Teacher Discussion Forums

I'd say that "watch" is in a less passive subset of "see", so that is why the latter is a more common question about the TV (though both are common), because we are not usually interested in the level of intent in the viewing. (e.g we don't "watch" an advert, but see it) Although we say see a movie,...

I don't believe the statistic to be honest, 1 in 5, and I don't think that Spanish speaking nations benefit to any great extent from their more phonetic way of writing - most people catch up in the end. The main thing is though, there is not a thing you can do about it. If a dictator controlling 98%...

English isn't that bad. The basic sounds that you teach as the "sounds of the alphabet" account for thousands of words. Chinese is far worse, yet East Asia has always been relatively literate. And by the way I'm sure I can understand thousands of Portuguese words. I can't speak a single sentence of ...

I don't think many people would recognize it as a phrase. It would most likely refer to finding a place on a map. It might be used in the way you say - "there is no easy geographic fix to personal problems" but that isn't a common way of expressing the idea and would likely come with further explana...

I'm sure there are a number of factors why some people don't like reading, but lack of vocabulary is certainly one. Otherwise "The Sun" and "The Daily Mail" would put a greater of variety of words in their rubbish - they don't use a lot. I don't disagree with what you say on your blog about English ...

Aha! A linguist who writes shorthand "u" in a computer-based forum. Consistency at last. How do you count how many words you know? That isn't easy to do. I think "fluency" requires many more, and plus the term is overused. Many native English speakers don't enjoy reading books because they lack the ...

How many terms would an intellectual use on a daily basis I wonder? Not all that they know!

Unfortunately my parents read the Daily Mail. I have always felt that any other paper at all would have taught me more while I was growing up.

What bugs me about Pullum trashing grammar books is that the idea really seems to be that we all use HIS book as the ultimate authority (and no no no to an "English academy" instead of this obscure authority). And of course his book is too hard for most people, precisely because it tries so hard to ...

Any clue as to where the 800 figure comes from? Actually I suspect that "linguists" do often underestimate vocabulary size because the 5000 figure, which is too low, is often bandied about. But of course as we've discussed more than once, it depends how you count. You would have to count pretty oddl...

Despite owning such a rotten dictionary, Here in China was a serious student of English. In spite of Woodcutter's slightly exasperated replies, he continued to post questions in the forum that could easily be answered if he looked in a decent dictionary. (The two are the same) There are some very po...

I can't do the Kanji clinic sort of quiz - I just cheat as soon as I'm stuck. I'm glad I did too because I didn't think "eye" was acceptable, for example.

Come on Juan, put us out of our misery. Reveal your grade.

Yes, I suppose that there is an element of "solving the problem" invoved with "deal with" which makes it perhaps hard to understand why you "deal" with people. In the workplace, everything is a problem I suppose. Associate is a reasonable synonym though. As to "work with people" and "work with compu...

These meanings seem pretty straightforward and easy to look up. Could you perhaps tell us what you think they mean, and why you ask?

I missed that. Oddly though, perhaps, there seem to be more hits for "tune into" when it relates to accents.

(Anyone else imagine the slightly uncomfortable presence - for us English anyway - of a rabid Welsh nationalist when Ouyang appears these days?)

There are a handful of google hits - people might say that now and again, but it isn't something people would commonly say. It isn't "incorrect" exactly, but it sounds as if the speaker is being a little playful with the language, so it would sound odd in a formal register. It also sounds a bit dumb...