Improving my English

[MIPP]

Hi,

after living in the US and some vacations in London, I my English, as far as I know, is quite good. But I still have two problems, for now, which are:
* When do you, English speakers people, use on/at/in? I can't see when to use one or another.
* I know that the -ing form is used after prepositions and after some verbs like "like, enjoy...". Could you tell me all the verbs?

[Payä Tìrol]

It's really hard to describe these sort of things when you learn the language from experience... More often than not, I'll know something is wrong because it sounds wrong, not because I know it violates some rule.

On/In are all pretty idiomatic, and there really isn't even a guideline for which to use, despite the meaning of the words themselves. You can be "in transit", but "on your way", "on a computer", "in denial", "on vacation", etc.
At is generally used for some location. "at the airport", "at work", etc.

-ing is very regular, and can be attached to pretty much any verb*, even the ones that are normally irregular. It's used somewhat similarly to the Na'vi <er> (and er+future/past/iv versions) if you're using it as part of a verb*, except it's more of a "ongoing/uncompleted" modifier, and doesn't carry all of the same "habitual/regular/repeated" connotations that <er> does.

-ing can also be used like <us>, where it functions like an adjective, similarly to Na'vi.
-ing can also be used like tì- + <us>, where it functions like a noun, similarly to Na'vi. When used like this, it may help you to mentally add a "The act of" in front of the word:
Hunting is fun. The act of hunting is fun.

[MIPP]

It's really hard to describe these sort of things when you learn the language from experience... More often than not, I'll know something is wrong because it sounds wrong because it sounds wrong, not because I know it violates some rule.

On/In are all pretty idiomatic, and there really isn't even a guideline for which to use, despite the meaning of the words themselves. You can be "in transit", but "on your way", "on a computer", "in denial", "on vacation", etc.
At is generally used for some location. "at the airport", "at work", etc.

-ing is very regular, and can be attached to pretty much any verb*, even the ones that are normally irregular. It's used somewhat similarly to the Na'vi <er> (and er+future/past/iv versions) if you're using it as part of a verb*, except it's more of a "ongoing/uncompleted" modifier, and doesn't carry all of the same "habitual/regular/repeated" connotations that <er> does.

-ing can also be used like <us>, where it functions like an adjective, similarly to Na'vi.
-ing can also be used like tì- + <us>, where it functions like a noun, similarly to Na'vi. When used like this, it may help you to mentally add a "The act of" in front of the word:
Hunting is fun. The act of hunting is fun.

About the -ing forms, my only doubt is that, for example:

I love playing football.
I like watching TV.
I enjoy travelling around the world.

BUT

I decided to go with him (not I decided going with him)
You want to learn Na'vi (not You want learning Na'vi)



When I write I also choose the one that sound better (because I speak English almost like my 1st language, I'm able to notice which one sound better, almost like you do), but I still have problems with it (not with the I am playing, or the Smoking is not allowed).

Finally, I really don't understand when to use in/on. At is easier, as it usually means location.

[Payä Tìrol]

Some verbs cause an infinitive to follow it, some cause -ing to follow it, others can be used with either one. I don't think there's a way to tell which is which besides memorization or experience...
For example, in the examples you gave, you can also say "I love to play football" and "I like to watch TV", but not "I enjoy to travel around the world"...

After an adjective, always use the infinitive.
"I am happy to see you"

If it's the subject of the sentence, or it follows a preposition, always use -ing
"They left without remembering their watch"

[kewnya txamew'itan]

in/on is probably quite tricky to explain, and probably even harder to learn. The general usage is roughly as follows:

Imagine I have a box, if I open this up and place another object on the bottom so the sides are around it and the lid on top, it is in the box (generally in and inside have pretty similar uses so imagine a combination of "en" and "dentro" lespanyol (sorry, I don't know any Portuguese to explain with)), if I then put another object on the lid so that there is nothing surrounding it, then it would be on the box. That said, there are lots of irregular things with this such as "on the screen/TV/internet" and some where either can be used e.g. "in/on the news" (although in my experience "in the news" is usually used when referring to newspapers and "on the news" for TV news.

