Korean Job Discussion Forums

[captain kirk]

Canada has British spelling. grew up on 'favourite and colour' as opposed to the American favorite and color.
For some years here, since I grew up on the British spellings, I'd write those on the whiteboard. But gradually, naturally, gave way to the American spellings.
If push came to shove, and Angelina Jolie were advocating the British spelling slowly pronoucing the difference with her wonderful lips, the British Empire could reassert its elegant spellings. Come on over, Angelina!

[funplanet]

I teach my students both British and American spellings and grammar, such as "my family is..." or "my family are..,"

I don't understand why you were so shocked...if you had done your homework you would have known that Koreans prefer American English

and I resent any implication (Bum-suk) that Americans are unable to understand there may be two ways of doing things...we are not all as stupid as you may believe

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[ulsanchris]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[tzechuk]

[Sleepy in Seoul]

I worked with an American here who was absolutely astounded that the rest of the English-speaking world use words like "boot" instead of "trunk" and "bonnet" instead of "hood". Fancy that...

I refuse to cave and teach this new-fangled simplified variety of English. To me it is ugly and lazy and is extremely inelegant, and I am constantly pleased that some of my students are gradually changing their pronunciation to the correct style . No more of this saying "warderr" instead of "water"...

P.S. And "airplane" is one of the ugliest words that I have seen. Aeroplane is much more elegant and rolls off the tongue so smoothly

[ulsanchris]

As an add on to my above post

The american girl had never heard of zed.

She was angry that I knew both and only used the one and made her look like an idiot. She thought I did it purposely. In my defence i never thought it possible for a person to not know both. especially since she had been travelling around Australia and NZ for a few months.

[funplanet]

There is a good book out about American redneck English and lifestyles which were imported from the UK back in the old days...much of the black/redneck pronunciations, such as ask being "aks" etc come from England, as well as the trailer trash lifestyle (chavs?)...


I will try to find the name/author of the book

[JacktheCat]

I grew up in an American family in Africa and attended British "public" schools there and am fluent in three Englishes and familiar with two others.

When I lived in China they wanted to learn British English, so I taught British English.

Here in Korea they want American English, so I teach my students American English.

The market gets what the market wants. I am paid to provide a service, teaching whatever English skills they want or need, not push my ideas of langauge superiority on my students.

There is nothing inheritantly superior about any of the many Englishes around the world (British, American, Indian, Ebonics, whatever). The goal is communication and for that purpose any of them work just fine.

For the higher level students with an interest, I'll point out the pronunciation differences (American soft "t", British hard "C") and grammar (use of parentheses) and cultural differences (eraser vs rubber). But most of them could care less, they just want to know what is the American way.

[Kwangjuchicken]

[Big_Bird]

[Big_Bird]

[desultude]

I use the section of Swan, Practical English Usage, that covers comparisons between American and British usage. It's pretty comprehensive on the basics.

[Big_Bird]