Warm-Up 3 is all about turning informal, spoken language into formal, written language. The prompt is the kind of thing a health-and-safety officer might say when he's on a site visit, but the written version of his recommendations will use different grammatical structures and different words.
Remember that you've only got FIVE sentences to produce - you don't need to write the entire report.
Monday 27 October 2008
Thursday 23 October 2008
Feedback on Warm-Up 2
I think I've now marked everyone's Warm-Up 2 tasks. If you've sent yours in, but not received any feedback, please let me know.
You handled the task very well, in general. Most people avoided the temptation to score points, which is smart, but concentrated instead on describing what happened calmly and factually. What many of you needed to work on, though, was formulating your demands clearly - so that the US company can just pay you what you want and get rid of you! In other words, a clear statement of what would make you happy is probably all you need in a case like this - the US company won't mind paying you (it's such a small sum that the administration alone costs them more).
There were some language points which recurred, and here's an explanation of the ones I think lots of people need to be careful with:
1. The word 'inconveniences' ought to exist … but it doesn't! There's a grammatical distinction between words which identify individual items (e.g. 'chair') and ones which describe general phenomena (e.g. 'inconvenience'). The point is that the words in the second category don't have plural forms, so you can't put an 's' on the end of 'inconvenience'.
2. Colloquial language is the language of speech, not of writing. Everyone knows that 'quid' and 'buck' are the everyday, spoken names of the currencies of the UK and the US, but we write 'pounds' and 'dollars' in contracts. 'Get' is one of these colloquial expressions - avoid it if you can when writing formal letters.
3. Prepositions are always tricky. 'In', 'on' and 'at' are particularly so. Here's a trick that works nearly all the time:
When you're talking about places and periods of time, 'in' is for the largest unit, 'on' for a smaller one and 'at' for a point in space or a point in time. Thus, it's 'in 2009', 'on Monday', 'at 8.00 am' and it's 'in Sweden', 'on Storgatan' and 'at no. 29 Storgatan'.
4. The verb 'appreciate' has been causing problems. When you use the word on its own, it means 'increase in value' (my house appreciated by 10% last year). When you want it to mean an expression of gratefulness, it needs an object (like 'it'). I.e. "I would appreciate it if you would …"
5. Be careful with 'would' and 'should'. "Your representative told me that I should receive a discount" is actually saying that the guy is hoping and speculating - not making any kind of firm undertaking. Change 'should' to 'would' and it becomes a promise.
6. Short forms have been causing problems. 'I'm', 'don't', 'can't', etc work very well in informal letters to people you know. You can't use them in formal letters though (I'm writing informally at the moment, which is why I don't write 'cannot'!).
If you'd like further explanation of any of these points, don't forget to ask!
You handled the task very well, in general. Most people avoided the temptation to score points, which is smart, but concentrated instead on describing what happened calmly and factually. What many of you needed to work on, though, was formulating your demands clearly - so that the US company can just pay you what you want and get rid of you! In other words, a clear statement of what would make you happy is probably all you need in a case like this - the US company won't mind paying you (it's such a small sum that the administration alone costs them more).
There were some language points which recurred, and here's an explanation of the ones I think lots of people need to be careful with:
1. The word 'inconveniences' ought to exist … but it doesn't! There's a grammatical distinction between words which identify individual items (e.g. 'chair') and ones which describe general phenomena (e.g. 'inconvenience'). The point is that the words in the second category don't have plural forms, so you can't put an 's' on the end of 'inconvenience'.
2. Colloquial language is the language of speech, not of writing. Everyone knows that 'quid' and 'buck' are the everyday, spoken names of the currencies of the UK and the US, but we write 'pounds' and 'dollars' in contracts. 'Get' is one of these colloquial expressions - avoid it if you can when writing formal letters.
3. Prepositions are always tricky. 'In', 'on' and 'at' are particularly so. Here's a trick that works nearly all the time:
When you're talking about places and periods of time, 'in' is for the largest unit, 'on' for a smaller one and 'at' for a point in space or a point in time. Thus, it's 'in 2009', 'on Monday', 'at 8.00 am' and it's 'in Sweden', 'on Storgatan' and 'at no. 29 Storgatan'.
4. The verb 'appreciate' has been causing problems. When you use the word on its own, it means 'increase in value' (my house appreciated by 10% last year). When you want it to mean an expression of gratefulness, it needs an object (like 'it'). I.e. "I would appreciate it if you would …"
5. Be careful with 'would' and 'should'. "Your representative told me that I should receive a discount" is actually saying that the guy is hoping and speculating - not making any kind of firm undertaking. Change 'should' to 'would' and it becomes a promise.
6. Short forms have been causing problems. 'I'm', 'don't', 'can't', etc work very well in informal letters to people you know. You can't use them in formal letters though (I'm writing informally at the moment, which is why I don't write 'cannot'!).
If you'd like further explanation of any of these points, don't forget to ask!
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