My introduction

[Nikolai]

Hello

My name is Nikolai. I'm 21 years old and I come from Northern Germany. My mother tongue is German of course. I've never used English for 5 years approximately. Therefore my English is not as good as it should be and I want to improve my English now, because I need it for my career in the future (at the moment I'm studying physics). I thought, that a forum like this one is perfectly for improving my writing skills.

It would be nice, if you will correct and review my English.
Thank you very much.

[Sassy_j]

Welcome to the Forum!
If you are still need someone to practice English with you can send me a PM

[adam_wa]

Hello

My name is Nikolai. I'm 21 years old and I come from Northern Germany. My mother tongue is German of course. I've never used English for 5 years approximately. Therefore my English is not as good as it should be and I want to improve my English now, because I need it for my career in the future (at the moment I'm studying physics). I thought, that a forum like this one is perfectly for improving my writing skills.

It would be nice, if you will correct and review my English.
Thank you very much.

Hi Nikolai,
It's nice to meet you. I'm a native English speaker and I'm starting to learn German again after not having studied it for a few years.

Your English is very written! The only correction is for the word 'perfectly'. English adds -ly for adverbs, but since perfectly is modifying the noun 'forum', you would use the adjective 'perfect' instead.

Cheers,
Adam

[tiorthan]

Your English is very written!

Hallo, und willkommen im Forum.

Du hast da ein Wort vergessen. (But I'm so gonna use that as a compliment now )

[adam_wa]

Your English is very written!

Hallo, und willkommen im Forum.

Du hast da ein Wort vergessen. (But I'm so gonna use that as a compliment now )

Danke für das Willkomen.

Du hast Recht. Ich habe es vergessen, das Wort 'well' zu schreiben! Ich bin verlegen. Wahrscheinlich soll ich um Mitternacht nicht in irgendeiner Sprache schreiben, wenn ich so müde bin.

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai,
It's nice to meet you. I'm a native English speaker and I'm starting to learn German again after not having studied it for a few years.

Hello adam
It's nice to meet you, too.
I could teach you German.

Your English is very written! The only correction is for the word 'perfectly'. English adds -ly for adverbs, but since perfectly is modifying the noun 'forum', you would use the adjective 'perfect' instead.

Thanks for your compliment. I think my reading and listening skills are ok. Not good, but good enough to understand specific literature. My writing skills could be better but I'm not able to speak English at all. For example my peruvian flat mate was visited by a Spanish briefly. He couldn`t speak German and I was not able to form the easiest sentences, but I understood everything he talked in English.
And my pronounciation with my german accent is awful,I guess. This year I have to study abroad for 2 weeks, because of my reasearch. I'm afraid, that I can't talk with the people.

[Nikolai]

sorry for double post, but I can't edit my previous post.

Danke für das Willkomen.

That sounds strange. You would rather say "Danke für die Begrüßung". Besides "Willkommen" is written with two m.

Ich habe es vergessen, das Wort 'well' zu schreiben!

The comma is wrong and it sounds better if you don't write "es".

Ich bin verlegen.

I don't know what you wanted to say, but "verlegen" isn't the right word, I guess.

Wahrscheinlich soll sollte ich um Mitternacht nicht in irgendeiner Sprache schreiben, wenn ich so müde bin.

This sentence is ok, but it doesn't sound good.

How long do you learn German? Many people say, that German is a very difficult language. Is it true? I think it's not the easiest one, but it's way easier than Hungarian, Chinese or Japanese for an English native speaker.

[Keswick]

Ich bin verlegen.

I don't know what you wanted to say, but "verlegen" isn't the right word, I guess.

The correct thing to say would be "es ist mir peinlich". "verlegen" is used when you refer to being self-conscious or sheepish.

Wahrscheinlich soll sollte ich um Mitternacht nicht in irgendeiner Sprache schreiben, wenn ich so müde bin.

This sentence is ok, but it doesn't sound good.

I am afraid putting "it does not sound good" won't help Adam. Adam, in this case the sentence structure is not quite right. The correct sentence would be: Es wäre besser, wenn ich um Mitternacht nicht in einer Sprache schreibe, die ich nicht kenne, weil ich dann müde bin.

How long have you learned German for? Many people say, (no comma) that German is a very difficult language. Is it true? I think it's not the easiest one, but it's way easier than Hungarian, Chinese or Japanese for an English native speaker.

[Nikolai]

Hello Keswick

How long have you learned German for?

I don't understand the "for". Why I can't say "How long have you learned German?"?

[Keswick]

Die Frage einmal in den Aussagesatz:
I have learned German for xx years.

[tiorthan]

I know "for how long" but putting the "for" at the end of the question seems awkward to me.

[Nikolai]

Yes
"For how long have you learned German?" sounds better to me.

[Keswick]

Fair enough, it might sound awkward but it's correct and commonly used, as well. Sorry.

[Duckduck]

I know "for how long" but putting the "for" at the end of the question seems awkward to me.

Et tu, Brute?

I'm surprised at you, tiorthan. You don't want to tell us you are forgetting our good pal Noam and the traces (nudge, nudge) he left in our brains???

It's nothing but the much-loved preposition stranding and I wouldn't have believed it possible you never heard of it... Come on, that was a joke, right?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding

Happy new year!
Duckduck

[tiorthan]

Happy new year to you too.

No, I have no problem with stranded prepositions. In fact, I have my prepositions strand all the time. Here's what I wrote to a friend not too long ago: "How much you bought it for?" So, obviously I have no problem with a lone dangling for at the end of a sentence. (Just for reference, I know I have left out a "have")

When I tried to think about what's wrong with "How long have you learned German for?" for my prevous post I suspected the "for" because it stood out to me (I'll come back to that eventually), so I repositioned it in my head and I came up with "For how long have you been learning German?" which does sound fine to me. And without any further thought I concluded that that would be the reason.

However:

Yes
"For how long have you learned German?" sounds better to me.

Nope, still awkward.


A keen observer will by now have figured that my problem is probably not, in fact, the "for" at the end but the lack of the continuous aspect. Let's check:

How long have you been learning German for? - That does not feel awkward.


Personally, I drop the "for" from questions with "how long", and a quick corpus search (corpus.byu.edu) shows that this is common among American English native speakers at least, that's why it stood out to me in the first place.