Do not make mistake

Corey Graham   Monday, January 19, 2004, 20:05 GMT
to Guofia Ma,

Exactly, it is a mistake. The definition of the word implies that its the recognition of an error. I encourage people to have fun, and don't be bothered by people who would belittle you for making a mistake.

P.S. Don't be bothered by losers on this site, it a teaching tool.

They just can't learn.
Tom   Tuesday, January 20, 2004, 01:43 GMT
Guofei,

A few hundred example sentences let you build thousands of new sentences. You can recombine parts of sentences in many different ways without leaving the realm of correct English.

Anyway, I agree it is perfectly acceptable to make a mistake. At most one mistake per day.

Taking risks is, well, risky. Usually the person you're talking to will not correct your every mistake. What I recommend is this:

- You must be aware you're saying something that may be wrong
- Draw the other person's attention to the phrase -- perhaps ask them specifically if it's correct

You "talk and have fun" people don't realize how much harm you do to English learners. The problem of most learners is not that they have a good knowledge of grammar and are merely afraid of speaking. Their problem is that they have read/heard very few English sentences, so their brains have no material to generate new sentences from. Learners who haven't read a single book in English or spent 30 minutes watching English-language TV complain about their poor speaking skills!

If these people follow your advice to "just speak", they will be inventing their own language, and no amount of correction will undo the damage to their English.

The fact that every single English class is almost entirely focused on production is bad enough. Don't make it worse.

BTW -- Read this:
http://www.antimoon.com/how/mistakes.htm
Corey Graham   Wednesday, January 21, 2004, 18:43 GMT
I cant beleive how stupid the people are that run this site.
Come on " never make mistakes"

I challenge any fluent english speaker here to count the number of " slip of the tongues, misprints, etc."

We have no right to expect perfection from any other individual, if we uncapable ourselves.

Get off your high horses and encourage through positive re-inforcement, stop bugging the decent people of this world.
You give us angliphones a bad reputation!