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English Tutorial

Xucin

ρя0αѕѕ T_T
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Hi, OtLand!

English Tutorial
After reading lots of threads and posts here on I thought I'd write a short tutorial on how to improve your own English.
Thus making yourself easier too understand both by people with high and low English skills. Rep++ would be appreciated if you enjoyed reading this, but isn't necessary as I've got no idea what it's for.

Too start of with, I do not speak English fluently myself, having that said I hope there won't be any flaming. The thread is completely written in the purpose of helping others to improve their English, and aren't meant as racism.


Basic rules of English grammar.

Capitals (aka BIG LETTERS)

In the English language there's several words which requires a capital letter in the beginning of the word, or the entire word capitalized. Some examples are following

Cities - Names of cities require a capital letter in the beginning, an example would be the city Yorkshire or any other city in the world, capital letters in a cities name aren't there too look good. They exist mainly to make the word stand out a bit, being more noticeable and easier too find in texts. Cities with a two word name, such as New York, requires capital letters in the beginning of both words, new York or New york would be wrong with other words.

Countries - Countries just like cities require a capital letter in the beginning, an example would be countries such as, England, Poland, Brazil. Just like cities countries with two words requires capitals in the beginning of both words, ie. The Netherlands (Also known as Holland) Why? Same reason as

Languages - Languages also believe it or not, requires capital letters in the beginning, examples would be English, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish.

Custom Titles (Person) - Custom Titles, such as Mr. Mrs. Miss, Dr. Requires capital letters, writing mr Anderson doesn't only look terrible, but it's also wrong. Custom Titles should be started with a capital letter and most often ended with a dot.

Self-Descriptive - Self-descriptive words are normally written with a non-capital start, ie. me, myself unless being the first word in a sentence. While the word 'I' always must be capital at all scenarios ie. I went fishing.

Sentence beginnings - The first word in a sentence must always be in capital. That means after every dot. Or question mark? The next word must begin with a capital letter. Example, John went fishing. When he got home his wife was waiting with the dinner.

Articles (a and an)
Articles are one of the most common errors on the internet, while it's quite easy to remember when it should be a and when it should be an unlike in other languages, such as the swedish 'en och ett' which are completely random.

So how does it work? It depends on which letter the word begins with, if it's a vowel (A, E, I, O, U, Y excluding W) the correct article would be an, as in an apple, an exploitation. The exception is W which is almost always connected with the article "the", as in "the war" or "the watchdog" writing, believe it or not, "A watchdog" or "a war" are considered incorrect, even though in modern times it's more or less considered correct, as languages evolve, much like the Swedish language exception 'Ett apelsin' being the correct article while most Swedish says 'En apelsin'.

Tips and tricks
Something most people forgets when writing on a forum is too reread and look for errors when they write a post, yeah well sure it's just a forum, but still lots of people ignores your posts when they're badly phrased. Reading through your post a few times while fixing errors improves your overall ability too write cause you'll most likely remember what you did wrong and won't do it again

/ Xucin.
 
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Languages - Languages also believe it or not, require capital letters in the beginning, examples would be English, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish.

Custom Titles (Person) - Custom Titles, such as Mr. Mrs. Miss, Dr. Requires capital letters, writing mr Anderson doesn't only look terrible, but it's also wrong. Custom Titles should be started with a capital letter and most often ended with a dot [period, not dot].

Something most people forgets when writing on a forum is too reread and look for errors when they write a post, yeah well sure it's just a forum, but still lots of people ignore [ letter should not be on ignores] your posts when they're badly phrased. Reading through your post a few times while fixing errors improves your overall ability too write cause you'll most likely remember what you did wrong and won't do it again[/B]


Very good tutorial. I caught a few mistakes in your post too, noted above. Nice work.

Regards,
Nathan
 
If they can't read english (Inglês - Português) then how they are they meant to understand this without using translator*
 
I'm sure a few of the Otland members have learned something from this English lesson:)
Rep++

EDIT:
One little thing you've forgotten to mention in the "Articles (a and an)" section.
Also words which sounds like beginning with a vowel (A, E, I, O, U, Y excluding W) should have "an" instead of "a" in front of it.
Such as: An hour ago. In this sentence you pronounce 'hour' as 'our'. That's why it should be: an hour and not a hour.
Same with: a one-armed bandit; an heir; a unicorn. Unicorn begins with the sound 'yu' one-armed sounds like 'won-armed'

:)
 
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dude... post this on otfans. or i will if you dont care. its awsome
 
dude... post this on otfans. or i will if you dont care. its awsome

You just read the tutorial and you're making mistakes, again, you just read it. [capital I's when referring to self, awsome instead of awesome, excessive *wrong* punctuation..]

