Pointing out the tourists
Hi Marcos!
Sorry to hear that you were ill, but glad to hear that you’re feeling better now!
You’ve written a very long and interesting post about your weekend, your education and career choices. I agree with the people who commented on your post – your writing style is clear, coherent and very readable. Perhaps your experience of writing regularly for an audience is partly responsible for your increased fluency and confidence? This may sound like a strange comment to make, but I find that one way of understanding words, phrases and ideas is to USE them in writing. It should be the other way round; that I understand BEFORE I write, but, in fact, often it isn’t. Sometimes, by trying out words, expressions and ideas, I realise more about what they mean WHILE I write. I wonder if this is one of the benefits of the BBC LE blog – that it provides an opportunity for regular writing for an audience? The really great thing about the BBC LE blog is that you don’t need to be the student blogger to have this opportunity, because anyone can write a comment!
On the topic of your job, I agree with Rabail (from the UK); you’re lucky (though it probably wasn’t luck, but hard work and being well organised!) to have a career that interests you and that provides benefits for society. Marianna (from Slovakia) mentioned photos of Sobral. Did you take your camera? If so, can we see the pictures??!
You asked for comments on your writing. I’ve already said how good I think it is!! Here’s a very small tip that I mention not because I can’t understand what you mean (I can), but just because you use this word twice in your post. You use touristic in these two phrases: touristic infrastructure and touristic places. Perhaps you’re thinking that these two phrases are adjective + noun. In fact, I think they are both noun phrases; as in infrastructure and places FOR tourists, not infrastructure and places that are LIKE tourists. Another example: a beautiful (adjective) place (noun), is a place which is like the concept of beauty, not a place FOR beauty. A beauty salon is not beautiful; it is a place FOR beauty.
Two more issues here: tourist attraction is more common than tourist place, it’s just a fixed phrase; and, infrastructure is FOR business (tourism) not individuals (tourists), so tourism infrastructure is better.
If you put touristic attraction into an Internet search engine, you will find people using it in other varieties of English, so this is just my, UK-based opinion!
OK, a little bit more on representing speech in writing. I want to say something about the frequency of said and told in the past simple tense and some of the other tenses I mentioned in my last post. I’ll also say some thing two-word reporting verbs, in answer to your question.
Right, said and told (in the past simple tense)………….in a previous post I said that these were the two most common reporting verbs, but are they?? I decided to check (perhaps I should check first in future!), so I typed said into the search box in the top right hand corner of this page. Try it! I got really excited (sorry, I am a linguist after all…:)) when I saw that I could compare how many times said occurs on the BBC LE website, compared to BBC News and the rest of the BBC. Also, when I tried comparing said with told, tells, says etc. I decided to concentrate on the BBC News search and found that these reporting verbs occur as follows:
said 1,003,041
told 1,496
saying 102,916 (but some of these might refer to the noun saying)
telling 18,751
says 294,846
tells 22,724
explains 10,288
explained 20,298
claimed 66,712
pointed out 189 (but some of these might refer to out or point)
suggested 34,860
protested 5,588
Now, the texts which are being searched for these words are a very specific text type – news reports - and you may not be interested in this type of writing. In case you are NOT interested in reading or writing news reports, in my next post I will talk about how to create your own searchable collection of texts. Of course, if you are interested in general usage, you can just use your regular search engine to search all of the texts on the Internet!
Looking at the list I made above (and if you try this, your numbers will be different because the BBC News website is being updated all the time) there are some interesting facts to note. Said (in the past simple tense) IS the most frequently used reporting verb, but told is very infrequently used. Says is quite common (perhaps to create a dramatic effect suitable for news reporting) and claimed (though far less frequent than said or says) is also fairly common (perhaps because politicians are always making claims for their policies!).
So, if you want to find out the most common way of saying something, try an Internet search!
Marcos, you asked about two-word reporting verbs, like point out. Here are a few more that are (near) synonyms of tell: to make (something) known; to call upon; to fill (someone) in; to give (something) out; to let (someone) know (something); to let (something) slip; to open up; to reel (something) off; spit (something) out.
OK, that’s it for now. More on representing speech (until you tell me you’ve had enough!) and on creating your own database of texts next time!
Rachel
Comments
Hi Rachel! It´s really fantastic that we can all improve our writing through BBC LE website. Apart from that, I´ve been learning a lot from all the theachers and friends here :-). I just regret that I don´t have time enough to keep update to everything that happens in this blog because I´m in my exam period at uni. Well, I have to go now. Good night, Ana Paula.
Hi Rachel! This post is more ´juicy´, I mean not as dry as in the News or in the science world. That is why I am here. I think that by trying to learn a language it allows us to undertand a common life of others. But those who are not willing to do that work or are not so well organized, they take for the truth words from the media world and what such a market is able to sell. From my experience here (only here for I don´t use it enywhere else) I agree what you have written in the first paragraph. Your work is certainly useful for participants here despite not so many try to use the chance. What are your students like at the university?
Hi Rachel! I couldn’t agree more what you said in the second paragraphs of your last post. I keep a record whenever come across new English words, idioms, expressions and so on, and try to use them as much as I can in my writings or notes. Sometimes I can’t exactly figure out what they mean. But when I read them in text that I have written the meanings are clearer than trying to learn them by heart. I don’t think learning a new language is not second nature to me, therefore, I’ve been trying to find a suitable method for myself and found the best way to improve my English is to keep a record of them, write, speak, use and make mistakes as much as I can. The highlight of writing or commenting on both BBC LE’s the teacher and student blogs are that I can see my own mistakes, and it provides me for a reflective time what areas I need to improve how I can re-write it in a better way . To read feedback on my comments from teachers and lean new things from students, the blog-watchers and readers are a big bonus and on the icing of the cake. It might sound like a PR exercise but it’s so true. Anyway, Rachel, I’d better stop here; otherwise my drone of words make you fall asleep at the front of the computer. Thank you and I’m Looking forward to next lesson! Have a good day!
hi,Rachel I am a guy from China. as an English learner, I come here now and then. I started to learn English from middle school, now I've already graduated from university eight yesrs ago. But till now, I can't speak English fluently. I am just wondering how I can improve my English? Maybe you can give me some tips. thank you
Hello, Rachel! I agree that all the readers of the blog have a great opportunity to write, to comment, and the comments are read by this grand audience, but there are the house rules so that we can’t write everything that springs to mind. Now that I think about it, I might become a little bit self-conscious about my writings because such a vast audience can read them, but it is the purpose of this blog: to make possible for people all around the world to practise their English. It’s good to be able to keep a track of my comments and see if I progress in learning English or if I’m stagnant. I must be confident of my skills when I think that I’m able to correct my own mistakes and see how far I’ve come in learning English.
Hello Rachel I agree absolutly with you. Writing is a very effective way to learn a language, as it is also to learn other things, like a phone number. Your list of reporting verbs is very usefull. Thanks for that. Bye
Hi, this month I couldn´t comment. About what you point out to Marcos, touristic places, touristic structure, I believe that perhaps he wrote in this way translating from the way he use these terms in his language. If I had writen that, probably I would use the same way of combinating words, because we say so in spanish. What do you think?
Hi Rachel, yes is definitively tru that we getting know the meaning of the words, while we write. I have to admit that although I do not speak well enough English, I prefer speak than write. Sometimes I would like to write lots of things here, and when I start to write I realize that I do not know how to express myself :)). On the other hand I have ever learnt English at school or university. I satrted to learn English callan method, so maybe is one of the reason. Yes one of the reason because the second one is, that I am a bit lazy :))) Have a nice weekend
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