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Chad
English
May 7, 2017
It was very nice to meet you and I enjoyed our discussion. I think we have a good basic plan for the future. I'll find a couple of potential articles and email them to you shortly.
Joel
English
Nov 19, 2016
So far, we've gone over most of the rules about blending sounds; practice making these sounds when speaking, become comfortable with them, and your understanding of native speakers will improve significantly. We have a few more items of linking, but they are more subtle and less important for understanding (and being understood), which is the essence of communication. Keep up the good work and you will be reaping the rewards soon enough!
Joel
English
Nov 16, 2016
Making steady progress: even with challenging material, you are making fewer and fewer mistakes, and noticing and correcting them more and more quickly.
Joel
English
Nov 14, 2016
Grammar is on target, and you're handling all these details of pronunciation well. Good job especially on creating your own system of phonetic writing!
Activities
  • Commented
    @Isaac
    OK thanks, now it’s clear: ambitransitive and monotransitive are subtypes of transitive. Right.

    But still, for me there are verbs in English that are monotransitive, that is, they have an object in all circumstances. The verb “put”, for example, I cannot come up with any example where it would be acceptable with no complement, even in informal speech. OR a verb as “devour” : you can say “I'm eating", but would you ever say “They devoured"? You have to add an object ("They devoured everything/the entire pizza/ the prey"). OR, "murder" : "What did you do last night? I murdered (someone)"...

    Anyway, I'll think about it, maybe there are always cases where each of these verbs can be used alone, it's just that I cannot come up with the appropriate example.
    0 voted
    March 11, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    @Isaac
    Thanks for the links. And you read the names (monotransitive, ambitransitive...) in some of those pages, right? Because actually, I found the names confusing, not the distinction in itself, that's why I asked.

    Also, do you agree that in English the distinction is also valid? This is a genuine question as English is not my L1.
    0 voted
    March 11, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    @Isaac, I may be wrong, but isn’t English the same?

    In English too some verbs can be transitive or intransitive (<em>sing, write, eat, drink…</em>). Other verbs are obligatory transitive and the object has to be expressed (<em>murder, destroy, frighten, concern, put …</em>). Other verbs are also always transitive, but the object can be implicit when speakers can infer it from the context (<em>see, watch, like…</em>)

    So, you can say:<em> I see (what you mean/what you’re showing me)…</em>
    But you can't say: <em>Did you put the book on the shelf? *Yes, I put.</em>

    <em>EDIT: </em>still,<em> </em>your classification is confusing, where did you find it?
    0 voted
    March 11, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    Something similar happened to me. I wrote my thesis in a second language, and asked someone to correct the final draft of a chapter, as I had added a few more paragraphs. The guy changed the paper a lot, even the parts previously corrected. He found the style too basic for the purpose. 

    In my experience, if you need proofreaders for proposals, articles, thesis…you’d better look for people who are in the field you’re studying or, at the very least, people who are familiar with academic writing in their own language. If they’re not, send them a couple of articles, as they can catch the style you need for your papers.

    I say this because people outside academia often see academic style as the archetype of elegant, complex and flowery language. So, when they correct research papers, they tend to adopt the most refined, overcomplicated registers: for example, they replace common words with rare synonyms, simple sentences with more complex structures, etc. They sincerely think they’re doing well, when in fact the author is asking for the opposite: a plain language, precise enough to express their ideas clearly.

    Of course, I ignore if this is what happened in your case, or if the paper really needed to be changed, but keep in mind that a majority of people, native or not, may have the wrong idea on the language used in research. 
    Best of luck for your proposal!
    0 voted
    March 9, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    I think that, sooner or later, everyone has those moments when they start questioning the things they’re doing and asking whether there is any sense in their life. This is pretty normal, one should not focus on these thoughts too long, find an activity they like, and move ahead.

    However, if this kind of feeling is permanent, in this case one should go deeper, and really ask oneself what is wrong there, because most probably THERE IS something wrong! 

    Maybe it’s their life that doesn't fit them: there are situations that are simply not fulfilling at all, and people should scrutinize and change them, or at least try to.

    Maybe it’s the opposite: it’s the person who doesn't fit the life they’re living. If someone feels constantly tired by any slightest social exchange, if they feel as if they’re putting a crazy amount of efforts in everyday situation, if they feel overwhelmed at the end of their day although they did not face any stressful situation, if they feel as they were constantly faking vis-à-vis people around, at the point they go into depression … well, these are signals that there may be (I stress, there MAY be) an Asperger syndrome gone undiagnosed. 

    This is quite frequent everywhere, as differently from other levels of autism, people with Asperger often have normal language. This is even more frequent for women, as traditionally this kind of disorders is associated with men.

    Two coworkers of mine have just discovered their disorder in their late 30s. 

