How did he make it? (31 words, two sentences.)

[Silverobama]

Hi,

A man posted a video in our chatgroup on WeChat. In the video, a boy was reciting the alpabet. I listened to that 26 letters and I found that 20 were wrong. This reminds me of many Chinese parents push their children to learn English at a very young age but doesn't focus on correcting their mistakes.

I said two sentences intended to be sarcastic:

1) How did he make it? 20 out of 26 are wrong?
2) I thinks he's just one of those kids who doesn't give a fig about the correct pronunciations of English letters.

Are they idiomatic?

 

[5jj]

Hi,

A man posted a video in our chatgroup on WeChat. In the video, a boy was reciting the alpabet. I listened to that those 26 letters and I found that 20 were wrong. This reminds me of how many Chinese parents push their children to learn English at a very young age but doesn't focus on correcting their mistakes.

I don't think I want to correct sarcastic remarks about the English pronunciation of a young child.

 

[Tarheel]

I wouldn't say they don't focus on correcting mistakes, but they don't bother to. (It's possible that they don't recognize errors when they see them.)

 

[emsr2d2]

Sarcastic or not, give the kid a break! Those of us who speak a foreign language were all learners at some point. People have different abilities when it comes to pronunciation. Instead of being mean, you should have asked the man who posted the video what his reason was for posting it.

 

[Silverobama]

I don't think I want to correct sarcastic remarks about the English pronunciation of a young child.

I wouldn't say they don't focus on correcting mistakes, but they don't bother to. (It's possible that they don't recognize errors when they see them.)

Sarcastic or not, give the kid a break! Those of us who speak a foreign language were all learners at some point. People have different abilities when it comes to pronunciation. Instead of being mean, you should have asked the man who posted the video what his reason was for posting it.

I was trying to say that parents doesn't focus on correcting mistakes of their kids but would only force their kids to study English. What I said in the OP were for parents not kids.

 

[emsr2d2]

I was trying to say that parents doesn't don't focus on correcting their kids' mistakes of their kids but would only force their kids to study English. What I said in the OP were was for parents, not kids.

I don't see how the second sentence can be taken as being aimed at parents. You said "I think he's just one of those kids who doesn't care a fig about the correct pronunciation of English letters". That's very clearly a comment on the child.

I'm still curious as to the point of the video being posted in the first place.

 

[Silverobama]

I don't see how the second sentence can be taken as being aimed at parents. You said "I think he's just one of those kids who doesn't care a fig about the correct pronunciation of English letters". That's very clearly a comment on the child.

I forgot to say that this boy is very young. I didn't mention this because if mentioned, you might accuse me being not tolerant of a little boy speaking English. But I don't want to argue here because this is just a case of culture difference, teachers.

90% of Chinese children begin to learn English when they're very young, you can Google this and find many results. It's true that people here are learning English and China has a huge market, but it's also true that we don't have professional English teachers like all of you. We have unqualified English teachers who claimed to be native speakers of English but turned out later to be people from non-native speaking countries. We have teachers of English, a bunch of, who never ask questions in forums like this one or others because they don't think they're making mistakes. Imagine that, those teachers of English have never studied abroad and they learn from their textbooks, their textbooks, dictionaries are Chinese-English ones, how can this group of teachers make sure that they're teaching good English?

If you don't correct your students' mistakes, why do you want them to learn this language? I think it's okay for them to always make mistakes but it's ignorant if we don't correct their mistakes. I'm an obscure teacher of English but I'll ask questions here and there to be sure that I'm teaching them the right language.

Anyway, I can take about this for a whole month but I think I'd better not complain that much.

Well, I came up with a new expression which doesn't aim at that little boy in the video but their parents:

Probably that's how his parents pronounced when they were young.

(I used the above expression and now I focus on parents.)

Is the red&italic sentence good?

I'm still curious as to the point of the video being posted in the first place.

I watched that video in a chat group on WeChat. It was posted by a friend of mine. He loves sharing videos he downloaded on Chinese version of TikTok and some other video apps (apps for sharing short videos). As a teacher of English, he's also seen many unwise ways of studying this language. It's very common to see such videos (boy reciting letters) in China but I can also understand why you all have accused me of being mean.

I never judge anyone here. I respect people who love this language, but I don't think those demanding parents should be protected by the freedom of speech.

