by Heather Chetwynd | Jun 10, 2021 | Language Training
I love vocabulary and English has a lot – the Websters Third Dictionary lists over 470,000 words, although many are obsolete. Of course, most native speakers know roughly 20,000 words and commonly use around 8,000. According to Andrei Tapalaga, in his article,...
by Heather Chetwynd | Jun 2, 2021 | Culture and Values
There is a word in German – umwelt – which refers to how different organisms and beings experience reality. Numerous conditions influence our perception of reality – faith, assumptions, education, culture, physical considerations, character traits, concepts we hold,...
by Heather Chetwynd | Jun 2, 2021 | Language Training
Only 3000 words make up 86% of the language we commonly use in speaking and writing (Longman Communication 3000). Most intermediate English-speakers already have this vocabulary; they also have learned the common grammatical structures (of which there are dozens.)...
by Heather Chetwynd | Apr 27, 2015 | Business Communications
Language changes whether we like it or not. I was forced to pronounce WHEN, WHICH and WHERE with air after the W, even though nobody I knew did it. But that was considered correct when I was young. And, as we know, what is considered correct is the language of...
by Heather Chetwynd | Dec 17, 2014 | Language Training
English spelling is so crazy and I am constantly apologizing to my students for this. While there are reasons for why it turned out like this. there are ongoing attempts to standardize the spelling, none of which have worked to date. It seems now there is, once...
