I've never liked this Microsoft blog site. My browser constantly uses near 100% CPU when I write a blog. Google Blogspot is a little better. But the worst may be Weebly.com.

Anyway, I decide to move this site to
http://english-for-chinese.blogspot.com
Please go to that site from now on. Thanks for your visit.

Note: ① the original Chinese; ② Chinglish (allegedly); ③ correct English

① 永远记住你 ② remember you forever ③ always remember you（没有人能活到forever）

I don't see any problem with "remember you forever", although "always remember you" is probably more common.

① 祝你有个... ② wish you have a ... ③ I wish you a ...

"Wish you have" is wrong. "Wish you had" is correct but does not mean 祝你有个

① 厕所 ② WC ③ men's room/women's room/restroom

"WC" is widely used in countries other than the US. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Americans not familiar with the word WC should wake up and travel around the world. America is not the only English speaking country. In fact the word "restroom" will be grossly misunderstood in some European countries.

① 真遗憾 ② it's a pity ③ that's too bad/it's a shame（it's a pity说法太老）

I believe "It's a pity" is still widely used in Britain.

① 应该  ② should ③ must/shall

"Should" is sort of advisory, not as strong as "must". This is clearly differentiated by Internet RFC (request for comments) documents. Those in the IT industry know what I'm talking about. Translate 应该 to "should" is correct.

① 尽我最大努力 ② try my best ③ try/strive（try的本意就是try my best）

"Try my best" is perfectly OK.

...

① 直到现在 ② till now ③ recently/lately/thus far

This may be the most important correction Prof. Chuck Allanson made. I clearly remember in my life one Indian coworker and one Dutch lady both made the same mistake. So it's not just Chinese. See my blog about "up to now" and "up till now":

http://english-for-chinese.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!BA7595BCCBA9D7BF!145.entry

> He tried to isolate the germ he thought was causing the disease.
> 这句话来自某年的考研吧
> 我认为 i thought 是插入语，插入语在句中不做任何成分，所以这句话在was前是不是缺了一个that 呢？

I agree. The word "that" should not be omitted.

Also see this:

"There're too many people make such mistakes."

Indeed many Chinese say that because it's a direct translation from Chinese. The word "that" (or "who") after "people" should not be omitted. Or just say "Too many people make such mistakes."

"Peasant" is almost derogatory nowadays. "Farmer" is neutral. If the person does not have a farm (as is the case in China), you can still say "farmer" to show your respect.

I usually go to
http://bbs.wwenglish.net/index.asp?boardid=99
and
http://www.hjbbs.com/forum-52.htm
to answer questions. But the forums are becoming increasingly hard to use. The wwenglish.net starts to have a human moderator review your posting before it's posted. So some of my messages somehow didn't get passed the review and I wasted time writing the answers. The HJBBS is just dog slow (unless I access the site late at night China time), full of silly Javascript fanfare. What other good Chinese English forums are out there? I'm willing to help but the platform for me to help on is not user friendly.

Yong Huang

> 大家对我进一步学英语有什么好建议！

There's no trick in studying a foreign language. The basic skill in it is almost linearly proportional to how much time you use the language (use = read, write, listen, etc.), except for accurate pronunciation, which some people have innate capability to do better than others. (The advanced skill, literary writing for instance, is like pronunciation; it needs genius, and so does not linearly improve with study time.)

> You'll go to the picnic, won't you! Yes : not to ; No: go
> ....., 不是吗？ 是的，我不去； 不，我去。 [/quote]

A: "You'll go to the picnic, won't you?"
B: "Yes, I will."

You can't say "Yes, I won't". That's a common mistake some Chinese make, because the Chinese language allows you to have one positive and one negative part in the answering  sentence.

> 不会的单词总是用翻译软件查询，虽然快捷，但是学不到用法，不能学到延伸的知识，大家平时用工具
> 书么？书店里英文工具书很多，大家能不能推荐一本或者几本，这里谢过了

Google
Dictionary.com
m-w.com

There're all kinds of tricks in using Google. Some are not that obvious.

Google
Dictionary.com
m-w.com

There're all kinds of tricks in using Google. Some are not that obvious.

> How to speak these in English?

That's a gramatically wrong question very commonly asked by the Chinese studying English. Do not say "How to say...?" or "How to speak...?" as a whole sentence. Say "How should I say...?" instead, or "Can anybody tell me how to say...?"

> 小弟在学校过程当中感觉那英语单词实在难记，记前忘后现象很明显，小弟特在此
> 请教各位高手达人教小弟几招好使的方法，一解脱小弟困惑，不胜感谢！

http://yong321.freeshell.org/misc/LearnChinese.html

Read the "怎样记字最快？" section. I wrote that about learning Chinese. But the ideas apply to learning any foreign language.

