http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1042425/Why-ignore-bad-spelling-Lecturer-calls-amnesty-students-20-errors.html?ITO=1490 Why are British students so bad at spelling their own language? Here are some comments from non-native English speakers, and I agree with them: Paula, Italy: I am a foreigner, I studied your beautiful, elegant, expressive language as a foreign language, and I don't make spelling mistakes. Most of my friends and colleagues who also studied it as a foreign language don't make any spelling mistakes either. We're not an educated elite, we studied English in very average, ordinary schools, no more than three or four hours a week. How come British "students" cannot manage? Eve, Poland: This idea is ridiculous. Besides, I don't understand how people can make such mistakes in their own language. English is my second language and I wouldn't be caught dead misspelling these words. CC7, Switzerland: I'm not a native English speaker and yet I would write all the words in this list correctly. That's called "learning", and it should also -especially- go for native speakers! Wilma, Netherlands: My Dutch students were extremely surprised when I told them that lots of English people could not distinguish between "there" and 'their" and "it's" and 'its". By the way English is my third language. Raymond, Germany: I am a language trainer in Luxembourg and to give in to the bad spellers is a capitulation which signals how little respect British people have for their own language. German, French and even Polish speakers don't suffer similar problems because they are taught to hold their language in high regard. (...) I tell my international language training participants to ask Scandinavians or Dutch people how to write if I am not there to help. Furthermore, I know one British person at the place I work whose letters are corrected by his French boss because they are full of mistakes. Anthony, Malta: I learnt the English Language at a state school in Malta fifty years ago. Thankfully great emphasis was laid on this most important of languages then and now. Spelling mistakes were anathema. How can people, born and bred in England, be unable to spell words in their own language ? How low can standards in this once Great country get ?
Other - United Kingdom - 5 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
I ask this question last week but I was was referring to American students ,their spelling and grammar is terrible . I don't the emphasis is on spelling in schools today like it was when I was a child. We had to read and spell out loud parrot fashion round the class .
2 :
It's much easier to misspell in your own language. Instead of seeing each word as a collection of letters, you see it as a unit in itself. This makes it much easier to spell poorly. In any case, it's ridiculous. I went to a below average state school. I spell perfectly.
3 :
i don't think i have a problem with spelling or grammar. Sometimes i just can't be bothered (especially on here) to spell and punctuate correctly, which is just pure laziness. if i'm writing an essay or a doing a piece of academic work, then i think the majority of people can pull their finger out and write to a good standard. however there is a large amount of young children growing up today who do not have adequate reading and writing abilities, and i think it's down to modern day schooling.
4 :
People who learn English as their first language speak and write the vernacular version . . . A textbook gives a much more formally standardized "education" than does real life. There is also the factor that foreigners feel pressure to make up for other aspects of speaking the language (like heavy accents, etc.) My grandmother was a Norwegian immigrant and was very strict with her kids on grammar because she herself had a thick accent, which held a certain social stigmatism in her day. I'm an American who has taught English as a foreign language in China and here in the U.S. and I definitely agree that overall my students' spelling is much better than that of native peers their same age in the U.S. I'm not saying either way is better, but the differences are interesting nonetheless.
5 :
I ask myself this question every day! I think that it is just pure laziness. BUT, It isn't just the English/British speakers that write and talk this way... It makes me cringe when I see what Americans do to the English language. When did problems become "issues"? The word 'like' used like several times in like every sentance! GRRRR. Also, missing the word AND from dates and numbers. 2008 becomes Two thousand eight. What? Sorry to go off on one. You are not alone.
