My English -- your impressions please

wrobel · May 20, 2016

I have a little bit odd request to participants of PF. Would you please write here your impression about my English. And please be completely honest. I am not a touchy person. And it is very important for me.
Thanks in advance.

berkeman · May 20, 2016

wrobel said: ↑

I have a little bit odd request to participants of PF. Would you please write here your impression about my English. And please be completely honest. I am not a touchy person. And it is very important for me.
Thanks in advance.

Overall, your English is pretty good. I clicked into a couple of your recent posts, and there are small grammatical errors here and there, but the important thing is that they are small enough so that your meaning is clear in each case. How many languages do you speak? What is your native language?

I'll highlight a few of the small errors I see in two of your recent posts -- if you have questions about them, just ask.

wrobel said: ↑

On the level of serious philosophy, Christianity does not contradict to any scientific knowledge. Richard Dawkins argues only with very crude versions of Christianity. Sometimes he argues with his own statements which he imputes to Christians.

wrobel said: ↑

Imagine a right circular cone with smooth surface. The cone is stated such that its axis is parallel to the standard gravitational field g. And you have a piece a thin homogeneous chain. Then you connect the tips of the chain to obtain a loop. You put this loop on the cone:

It is clear, there is a state such that whole the loop forms the circle and rests in the horizontal plane. Are there another equilibriums? How many equilibriums does this system have?

(I know the answer and the solution. It is just for those who doesn't know what to do on weekends evenings :) I enjoyed solving this problem and share it with PF :)

jtbell · May 21, 2016

Your opening post in this thread has no grammatical problems. I can understand it completely, without having to stop and try to guess what you really mean.

However, some choices of words signal to me that you are probably not a native speaker. For example, your very first sentence:

wrobel said: ↑

I have a little bit odd request to participants of PF.

"Little bit odd" is a common expression in English, but I would never use it as an adjective phrase before a noun. I always use it as the predicate of a verb, for example: "Your request is a little bit odd."

However, "I have an odd request" and "I have a slightly odd request" both sound perfectly OK to me.

I think this sort of knowledge requires long experience in reading and listening to English as used by native speakers.

256bits · May 21, 2016

wrobel said: ↑

I have a little bit odd request to participants of PF. Would you please write here your impression about my English. And please be completely honest. I am not a touchy person. And it is very important for me.
Thanks in advance.

Prepositions can be problematic.
The first sentence should be ( in the manner of which you have written ), "I have a little bit odd request OF participants of PF."
Although you are making the request TO the participants of PF, the sentence reflects the future action of participants who are being asked to give something back to you, hence the OF.
( One could also use FROM in certain situations depending upon the sentence structure, but in this case, I do not think so, due to the way the sentence is written. )

Eliminating extraneous words:
"I have a request of participants."

You can compare the sentence to:
"I have a request of you."

If you wish to keep the little, bit, and odd:
"To the participants of PF, I have a little bit of an odd request of you."
sounds somewhat better than,
"I have a little bit of an odd request of participants of PF."
where the "of's" seem to run into one another.

Never the less, your English is quite well composed and understandable.
You can take heart in that,
"English is a little bit of an odd language."

wrobel · May 21, 2016

Thanks all!

256bits said: ↑

The first sentence should be ( in the manner of which you have written ), "I have a little bit odd request OF participants of PF."
Although you are making the request TO the participants of PF, the sentence reflects the future action of participants who are being asked to give something back to you, hence the OF

these are the subtle nuances, thanks

berkeman said: ↑

What is your native language?

my native language is Russian, I also speak Polish

BvU · Aug 3, 2016

About your latin: why use cogitor instead of cogito ?

And now that I am asking anyway: wy use "we" in an article that only has one author ?

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My English -- your impressions please

wrobel

berkeman

Staff: Mentor

jtbell

Staff: Mentor

256bits

wrobel

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