Всем привет! Меня зовут Ольга и я с радостью вступлю в ваш клуб. Я уже почти 2 года не практиковала английский, с тех пор как приехала в Германию и очень многое забыла, поетому поправляйте мéня пожайлуста, если я буду делать ошибки.
Скоро устраиваться на работу и во всех серьезных фирмах, которые мне интересны требуют, перфектный английский. Заниматься времени нет, я думаю если буду общаться вспомню
Темы -любые, давайте занкомиться и общаться, я буду рада

Welcome!
If you want to practice your English, you can start write in English

Let me coorect you a bit, nothing personal:
...start TO write...

It's lack of practice
In turn, let me correct you a bit:
cORRect
Now we can start a long thread correcting each other. Too bad, it's not always the most amusing talk.

Good you told us your name. I have a friend who looks very much like you and she has a little girl too. I haven't seen her for a while and I almost thought you were her

ok, girls! Thank you for the feedback!
Let me introduce myself. My name is Olga, I'm 25. At the moment I'm studying at the European School of Business, MBA Programm Inetrnational Marketing.
That girl at the foto is not my daughter , she is my cousin, but I haven't seen her for 2 years.
Now, tell smth. about yourself and if you have any questitons, don't hesitate to ask

I think, I did a mistake yesterday.
The girl on the photo...?,

It is also not very polite to wrtite "Now, tell me..." (btw, there is no comma there). It would be nicer to write somthing like "I will be really happy to read about you" or, more official, "I will very much appreciate if you tell me about you".
Well, following tradition (htis type of conversations is often here) I introduce myself again. I'm postdoc from Berlin working to use math in geology. I work in English for last 12 years, I communicate in English with my German girlfriend. Yet, my English is not good. I wiould claim that not having good basics of English during my school years is the main reason of my poor English. I, however, think in English, I cannot present my work in any other languages, I can speak only English with non-native Russian speakers ... And I have a birthday today...

Nice to meet you Sergei
Happy birthday and my best wishes!
Thank you for correcting me. I agree with you, it wasn't the polite way for asking
You have a great experience in English
It is important to practise language, no matter if it's English or any other language. Unfortunately, not everybody has the possibility to do it.
The English lessons at my school were terrible. I had to learn it with private teacher in order to enter university.

I was a school student when there was no motivation to study English. The only reason was to read comunist newspaper "Morning Star"... This what I can tell now. That time, however, I was not that experienced in politically correct phrases, I was simply lazy. I changed schools three times and each time I was starting from ABC...
Thus, the real story of my English started when I was working for cash in green house in the state of New York in 1990...

Yes, you are right. Nothing is inpossible. If you want to achieve smth, you should work hard. Of course, the English lessons were bad, but I'm sure if I really were interested in learning English, I would have learnt it myself.
Your story is rather interesting. How have you come to the U.S.?

I came there by private invitation and spent three months in old-Russian community. That time the price of dollar was really high, and I covered all my expences working for $5/h...
Moreover, I met some younger people there who helped me to understand that I can work abroad using my university educcation. A year later I got invitation to persue my PhD in Sweden.

About English. Being abroad and working in English for 12 years, I always hve problems in English always needed to improve that. However, it was always lack of time...
The best progress I got in Canada, when my professor sent me to a course of writing English. Simple lectures and exersises (advantage that that course was for native speakers, difficult to find such a course here) just took psychological barier out. I have much less stress whn I write now...

You think in English?!?! I'm sorry for my curiosity but how is it possible if you have certain problems with the language (from your own words)? Somehow it's hard for me to understand If you start to think in a foreign language, it's because you know it good enough and the words and the expression in this language come up first.
About introduction┘ Let's make it language-related I've studied in the US for a while, and now I have to use English for my work now and then

Hello everybody. I'm with you again.
Hello Olga. Welcome to our nice circuit here! I certainly doubt that me of all people can help you to advance your English, but it doesn't matter - the point is we can practice it.
To my person: in few days, I complete my studies and I aim to apply everywhere, inter alia in the U.K. I don't know if I have a chance, because my spoken enlglish is equal zero but who knows...
What about you? Have you practical experience with speaking English? What do you think, how long you need for getting into that?

