This Warm-Up Task was also very well done! Nearly everyone worked out that the best strategy is to describe what happened clearly and dispassionately, and then to let the company know how much they needed to pay you and where to send it. In this case, the administrator at Head Office who receives your letter just wants to turn you back into a satisfied customer - there may very well be a rocket sent to the airport office … but they'd never tell you about it! One ever-present problem for a US company is that if they admit any form of liability whatever, they might very find themselves with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit, so they're more interested in just getting the customer to be happy - and shut up about the problem! The amounts of money in this case are also small - it's no problem to just pay up. On the other hand, the amounts are far too small to make it worth your while to sue them - the postage would cost more!
You managed to present me with some interesting language points too! Here are a few language points some of you need to work on:
First some straight grammar points …
1. Count/uncount nouns
Some nouns in English are the labels we put on physical, tangible objects, such as 'chair', 'table' and 'cow'. These ones we call "count nouns". Others are the labels for concepts or general quantities, such as 'rice', 'compensation' and 'honesty'. These ones are called "uncount nouns". These two categories of noun behave differently from each other. Count nouns, for example, must have a determiner in the singular ('determiners' are words like 'my', 'the' and 'a', which determine which particular chair, table or cow you're talking about). Uncount nouns can have determiners or not … but you can't use the particular determiner, 'a', with uncount nouns (there's a technical explanation for this I'll be happy to give you if you ask!). Uncount nouns don't have plural forms either. There's more I could say … but I'm not writing a grammar book today!
2. Conditional sentences
These are sentences which usually begin with 'if'. They typically contain two clauses: a conditional clause ("You toucha my car …") and a result clause ("I smasha your face"!). The conditional clause is the one which starts with 'if' - and you almost never use a word like 'will', 'would', 'could' or 'should' in that clause. Thus the conditional sentence I just wrote in 'Mafia-speak' would read like this in everyday English: "If you touched my car, I would smash your face."!
3. Defining/non-defining relative clauses - and commas
These are clauses which add information to a sentence. They usually begin with 'who', 'which' or 'that'. Take a look at these two:
a. The woman who came to see me last night is responsible for the catering.
b. My sister, who came to see me last night, lives in England.
(a) is a defining relative clause because you don't know which 'woman' I'm talking about without the information in the relative clause.
(b) is a non-defining relative clause because "My sister lives in England" gives you the essential information - the relative clause just gives you a bit of extra information.
What you need to know is that defining relative clauses aren't separated off with commas, whilst non-defining relative clauses are!
… and now some points about style …
4. Colons and semi-colons
Colons (:) are used to show that the bit of the sentence to the right of the colon is some kind of consequence or result of the bit of the sentence to the left of the colon.
Semi-colons (;) divide a sentence (or part of a sentence) up into equal parts.
Both colons and semi-colons are 'strong' punctuation marks - they're about as strong as you get before you write a full-stop and start a new sentence, so don't use them if you really mean to use a comma or a dash.
5. Using too many 'ands'
Remember that 'and' joins up bits of a sentence that are seem to be more or less equivalent to each other. If you find yourself joining up more than, say, three chunks with an 'and', you ought to think about breaking the sentence up and starting new ones.
… and, finally, some bits and pieces!
6. 'Inconveniences' isn't a word, unfortunately!
This is one of those uncount nouns - inconvenience is a concept, so it can't have a plural form. I wish it did … but it doesn't!
7. Some verbs nearly always have to have something after them
'Appreciate' is one of them. The only time you can write 'it appreciates' is if you're using the word in a very specialised sense: to increase in value (e.g. "my stamp collection appreciates in value all the time, since it contains rare stamps everyone wants"). If you want to show your appreciation, you have to write "I would appreciate it if …"
8. Poetic Swenglish!
Coleridge's poem Kublai Khan starts like this:
In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree …
This works in poetry, but in business English you'd write:
Kublai Khan decreed a stately pleasure-dome.
In Swedish you often change the order of the words when you start a sentence with a phrase, but not in English!
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Monday 11 October 2010
Warm-Up 2
Warm-Up 2 is all about complaining. 'The Hire Car from Hell' is all about really bad treatment when renting a car in the USA. The idea for this Warm-Up came from the wonderful film,"Trains and Planes and Automobiles", with Steve Martin and John Candy. The task is set up so that you don't have any other option than to write a well-composed letter to the company in the USA - and hope for the best. The sum of money involved is too small to make it worth your while starting a legal action (at least from this side of the Atlantic - it'd be different if you were living in the USA, where they have Small Claims Courts). There's also a lot of scope for 'he said-she said' situations (which is how they describe situations where one person says one thing, and the other person says something different in American English).
The task itself is quite limited: you only have to write FIVE sentences from the letter you'd write (i.e. NOT the entire letter). The point is to see whether you can calibrate your language, so that you express yourself firmly, but refrain from insults and gratuitous comments that will just result in your letter being filed in the trash can! Once again, there's a link to the Send-In Task which comes next.
You submit your Warm-Up Task 2 by copying your text into a comment. Remember to include FIVE sentences only - and to include your name in the submission.
By the way, if you don't know what the 'redeye' is, take a look at the first comment on this post.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
General Comment on Warm-Up 1
This Warm-Up was all about presenting yourself snappily and pithily on the company web site. The purpose is only superficially to give information about you - the real point is to make the company look good for hiring you! You all did well with this, with the best presentations including a lot of information about how the personal and professional qualities of the person involved would turn into positive assets for the company in the future.