This is why I see no point in threads like this, yes, Xucin did a good job, it's very helpful for people that don't speak english fluently, and it's written in a very understandable way, but I'm pretty sure that most of them wont even bother taking this into practice, or at least reading it thoroughly.
 
You just read the tutorial and you're making mistakes, again, you just read it. [capital I's when referring to self, awsome instead of awesome, excessive *wrong* punctuation..]

This is why I see no point in threads like this, yes, Xucin did a good job, it's very helpful for people that don't speak english fluently, and it's written in a very understandable way, but I'm pretty sure that most of them wont even bother taking this into practice, or at least reading it thoroughly.


... yes i did make them. and ill continue to make them. you know since im not writeing a novel or anything. dont really care how it is on a forum. its a forum after all. its awsome. awsome. awsome. (Have you figured out the point of this yet? Oh well, I'll keep going.)
i get the point of the thread there skippy, i simply dont feel i need to apply them in this informal setting. if i were doing, ohh lets say a teaser (or working on my novel for that matter), then yes i would apply them and i dont expect anyone else to unless under formal circumstances. i mean its not like im sitting here useing horid broken english telling people that they suck at useing it.

lets not be the uber typo nazi now... people will start to dislike you.
 
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well, it's good but i think that they aren't writing "." and capital letters because they are lazy, like me..
 
... yes i did make them. and ill continue to make them. you know since im not writeing a novel or anything. dont really care how it is on a forum. its a forum after all. its awsome. awsome. awsome. (Have you figured out the point of this yet? Oh well, I'll keep going.)
i get the point of the thread there skippy, i simply dont feel i need to apply them in this informal setting. if i were doing, ohh lets say a teaser (or working on my novel for that matter), then yes i would apply them and i dont expect anyone else to unless under formal circumstances. i mean its not like im sitting here useing horid broken english telling people that they suck at useing it.

lets not be the uber typo nazi now... people will start to dislike you.
At least write words how they should be writtten. And about the adding of [ing]'s to verbs. "Writeing". Seriously?

Also; if it's not meant to be used in forums; explain this:
Tips and tricks
Something most people forgets when writing on a forum is too reread and look for errors when they write a post, yeah well sure it's just a forum, but still lots of people ignores your posts when they're badly phrased. Reading through your post a few times while fixing errors improves your overall ability too write cause you'll most likely remember what you did wrong and won't do it again

Oh, and, if you're not writing a novel, at least any time soon, and it's not supposed to be used in forums, why did you even bother reading this?
 
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Another small thing which should be added:

Than/Then
When comparing one thing with another you may find that one is more appealing 'than' another. 'Than' is the word you should use when doing comparisons. But if you are talking about time, choose 'then': "First you separate the eggs; then you beat the whites." Alexis is smarter than I, not "then I."
 
Another one:

A lot/Allot
A lot (two words) is an informal phrase meaning 'many.' It can take an adjective, for example, "a sizeable lot."

Example: Karl needed a lot of time for the job.

Allot means "to distribute between or among." It has the same root as lottery.

Example: He allotted three breaks a day to everyone in the department.

Alot does not exist as a word.
 
Could I please add something? ;D

Your/You're

Your is a possessive noun. It expresses how something is owned by you. It tells you who or what the something belongs to.

You're is the formation of you+are. Are is a derivation of the verb 'To Be'. [Also, go here for further knowledge]

You're and Your are different words, while not being so distant, but not having the same meaning, either.
 
There's some grammatical errors in the tutorial.

There are quite a few grammatical errors in the tutorial.

By the way, there's a grammatical error in your post.


EDIT:


Have something for you to add. :)

They're/Their/There

They're: They're is a contraction of the words they, and are. Saying they're at school, is the same as saying they are at school. It can never be used as a modifier, only as a subject (who or what does the action) and verb (the action itself).

Their: Their indicates possession. It is a possessive adjective and indicates that a particular noun belongs to them.

There: There is used in reference to places, whether concrete ("over there by the building") or more abstract ("it must be difficult to live there").


Example:

  • Wrong: Their is no one here.
  • Wrong: Shelley wants to know if there busy.
  • Wrong: The dogs are happily chewing on they're bones.
  • RIGHT: I can't believe they're leaving their children there, alone!




EDIT #2:


dude... post this on otfans. or i will if you dont care. its awsome

This was posted on OTFans months before it was posted here, on OTLand.




Regards,
Nathan
 
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