-ing roughly correlates with the Spanish -ando, but (thinking na'vily) is generally used whenever <us> is and, if <er> would be used, -ing is used along with the verb to be. As for the strange ones you give, as Tìrol says, for most of them either can be used because the verbs can be used modally or not (so the infinitive can be used modally or a gerund can be used to make it a noun and use normally), there's no easy way to know whether you can use the infinitive or the gerund other than to learn it.

After an adjective, always use the infinitive.
"I am happy to see you"

Or, slightly archaically, "seeing you I am happy"

[abi]

Some verbs cause an infinitive to follow it, some cause -ing to follow it, others can be used with either one. I don't think there's a way to tell which is which besides memorization or experience...
For example, in the examples you gave, you can also say "I love to play football" and "I like to watch TV", but

Actually, I think "I love playing football" and "I love to play football" are nearly synonymous semantically (at least in American English).

[Payä Tìrol]

Yup, my point was that it works for his first 2 examples, but not the third.

[MIPP]

Some verbs cause an infinitive to follow it, some cause -ing to follow it, others can be used with either one. I don't think there's a way to tell which is which besides memorization or experience...
For example, in the examples you gave, you can also say "I love to play football" and "I like to watch TV", but not "I enjoy to travel around the world"...

After an adjective, always use the infinitive.
"I am happy to see you"

If it's the subject of the sentence, or it follows a preposition, always use -ing
"They left without remembering their watch"

I have a small list of verbs, unfortunately I'm quite sure there will be more:


admit           delay   miss           regret   risk
appreciate   deny   postpone   report   suggest
avoid           enjoy   practice   resent   
can't          help   finish           quit           resist   
consider   mind   recall           resume   

in/on is probably quite tricky to explain, and probably even harder to learn. The general usage is roughly as follows:

Imagine I have a box, if I open this up and place another object on the bottom so the sides are around it and the lid on top, it is in the box (generally in and inside have pretty similar uses so imagine a combination of "en" and "dentro" lespanyol (sorry, I don't know any Portuguese to explain with)), if I then put another object on the lid so that there is nothing surrounding it, then it would be on the box. That said, there are lots of irregular things with this such as "on the screen/TV/internet" and some where either can be used e.g. "in/on the news" (although in my experience "in the news" is usually used when referring to newspapers and "on the news" for TV news.

-ing roughly correlates with the Spanish -ando, but (thinking na'vily) is generally used whenever <us> is and, if <er> would be used, -ing is used along with the verb to be. As for the strange ones you give, as Tìrol says, for most of them either can be used because the verbs can be used modally or not (so the infinitive can be used modally or a gerund can be used to make it a noun and use normally), there's no easy way to know whether you can use the infinitive or the gerund other than to learn it.

After an adjective, always use the infinitive.
"I am happy to see you"

Or, slightly archaically, "seeing you I am happy"

In/On is actually the one I spend more time trying to learn it. Unfortunately, at the moment I use in almost every time, even if the most correct one was on, because I still can't figure it out. At is quite simple, so I have almost no problems with it.
In (dentro [pt]; dentro [es]; inside [en]) and On (em cima [pt]; en la parte superior [es]; above/up [en]), has always been very easy to me to understood.

Still about in/on, I had the idea that in English you tend to use "on" when the thing you refer to is "infinite": on the field; on the freeway... But I'm quite sure it does not happen always that away.

Then, about the "gerund", it's very easy also to me. Be playing [en] - estar jugando [es] -  estar jogando [pt-br] / estar a jogar [pt-pt]; I am reading it but I'm still a little bit confused [en] - Yo estoy leyendo eso pero aún estoy un poco confundido [es] - Eu estou lendo isto mas ainda estou um pouco confuso [pt-br] - Eu estou a ler isto mas ainda estou um pouco confuso [pt-pt].

My only problem with -ing is creating the infinitive: sometimes I don't know whether to use -ING.
But I think that, using -ING or -TO VERB, my English will be understandable, won't it?