This was the first time you've submitted formal English to us, so it's not surprising that there are one or two points which generally weren't exactly right first time round! One point to bear in mind, though, is that I've marked every single error. Not all of these errors, however, are important (choosing the wrong preposition is very easy to do and is rarely crucial to meaning). Here are seven of the commonest 'frequently-made mistakes', which you are encouraged not to make again!
1. I've often referred to 'colloquial language' (such as the use of words like 'get' and 'big'). This is language which is normally spoken, rather than written. It isn't slang, because every user of the language understands it (i.e. not just some closed group), but it isn't usually written down. Everyone knows, for example, that 'buck' is the word for a US dollar, but your contract of employment will specify your salary in 'dollars', not 'bucks'.
If you're unsure about what's colloquial and what's not, ask your Internet Tutor.
2. Capital letters cause problems - even for native speakers. Consider this sentence: "She used her studies of Psychology to use psychology to change her boss' mind". Why is there a capital letter on the first 'Psychology', but a small one on the second one? (The answer is that the first one is an academic subject, whilst the second is the general phenomenon of manipulating people mentally!). All the 'information words' in job titles need capital letters (Manager of Port Services - 'of' is there for grammatical purposes, not for the purpose of adding to the information in the title), as do all the ones in names.
There's an exercise about capital letters in Module 1.
3. 'Verbs in phase' is the technical name for using two verb forms together. Take a look at these two:
a. She stopped to speak to him.
b. She stopped speaking to him.
There's clearly a major difference in meaning between them … but many languages lack an '-ing' form which English uses all the time, so the distinction between something she did (stopped) in order to do something else (speak to him) and something she did over a period of time (stopped speaking to him) is difficult to make so succinctly.
Then you've got another problem: 'to' is sometimes part of a verb (to speak) and sometimes it's a preposition which indicates something like movement towards. An '-ing' form can sometimes have the function of a noun too (Swimming keeps you healthy). Take a look at these two:
c. I'm looking forward to your party.
d. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the party.
In (d) 'seeing' is actually a noun-form - it's what you're looking forward to.
4. Short forms (I'm, don't, etc) shouldn't be used in formal writing either.
Then there are three very specific frequently-made mistakes:
5. In/on/at are often mixed up, particularly when you're referring to time and space. You use 'in' for the big unit, 'on' for a smaller one, and 'at' for a point in time or space, like this:
This was the first time you've submitted formal English to us, so it's not surprising that there are one or two points which generally weren't exactly right first time round! One point to bear in mind, though, is that I've marked every single error. Not all of these errors, however, are important (choosing the wrong preposition is very easy to do and is rarely crucial to meaning). Here are seven of the commonest 'frequently-made mistakes', which you are encouraged not to make again!
1. I've often referred to 'colloquial language' (such as the use of words like 'get' and 'big'). This is language which is normally spoken, rather than written. It isn't slang, because every user of the language understands it (i.e. not just some closed group), but it isn't usually written down. Everyone knows, for example, that 'buck' is the word for a US dollar, but your contract of employment will specify your salary in 'dollars', not 'bucks'.
If you're unsure about what's colloquial and what's not, ask your Internet Tutor.
2. Capital letters cause problems - even for native speakers. Consider this sentence: "She used her studies of Psychology to use psychology to change her boss' mind". Why is there a capital letter on the first 'Psychology', but a small one on the second one? (The answer is that the first one is an academic subject, whilst the second is the general phenomenon of manipulating people mentally!). All the 'information words' in job titles need capital letters (Manager of Port Services - 'of' is there for grammatical purposes, not for the purpose of adding to the information in the title), as do all the ones in names.
There's an exercise about capital letters in Module 1.
3. 'Verbs in phase' is the technical name for using two verb forms together. Take a look at these two:
a. She stopped to speak to him.
b. She stopped speaking to him.
There's clearly a major difference in meaning between them … but many languages lack an '-ing' form which English uses all the time, so the distinction between something she did (stopped) in order to do something else (speak to him) and something she did over a period of time (stopped speaking to him) is difficult to make so succinctly.
Then you've got another problem: 'to' is sometimes part of a verb (to speak) and sometimes it's a preposition which indicates something like movement towards. An '-ing' form can sometimes have the function of a noun too (Swimming keeps you healthy). Take a look at these two:
c. I'm looking forward to your party.
d. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the party.
In (d) 'seeing' is actually a noun-form - it's what you're looking forward to.
4. Short forms (I'm, don't, etc) shouldn't be used in formal writing either.
Then there are three very specific frequently-made mistakes:
5. In/on/at are often mixed up, particularly when you're referring to time and space. You use 'in' for the big unit, 'on' for a smaller one, and 'at' for a point in time or space, like this:
6. Don't call yourself a 'boy' or a 'girl' in a business context, unless you want to stress your immaturity and extreme youth (say, 9 years old!). Women have struggled hard against sexism for decades, so feel proud to call yourself a 'woman' (if you are one!).
7. The names of Swedish administrative units are sometimes difficult to translate (since each country has its own system. A 'kommun' is usually a 'Council' in English, whilst a 'län' is a 'County'. A 'commune' is a hippy collective of the sort that died out in the 1970s!
Good luck with Send-In 1!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)