only it does correct spelling, but some grammar such as tenses, prepositions, and others. I hope this will help someone who has bad English like me.

As you can see, I edited this reply thanks to Grammarly.

Punctuation is not my strongest point, so you may need a second opinion on my post.

[Jet Cash]

why just english, there ia also an area fir specific lingual groups like Portuguese, chinese etc in the forum

But this in an English language thread.

[Tendou_Karen]

I realize that my English can't be said to good enough, because English is not my primary language, but i tried my best to improve it day by day.
The things that i do to improve my English :
1. Listen to a music/song , try to sing it, and translate it to my native language so i can know the meaning of that song's lyric.
2. Watching movies with my native language subtitle , but i tried to not looking to the subtitle, focused to the movie and the sound, and when i don't know  the meaning of they talking about, then i look to the subtitle.
3. Chatting with someone that can used English so well or correctly, even i'm not sure if they can understand my bad english, but i oftenly said "please correct my english if something is not correct"

What do you think about it? Do you have any other ways to improve English language?

[Moneyversac]

Great Idea for a thread!

I want to improve my English as well, let alone grammar and punctuation

Learning by doing is the best way for me, but maybe others are more into observing/reading...

Also, a good way to improve your English (in my personal opinion), is to use apps like Memrise or Duolingo.


And don't forget, everything you learn gives you another advantage in your life.
So keep learning every day, it's worth it.



 

[Cuma]

I wonder who put negative comments on those whose control of the English language is sub-par.  I really don't think we should be picking on those who's first language in not English.  We should be understandable and help them instead.

[Ahyke93]

As a non-English native, I have found that the best ways of improving one's English is a simple but uneasy trick, which is to write and speak it as often as you would like to get better at it

[Rkoshay]

As a non-English native, I have found that the best ways of improving one's English is a simple but uneasy trick, which is to write and speak it as often as you would like to get better at it

So true, also to not be concerned (too much) about making mistakes when talking or for that matter, when writing.  It's be repetition that one will improve.  Also it's a good idea to try and immerse oneself in English by listening to English speaking radio, reading articles written by native English speakers and watching vids with native English speakers. 

The more one immerses themselves in it the better one will become.

[darkangel11]

I wonder who put negative comments on those whose control of the English language is sub-par.  I really don't think we should be picking on those who's first language in not English.  We should be understandable and help them instead.

Do you mean negative trust comments or comments in a thread? I think that we shouldn't use trust to rate people's language skills.
Commenting in a thread can be explained. Imagine that you want to read a thread and find yourself scrolling through posts that are unreadable. All you can get out of them is Bitcoin ***** Bitcoin **** me like**** good Bitcoin. And all this when there's google translate and your local subforum. Some people have to either put minimum effort into their posts, or use the appropriate local sections.

Don't need fluent english as I don't wanna post in this shitty platform

Of course, since it's no longer allowing shitposters to rank up and you're not even trying to hide that it was your main reason for registering.

No never. its the worst thing. Now we have to work even harder to get promoted for bounty programs

[FLOTS(C)AM]

Making sure you're understood is more important than having perfect English. But sometimes the mistakes/oversights just get in the way of a clear meaning. I'm sure people would just ask for clarification then, no?

[Jet Cash]

Just to put things in perspective -

Suppose a group of four English speaking people are having a discussion about cars, and a fifth person forces himself into the conversation with almost non-existent English skills. He demands to know how he can claim free money from the government to buy a car without working for it. This money will have been taken from the taxation paid by the English speakers.

It's starting to feel as if this is the approach taken by many new members ( but not all ), and some of us are starting to resent it. Their interference in the conversations on the boards is spoiling it for those of us with a primary interest in Bitcoin.

[AlekSandRAx]

Hi, firstly thank you for helping those in need, I believe I am among them. I'm trying to get more quality posts, so I can rank up. I read the forum as much as I can to learn. I know that beside understanding technical matters, language and expression are also very important to attract readers. I must confess, I use translation tools regularly, to help me with spelling. Can you please tell me what should I fix? Maybe you could also check some of my posts if it isn't too much to ask?