When I came to the US for the first time my biggest problem was listening. I couldn't understand a word for 2 weeks, although I could read, write and speak easily.
A year ago I visited the UK for the first time. I felt like I'd never been in an English-speaking country before It took me about 2 days to start to understand the British accent after my American experience

Oh yes, I know that. We all know this situation. Two weeks I could survive without listening, my biggest problem will be speaking. By the way, Is British really SO different from US-English?! I never would think so... You are scaring me

Wow, what can I say...your life-experience is incredible . I have looked at your home-page and CV, respect

Hello, nice to meet you
It doesn' t matter if we make some mistakes, the main point- we practice
I haven't been in an English-speaking country yet. I have practiced English at the University in Tashkent, where I come from. Now the only possiblity I have is speaking with my british and kanadian professors during English lessons twice a year

I wish you a good luck and hope you achieve your goals and get one job in the United Kingdom
British is really very different from american English. My british professor says that I pronounce very american. At the beginnig it was difficult to understand him, cause it sounds completelly different

Is British really SO different from US-English?!
Just pronunciation. For example, when I hear [paipe] I am used to understand it as a "piper". But a British could have meant "paper".
If you are not used to the American pronunciation too much then British English will not be a problem, I guess.

Very interesting...
What can you tell about the people you got to know in the US/GB? It's impossible to describe a whole nation by (with?) few words, but what do you think, what are the biggest human differences and affinities between "us" and "them" and among themselves? I'm interested in what ist the outlook to get together with my intended collegues

You think in English?!?! ...If you start to think in a foreign language, it's because you know it good enough and the words and the expression in this language come up first.
I don't have a problem to express myself in English, and I don't think when I speak. Then, I usually realise that I have so many mistakes in what I just said...
Well, this is example. Even I was corrected many times in my life, I do not remember when I have to say "said", and when "told"...
About thinking and poor English. It is maybe difficult to understand, but here is example. Many people in Russia do not have any other option than to think in Russian, yet they use "ихняя"...

yet they use "ихняя"...

So, you agree now, that it is not that unbelieveble to speak and think with poor language?

Of course I believed you I was just curious - my brain functions a little different. When I think in a foreign language (English in the US, German now) it's mostly a couple of worlds that come up first because I use them frequently. But for the complexity of my ideas I need the whole power of my mother tongue. Speaking is different - you have to express yourself so it doesn't matter whether you make mistakes or not, whether you are sure about the word or not.

Sorry for correcting you...

Correct: I think I made a mistake yesterday.

Correct: The girl in the photo...

Hello, is there anybody in there? You haven't been posting for almost a month already. No need of communicating anymore?
To silent_sound: Well done!

thank you , you are right.

hello , I'm here. I was busy ( exams...)
Nobody has written to me this month

I don't think when I speak
It`s really a pity.

Yeah... That maybe the reason for my poor English

It is not that bad actually You have a rather good vocabulary which is a valuable asset. Your sentence structures are far from primitive due to your language practice in different English speaking countries. But sometimes your speech reveals your Russian origin (missing articles, literal translation of idioms, etc)
What do you usually do to improve your language apart from participating in this discussion?

Unfortunately it is not only pronunciation There are also huge differences in vocabulary use, spelling and grammar. But it's really amazing that they (British and Americans) do not know any differencies themselves - they just speak their language and do not rack their brains about it. It is usually foreigners who have to distinguish between BE and AE and learn the differences.
My British friend told me about her experience in the USA and was proud of having learnt a lot of "American" words. She was really surprised that "bonnet" was "hood" and "boot" is "trunk" in AE. Funny, isn't it?
Check this: http://www.lbt-languages.de/lernhilfe/lernhilfen_ae_be.html

I don't do anything to improve my English... And my English of course is a bit better than most of the Russians (I work in English for 12 years, and always my bosses are native speakers).
I think that large amount of writing helps me to improve my speaking abilities though. Now I not only write for myself, but help for my girlfriend and couple more of PhD students, here and in Norway...

