영어 Hint of the Day #11: Does Twitter Help You Learn English? Well, It All Depends

There are many groups in Twitter which have been formed by Koreans in order to practice English.  Of course, there are many people there who are complaining about how difficult English is, etc.   Those people remain unconvinced by my blog entries:

Korean is more difficult than English:  http://seoulgyopoguide.blogspot.com/2010/09/think-that-learning-english-is-harder.html
Fastest ways for Koreans to improve fluency:  http://seoulgyopoguide.blogspot.com/p/ways-for-native-koreans-to-improve-your.html

Here are my hints for using Twitter to practice English.

1.  Do NOT use abbreviations like you do when using Korean.  It is important to try to make every sentence correct.  Pay particularly close attention to the use of "a, an, the."  These are particularly difficult for native Koreans, so you need to pay very close attention to the correct use of these short words.

2.  Try to write with "parallel construction."  What does this mean?  Here are two examples.
(o)  I will try to run and to eat today.
(x)  I will try to run and eating today.
(x)  I will try running and eating today.  (Why?  If you write it this way, it seems that you will do both at the same time)

This is a problem with Twitter:  there is a character limitation for every entry, which makes this somewhat more difficult.  If that is the case, then use another entry.  It is more important for the sentence to be correct than it is to be 140 characters long.

3.  Try to enter into groups or conversations with people whose English skills are very good.  I will be available on Skype (id: thelostseoul) everyday at approximately 6pm (Seoul) for 30 minutes, where you can ask me questions.  This will be FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME.  There we can have conversations where you can actually practice with a native speaker who is strictly qualified to answer questions and to make corrections.  As in anything, the quality of your practice is far more important than just practicing with errors because of the bad habits that you can develop.  So, while Twitter is a great societal innovation, please use it well to improve your English.

Good Luck

skypeid:  thelostseoul