    Here, a video by Julie Dachez: she was diagnosed with Asperger at around 30, and talks about her vain efforts to live a “normal life”. All of her videos where she speaks of her syndrome are fascinating.
    The video is in French, but there are English captions.
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDqZ7dRth8c&list=LLIFR6PfDJeFM-Pauv3PIAkQ&index=71&t=0s" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDqZ7dRth8c&list=LLIFR6PfDJeFM-Pauv3PIAkQ&index=71&t=0s</a>
    0 voted
    March 7, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    <em>Voilà ma suggestion. Remarquez : le français n’est pas ma langue maternelle, donc prenez cela avec précaution et surtout, attendez les commentaires suivants pour comparer les différentes propositions. </em>
    <em>Bonne chance pour votre site !</em>

    Il s’agit apparemment de votre première connexion.
    Nous vous prions de lire attentivement les instructions qui suivent afin de bien démarrer la configuration de votre boutique en ligne.
    Pour cela, il sera indispensable de renseigner quelques informations importantes, telles que:
    • L'adresse de votre magasin
    • Les horaires d'ouverture
    • La devise que vous utilisez
    • Les catégories de vos produits
    • etc...
    À la suite de ce message, vous trouverez les différentes étapes de configuration qui vous permettront de créer votre boutique en ligne.
    Vous pouvez commencer la configuration à tout moment, mais nous vous recommandons de le faire dès maintenant.
    Les boutons ‘Précédent’ et ‘Suivant’ vous permettront de vous déplacer entre les différentes étapes de la configuration.
    Veuillez aussi noter que la plupart des informations que vous allez saisir dans le processus de configuration seront affichées sur le site de votre boutique en ligne et donc visibles par tout le monde.

    0 voted
    February 27, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    @Abdullah

    With native speakers, you're sure they speak their language fluently. Yes, they may do mistakes, but still, these are mistakes that natives do!

    With L2 speakers you cannot be really sure about anything: they MAY be more proficient than native ones, they MAY have a better knowledge of grammar, they MAY also be as fluent as native speakers. However, all these things are hard to check for a learner, especially online, especially for languages in which the learner is not already proficient.

    This is why I said that native teachers offer a warranty of minimum quality. I didn't mean they're always the best choice for students, but they are the easiest choice, often the only available alternative for students on a page like italki.

    And basically, I agree with Suki, but their post focused on grammar, mine on fluency.
    0 voted
    February 24, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    @Alice

    Exactly! A non-native teacher must have reached a certain level before they can teach a language properly, but, as a student, you can never be sure they posses that level! That's why I think so many select natives directly.

    Of course, you don't either know if the native knows the grammar of their language or not, but at least you're sure they speak their own language fluently. In L2 teaching, nativeness is a sort of pledge of minimum quality.
    0 voted
    February 24, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    In theory, I agree with the other posts, and I know I should prefer a proficient non-native teacher to an average native speaker. In practice though, I would do the opposite, and give a straightforward preference to natives. The reason? Just that I have no means to test the proficiency of a speaker in a language that I don't dominate myself.

    Let's say, I'm looking for a Russian teacher and I'm intermediate at most in that language. In theory, I'm sure that a non-native may be a better coach than the average Russian guy. But how would I know that? Neither a short video nor a few sentences would be enough to test their actual competence. So, I would probably go for a native coach. They might be awful teachers, ok, but at least I would be sure they're fluent in the language.

    Isn't this what most students do? They are well aware that many non-natives are perfectly fit for teaching a language, but they also know that it's hard for them, as learners, to jauge, especially on the Internet, where little checkable warranty is provided. So they end up picking a native as the simplest solution. This is unfair, for sure, but here we are!
    0 voted
    February 24, 2020
    0
  • Commented
    Hi Daniel

    I don't know Spanish with Paul, but I suppose it's similar to the the Youtube channels linked below.

    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/travellinguist/playlists" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/user/travellinguist/playlists</a> (The travel linguist: you have to chose the language you want among the playlists)
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/manula2006/featured" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/user/manula2006/featured</a> (Italian made easy)
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSQ8QsPEIc4c6vHrWyc-5iQ/featured" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSQ8QsPEIc4c6vHrWyc-5iQ/featured</a> (Dolce Vita)
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gGkW17A_kbDCVNGvzGMrw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gGkW17A_kbDCVNGvzGMrw</a> (Passione italiana)
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVc-IW8Q98qFmQcXla5FdQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnVc-IW8Q98qFmQcXla5FdQ</a> (Learn Italian with Lucrezia)
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ITALIANOAUTOMATICO/featured" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/user/ITALIANOAUTOMATICO/featured</a> (Impara l'Italiano con Italiano Automatico)
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/IstLingMediterraneo/featured" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/user/IstLingMediterraneo/featured</a> (Istituto Linguistico Mediterraneo)

    Also, you have the free Moocs from Futurelearn, with 6 cours of Italian (they're free, you only pay if you want to get the final assessments and accreditations):
    <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/subjects/language-courses/learn-italian" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.futurelearn.com/subjects/language-courses/learn-italian</a>

    Finally, there is the italian lessons from RAI, the public Italian TV. Follow the link, click on the tab "IMPARIAMO L'ITALIANO" and choose your level. You know, it's RAI, so you should expect bugs, broken links and unfriendly interface but, well, it's free at least :)
    <a href="http://www.italiano.rai.it/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.italiano.rai.it/</a>

    Good luck with everything!
    0 voted
    February 22, 2020
    0