It is always interesting to know who reads our blog posts and their nationalities. Blogger (owned by Google) is the site that we use to host our blog, and they very kindly provide us with the nationality break down. Below are the stats of the top 5 non-English speaking nationalities that have been viewing the blog since its launch 4 months ago.
France - 11%
Russia - 9%
Spain - 5.5%
Italy - 5%
Japan - 4.8%
So why are we telling you this? Well, for those who do not know, OISE Oxford is an intensive English language for ambitious learners situated in the heart of Oxford. We thought that every so often we would target a particular nationality and discuss some of the difficulties they have when learning English. The last country we targeted was France, and two of our highly experienced tutors discussed and touched on two particular difficulties that the French have when learning English (click here to read this article).
This time we will be targeting the Slavonic language speakers. Tony Evans, Oxford University graduate and expert in Slavonic Studies, is one of OISE Oxford's in house English tutors, and this is the article he wrote today:
'The Slavonic branch of the Indo-European language family comprises some twelve languages (argument still rages as to whether e.g. Cassubian should be considered a language or a dialect), divided into three groups: the Western (Czech, Polish, Slovak, Wendish/Sorbian), the Eastern (Russian, Belo-Russian, Ukrainian), and the Southern (Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian and Slovene). They share many characteristics, whilst exhibiting many differences. The two languages which differ most from other members of the group are, Bulgarian and Macedonian, which have developed a definite article and tenses that the other 10 languages have not. All the Slavonic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, retain the extensive case system (by which nouns, adjectives and pronouns change their endings/forms to express grammatical relations within the sentence, and of which only a few distinctions remain in English, e.g. I/me). All twelve languages have retained three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural).
The absence of a definite article results in the problem well known to TEFL teachers. Speakers of such languages have no concept of the importance of the definite article. It can take a long time for them to acquire a feeling for the role of the article in languages which have one. On a practical level it is perhaps best to emphasise continually that a singular countable noun must have a determiner of some kind (a, the, this, that, my, etc) and that singular uncountable nouns and plural countable nouns take the article when used of particular examples (e.g. they like the flowers of that garden), and no article when used of generalities (e.g. they like flowers).
Another problem for speakers of most Slavonic language is the relatively rigid word order of English, which must in general adopt the word order subject – verb – object). The Slavonic languages often use the word order object – verb- subject to emphasise the object. Take the English question “who killed the lion?”. The “hunter killed the lion” would probably also have the subject – verb – object word order in Slavonic languages, for example Russian “Kto ubil l'va?” “Okhotnik ubil l'va” (the lion being clearly shown as the object by the ending “a”). The answer to the question “Who(m) did the lion kill?” Russian “Kogo ubil l'ev? “Might well be in Russian be “Okhotnika ubil l'ev”, where the word order is Object – verb – subject, the unfortunate hunter being clearly marked as the object by the ending “a” and the lion appearing in the subject form “l'ev”. Clearly the answer would appear in English as “The lion killed the hunter.” Speakers of Slavonic languages often do not appreciate the fundamental importance of word order in languages like English, and end up saying the opposite of what they mean. Much work, then, to teach the importance of word order, and to emphasise the extensive use of the passive voice to express such ideas as “This poem was written by Pushkin”, which might well in Russian appear as “Etot poem napisal Pushkin”, literally “This poem wrote Pushkin”.'
Click here for a summary of this article in Russian
Tony Evans, OISE Oxford
France - 11%
Russia - 9%
Spain - 5.5%
Italy - 5%
Japan - 4.8%
So why are we telling you this? Well, for those who do not know, OISE Oxford is an intensive English language for ambitious learners situated in the heart of Oxford. We thought that every so often we would target a particular nationality and discuss some of the difficulties they have when learning English. The last country we targeted was France, and two of our highly experienced tutors discussed and touched on two particular difficulties that the French have when learning English (click here to read this article).
This time we will be targeting the Slavonic language speakers. Tony Evans, Oxford University graduate and expert in Slavonic Studies, is one of OISE Oxford's in house English tutors, and this is the article he wrote today:
'The Slavonic branch of the Indo-European language family comprises some twelve languages (argument still rages as to whether e.g. Cassubian should be considered a language or a dialect), divided into three groups: the Western (Czech, Polish, Slovak, Wendish/Sorbian), the Eastern (Russian, Belo-Russian, Ukrainian), and the Southern (Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian and Slovene). They share many characteristics, whilst exhibiting many differences. The two languages which differ most from other members of the group are, Bulgarian and Macedonian, which have developed a definite article and tenses that the other 10 languages have not. All the Slavonic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, retain the extensive case system (by which nouns, adjectives and pronouns change their endings/forms to express grammatical relations within the sentence, and of which only a few distinctions remain in English, e.g. I/me). All twelve languages have retained three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural).
The absence of a definite article results in the problem well known to TEFL teachers. Speakers of such languages have no concept of the importance of the definite article. It can take a long time for them to acquire a feeling for the role of the article in languages which have one. On a practical level it is perhaps best to emphasise continually that a singular countable noun must have a determiner of some kind (a, the, this, that, my, etc) and that singular uncountable nouns and plural countable nouns take the article when used of particular examples (e.g. they like the flowers of that garden), and no article when used of generalities (e.g. they like flowers).
Another problem for speakers of most Slavonic language is the relatively rigid word order of English, which must in general adopt the word order subject – verb – object). The Slavonic languages often use the word order object – verb- subject to emphasise the object. Take the English question “who killed the lion?”. The “hunter killed the lion” would probably also have the subject – verb – object word order in Slavonic languages, for example Russian “Kto ubil l'va?” “Okhotnik ubil l'va” (the lion being clearly shown as the object by the ending “a”). The answer to the question “Who(m) did the lion kill?” Russian “Kogo ubil l'ev? “Might well be in Russian be “Okhotnika ubil l'ev”, where the word order is Object – verb – subject, the unfortunate hunter being clearly marked as the object by the ending “a” and the lion appearing in the subject form “l'ev”. Clearly the answer would appear in English as “The lion killed the hunter.” Speakers of Slavonic languages often do not appreciate the fundamental importance of word order in languages like English, and end up saying the opposite of what they mean. Much work, then, to teach the importance of word order, and to emphasise the extensive use of the passive voice to express such ideas as “This poem was written by Pushkin”, which might well in Russian appear as “Etot poem napisal Pushkin”, literally “This poem wrote Pushkin”.'
Click here for a summary of this article in Russian
Tony Evans, OISE Oxford
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