Dear Mr.Robertson,We are students from the Mostar University «Džemal Bijedić», and being students of English language and literature we had the opportunity to hear your radio debate in our class. The show we listened to, was about the English language, where teachers and students were discussing of its use. After hearing your show, we also discussed about the opinions of your guests like you did.
The show showed things or situations where English language is used, which we would never pay attention to. Like the sentence we see in stores:
«10 items or less» (10items or fewer is grammatically correct)
This less, instead of fewer has become widely accepted and so frequent that most people don't see the mistake in this structure. If you asked some people, natives wouldn't see the mistake, they wouldn't even know the difference between less or fewer. Non-native speakers would accept this less as a correct form, because they don't expect that a public sign is written incorrectly. So how come that native speakers can use the incorrect form, and no one pays attention to it, but non-native speakers are being corrected? It's an offense. Native speakers have all the freedom they want in using English, but we can just use the correct form. But, we have seen that this isn't the best way, natives should use the correct form, because of the misunderstanding that can appear:
The fewer people know about this (affair), the better.
The less people know about this (affair), the better.
Another point we discussed, is that teachers should teach the correct form so it wouldn't come to misunderstandings. We can see the importance of using grammatically correct forms in essays, where students have to write correctly, if they don't want to be constantly corrected.
Especially in written language the use of correct forms is important. It would be, lets say strange, if we sent a letter to a high-profile person using non-correct forms, that person would think we were illiterate.
We also concluded that the balance of fluency and accuracy is the best. A good speaker should possess both. But as non-native speakers we would give more importance to accuracy, because we first learn to speak correct structures, and the fluency comes afterwards, through conversations. We can’t have these conversations, if we don’t know the grammar, or the word order in a sentence.
Your show has been very successful and useful for us, non-natives, because you have talked about many important themes in language that we haven't mentioned in this letter. We wish you success in your further work, and that you continue with this kind of subjects. Thank you for giving us your time
Sincerely yours, English language and literature students from Mostar
The show showed things or situations where English language is used, which we would never pay attention to. Like the sentence we see in stores:
«10 items or less» (10items or fewer is grammatically correct)
This less, instead of fewer has become widely accepted and so frequent that most people don't see the mistake in this structure. If you asked some people, natives wouldn't see the mistake, they wouldn't even know the difference between less or fewer. Non-native speakers would accept this less as a correct form, because they don't expect that a public sign is written incorrectly. So how come that native speakers can use the incorrect form, and no one pays attention to it, but non-native speakers are being corrected? It's an offense. Native speakers have all the freedom they want in using English, but we can just use the correct form. But, we have seen that this isn't the best way, natives should use the correct form, because of the misunderstanding that can appear:
The fewer people know about this (affair), the better.
The less people know about this (affair), the better.
Another point we discussed, is that teachers should teach the correct form so it wouldn't come to misunderstandings. We can see the importance of using grammatically correct forms in essays, where students have to write correctly, if they don't want to be constantly corrected.
Especially in written language the use of correct forms is important. It would be, lets say strange, if we sent a letter to a high-profile person using non-correct forms, that person would think we were illiterate.
We also concluded that the balance of fluency and accuracy is the best. A good speaker should possess both. But as non-native speakers we would give more importance to accuracy, because we first learn to speak correct structures, and the fluency comes afterwards, through conversations. We can’t have these conversations, if we don’t know the grammar, or the word order in a sentence.
Your show has been very successful and useful for us, non-natives, because you have talked about many important themes in language that we haven't mentioned in this letter. We wish you success in your further work, and that you continue with this kind of subjects. Thank you for giving us your time
Sincerely yours, English language and literature students from Mostar
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