I'd say "huge" is a little exaggerated. There are certain differences but they are not that bad, imho. For spelling you can always choose BE or AE in the Word Options, vocabulary is different sometimes but you can always understand what they mean, and in a couple of days you start using these words too. And grammar is basically the same. Can you give an example of a sentence that would be correct in AE and wrong in BE?

What can you tell about the people you got to know in the US/GB? It's impossible to describe a whole nation by (with?) few words, but what do you think, what are the biggest human differences and affinities between "us" and "them" and among themselves? I'm interested in what ist the outlook to get together with my intended collegues
Hi, I feel like I'm blind sometimes. I've read your message for the first time today although it's been there for more than a month ┘ Sorry
When I think of Americans, I think of incredibly friendly people who are always ready to help. I've never experienced anything like that in any other part of the world, and it's great. As for the negative side, they have a different sense of humor and it irritates a little. They do make jokes but it's shallow somehow. Russians, or even Germans, can make jokes about themselves and laugh (what we call "подколоть" in a good meaning of the word). But not Americans. They are so obsessed with the idea not to hurt one's feeling that they are simply afraid to make jokes about a person (of course, they have a serious reason for it considering the ever present danger of a law suit from anyone).
As for the UK, I didn't have a lot of time to get a clear picture of them as a nation. But if you ask about the country, it's very expensive, it's very old and it's almost impossible to find good food there.

I am not going to argue with you because everything is relative. Maybe you are right and it is exaggeration to regard these differences as huge but they are big enough to ignore them. If you check this site http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa110698.htm, you▓ll see that there are a lot of differences in grammar as well.
My American friend has real fun ⌠correcting■ my British English which he calls ⌠the language of a small and unimportant island■. And he never lets out anything including grammar and spelling.
As for the schools here in Germany, all variants of the English language (including Australian, Canadian, Irish, etc) are allowed and I never correct my students. But it is considered to be bad style if students mix up these variants in one essay, so I have to point it out to them. The same is true with different language styles (formal, colloquial, slang, etc).

but they are big enough to ignore them
Is that correct?
Maybe:
they are not small to ignore..
or
they are big enough to not ignore them...
?

I was looking at this from the practical side, if it's about teaching someone else then the differences become important of course.
Btw, if you click on "ссылка" before and after the link when you write a message it becomes more convenient to look up the site.

Not small is the same as big, so you can also put it this way
"they are big enough to ignore them"
You may also say "They are big enough so you cannot/should not ignore them"
Compare: The boy is too big to sleep in this bed (or would you like to say "not to sleep"? )
Maybe it would be better to say "The differences are too big to be ignored" which sounds more correct at closer inspection. But the meaning would be the same.

Thanks
I didn't know how to do that

But you would agree that your original phrase is wrong...?

The differences are too big to be ignored
To me it seems to be the only correct way
Actually I didn't pay attention to anything what might be incorrect in this sentence but it only shows that we remain slaves of our mother tongue.
For example, in Google there are sentences like "Microsoft is big enough to ignore standards" but there are no examples of something, which "is big enough to ignore it" in the passive voice.
Quite obviously, it comes from Russian where we don't have this problem ("они достаточно большие, чтобы их проигнорировать").

Go Google and you'll find enough examples of the structure although I admit the passive voice sounds better.
Here are some of the examples:
In the simplest picture, nonspectator amplitudes are small enough to ignore, and one would expect ...
But indirect effects of this sort are often small enough to ignore, especially
when one does not worry about the adjustment process. ...

If you can read this, thank your teacher.

#45