English is my Second Language

What's Your Excuse?

2008-04-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

"English is my second language" had probably been my subconscious excuse. Time may have played a certain role in the blurring of my memory as to the actual way I've learned English. In the Philippines, there really was no standard demarcation line when a child should learn English. It's location, location, location!

Like the real estate mantra in selling the house--the closer you are to the bigger cities [Location 1], the better your chances are to get proper exposure to the language. Having access to a household [Location 2] with more educated or affluent family, the earlier you will get introduced to it. But of course, you can't blame it all to the outside forces; you [Location 3] --and only you--have the ultimate power to make the actual learning happen.

Consequently, English had been integrated into the lives of Filipinos at different points and we never had a subject called ESL (now?); we still have English as a part of our curriculum [EPC?] the moment we start our educational journey through life. --I never heard the word ESL until I made my way to California and had landed my first teaching post as an ESL teacher to adult learners. Before then, I was simply an English teacher!

As an ESL teacher, it came naturally to me to use the acronym with a twist--evolving to having this blog so aptly named as English is not my mother tongue. Again, my Google curiosity peaked; what could be better than google my title? Everytime I embark on this silly world wide web travel, I never know what I expect to find, but googling as my new-found entertainment guide has never failed to amaze...and amuse me. That's when...yahooooo! I found 'English is my second language' a seemingly standard excuse when one wants something done or answered:

Please help me with my grammar, English is my second language.
Why is it so hard for me to learn? English is my second language....
Can you correct my English? English is not my first language.
English is my second language, my writing and speaking is too....
English is my second language, and I don't care what people say!

How about in this age of incredible technology? Are you learning yet another language? I need a revised version of Mr. Webster's dictionary, and I would not even dare venture into the [teen-ager's] world of texting. If Digital is my Second Language course, let me just fail it! The only DSL I need is my internet connection.

---------------------------------

Did you ask Mr. Webster if demarcation should be spelled demarkation? How about embark? Can you add the same [-tion] suffix? What would be the right spelling? What else did you find out?

*Originally posted @ http://zylla3.blogspot.com/

My Hat Is Off to You!

2008-03-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

How should I say it...Hats off or Hat's off? Does it mean--'All hats off to you!' or 'My hat is off to you!'--which way to go? Is one wrong and only the other right?

Or, should we even say--'Our hats are off to you!'--also hats off? I wonder if it depends on context? What I really mean...would the human mind default to either one or something else? Would it even click right away to a possible error? Computer would not probably help you, would it? Humans would be smarter than computers in this area. I think so! In fact, I believe so!

Idiomatic expressions are probably the hardest to acquire from the stand point of an ESL student--next to the usage of prepositions--either simply as a preposition or as an adverb when attached to a verb, which could also be an idiomatic expression. If I have to be honest with myself, I will say I still fall into the pit if I run too fast. How many prepositions can be used with run to mean different things? It's OK to ask Mr. Webster! Ready, Go! -- run up [the stairs? the credit cards?], run out [of money], run away [ from the creditors? or simply him/her?], run after [a rich man? your dreams?] and many more to your heart's content.

Well, be careful then not to run up your credit card limits 'coz if you run out of cash, you may have to run away from creditors. Would it be running after a rich man next? And, if he runs out of dough, he'll probably find you running out on him. Just make sure you don't run back to him as he is bound to run you over to end his misery. Then, that's when you'll really run scared...so better end the running now. I'm not supposed to end it with a preposition, ain't I?
Running is not over...but you can do it with Mr. Webster another time. Stop! Red light...find out when you can or should split it. Scared is not a preposition...you're on your own! I'm splittin'!

*Originally posted @ http://zylla3.blogspot.com/

When is RE not good?

2008-03-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, I learned RE is a Latin prefix that my teacher many moons ago said should never be used with again. We break so many rules in speaking. The spoken arena is just more forgiving with the punches...especially if you know how to roll with them. There are quite a few rules to remember against doubling.

As a second language learner, I learned a little later in life (on my own) that Mr. Webster is a wonderful friend who will never hurt you. On the contrary, he is a friend to people of all ages and of all walks of life. I'm sure he will have other things pertinent to RE or Re.

* Still as a prefix, /re/ (I'm not going to sweat out how to type the 3 possible pronunciation marks), is also of French origin. Here are more interesting blunders visible in writing. It is used with a hyphen:

to distinguish it from 'a word of similar form having a special meaning/(s) [re-collect, recollect]'
to avoid 'ambiguity in the in the formation of nonce words [re-urge]'
to prevent visual tricks in its occurrence 'before elements beginning with e [re-examine, now usually reexamine]

I guess I should be more careful in injecting my own visual clues as there is a standard use of RE or Re in 'words with special meanings' when they 'are entered in their proper alphabetical places in the vocabulary' as follows: Re 1. Bible Revelations 2. Chem. symbol for rhenium 3. rupee ; RE 1. Reformed Episcopal 2. Football right end 3. Right Excellent

This is exactly why I'm leaving you with the thought that English is a very rich language with all the infusions and smatterings of all the etymological contributions from the myriads of denizens congregating onto this little corner of the universe that smartly adapted English as their Common Language. Many English learners complain on the difficulty of having to pronounce the 5 vowels that could take almost as many variations as the 21 consonants. The full comprehension of this dilemma only hit me when I was in the graduate school enroled in Linguistics 101.