Some verbs cause an infinitive to follow it, some cause -ing to follow it, others can be used with either one. I don't think there's a way to tell which is which besides memorization or experience...
For example, in the examples you gave, you can also say "I love to play football" and "I like to watch TV", but

Actually, I think "I love playing football" and "I love to play football" are nearly synonymous semantically (at least in American English).

I agree with you. To me, sounds better using "love playing fotball" that "love to play football", but I noticed that in English you use more "love to play" than "love playing".


Btw, I live(d) at the US, but I started, a few months ago, trying to speak with a British Accent. Anyone around here could give me some tips about the British one?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

It's a shame my Portuguese isn't as good as my Spanish otherwise I could explain this more easily. From what you have posted they seem to be exceedingly closely related with the main differences being a few sound changes and different orthography so my explanations lespanyol should be easy to understand (even if you didn't speak any/much Spanish). Infinitives in Spanish and English line up in very nearly every case so, if you'd use the -ar/er/ir form of the verb (with or without an "a" before it) you should use the "to" form of the infinitive in English e.g. me gusta leer -> I like to read; quiero hablar Espanol (sorry, I can't type the enye easily) mejor -> I want to speak Spanish better and lastly; voy a ir al cine -> I am going to go to the cinema.

Interestingly that last one picks up a difference between Spanish and English, whereas Spanish uses the present tense of the verb to go for immediate future construction, English uses the present progressive (to be + [verb]-ing)

Also, I live in the UK (SE) so I speak with a fairly stereotypical British accent (as in RP) and might be able to give you some pointers with audio clips or IPA or the like.

[MIPP]

It's a shame my Portuguese isn't as good as my Spanish otherwise I could explain this more easily. From what you have posted they seem to be exceedingly closely related with the main differences being a few sound changes and different orthography so my explanations lespanyol should be easy to understand (even if you didn't speak any/much Spanish). Infinitives in Spanish and English line up in very nearly every case so, if you'd use the -ar/er/ir form of the verb (with or without an "a" before it) you should use the "to" form of the infinitive in English e.g. me gusta leer -> I like to read; quiero hablar Espanol (sorry, I can't type the enye easily) mejor -> I want to speak Spanish better and lastly; voy a ir al cine -> I am going to go to the cinema.

Interestingly that last one picks up a difference between Spanish and English, whereas Spanish uses the present tense of the verb to go for immediate future construction, English uses the present progressive (to be + [verb]-ing)

Also, I live in the UK (SE) so I speak with a fairly stereotypical British accent (as in RP) and might be able to give you some pointers with audio clips or IPA or the like.

I also speak spanish quite good, not portish (a mix of portuguese and spanish), like our prime minister.
Anyway, they are alike.

About your example about the Spanish infinitives (we, in Portugal, have infinitives -ar, -er, -ir, -or) I think it is not totally correct. I mean:

* Yo sugiero hacer un juego (Eu sugiro fazer um jogo [pt]; I suggest doing a game [en]). Here I must use the -ING form and it is in the infinitive.
* Vosotros admiten querer sugestionar (Vós admitis querer sugerir [pt]; You admit wanting to suggest [en]. Here the same happens.
* Yo aprecio jugar fútbol (Eu aprecio jugar futebol [pt]; I appreciate playing football [en).

For now, I decid whether to use the -ING form when it sounds better  In first two examples above, I would use the TO VERB form, as the -ING one seems a little odd to me. Actually, I'd say they are all wrong, except the last one

About the british accent, I don't need the audio files. Perhaps the IPA and, if you could, some differences between the American and the Bristish one, as I learned the American accent first and it'd be easy to me if I could see the differences.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

You have a much wider experience of Spanish infinitives than I ma 'eylan and so I'll bow to the new evidence, I had previously had only a few examples (mainly modal and pseudo-modal usages). In your examples though (in English), I think the "to" infinitive would sound very odd, the only one it might work with would be with "admit" although you'd still keep the -ing in that case (so "you admit to wanting to suggest") in the others there are other ways of expressing it (either just be running the two clause together e.g. "I suggest we play a game" or by using "that" e.g. "I admit that I want to suggest").

