When the street language changes faster than academic one does. Language pupils, as me, are always worried about grammar and using the proper word in the proper way, but sometimes the street language

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Mariela

When the street language changes faster than academic one does. Language pupils, as me, are always worried about grammar and using the proper word in the proper way, but sometimes the street language changes in a way that avoid us to understand it, not to talk about digital language. I use to talk with native speakers by Skype and sometimes they tell me that the way I have learned to use some grammatical structures is old fashioned and they don´t use it. One of these uses is the subjunctive form which is very common in my language but old fashion in English. There are other examples, but they don´t come into my mind at this moment. All of this makes me wonder if I should focus on a different learning way to make me understand native speakers, which is my real target.

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When the street language changes faster than academic one does.

Language pupils such as myself are always worried about grammar and using the proper word in the proper way, but sometimes the street language changes in a way that avoid us makes it difficult to understand it, not to mention talk about communicate digitally language.

I use to talk with native speakers by Skype, and sometimes they tell me that the way I have learned to use some grammatical structures is old fashioned and they don´t use it. One of these uses is the subjunctive form, which is very common in my language but old fashioned in English.

There are other examples, but they don´t come into my mind at this moment. All of this makes me wonder if I should focus on a different learning way to make me understand native speakers, which is my real target.

Hi Mariela! As much as we want to learn the "street" language, it's extremely difficult to do unless we grew up in that environment. My advice is this: learn the academic language first because despite any changes to the conversational language, the professional academic language doesn't change that much. Once you've learned to speak academically, the conversational language can be picked up through experience.

Believe me, the difficulty with academic and conversational English isn't just something English-learners struggle with. Even native English speakers mix the two up. Regardless of whichever language we speak, we really have to know how to speak two forms: academic (professional) and conversational (casual/everyday).

Thanks for your advice.

You are talking of 'colloquial English'. This is often very different from universtiy English, eg. you would never see 'whom', 'heretofore', 'notwithstanding' etc in colloquial. Generally, over the years, people on the street have given up these words as they are, probably, rubbish, and nobody likes to collect rubbish. 'Rubbish' you will certainly hear on the street but not in the university (at least not if you want to get a pass). If you want to read some colloquial English, you can find 'The Sun', 'The Daily Mirror' newspapers. Maybe they are online, too.

When the street language changes faster than the academic.

Language pupils, like me*, are always worried about grammar and using the proper word in the proper way, but sometimes the street language changes in a way that we cannot understand, not to mention computer-speak.

I use to talk with native speakers by Skype and sometimes they told** me my use of use some grammatical structures is old fashioned and they are not used any more. One of these uses is the subjunctive form which is very common in my language but old fashioned in English.

There are other examples, but they don´t come into my mind at this moment. All of these make me wonder if I should focus on a different way to learn to make me understand native speakers, which is my real target.

*or, such as me.

**used to talk with.... therefore 'told'

Very well written!

Thanks for your answer, I wrote this entry to practice my English but also as a reflection and I think this is a good advice.

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