I had no idea I’d just hit that milestone. Damn.

Listen to LektorAJ. Very good ESL explanations and very well tailored to advanced students who are native speakers of Slavic languages. I am impressed.

I taught a bit of this subject, mostly to Polish officers in NATO. It's really hard to get rid if habits from one's first language, especially if they don't change the meaning, but just sound a little funny.

I'm not so sure. A woman that most of OOT seems to like (if you disregard our resident attention whore's opinion) fled to Kazakhstan to avoid this lecher yet he spent his milestone post (and many others) belaboring the point.

Short of posting a picture of his feet off-gassing in a dental chair I can't think of anything better for his 10k, unless he wants to drop some real legalese on us.

Fwiw this is my way of saying HT should ask a mod to delete a couple of posts so he can put together a "10 things you're doing wrong from a lawyer's perspective" or a "Ask a fake (real) lawyer anything" or a "Send me your info and I'll write you a will" thread to mark this milestone.

If you want I can delete a few of your old posts, so you can have another crack at it!

Agree, but with the caveat that the reading should be focused on things that have been professionally edited.

Like Howard, I know very few formal English language rules, but my English is excellent when I write for real. This is entirely due to reading roughly a gazillion books and news articles in the days of yore.

News articles are much less reliable for this purpose these days thanks to materially worse editing standards, but most non fiction books are probably still ok.

Woke-up to a huge bunch of new posts. I so didn't expect that thread running so well. And I am working through every single post here.

Lapka,

Woke up
this thread

.

BTW, having a space before or after a bracket ( like this ) is a dead giveaway that the person is not a native English speaker. I work in Asia and see it often.

Thread certainly delivering. We'll have lapka doing the needful in no time.

I so didn’t expect this thread to be running so well.

I normally would just start to blabber with this question, but now I am thinking. So it is good. It is really good that you all are kicking my butt for every mistake here. It makes me slow down. It is not so that I am suddenly hesitant with my posting, but I am starting to think before hitting the keyboard.

I read a lot of sci-fi. Last thing in english from other fictional stuff had been stories of ( all my instincts hate " of" here. I want either " by" or " from") O. Henry. And clearly all non-fictional literature for my job which is completely in English.

But somehow it doesn't stick. It helped a lot when I started with English. My vocabulary exploded after Asimov. But now.... I understand basically everything. But I would understand it also with slightly wrong grammar. And so my brain decides that "slightly wrong " is ok.

That is huge for me. Where else could I find well spoken native speakers willing to do that. In case someone ever has problems with math/physics or Russian/German it would be a pleasure for me to return the favour.

Grrrrrrr at myself. " that thread " shouldn't have happened.

L,


Of course it’s sticking. Your English writing is excellent.


It is not that

stories by!

I think here it is again so that " the search work " is complement, so " myself " should be behind it.

Grrrrr. I will learn it one day.

Maybe is here an adverb and not two verbs.

This is great! People offering advice and someone actually taking that advice. Quite different from threads lately.

Rei’s posts were excellent, showing specific examples of how to change subtle meanings.

"But I would understand it also with slightly wrong grammar."

-better as:

"But I would also understand it with grammar that was slightly off."

Lapka,


The main correction there is moving the also.

“But I would also understand it with slightly wrong grammar.” is fine.

Incorrect would be better than wrong Imo.

They have done well not only with math, but also with this food sharing project
And it is not as if I am disappearing from the surface of this earth.

We also use the idiom "off the face of the earth."

ED - are your feelings going to be hurt if I start correcting your corrections?

I live in an area that has a high Russian / Ukrainian population, as well as the requisite California#1 Latin countries native Spanish speakers.

I applaud lapka for this effort, and understand part of her personality is, striving to be technically correct.

But in daily life here, we understand you just fine. We dgaf if your syntax isn't native Murican.

How could they be, given that he doesn’t understand the difference between a subject and an object?