 

[emsr2d2]

If, as you say, most Chinese people aren't taught English by qualified native speakers, how do you expect the parents to correct their children's pronunciation? Presumably, the parents don't know the correct pronunciation either.

 

[Silverobama]

If, as you say, most Chinese people aren't taught English by qualified native speakers, how do you expect the parents to correct their children's pronunciation? Presumably, the parents don't know the correct pronunciation either.

Well, that's absolutely right. However, the parents can at least ask the teachers who teach their children to correct those mistakes, in my opinion.

I told my friend that I've met many responsible teachers in UE and you're one of them.

Hmm, I wonder if my red sentence is okay in #7.

You know, I just want to learn this language from all of you and share what I've learned with my students. That's all what I can do.

 

[emsr2d2]

Well, that's absolutely right. However, the parents can at least ask the teachers who teach their children to correct those mistakes, in my opinion.

They can ask but if those teachers aren't able to pronounce the letters/words correctly, it won't help.

 

[Silverobama]

They can ask but if those teachers aren't able to pronounce the letters/words correctly, it won't help.

I agree. But I also want to add that if they aren't able to pronounce the words correctly, they're not qualified teachers. I must say that teachers here might not have a good accent but they should be qualified though.

Anyway, I wonder if you can help me with the red sentence in #7.

 

[5jj]

I taught in China twenty years ago, and was very impressed with the accents of the Chinese teachers I met. Given that they had very limited access to native speakers of English (I was the first many of them had met), and the limited access many had to television, film or radio, their accents, though far from perfect, were pretty good.

Here in Czechia, most English teachers in state schools, and many in private language schools, at least in classes of beginners, are Czech. Their accents are generally better than those of the Chinese teachers I knew twenty years ago, but still not perfect, but they do a good job of teaching their students to communicate in english.

 

[Silverobama]

I taught in China twenty years ago, and was very impressed with the accents of the Chinese teachers I met. Given that they had very limited access to native speakers of English (I was the first many of them had met), and the limited access many had to television, film or radio, their accents, though far from perfect, were pretty good.

Here in Czechia, most English teachers in state schools, and many in private language schools, at least in classes of beginners, are Czech. Their accents are generally better than those of the Chinese teachers I knew twenty years ago, but still not perfect, but they do a good job of teaching their students to communicate in english.

Thanks a lot for sharing this news with me, 5jj.

I wonder if my red italic sentence in #7 is okay.

 

[emsr2d2]

I forgot to say that this boy is very young. I didn't mention this because, if mentioned, you might have accused me of being not intolerant of a little boy speaking English. But I don't want to argue here because this is just a case of culture difference, teachers.

90% of Chinese children begin to learn English when they're very young; you can Google this and find many results. It's true that people here are learning English, and China has a huge market, but it's also true that we don't have professional English teachers like all of you. We have unqualified English teachers who claimed to be native speakers of English but turned turnout later to be people from non-native speaking countries. We have teachers of English, a bunch of them, who never ask questions in forums like this one or others because they don't think they're making mistakes. Imagine that - those teachers of English have never studied abroad and they learn from their textbooks. Their textbooks and dictionaries are Chinese-English ones. How can this group of teachers make sure that they're teaching good English?

If you don't correct your students' mistakes, why do you want them to learn this language? I think it's okay for them to always make mistakes but it's ignorant if we don't correct their mistakes. I'm an obscure (this isn't the right word - I don't know what you mean) teacher of English but I'll ask questions here and there to be sure that I'm teaching them the right language correctly.

Anyway, I can could take talk about this for a whole month but I think I'd better not complain that much.

Well, I came up with a new expression sentence which that doesn't aim isn't aimed at that little boy in the video but their parents:

Probably that's how his parents pronounced them when they were young.

(I used want to use the above expression and now I to focus on parents.)

Is the red italic sentence good?


I watched that video in a chat group on WeChat. It was posted by a friend of mine. He loves sharing videos he downloaded on from the Chinese version of TikTok and some other video apps (apps for sharing short videos). As a teacher of English, he's also seen many unwise ways of studying this language. It's very common to see such videos (boy children reciting letters) in China but I can also understand why you all have all accused me of being mean.

I never judge anyone here. I respect people who love this language, but I don't think those demanding parents should be protected by the freedom of speech.

Note my corrections above. Your sentence is OK with the addition of the word "them", referring to "the letters".