vocabulary or vocabularies

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David L.

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In a forum promoting the use of the English language, I personally cringe away from posts saying "I wanna..." This isn't your local teenage amusement arcade.
Ughh.
 

Soup

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In a forum promoting the use of the English language, I personally cringe away from posts saying "I wanna..." This isn't your local teenage amusement arcade.
Ughh.
Wanna? It's perfectly good ol' American English. I use it, write, and like it. You may not, but that's your own preference.
Friday, April 27, 2001
Don't know why, maybe 'cause it's late and I'm tired, but I wanna get semimental for just a minute and talk about my family. ~ George W. Bush
 
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thank you so much so much Soup. i was just wondering what's wrong with it. i also wonder that sometimes people seem so rude in talking about things that they THINK is wrong:shock: opinions are not facts and we should learn how to respect opinions:up: and not to judge people acording to the way we think but according to the facts
 

Clark

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There are some words and forms that sound odd when they are used by a non-native speaker. I have nothing against 'wonna, gonna' when they come from the mouth of a native English speaker. But when a learner of English uses them it sounds funny, to put in mildly.
 

Snowcake

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There are some words and forms that sound odd when they are used by a non-native speaker. I have nothing against 'wonna, gonna' when they come from the mouth of a native English speaker. But when a learner of English uses them it sounds funny, to put in mildly.

Why make things unnecessarily hard for learners - especially for beginners?

That's not a helpful way to encourage learners, and reassure them, particularly when they don't feel confident enough with an appropriate usage of the foreign language.

Hmmm, I don't mean to start an argument. But: "It's not what you say, but the way you say it."

;-):)
 

tzfujimino

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Why make things unnecessarily hard for learners - especially for beginners?

That's not a helpful way to encourage learners, and reassure them, particularly when they don't feel confident enough with an appropriate usage of the foreign language.

Hmmm, I don't mean to start an argument. But: "It's not what you say, but the way you say it."

;-):)

I agree with you.:-D
I have absolutely no intention of starting an argument, either.
I would just like to give my opinion here.
Many non-native speakers visit this forum and ask many questions.
Their English(including mine) might sound unnatural or odd to native speakers. If "wanna" is so unacceptable, why not tell the poster that he/she should use "want to" or "would like to" instead of "wanna"? What if the poster didn't know the proper way of expressing his/her wishes? What if "wanna" was the only way the poster knows? I'd like all members here in this forum to remember that most of us are non-native speakers.:-D
 

Kraken

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Agreed, mate.

When someone is studying English and learns a new word, they want (even need) to use it now and then, to get used to it. Now, the connotations a word may have, are often hidden to our foreigner eyes.

I don't think wanna is rude. Colloquial maybe, but not "bad English" But how can I tell?
Only I don't know whatever would happen if I handed a composition in those terms. Would I get congratulated or given a low assessment? I'm not sure.
 
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jirikoo

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i wanna ask about the difference between vocabulary and vocabularies, and fruit and fruits

Lets not get carried away.

Basically the noun "vocabulary" is an uncountable noun, which means that under normal circumstances it doesnt exist in a plural form. You cannot count it. One, two, three vocabularies. There is always the "but", though.

At certain point, some of uncountable nouns can be changed into countable nouns. In the case of "vocabulary" it would be pretty hard to imagine but fruit-fruits is a gleamy example. Speaking genarly, fruit is uncountable. If you have more pieces of fruit in front you talking about them , you can say: "These pieces of fruit...." or also "I will take the three fruits...." or "I will take a fruit" (if standing in front of a basket of fruit in a shop). Even native speakers (which Im not) mix this up. SOme of them dont even know that fruit is an uncountable noun not being to be used in the "fruits" form (in a general meaning).
 

Clark

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I feel I must reply to this post:

Why make things unnecessarily hard for learners - especially for beginners?

Exactly! Why welcome stylistically coloured half-slang words when a huge resource of standard English is still virgin land?


That's not a helpful way to encourage learners, and reassure them, particularly when they don't feel confident enough with an appropriate usage of the foreign language.

You are reading my mind!


Hmmm, I don't mean to start an argument.

But: "It's not what you say, but the way you say it."


We have already started it, and I see no harm in this, as long as we talk sense and respect one another's opinion.

Has the last phrase something to do with my post or somebody else's post?

;-):)
 
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Barb_D

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Uh oh. Can I add my opinion?

