internet as an english teacher

[jctgf]

Hi,
I would like to know how reliable the Internet is as an English teacher.
How to distinguish the good English from the bad one on Google?
Thanks.

[paochai01]

Hi,
I would like to know how reliable the Internet is as an English teacher.
How to distinguish the good English from the bad one on Google?
Thanks.

---

It's 95% reliable but you always have to check every result. Each explanation might confuse you. Sometimes, some rules have been changed, some info don't explain as much as what a human teacher can do.

[Anglika]

Google is not a reliable tool. It is a moderately useful one. The problem with internet searching is that the same source will be cited in any number of search engines, and therefore the statistics are innately skewed.

As a guide to good syntax = be very careful. Many blogs are extremely poor written English but turn up on searches, which may then appear to give them authority.

If in any doubt, cross reference the phrase/sentence you are concerned with in the BNC and ANC - or ask here.

[jctgf]

If in any doubt, cross reference the phrase/sentence you are concerned with in the BNC and ANC - or ask here.

thanks a lot.
what are the BNC and the ANC?
regarding the quote above, what does the bold text mean?
thanks again.

[Anglika]

...[any word or phrase] about which you are concerned in the BNC and ANC
Here is the link to the British National Corpus (BNC) and American National Corpus (ANC): [Davies/BYU] BYU-BNC: British National Corpus

[Snowcake]

When you are concerned with something, you are interested in it or you deal with or attend to a matter (in a broader sense). (to be concerned with something)

ANC / BNC American National Corpus / British National Corpus

Regards
Snowcake

[jctgf]

ok,
I understand now.
you mean to be "concerned with", right?
"with" is a complement for "concern", right?
as a foreigner, at first glance I thought "with in" was a new expression or a typo for "within".
thanks,
jc

[jctgf]

Google is not a reliable tool. It is a moderately useful one. The problem with internet searching is that the same source will be cited in any number of search engines, and therefore the statistics are innately skewed.

As a guide to good syntax = be very careful. Many blogs are extremely poor written English but turn up on searches, which may then appear to give them authority.

If in any doubt, cross reference the phrase/sentence you are concerned with in the BNC and ANC - or ask here.

hey, Anglika, thanks a lot for your tip on BNC. the site is amazing. only one question: the results that i get for a search are always correct examples of how to use the language, right?
thanks.

[Tdol]

They're real examples, so there will be mistakes and variations from standard grammatical patterns in there; this reflects genuine usage. If there are twenty examples using something the same way and one that is different, I'd recommend following the majority. Native speakers don't all agree or do things the same way- if there's a lot of variation, then it is likely that this is something where there is no firm agreement:
If I were- 561
If I was- 772
There are still books that state that 'if I was' is wrong, though the BNC reflects actual usage. These sites are a way of looking at language and the results may not conform to traditional grammatical patterns, but they do shed a lot of light into what people say and write.

BTW, like Anglika, I use this site for the BNC:
[Davies/BYU] BYU-BNC: British National Corpus
It is by the same guy as the ANC and is not restricted to 50 examples.