Accent-ìri, the main differences are in vowels, consonants are broadly similar (in RP we tend not to pronounce rs that are in the syllable's coda, instead this makes the vowel change (e.g. e would normally be [ɛ] but er would be [ɜ] (possibly long)). We also sometimes stress different syllables leading to different vowels reducing  but that pretty much has to be learnt.

A brief list of some of the most obvious differences from GA to RP are roughly as follows:

[ɑ] (when not followed by an r) is generally replaced with [ɒ] (notably not in father so in RP there is no distinction between father and farther (probably part of the reason why we use farther far less than in the states)).

[ʌ] -> [ɐ]

[ɻ] -> [ɹ] (retroflex approximant becomes alveolar)

<or> (when they are in the same syllable) -> [ɔ] (normally) (instead of [ɔɻ]) (this is an example of non-rhoticity, also note, vowels are never r-coloured (otherwise you sound like a farmer)).

diphthongs almost never monophthongise so "I" will always be pronounced [aɪ] and never [a] for example (same with all other diphthongs).

There are also a few vocabulary differences (and I'm sure there are more phonetic differences that I haven't spotted, maybe I should record a longish audio clip as a pseudo panphone so you can get a better grasp of differences). Anyway, this website has a broadly accurate description of RP (it's a big list of audio clips, hover over to play). Having checked the first 5 lines I agreed with it one every word but one, (both because there was a single one I disagreed with it on, and because that one was "one" which I'd pronounce [wɒn] instead.

['Oma Tirea]

Accent-ìri, the main differences are in vowels, consonants are broadly similar (in RP we tend not to pronounce rs that are in the syllable's coda, instead this makes the vowel change (e.g. e would normally be [ɛ] but er would be [ɜ] (possibly long)). We also sometimes stress different syllables leading to different vowels reducing  but that pretty much has to be learnt.

A brief list of some of the most obvious differences from GA to RP are roughly as follows:

[ɑ] (when not followed by an r) is generally replaced with [ɒ] (notably not in father so in RP there is no distinction between father and farther (probably part of the reason why we use farther far less than in the states)).

[ʌ] -> [ɐ]

[ɻ] -> [ɹ] (retroflex approximant becomes alveolar)

<or> (when they are in the same syllable) -> [ɔ] (normally) (instead of [ɔɻ]) (this is an example of non-rhoticity, also note, vowels are never r-coloured (otherwise you sound like a farmer)).

diphthongs almost never monophthongise so "I" will always be pronounced [aɪ] and never [a] for example (same with all other diphthongs).

There are also a few vocabulary differences (and I'm sure there are more phonetic differences that I haven't spotted, maybe I should record a longish audio clip as a pseudo panphone so you can get a better grasp of differences). Anyway, this website has a broadly accurate description of RP (it's a big list of audio clips, hover over to play). Having checked the first 5 lines I agreed with it one every word but one, (both because there was a single one I disagreed with it on, and because that one was "one" which I'd pronounce [wɒn] instead.

Another couple of obvious differences:

GA has {ʌɪ} before voiceless phonemes, and {aɪ} elsewhere, whereas contemporary RP has something more like {ɑ̟ɪ}.

The o-quality is more like a centralized {ɵ} instead of remaining a back vowel, e.g. {ɵɪ} instead of {ɔɪ}, and {ɵʊ} instead of {oʊ} or {əʊ}.

The æ-quality is closer to an {ɛ} rather than an {a}, and there is no TRAP-BATH split in GA, unlike RP.


Other than inserting too many nit-picky details, it looks like kewnya nailed it.

[Payä Tìrol]

There's just so much about English that's irregular like this, I personally never noticed before you brought it up.

['Oma Tirea]

There's just so much about English that's irregular like this, I personally never noticed before you brought it up.

Sran, starting with the ever-so-confusing orthography....

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I'm not sure I entirely agree ma sxkxawng, in my experience [ɑ̟ɪ] is usually only used in stereotypical cockney accents (if you've seen any Buffy, Dru's pronunciation of "Spike") and in RP it is always [aɪ].