As an American, I say "wanna" most of the time. As someone who makes her living writing, I would never use "wanna" in a business communication. I use it in chat and I use it in casual e-mails to my friends.

It seems to me that people come to ESL forums to learn the type of English they need for examinations or work. Therefore, it seems to me that when writing,efforts should be made to comply with the rules of written English, unless we're specifically discussing pronunciation.

So I support trying to keep writing like "thanx 2 u for ur help" and "if u cud help me, i'd be happy" -- no matter how friendly the tone -- out of posts that talk about grammar. (And support talking about how we often leave letters out in actual pronunciation.)

Just my two cents.
 

Snowcake

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Why make things unnecessarily hard for learners - especially for beginners?

Exactly! Why welcome stylistically coloured half-slang words when a huge resource of standard English is still virgin land?

Clark, I must confess that this issue is one of my sore spots. I had several English teachers, and one of them (fortunately, it was only one!) tended to look at you as if you had a big pimple in your face when you were trying to speak English. Not that the students weren't able to speak properly, but they made mistakes, otherwise they wouldn't have attended the course. It was a kind of disrespect to the students' efforts. But don't get me wrong. This story was on my mind, and I wanted to tell it just to make clear why I decided to take part in this discussion. It's not that I consider you to be disrespectful - not at all.

So back to the topic at hand: You're right. A forum like this should promote a proper and appropriate usage of the English language - and I'm quite sure there is no better place to learn English, and its differentely used registers than in this forum where a lot of assisting and very kind people spend their spare time on helping others.

So there is no problem with advising someone of the different registers and pointing out their mistakes.
That's why this forum exists. :)

It was just that I wasn't happy with this part of your previous post 'funny, to put in mildly'. It may well be the case that I took the wrong way, and mistook your words.




That's not a helpful way to encourage learners, and reassure them, particularly when they don't feel confident enough with an appropriate usage of the foreign language.

You are reading my mind!


Hmmm, I don't mean to start an argument.

But: "It's not what you say, but the way you say it."

We have already started it, and I see no harm in this, as long as we talk sense and respect one another's opinion.

Has the last phrase something to do with my post or somebody else's post?

Yes, it has.
No problem with pointing out mistakes, but I for one would appreciate it if we would all bear in mind that the users here have different levels of English. (BTW, this phrase hasn't anything to do with the use of slang expressions. It wasn't meant to minimise the inappropriate / incorrect use of registers, in the sense of: it's OK to write 'wanna ur help' as long as you take a friendly tone )

I agree with Barb: I'm quite puzzled when I read sentences like "Could u help me pls" and I think it is important to correct such 'misuses'. Otherwise, mistakes can creep in rapidly and take hold, making it difficult to get rid of them in the long run. So I don't welcome stylistically coloured half-slang words, at least to promote is as standard English. As far as I know, it is part of (some) exams to be able to distinguish between various formal and informal language registers. In this vein, I welcome helping students get engaged and aware of different registers.

:)
 
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Soup

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There are some words and forms that sound odd when they are used by a non-native speaker. I have nothing against 'wonna, gonna' when they come from the mouth of a native English speaker. But when a learner of English uses them it sounds funny, to put in mildly.
It only sounds funny (i.e., strange) if the pronunciation is off:

wanna => w[o]nna :cross:
wanna => <a> as in water.
 

Clark

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It only sounds funny (i.e., strange) if the pronunciation is off:

wanna => w[o]nna :cross:
wanna => <a> as in water.

Soup, I could say that I misspelled the word on purpose, in order to ridicule it, but I won't.

You might say I'm not in a position to judge, being a non-native English speaker myself. I thought if a native speaker said that it would sound like 'Quod licet iovi, non licet bovi'. That's why I decided it was my line.

When I hear non-Russian speakers use slang or low-colloquials, it irritates my ear. I always feel like telling them, 'Why don't you learn a few grammar rules first?'
 
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tedtmc

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IMHO, Slangs and colloquial words like wanna, gotta, kinda..(which are handy for SMS messages, online chats, etc.) should not be encouraged in a forum which is meant to promote proper and correct use of English. :)
 
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thank you very much for your replies. what i really wanted top say that i didn't like the way some members replied against the use of "wanna". BTW i lived in the states and i was married to an American so it is not a matter of being native speaker or not as we use English to communicate and it sounded more friendly to me. Again I would like to thank you all for your illustrations and i hope that we can realize the difference between talking and discussing some issues and formal ways of writing.
 
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