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Spain flagMairena
Disabled people I have a cousin with disability, she has a cerebral palsy; she needs a wheelchair because this disability limits her movements. The cerebral palsy is not a genetic or contagious illnes, mainly is due to an accident at the birth that entails movement disorders causing a physical disability. My cousin disability motived me to become a volunteer with disabled people, but I was still underage and I could not do it. When I was eighteen, I was able to be volunteer in association with disabled people; In my fifth holiday camp I coordinated and I was coordinator for six years. At the beginning, It was very complicated because it was the first time that I had people under my responsability, but at the time goes by, I realized that it was the best thing that I have done in my life, this experience marked me. Now a days, I'm unemployed and I'm a volunteer in Inclusive Leisure. This kind of leisure is a specific service guided by principle of normalization provide disabled people to share leisure comunity. Imagine, Peter is a person with down syndrome, he would like to learn dance, we are going to look for a dance class that offers the culture house in which there will be people with the same interest without difference. What you think about this kind of leisure?

Corrections · 7

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Darn - I made some typos! 

 

I can't go back and correct - so let's play a game. Can anyone find my typos? :D

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Disabled people

I have a cousin with a disability, she has a cerebral palsy. She needs a wheelchair because this disability limits her movement. Cerebral palsy is not a genetic or contagious illness and is mainly is due to an accident at the during birth that entails movement disorders causing a physical disability. 

My cousin's disability motived me to become a volunteer with disabled people, but I was still underage and I could not do it.

When I was eighteen, I was able to be volunteer in association with disabled people. (not quite sure what this means. The assocation is the organisation?). For my fifth holiday camp I became the coordinator and the had this role for six further years. At the beginning, it was very complicated because it was the first time that I was responsible for people, but as the time went by, I realized that it was the best thing that I have done in my life. This experience marked me.

Nowadays, I'm unemployed and I'm a volunteer in Inclusive Leisure. This kind of leisure is a specific service guided by principle of normalization to allow disabled people to share the leisure comunity.
Imagine, Peter is a person with down syndrome and he would like to learn dance. We would look for a dance class that offers the culture house?? (not sure what you mean here) in which there will be people with the same interest without difference.

What you think about this kind of leisure?

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Hi Mairena. I'm going to take some time to help you with your punctuation. English punctuation is often quite difficult it seems for native Spanish speakers because we approach punctuation so differently. English not only has romantic roots, but germanic roots as well. When sentences run on it "feels" weird to us because we are taught not to have "run - on" sentences through our education. Once a sentence is done you stop it with a period and start again. In Spanish sentences seem to run on forever! It's downright strange to us Americans. You're English seems very good except for the punctuation so here are some pointers:

 

Disabled people

I have a cousin with disability, she has a cerebral palsy; she needs a wheelchair because this disability limits her movements.

 

Let's take this first run-on sentence to start with. What you have here is three sentences jammed into one the way an English speaker would read it. You CAN put two of these together using a semi-colon, but not all three. Either it would be:

1. I have a cousin with a disability; she has cerebral palsy. She needs...  OR

2. I have a cousing with a disability. She has cerebral palsy; (or you could use a "so" or an "and" here instead which is what most Americans would do) she needs....


The semi-colon is used instead of a period to attach two fully formed sentences that are closely related to each other to draw them closer together than a period would, but they are not often used in every day writing in English. What most natives would do is use the so or the and. 


 

The cerebral palsy is not a genetic or contagious illnes, mainly it is due to an accident at the birth that entails movement disorders causing a physical disability. It's not really an "accident" at birth. Cerebral Palsy is caused by a neurological disorder. Accident usually implies a one time incident. The brain damage involved with cerebral palsy can be caused by an on-going problem in utero or afterwards and is not only caused "at birth"

My cousin disability motived me to become a volunteer with disabled people, but I was still underage and I could not do it.

When I was eighteen, you can put a comma here but it is unnecessary and most Americans wouldn't do that I was able to be volunteer in association with disabled people; This is not a correct use of the semi-colon. You really just want a period here. It's the end of a long sentence and the next sentence is a new thought. In your Spanish mind you probably thing they are related, but to my American mind you already said that you were able to be a volunteer when you were 18 and now you are starting a new though on how that came to be or to give us more details. Separate thought. The previous sentence had all it's parts and now you are going onto another sentence with all the necessary parts. In my fifth holiday camp I coordinated and I was coordinator for six years. At the beginning, you don't need the comma and you don't want it to be capitalized because it isn't a new sentence. It's all one sentence! It was very complicated because it was the first time that I had people under my responsability, but at the time goes oopsy, that was supposed to be past tense there by, I realized that it was the best thing that I have oopsy again, all this is in the past done in my life, Uh-oh, another run-on sentence. Period and new sentence or at least a semi-colon, a comma just doesn't cut it here. this experience marked me.

Now a days, I'm unemployed and I'm a volunteer in Inclusive Leisure. This kind of leisure is a specific service guided by the principle of normalization to provide disabled people a way to share leisure in the comunity. We can talk about prepositions another time. Oh boy, those are HARD! 


Imagine, Peter is a person with down syndrome, That's a full sentence. Peter has down's syndrome. End. Stop. Done. he would like to learn dance, you can't put two full sentences together with a comma. You have to use a word like so or and or start fresh with a new sentence. we are going to look for a dance class that offers the culture house in which there will be people with the same interest without difference. Just for the record I didn't understand that last sentence. 

What you think about this kind of leisure?

 

I understand that you probably think I'm all cut off or disjointed or don't know how to "flow" but English is just more staccato than Spanish. You stop and start. You don't keep on taking tiny breaths and keep on going on and on. Think of us Americans as kind of slow or something. We need more rest stops. :) Not pauses. When we stop WE STOP and take a BIG BREATH. If you want to keep going, keep going with and or so. All these little breaths just feel like hyperventilation or something. ha ha ha. 

 

Great writing and kudos to you for volunteering. What you are doing is a beautiful thing. People with cerebral palsy often are highly intelligent but just not able to move their bodies properly so it can be unbearably frustrating for them. People need to understand cerebral palsy better so that they can treat people with this disability the way they should be treated, with respect.  

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