ARTICLES
Speaking Skills for Speaking Part One
Question : Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Answer : Yes ( this is a grammatically correct answer, but you are practising only one word! )
Answer : Yes, I do or Yes, I have (short answers are correct, but do not give maximum practice)
Native speakers use short form answers a lot as they already know the full form answer and so they cut it to a short form answer to save time.
However, for second language learners, like you guys, it is much better to get more speaking practice by speaking the full form answer. This helps you speak more words, improves your fluency and gives you more confidence. It also helps you learn grammar structures by speaking them in a full form answer!
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Yes Yes, I do
*Both these answers are 'short form answers' and are correct answers. However, they do not give you maximum practice of English because you are not speaking a lot of words and so don't get the maximum speaking practice!*
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
A Common Language
Review of 'The Adventure of English', Melvyn Bragg, Hodder & Stoughton
For a good, highly readable overview of how English developed and where it may be going, Melvyn Bragg's book, based on the TV series of the same name, does the job. Bragg traces the roots of English back to the Frisian and other Germanic languages of those who invaded Britain from the 5th century onwards - the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. He follows the growth of what have become the varied forms of modern English, not only through the familiar paths of the Norman invasion, Chaucer, Shakespeare and so on, but also through looking at other influences on English - the words of the Wild West in America, the Creole languages of the Caribbean, or the vocabulary the British brought from India. Indeed, the lists of words can become overwhelming at times.
His view of English is in some ways very democratic: the role of the ordinary people and particularly the oppressed is stressed, whether through the survival and transformation into Middle English of Anglo-Saxon under Norman French rule or the advance of Australian English. His account of Wycliffe...
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