It would mean a lot to me, thank you.

[darkangel11]

Hi, firstly thank you for helping those in need, I believe I am among them. I'm trying to get more quality posts, so I can rank up. I read the forum as much as I can to learn. I know that beside understanding technical matters, language and expression are also very important to attract readers. I must confess, I use translation tools regularly, to help me with spelling. Can you please tell me what should I fix? Maybe you could also check some of my posts if it isn't too much to ask?

It would mean a lot to me, thank you.

So, here's what I did to one of your posts. It's not perfect, but I wanted to leave as much of the original as possible. Your posts are good, much better than what the children of today are writing on social media. You have enough skills and knowledge to self improve, just keep using the language and you'll get better. Those minor mistakes will start disappearing, you'll see.

Cuple A couple of weeks back, I read an article comparing crypto currency cryptocurrency and email technology. It's very interesting how email was also tought thought to be evil, to threaten humanity, wasn't understand understood by masses at it's its beginning. Just like Bitcoin, altcoins & blockchain technology today. And yet, almost everyone today uses email on a daily basis and it's considered a must to function normally. I believe, in general Bitcoin & blockchain technology only started to evolve and implement into our lives.
If Of course many altcoins will go down, but this is just a the begining beginning, not the end.

[Ri Polok]

I am also noob in English language, But try to improve my skill.
Create a fb group where me and my friend talk in English language.
It's really helpful for me and all of us.

[welliamy]

We have a lot of potentially valuable members who are receiving negative comments because english isn't their first language. I thought that, rather than calling them names and penalising them, it would be better if we could provide some advice to help them improve their english posting. I've started this thread to see if I, and some other members who have english as their first language, can provide this help.

This thread is self-moderating, and I will have to make a few rules to ensure that it remains useful.

- All posts must be about Bitcoin, Bitcoin price movements, and its place in the world economy.
- Posts about alt coins, bounties and other topics so beloved of the sig spammers will be deleted.
- Please don't give advice about the structure and content of a post if english isn't your first language.
- This thread is text only, so no fancy formatting or embedded graphics please.

Obviously your command of english isn't a barrier to posting in this thread, but please do the best you can to help us to understand the content of your post.

So lets go for it - post a comment, or ask a question

Well this is really helpful for me
When I was started in bitcoin I'm reading book
Titled 'speaking naturally' communication skills in american english.

[caytienbct]

Highly appreciate the topic author, Jet Cash, for creating this helpful one. However, I think that threads composed proficiently in English are good, but not enough to be constructive, high-quality, and helpful. Why? The main reason is helpful threads have to be published in-context appropriately to be really helpful. Threads can not be considered as helpful if the topic questions had been answered somewhere before.

[Moiyah]

Criticisms and negative comments for a non-native speaker like me, helps me motivate to improve my english.I don't believe in a saying , "No one is good at something". I know for a fact that learning an English language is indeed not an easy task but if there is a will, there is a way. That is why, to be able to catch up things in the forum, I have read english articles, news, reading and surfing websites that provide an information about bitcoin as cryptocurrency. Since then, my interests in bitcoin grow deeper because I can see bitcoin is an advanced technology that may change the way our economy  performed.

[Jet Cash]

Thanks for bumping this. I backed away from maintaining this thread because it was going odd topic. It was intended to be a practice thread, but most of the posts seemed to be about using transaltion services, nd other sites. I set up a small forum for people with a genuine interest in improving their English, and you can find it here -
Fit to Talk English

It is only for members of Bitcoin Talk, and you will need to use your BT name for me to verify this. You will also need to have made at least 5 posts in this forum. This is to avoid an influx of spammers. Please note, you cannot use a signature, and you cannpt promote bounties or air drops via that forum. It is not an alternative to Bitcoin Talk, so you will need to continue to use this forum to improve your crypto knowledge.

You wan't earn any merits through the forum, but you will improve your posting skills, and this helps the Bitcoin Talk forum.