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How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:19 am
by Brana
Well, as I said - this is a non-related question but I wanted to ask someone: how good (or bad) my English language simply is?

When I type (for example this text that you are reading right now) it is written straight "from my head", meaning no google translate, no dictionary, no nothing, just my keyboard (and ofcourse a browser), and if I do make a typo or a spelling error - then it IS MY error.

So.. If you could "grade" me with the grade from A to F where A is "the best" and F is "the worst" - then what grade should I deserve regarding my English knowledge?

I will explain the reason of my asking this question - prefereably after your reply :)

Please be honest? :)
Thanks.
Brana.

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:14 pm
by Badger
Overall, it is very good.

It is very readable and understandable and as an English person , I don't need to do any translation in my head to decipher what is actually meant.

If I was being very picky then some of the grammar could be improved but it in no-way detracts from the meaning of the post.

So my grade (counting the 1 typo - "ofcourse" should be "of course" :) )

A-

but really an A

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:02 pm
by Dbug
I don't think you are a A, mostly because as a programmer I tend to be very brainy: "A" would be an English language specialist who would have discussions with Hemingway, Kipling and Woolf regarding the number of mistakes and incorrect usages found in the English grammar books used by students.

So restricting the range of "Internet Users" in what remain, I would put the very good native English speakers as "B" (the ones who know the difference between "its" and "it's", or the various variants of "They/i/s/'/re") and the average foreigner who use English as a second language as a "C".

I guess that makes you a B.5 ;)

More seriously, I think most people on this forum are very understandable, and I rarely notice mistakes mostly because I'd rather spend time thinking about what people write instead of how they wrote it :D

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:39 pm
by Steve M
Yes, it's very good but I think your first sentence has the words in a different order to what a native English speaker would say.

'I simply want to ask whether my English is good or bad', might be a more natural way to phrase it - but there are different ways of writing the same thing.

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:52 pm
by Brana
Well, thank you all for your replys and for oppinions regarding my question.

As I promised - I said I will answer what was the actuall reason why I was asking this question in the first place.

Well - I am trying my best to help a girl regarding her English langage exams.
And the BEST we can do regarding her tests is to get her a B. :(
That is the BEST, but on last one - she got a C.
C?? :( :( :(

And when she told me she god a C - I started to doubt myself and wrote this question here :(

I can't understand the School and their rating system:
There was 40 questions on that test,
I solved 36 of them correctly, made (only) 4 errors and -- because od those 4 errors she got a C???

Really?
So on on the one hand we have the school - where in order to get an A someone must be a Hemingway-kind-of-a-speaking-person and anything less than that is for B or even a C grade by our School grading system :(

I don't get it :(
Really I dont :(

If someone can understand English language (in listening or in reading) and futhermore can also speak and write on English language without (merely perfect) grammer then that person should deserve A grade in school :(

I can't possibly know the meaning of the phrase, for example "His victory came once in a blue moon" - not without the Google Translate services or something like that because I in my life newer ever have heard it:
I can understand the words in that sentence but can't understand the meaning of that phrase and if not - then she can't have an A grade :(

Seems like it isn't fair :(
Thanks again for your reply.

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:13 pm
by Dbug
Brana wrote: Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:52 pm I can't possibly know the meaning of the phrase, for example "His victory came once in a blue moon" - not without the Google Translate services or something like that because I in my life newer ever have heard it:
I can understand the words in that sentence but can't understand the meaning of that phrase and if not - then she can't have an A grade :(
That's typical idiomatic things you pretty much only encounter if you read many (non technical) books written in English, like historical books, fantasy or science fiction, crime novels, etc...

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:34 pm
by mikeb
Brana wrote: Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:52 pm I can't possibly know the meaning of the phrase, for example "His victory came once in a blue moon"
That does seem a little unfair, especially as I guarantee that native English speakers may well USE the phrase (or some misheard corruption of it!), but there will be a good percentage who don't know/understand/care about the original meaning of the phrase "blue moon".

