It was 6 months ago when I started attending an English-learning class because my parents made me to. Initially, I found it hard which is pretty much understandable since it is the first Western language required to be taught. But once I settled in and got to know most of the words, it was pretty much easy to finish the course. Once we were required to submit or render research paper services to our fellow blockmates and serve as their co-research paper writers which is pretty difficult since I am not much of a fan of researching.

But we did it with all success and I may still have a problem with accents and all but I believe my writing seems to pass my professor's liking. And I will do better next time I get to write a blog here.

They said it was a good exercise if I will be posting blogs every now and then so I can practice me writing in English. It is juz hard since I had to also submit other write-ups to them. This week, Lee said I had to choose from one of the essay topic they giving to me. I hope I be fine when I submit my assignment.

It helped me that they gave me sample essays so I can let it be an example. Hope I did a great work for my first blog!

While some English-speaking countries, regions or cities within some countries, or specific neighbourhoods within some cities might have very pronounced or vowel-distorting accents or an overuse of slang terms, these same people would generally have no trouble understanding those who do speak English in a more traditional and universally accepted manner. This makes it extremely important for the English language seeker who wants to advance his/her verbal skills through homestay study in an English-speaking country, to be aware of the degree to which the common usage of the language in that country, region, city or neighbourhood observes the more universally accepted norms of the language. This is not quite as easy as it might seem at first glance. There are some examples that are more apparent than most: Australian, South African, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Jamaican, Texan, etc. accents are generally regarded as not fully representative of universal norms. The widespread and often preferred use of slang in some urban neighbourhoods are even further from accepted usage.

A particular irony of what has become the international or universal verbal standards of spoken English, is that England itself is no longer the standard of accepted usage. It is more likely that the majority of native English-speakers no longer follow the originally intended pronunciation of a number of words, or in some cases, even the originally intended vocabulary of mother England. The pronunciation and vocabulary of most of Canada, New Zealand, parts of the U.S.A., parts of the U.K., some Caribbean Islands, a few former British colonies, parts of India and even some Scandinavian countries are generally regarded as closer to the accepted norm than the often well modulated, rounded tones of the well educated Brit.

Like with all important decisions in life, good research is necessary on the part of the language seeker, before he or she decides in which country to seek homestay study, in order to advance verbal skills in English. I'm sure that similar regionalized language problems pertain to language acquisition skills in other languages, as well.

A咖                  A-lister

追星族              groupie

速成課程           crash course

關鍵時刻           crunch time

填鴨                  force-feed

母校                  Alma Mater 

Please write to me if there is any mistranslation. Thanks!