May I ask you then, at this point, if you have not reached out yet to Mr. Webster for help...Why not? Hat's off to you if you fully comprehend 'nonce' n. [ME nones, formed by syllabic merging] the present use, occasion, or time; time being: chiefly in for the nonce...as Mr. Webster would say. Start your own sojourn in the beauty of the English language with him as your guide...you'll never get lost. You might even opt to stay longer.

Half a century of awe! It will never cease...everyday there's something new to learn. Serendipity...life is all about, and so is learning. And even blogging! A year ago I could give you a long list of negatives. Oppsss! I almost forgot my initial reason for this post. Read on...

Often times I hear even native speakers falling into the pits of double this and double that. This is just to illustrate that these errors are not solely in the domain of second language learner. Sometimes it can even be charged to fatigue or faulty keyboard, not to mention many more. Morning news source of idea--the newscater--(on freeway accident closure) '...traffic will re-open again...' or should it be 'reopen'? This time the error would be visibly mine. As they say, after all, 75% of the error (could be more, or less) is committed in writing rather than in speaking. Please do not make me repeat this again as they often say.

*Originally posted @ http://zylla3.blogspot.com

I'm Hoping This Is Real

2008-03-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

I think this is real now. For one thing, there must be a difference when you login to eblogger.com, but for now I'm not going to worry about it. My mind just somehow defaulted to e-something, and I wondered for quite awhile why I was getting password error. However, even when I finally logged in...to blogger.com, I still had an empty space.

After the 2nd trial post, only then did I see the difference...there was no 'view' button and for some miraculous reason I made it back to the posting window. Lo and behold! I now see both of my entries and hopefully this 3rd one too. Not to forget, I clicked the http://www.flyhotel.net/ and sure enough he seemed to have gotten more. I'll see after posting at http://zylla3.wordpress.com/ tomorrow if I'll find it again in his site in a matter of an hour. This scum of the earth and his kind consume me and zap my energy needed to understand the technical stuff.

UPDATE: 5/29/08

I used to check www.flyhotel.net every now and then as I was curious what would happen to it when I blog (@ http://zylla3.wordpress.com, my scraped blog) its blog scraping technique. Someone suggested that I should report it to google, but for some reason, I don’t think it was doing me any harm except that I was irritated to see my family picture on that website, and maybe because almost the complete blog was in his website. The comments were even turned off and no reference to the owner whatsoever…even submitting the blog to propeller.com as his own writing.

I’ve seen it having no more AdSense after a couple of weeks and I kept wondering why it continually runs the site. Today I couldn’t find it except for the previous google index that has warnings below the title– “This site may harm your computer.” I even went to my post here to get the link from within, and it gave me the same search result. Well, I guess it’s really gone after almost 3 months since my discovery. Maybe I will miss this routine of checking his site. I should probably be writing a separate blog for its demise.

*Originally posted @ http://zylla3.blogspot.com/

I'm Lost...I Hope Not Forever

2008-03-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

I'm so lost...I can't find my first post, and apparently I can't edit it. I thought I made it to the third step; however, I must have miscalculated my steps!

Wow...it came back! I made it work to the edit part. What did I do wrong the first time? The publish button was on the top right then. Let me publish this again and I hope I'll find this 2nd post.

*Originally posted @ http://zylla3.blogspot.com

No Time Better Than Now

2008-03-25T18:07:00.000-07:00

Not Now...Why not now? What could be better than TODay? Time Of DAY-- 6:11 pm, Pacific Standard Time. Yes, I'm still here in California! And, I'm hoping to retire in the Philippines soon. One reason I'm learning to blog...a slow and painful process to someone of the pre-computer-generation era.

A wo[e]man with a purpose has to persevere, and that's how I accidentally landed here. I never paid attention to that 'orange B background' (which I thought before was an E or something). I don't even know how to do the RSS. Sure...I attempted many times, but I always ended up getting stuck and eventually giving up. Just like here, 2 steps earlier, I could have given up. Amazingly, I didn't!

Hhmmm!!! Some 'blog scraper' [so I've learned] might get to this blog again. Four days ago I accidentally discovered almost my entire blog about my little corner in the Philippines --http://zylla3.wordpress.com -- at this particular site: http://www.flyhotel.net/ and I bet my 3cents [inflation] the rest of 'his' (to me surwar11 as he claimed to be the author of his/my content at http://travel.propeller.com/ is a 'he'; he could be an 'it' for all I know) site contents came from some unsuspecting souls...2 as far as I can trace, and I'm not wasting my time anymore. I could report him to google I believe, but he can have his site up until I learn how to do the plugins to block his kind. Maybe, just maybe, by blogging more his evil deeds...I can save someone like me. The 2 'post-scraped' entries I had were 'scraped' in a matter of an hour of my posting, just the same even with my blurbs about his genius on computer thievery. He had given me some lah-deh-dah stuff to blog.

For now I'm letting my blogs (this one too) take the directions they want me to take. Why then is my http://zylla3.wordpress.com/ -- nevermind -- now it seems to be working. Well, instead of saying...Oh, the wonders of English; let me rephrase it to: Oh, the wonders of computers!

*Originally posted @ http://zylla3.blogspot.com