LEO Presentation - My Native Language is not English (The second draft)

Utku Hasbay

Quyen Tran

Our native language is not English

            Due to the same situation which is we are International students, today we are going to talk about the problems we get when writing an essay, since our native language is not English. If you are an international student, you might get the same confused as we do. There are two aspects that we get trouble with the most. The first one is the differences between count and noncount nouns, and the second one is that all sentences sound the same in a paragraph.

            First, we are going to distinguish count and noncount nouns. After we had understood about these differences, we will be able to use the noun plural ending -s correctly and use words that express quantities, such as little, much, . . . Knowing how to use count and noncount nouns will make it sounds much better while speaking and make essays look perfectly corrected.

What is the definition of count and noncount nouns?

Count nouns:  “count nouns use singular and plural verbs and pronouns”. (1)

A count noun have the –s at the end if it’s plural.

Example: car, table, orange, television

-          The is a car in the garage./ There are five cars on the road.

-          How many cars are there?

Noncount nouns: “noncount nouns use only singular verbs and pronouns”. (2)

Example: traffic, furniture, fruit, video equipment

-          There is some fruit on the table.

-          How much fruit do we have?

 

Special case: There are some nouns which are used with both functions count and noncount: fruit(s), wine(s), food(s), drink(s), coffee(s).  Usually, it happens when using words with food and beverages.

Example: Some types of Vietnamese fruits are starting to be grown in America fields.

             Next, we will talk about the way to use transitions in an essay, so that the essay will flow smoothly and all the sentences do not sound the same. As an international student I have a hard time with writing fluent English papers. When I review my papers and try to compare them with the “perfect” ones. I realized that I don’t know how to use transition words such as furthermore, and, so, because, but, nor, where, which. Lacking of using transition words my sentences usually sound like, I am emphasizing same points. So this problem bothers the reader and my papers are far from being fluent. Let me give some examples that I took from Leo:

 

Original	The two countries reached an agreement on trade policies. They then were able to complete their peace treaty.
Revision	After the two countries reached an agreement on trade policies, they were able to complete their peace treaty.

 

EX 1* (3)

 

Original	The program's format allows individual users to make changes. This can be done each time users encounter problems in implementing the program.
Revision	The program's format allows individual users to make changes whenever they encounter problems implementing the program.

 

EX 2* (4)

 

 

           As we can see from the examples, when we use those short but extremely significant words in correct place of our sentences, they change the way how our sentences sound, they help us to make our paper smoothly and more excited. Also they undertake the role of being main component between sentences as well as paragraphs.

            In conclusion, after taking a look from the resources we had read, we have got to know how to fix those problems we have got. We know how to distinguish count and noncount nouns, and know how to avoid making all sentences looked the same. We hope you also figured it out with us, of course, if you are an international student that has the same problem with us.

References:

(1), (2): http://www.learnamericanenglishonline.com/Blue%20Level/B19%20Count%20and%20Noncount%20Nouns.html

(3), (4) http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/sentencev.html (9/17/2012)