This blog has now been up and running for approximately one month and we have had a total of 3,200 views. What we, the staff at OISE Oxford, find particularly interesting is not the quantity of views the blog gets, but where you, the people viewing the blog, come from. Blogger (ran by Google) very kindly provide the owners of their blogs with the nationality breakdown. Excluding the English fan base we seem to have acquired (mainly from Burton-on-Trent and Leicester FYI), please see below a list of the top 8 nationalities to view this blog:
Russia - 24%
France - 21%
Spain - 14%
Italy - 13%
Japan - 10.5%
Turkey - 7%
Germany - 6.5%
Czech - 4%
You might be asking yourselves what is the point in us telling you this information. The answer is simple. Every so often we are going to pick one of the top viewing nationalities of our blog and briefly discuss one of two specific difficulties that this particular nationality has when learning English. We figured that this would be an effective way to interact and provide relevant information to our readership.
We will start with France. I asked two of our highly experienced tutors to pick one difficulty each:
1) The Present Perfect
The French sometimes struggle to comprehend the unique nature of bringing past and present actions together in one present perfect continuous tense. For example the French would say 'I am studying English since two years' instead of 'I have been studying English for two years'. In English, the logic is this; I started to study English two years ago. I am studying now = I have been studying for two years.
2) False Friends (Les faux amis)
There are many words in English that resemble French words and vice versa, but that have completely different meanings. Here is a list of some of the most common French false friends:
to control = diriger, maîtriser * contrôler = to check
deception = tromperie * délais = time, time-limit
to demand = exiger * demander = to ask
deputy = adjoint * député = Member of Parliament
eventually = finalement * éventuellement = perhaps, possibly
to resume = recommencer * résumer = to summarise, to sum up
sensible = sensé, raisonnable * sensible = sensitive
to support = soutenir * supporter = to stand, bear, put up with
If you are a teacher or a French student and can think of any other specific difficulties that the French have when learning English, please feel free to comment below!
Next time we will focus on the Russians! If you are a Russian learning English, or have experience in teaching Russian students English, please let us know the difficulties you think Russian students have while learning English.