A TV programme in the UK to "test the nation's IQ" had questions about sports, celebrities etc. in it. This is also totally unfair, as it requires knowledge of popular culture, general knowledge etc. That is not the point of an IQ test, which should be purely about reasoning and logic given the information contained directly in the question. Not from outside sources. But that is just the nature of TV programmes for the masses :)

Idiomatic phrases do not translate well between languages, especially literal translators like Google.

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:05 pm
by Chema
I was not going to answer, because English is not my native language, but I'll say I can understand you perfectly (besides the occasional mistakes here and there we all make).

Nevertheless, I can speak about those exams including idiomatic phrases, phrasal verbs and even slang... It is quite common practice here in Spain to include them for language assessment, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Eu ... _Languages whenever trying to move from level B to C (levels in the European framework go from A -basic- to B -intermediate- to C -advanced-).

In addition I've had teachers that won't allow a mispronunciation of the ending past "ed", between "d" sound and "t"sound, or final "s", between "s" sound and "z" sound. They usually subtract a good number of marks for a wrong usage of the third person "s" ending in non-obvious situations ("everyone knows..."), wrong use of the present perfect vs past, or wrong selection of the future in eg. "I will stay...", "I'm staying..." or "I'm going to stay...", just to name a few.

By the way, I was trained to use the subjunctive mood in "If I were younger..." or "If he were taller...", as another common pitfall in exams.

:?

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:18 pm
by ibisum
B-
--
"how good (or bad) my English language simply is?"

- Don't, ever, end a sentence on 'is'. Refactor until you get this right, it'll make your English presentation shine. If it is a question you're asking, start the question with "Is".

Thus,

"Is my English simply good or bad?", or better:

"Do I speak English well or poor in some way?"
--
"then what grade should I deserve regarding my English knowledge?"

- "Should" you 'deserve' a grade? Not really, you're not working for it or expending energy in service, thus 'deserve' isn't quite right. You're asking for a grade.

Thus,
"What grade would you give me for my use of English?"

--
- I will explain the reason of my asking this question

"I will explain the reason for my asking this question"..
--
- prefereably

Preferably.
--

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 11:51 am
by Antiriad2097
I'd rate your english as better than many native speakers of it.

Having worked in a public facing position where forms were filled and interviews undertaken for more years than I care to remember, I'd be more than happy to find this level of english in use. So many people work with much lower levels and seem to manage somehow.

The errors you're finding (if you can call them errors, I'd debate that when it relates to odd phrases you may or may not have come in contact with even in the UK) are small and largely irrelevant. Nobody would have an issue with your english in day to day usage.

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:33 pm
by ThomH
My feelings on 'once in a blue moon', as an ex-pat:
  • I've never heard an American say it in conversation;
  • they definitely know what a blue moon is though, in the literal sense of the rare event, and have even named a successful beer after it;
  • back in the UK it's prominently used at the start of a well-known '80s song (or, the same meaning, anyway);
  • yet the first time I heard it, aged somewhere around 10, it was from a Singaporean aunt, which tends to be the sort of clue that it used to be a lot more popular in British English than it is now — one of the relics of empire is little fragments of perfectly preserved period English surviving here and there.
Otherwise, your English is conversationally fine. If I were editing it for print I'd circle a few things (e.g. 'School' is not a proper noun) but it's a pretty forgiving language mostly, and almost nobody speaks in perfect prose. To me it sounds like the school was in error over this.

If I were anywhere near your ability in either of my second languages, I'd be very happy indeed.

Re: How good (or bad) my English knowledge is? - NonRelated question

Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 12:35 pm
by Steve M
I'm curious now to see what the question were.
You can PM them to me if you like.

'Once in a blue moon' - The blue moon is a rare occurence, so the expression means hardly ever, or not very often, or almost never.