> > > > > > "Often times they consider our way of business practice rather aggressive and we consider their process
> > > > > > of decision-making time-consuming."
> > > > > > often times是个短语吗?在句中做状语?
> > > > >
> > > > > I am afraid the authour is guilty of committing a common error in spelling oftentimes as two words.
> > > > >
> > > > > of·ten·times adv.  Frequently; repeatedly
> > > > >
> > > > > tx
> > > >
> > > > "often times" has > 4 million hits on Google search. "oftentimes" has < 3 million. In fact, I didn't
> > > > even know the one single word "oftentimes" till I saw tx's posting. Well, maybe I saw that before
> > > > but I forgot.
> > > >
> > > > Yong Huang
> > >
> > > I try my best to stick to dictionary spellings. I am painfully aware that, the the years, I've
> > > become more and more a liguistic purist when it comes to my own writing, for one quickly learns that,
> > > in an adopted scociety, one has to be better than better just to be good. However, I am definitely
> > > not a defender of linguistic purisms, for, as you've so aptly pointed out,  a living language is
> > > defined by its usages after all.
> > >
> > > tx
> >
> > Thanks, tx. You sound like a 19th century British gentleman!
> >
> > Yong Huang
>
> Ha ha! Oftentimes I feel older, much older.  :)
>
> tx

That was extracted from
http://bbs.wwenglish.net/dispbbs.asp?boardID=99&ID=288709&page=1
a forum I often go to. tx is a frequent poster, probably a senior English teacher. Sometimes I find his English interesting because it reminds me of the language you read in last century, actually, last before last century, English books. One of the most salient features of this old style may be the usage of "for" to mean "because" or "since". Nowadays you rarely see that in English, except in poems. People say "because" or "since" now, or "in that" sometimes in writing.

>> 在我去美国之以前，我曾经去过英国
> before I came to USA, I'd ever been to England

Many Chinese use the word "ever" to mean "曾经", and most of the time it's very wrong!! "Ever" is about equivalent to "曾经" only if it's used in a question (or sometimes in a negative sentence), as in "Have you ever been there?". In a non-question positive sentence, "ever" simply means "always" or "all the time", and it's not commonly used alone, i.e. not in a compound word like "ever-lasting" or a phrase like "ever since". Here's one example from dictionary.com: "He is ever ready to find fault". It sounds old-fashioned and maybe too literary.

The above Chinese sentence can be translated as "Before I went to the U.S., I went to the U.K."

> Can i use them as a sentences like the followings?
>   1)  I have set bunch of ideas as regard the problem.
>   2)  With regard to the problem,i have set bunch of ideas.
>   3)  I have set bunch of ideas with regard to the problem .
>   4)  In respect to the problem, i have set bunch of ideas.
> Are those sentences correct?

There's no difference between these words or phrase ("in regard to" ,"regarding","concerning", "about", and "with regard to"). But it sounds weird when you mix formal words ("with [or in] regard to") with informal words such as "bunch of". And obviously whoever uses formal words should never write "i" when he means "I". Many Chinese and Indians have this horrible yet easily correctable mistake in not using capital letters when they should.

I don't think you can say "bunch of" not following "a"; "a bunch of" is correct but "bunch of" is probably not. "As regards" is heard. I'm not sure if anybody says "as regard".

Here's a good example to show the difference:

Person to relocate: How safe is it to live in Houston? I mean, is it possible you could be killed late at night on the street?
Relocation agent: Oh, it's always possible for anybody to be killed at any time in a big city. But it's not likely or probable. Come on, man, you don't want to decide not to move here just because a Hispanic guy killed a Chinese a few days ago.

> "辽宁省沈阳市大东区北洮昌街36-1号4-4-2" 编写成 "4-4-2 NO.36-1,beitaochang street,shenyangshi,liaoning"?

Either "4-4-2 NO.36-1" or "Room 4-4-2, 36-1" is Chinese convention. It's perfectly fine since the reader of this address will be the post office workers in China. If you prefer the convention in English speaking countries (at least the U.S.), say "36-1 Beitaochang Street #4-4-2, Dadong District..." Your American friend knows 36-1 is the street number and 4-4-2 is the suite number. But then it may cause slight confusion on the Chinese post office side.

> 在国外，我从来没有真正的感到舒适过，我思念祖国的一切``

In this foreign land, I've never truly had the feeling of comfort [or feeling of being at home]. I miss everything in my own country.

> How about "I never felt comfortable abroad,and I miss everything about China."?

That's good. "abroad" is better used with a verb. How about "I never felt comfortable living abroad."? Also, that word does not carry the affection as in Chinese. I mean it's a purely technical term. So if the original sentence needs a little human touch, avoid "abroad".

> Why is it not "... tell me where I find" in this song?
> Some many people
> all over the world
> tell me where do i find
> someone like you girl...

Sometimes a sentence is constructed in a way that the question stands out, perhaps because the writer wants to emphasize it and because the question is long. In this case, the first letter of the question word is often capitalized and the sentence ends with a question mark. For example, "Now the question becomes Why do we need the government to implement such a complicated system with little effect on people's welfare?"

Your song lyric may be better written as
...
Tell me Where do I find
Someone like you girl?

But songs are songs. Like poems, they don't always closely follow grammar.