[əʊ] is the norm for the diphthong in "no" rather than [ɵʊ].

Not a disagreement here, just a clarification, but in RP trap and bath are split because they have the vowels [æ] and [ɑ] respectively.

[MIPP]

You have a much wider experience of Spanish infinitives than I ma 'eylan and so I'll bow to the new evidence, I had previously had only a few examples (mainly modal and pseudo-modal usages). In your examples though (in English), I think the "to" infinitive would sound very odd, the only one it might work with would be with "admit" although you'd still keep the -ing in that case (so "you admit to wanting to suggest") in the others there are other ways of expressing it (either just be running the two clause together e.g. "I suggest we play a game" or by using "that" e.g. "I admit that I want to suggest").

Accent-ìri, the main differences are in vowels, consonants are broadly similar (in RP we tend not to pronounce rs that are in the syllable's coda, instead this makes the vowel change (e.g. e would normally be [ɛ] but er would be [ɜ] (possibly long)). We also sometimes stress different syllables leading to different vowels reducing  but that pretty much has to be learnt.

A brief list of some of the most obvious differences from GA to RP are roughly as follows:

[ɑ] (when not followed by an r) is generally replaced with [ɒ] (notably not in father so in RP there is no distinction between father and farther (probably part of the reason why we use farther far less than in the states)).

[ʌ] -> [ɐ]

[ɻ] -> [ɹ] (retroflex approximant becomes alveolar)

<or> (when they are in the same syllable) -> [ɔ] (normally) (instead of [ɔɻ]) (this is an example of non-rhoticity, also note, vowels are never r-coloured (otherwise you sound like a farmer)).

diphthongs almost never monophthongise so "I" will always be pronounced [aɪ] and never [a] for example (same with all other diphthongs).

There are also a few vocabulary differences (and I'm sure there are more phonetic differences that I haven't spotted, maybe I should record a longish audio clip as a pseudo panphone so you can get a better grasp of differences). Anyway, this website has a broadly accurate description of RP (it's a big list of audio clips, hover over to play). Having checked the first 5 lines I agreed with it one every word but one, (both because there was a single one I disagreed with it on, and because that one was "one" which I'd pronounce [wɒn] instead.

Thank you, ma kewnya, but I have a problem. I am not an IPA expert, so I don't know the sounds of most of those IPA symbols. I do not need Audio Files, but could you give one or two examples of words with the sound for each one?

Edit: I remembered now: in english you have "shall". What is the difference between shall and will?

[Payä Tìrol]

Interchangeable. Occasionally, shall carries a connotation of obligation, and will one of desire.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Alas most of these sound changes from GA to RP are because one accent doesn't have the sound, for example GA doesn't possess [ɒ], [ɐ] (but RP doesn't have [ʌ]) or [ɹ] which are all fairly common sounds in RP, because of this, any example I give you for these will come out sounding like GA.

As for will/shall, Tìrol is broadly correct although shall is also more determined than will (I'll normally translate <asy> as shall and <ay> as will) but shall is rarely used even here in the UK where, apparently, it is more common than the states.

['Oma Tirea]

Alas most of these sound changes from GA to RP are because one accent doesn't have the sound, for example GA doesn't possess [ɒ], [ɐ] (but RP doesn't have [ʌ]) or [ɹ] which are all fairly common sounds in RP, because of this, any example I give you for these will come out sounding like GA.

{fɒls}!

...and doesn't RP have {ɹ} instead of {ɻ} in a non-vocalic position?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

In my experience re:{fɒls} it would be more accurate to describe it as halfway between [ɑ] and [ɔ] so  tends to be rounded a bit less than [ɒ] (although this is minimal) normally is and is raised a bit. Transcribing that in the IPA is tricky of course as (based on my experiences), [ɒ], [ɑ] and [ɔ] would all describe the sound about as accurately as each other. Maybe [ɒ̝] (which I think should mean a raised [ɒ] would be more accurate.

An yes, I accidentally got [ɹ] and [ɻ] the wrong way round.