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IELTS Test Knowledge - Basic Info

IELTS Registration

Every year, thousands of people around the world appear for the IELTS. So you should register for your exam a long time in advance to avoid disappointment and to prevent yourself having to travel to a distant location to obtain the test date most convenient for you.

Before selecting a test date, remember that the exam is a challenging one and ensure that you have sufficient time to prepare adequately. If you are applying to a university or institute of higher learning, bear in mind their deadlines and also make sure you leave enough time for your scores to arrive and be reported to them.

To register for your IELTS exam, do the following:

1.   1. Go to the official IELTS website at www.ielts.org

2.   2. At the top of the page, where it says “Search for an IELTS Test Centre”, scroll down the menu and click on your desired country.

3.   3. Select the desired city.

4.   4. Select the...
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IELTS

IELTS Test Knowledge - Basic Info

IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System. It is an English language proficiency exam which measures the ability of test-takers to communicate in the four basic language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

The IELTS is managed by three main institutions: the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL). This is important to understand in order to prepare for what is essentially an examination of British and not American English.

Many students who have prepared for or appeared for the TOEFL iBT are surprised when they face difficulties understanding accents and expressions used by British speakers in the IELTS. This is why thorough preparation, at a language school or through self-study, is so essential for success in this exam.

There are two versions of the IELTS exam: general and academic. Test-takers must know in advance which one is needed for their purposes as the scores are not interchangeable. Each test lasts two hours and forty-five minutes.

Broadly speaking, the IELTS is taken by those who wish to study, live, or work in a country...
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English language resources and help for learners of ESL. Find study materials. Preparation guides and tips. Help with English and other resources. Learners dictionaries and other materials. Podcasts and downloads as well as MP3s. Online help for worldwide students of English.


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Online translators can hurt more than help

Online automated translators may be fairly accurate for translating languages of similar origin, but the line stops there. Certainly most of you are familiar with online translators such as Babel fish. 　However, from what I have read, it seems that quite a few people think that these automated translators do the perfect job. 　In some cases this is almost true...

Languages of similar origin usually follow the same sentence structure (Romance languages for example), and with Babel Fish you will be able to get a fairly good cross language translation. 　And by this I mean you will still have to go back over the translated piece and re-write it into the proper grammatical form.

It is when you try and use automated translators to translate languages of different origins where you can get into trouble. 　Being a native English speaker and working in Japan for a translation company, I often (just for a laugh) copy and paste a Japanese sentence onto such automated translators and then have them translated into English. 　It truly is a scary thought to think that people actually believe this will yield a true cross language translation to any degree.

First of all, most English speaking countries use an...
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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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