Pronunciation | Language Trainers UK Blog

Archive for Pronunciation

Why good pronunciation is important (especially when dealing with seamen)

November 21, 2008 at 5:33 am · Filed under Accents, Pronunciation, Chinese, English · Posted by Wendy

I know sailors spend a lot of lonely time at sea, but this guy needs to do some anger-management classes, or maybe some soul-searching?

From the Shanghai Daily:

A CHINESE man nearly started an unintended fight with an overseas sailor when he greeted him in poorly chosen English words.

The man identified as Liu said: “Hi, gays” when he met the sailor on a foreign ship docked at Wusong Port this morning in Shanghai.

The sailor grabbed Liu, a worker at Wusong, and demanded an explanation and an apology. However, Liu’s English was so poor that he couldn’t find the words to express himself properly.

Fortunately, a police officer identified as Xu stepped in and explained to the sailor that Liu meant to say “Hi, guys,” according to Wusong immigration police.

Xu also told Liu that gay means homosexual in English.

The two shook hands after the misunderstanding was cleared up.

Link from Shanghaiist.

Permalink Comments off

Sometimes it's 'some times', but it'll be 'some time' sometime

November 3, 2008 at 6:45 am · Filed under Pronunciation, Grammar, English · Posted by Wendy

I was recently caught off guard when asked what the difference between ’sometimes’ and ’some times’ is, and when you should use one or the other. My response was vague at best, so I’m hopefully going to make it a bit clearer here.

Sometimes is an adverb, and should be used to mean ‘occasionally’ or ‘at times’, and can be used in any case where a frequency is neither never nor always.

I sometimes go to the gym on Wednesdays.
Sometimes I have tacos for dinner.

Some times should be used as a noun phrase, that is when using ‘time’ as a noun.

The doctor gave me some times when I could come in for an appointment.
There were some times last week when it rained really hard.

Sometime is used as an adverb, meaning ‘at an indefinite point in time’ (in the future or the past). It is also occasionally used as an adjective meaning ‘having been once’, or ‘occasional’.

We should meet for coffee sometime.
His flight arrives sometime next week.
He was away a lot, so could only be a sometime boyfriend.

Some time is used as a noun phrase, describing a period of time with no definite length.

It took some time to finish the project.
Some time ago, I went on holiday to Paris.

As far as pronunciation goes, sometimes and sometime have slightly more emphasis on ’some’, and some times and some time have ‘time’ stressed.

Language Trainers Blog

Any language, any time, anywhere.

Archive for Pronunciation

Why good pronunciation is important (especially when dealing with seamen)

Sometimes it's 'some times', but it'll be 'some time' sometime