Does antimoon really help...

Laura   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 07:12 GMT
1. Regarding mistakes... who cares honestly for your mistakes.
2. What is speach - listening with understanding? or speaking without listening? when you introduce yourself more of the case you hear but only your name.
3. What is writting in forum. And what if you can write words but in normal conversation you cannot use them.
4. What you think about unconcious writing as flow of words.
5. What if you can get 3 from 7 words of a sentence and others get by meaning, but then you undesrand that other person means other things.
6. What means fluent - speaking without mistakes, or speaking with mistakes but easy for understanding.
7. What is a language?
Mi5 Mick   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 07:38 GMT
I think writing in forums gets you thinking, exercising your brain to familiarise yourself with and reinforce your knowledge of words and constructs. The more you do it, the easier the words come to you, to the point where it happens subconsciously with lesser efforts. When people reply to what you write, they often use similar words and constructs to imitate you, as a kind of communication protocol. This is how our discussions flow naturally - I write something, and you relate directly to it using much of the same vocabulary and ideas. The more active you are, the better you become at expressing yourself as you seek new ways of explainging your ideas, so your vocabulary increases.

I think natives are the only ones (with some exceptions) who are trully fluent since they commit few mistakes (relative to their local vernacular), pausing in speech is infrequent and their accent is "correct".

If I wrote a flow of words unconsciously, it'd probably be a big mess :)
FRC   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 07:42 GMT
I would say that using forums (I'm new here, but I've been using many others) helps me a good deal to learn active vocabulary, especially typical words or expressions used everyday. I often ask questions about where expressions come from, and this certainly makes things easier to remember.
The biggest mistakes should be corrected I think, but if the author doesn't like to be constantly pulled up one can always rephrase his post with the mistakes corrected. And I do think some people care, if only b/c it grates on the ear :-)
For many of us I believe that's the easiest way to get in touch with native speakers.
Of course there's no substitute for a native speaking gf/bf :-)

FRC
nic   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 09:18 GMT
Reading posts are helpfull about expressions used by americans, british... Constructins, grammary...
nic   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 09:21 GMT
sorry : constructions
Damian   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 10:24 GMT
I find ANTIMOON stimulating and entertaining
nic   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 11:40 GMT
Damian is right, stimulating because for a non native english speaker you must think like a native one, you must think in their own culture, it's really helpfull for the language. You can't separate language culture and language.

And, you can speak to people from all over the world, polish, australian, scottish like Damian. Interesting, don't you think?!
FRC   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 18:10 GMT
Yes, this is helpful.

FRC
Tsama   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 18:49 GMT
Accoding me, the forum is very important because it allows us to get in touch with anyone from all over the world. Why do we come here? Because we see it interesting as means to communicate to each other. I encourage people to come here to explain their difficulties english.

Next time
Damian   Thursday, July 08, 2004, 20:36 GMT
Do you mean "according"? You used it in your other post as well, but according was not really the right word to use in that post. In this one it is in a way, but you should have said "according to me" or better still "I think this forum is very important....."

"Because we see it as an interesting means of communicating with each other. I would encourage people to come in here to explain their difficulties in English".

Use a capital letter for English.
Tsama   Friday, July 09, 2004, 13:36 GMT
Thanks, man. I will make mind when I write a post.

bye
Boy   Saturday, July 10, 2004, 16:59 GMT
I contribute here because I feel I'm a member of a broader family. If anyone of you says right now that you are going to leave the board for ever for personal reasons it'll make me very sad. Internet has changed my life! I never ever thought in my wildest dreams that I'd have to correct my mistakes in English by native speakers!
Paul   Tuesday, July 13, 2004, 18:06 GMT
I feel that the Antimoon board is very helpful. I forces me to think about all the Grammar, that I learned over the years. And I like to contribute to the discussion and answer the odd question (the odder the better :) ).
And I've gotten a few Phonetic questions answered here, which was great.

I think English is turning into a very useful tool for worldwide communication, but the spelling is shit, and the grammar needs to be simplified. You just can not learn it that well from a book. It's nice that you answer the questions a foreign student needs to know to develop practical fluency. And everyone stumbles and makes mistakes, when talking, in any language.

And by the way, the AscII alphabet is very helpful, but should be revised.
Damian   Tuesday, July 13, 2004, 18:26 GMT
Maybe the shit spelling adds to the fun English but as a native speaker I would say that. from the viewpoint of a learner it would be different I guess. I giggled when I heard some Germans mention the name of Slough as we pulled into the train station there. I am nasty am I not? ;-)

Anyway what would the average Brit make of Muenchen Gladbach?
How can the grammer be simplified? Compared to German grammar, for instance, English is a doddle. No gender problems....English is asexual! And all the other declensions in German?
Mi5 Mick   Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 12:43 GMT
Yo Damian,
Is doddle a Scottish word or your pronunciation of dawdle? ;)

I have heard other Brits pronounce it "doddle".