Friday, March 7, 2008

Inglés teacher

I do not want to sound like a teacher here. But there have been few conversations I have had with people that really Grrrrred me out. Not to sound pedagogical, I do like to speak English properly as much as I could. In this process, I am learning to undo a lot of bad things we have done with Indian English. Okay, for all you accusers who think I am presumptuous, I am not. I just want to be good at what I do, and it is my personal ** opinion. Sorry for being rude and defensive:)

First of all, there is no word called prepone. There is advance which is the opposite of postpone. However I do understand that new words are formed as time goes by. Words like guru, karma (I hate the way Americans pronounce karma, Iran and Iraq. To be polite, it makes me throw up.), curry, etc have been added in the recent past; and so are new words like google(a verb) etc...

I believe in learning a language and its correctness as one speaks and I have no idea what the difference is between an adverb, a conjuction, etc... is? Still, an argument could be made that the local dialect commands the language, and blah blah blah, but still, I would like to sound at my best and avoid any superfluous information. So what grrrrred me?

1. I read this today morning.

I might have said, I read it this morning. I might be wrong here, though. If some one knows , please let me know. But what I do know is, the next one is def. wrong

2. What time do you leave?

Wouldn't the correct usage be, "When do (or would) you leave?". I think this is probably an effect of a direct translation from our native language. Suggestions are welcome here!

Another common one I have heard is, "I did it yesterday night".. Wouldn't, "I did it last night" make more sense! Duh!!

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