British students are bad in English.

[Lionmonkey]

I've had these concerns and now they have been affirmed. Since I don't think that most of you know Russian, I will translate this text from www.readme.ru :

         British students have a worse knowelge of English, than foreigners.

Brit students have a worse knowelge of English, than their auditory neighbors, who came to the Great Britain from other countries. That is the statement, a teacher of The Imperial college, situated in London, David Lamb has come up with. Lamb has analyzed the written works of students of the elder courses of such teaching institutions, like Oxford University and University of Cambridge and has found out that the best knowelge of the English language was demonstrated by students from Brunei, Singapoore and Russia, not by british students whose native language is English.

Works of the foregn students contain much less orthographic and punctuation mistakes, and they also have less incorrect word usages.

Oxford University and the University of Cambridge are ones of the most prestige universities and only the students who got the highest points in English on the graduation exams may enter them.  Author of this research also said, that gaps in the knowelge of English were demonstrated not just by students who have lived all their lives in the Great Britain, but also by foreigners who have grown up in this country.
"Students graduate british schools, without getting any base knowelge of grammar and punctuation," - stated Lamb.

Lamb has decided to publish a list of the most typical mistakes, which he found in the written works of his own students. By doing this he decided to gain the attention of the british government to the situation in the school system. Here are some of the most typical mistakes in the works of british students: "effect" instead of "affect", "sun" instead of "son", "bean" instead of "been", and also "holy cheese" instead of "cheese with holes".

[ManicMatt]

Innit tho.

Additionally: Perhaps I am an exception, but those examples in the last paragraph are just laughable. Perhaps "affect" is understandable; my girlfriend wrote that instead of "effect" only the other day (Her skills lie in maths), but HOLY CHEESE?!!

[Lionmonkey]

I know the usage of the "holy cheese", but it can not be used to describe a piece of cheese with many holes, can it?

[Radiant]

Well, I took the SAT tests once, and while I totally aced the math one (being rather mathematically minded) I scored solidly above average on the English one as well, getting a higher score than most of the people I met in Chicago college. So this news does not really surprise me.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

It's only natural, though. And it applies to all languages. You get lax in the usage of the language you're born with, because you use it every day, people know what you mean, you don't have to be accurate in order to make yourself understood, you can even use words out of context if you think will help you get your point across. Foreigners, on the other hand, have to worry about accuracy because the alternative is to risk not being understood.

[Nacho]

***I am sure than they are better in English than me*** hehehe

You are right, Rui. I don' t know what' s happening but many educational systems are failing as for lenguaje teaching. Here in Spain I am being witness that many young people (and when I say that I am probably talking of more than 80%) have a lot of problems with putting "h" in the fron of the word (In Spanish, the "h" does not sound, so, it' s a grammatical problem, it should' t be like not putting the "h" in "house") or they confuss the "v" and "b" (they sound identycal) or the "g" with the "j" (ge, gi sound the same as je, ji, like the English he, hee)

But that' s not just a problem with the English... Young people here doesn' t know who Mao Tse Dong was, or Truman, or in which yeah the WWII ended or if Guevara was killed in Bolivia or in another place...Same with geography. I am a bit annoyed for that, but I am not sure if I can do much... 

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I dunno Mao Tse Dong either. Was he a cousin of Mao Tse Dung's?

Sorry, just couldn't resist.

[CodeJunkie]

Cheese with holes is called 'holey cheese' isn't it?

I have to agree about English not being taught properly in schools.  I've been taught how to analyse fiction, non-fiction and poetry but not where to use a semicolon or a hyphon, and these are the things people use every day.  Sure, reading deeply into text and finding hidden meanings has its uses, but I don't find it as important as putting a sentence together properly.

Regarding mistakes, I can't stand it when people put apostrophes into plural's.

[tube]

I dunno Mao Tse Dong either. Was he a cousin of Mao Tse Dung's?

And were they both related to Mao Zedong aka Mao Tse-tung?

Sorry, just couldn't resist.

I could, but chose not to.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Tube, my dear tube, it was a pun. A very bad pun. Dung means manure means s**t.

[Sam.]

Seems to be a bit of an excuse for some crap puns.

I am a student, and I don't know anyone who would make those mistakes, simply because they aren't just spelling mistakes, they actually carry meaning, for most people, it would be like writing "bee" instead of "be". They look fairly similar, but have very clear differences.

I don't know where this research came from, but I'm fairly certain it's rubbish.

[Nacho]

I dunno Mao Tse Dong either. Was he a cousin of Mao Tse Dung's?

Sorry, just couldn't resist.

Sorry, but as happens with arabian when translated into another languaje, some of the songs in Chinese can be translated into other languajes with some king of liberty, for instance, Mohammed can be Muhammad, or Mahoma or Mojamed... Or Mao Tse Dong, which can me Mao Zedong, Mao Tse-Tung... Noboby was wrong, actually.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Bleh. I just wanted to make a joke and everyone's suddenly's either a literary critic or taking it seriously.

[Nacho]

Your jokes are too difficult for me, I'd never guesses "dung" was a way to say poo. ^_^

[Pumaman]

This is definitely true. Most British kids these days don't know "their" from "they're" or "there", which is quite sad ... but then you realise, does it actually matter? If people can make themselves understood, does it matter if they are gramatically correct or not?

[Lionmonkey]

This is definitely true. Most British kids these days don't know "their" from "they're" or "there", which is quite sad ... but then you realise, does it actually matter? If people can make themselves understood, does it matter if they are gramatically correct or not?

And why do you think grammatic exist? To determite, how are the words spelled and how are the punctuation signs placed: To distinguish the thing people mean from the thing, they don't mean, but which also sounds similar!

Please don't shut this site down...

[InCreator]

News from Russian site, criticism-related one and about Brits.
What's wrong here? Where have I seen this before?

Lionmonkey, you live in Riga, yes? Did you think before making this thread, at all?
Aren't we, Balts, under never-ending propaganda war every day? Doesn't Russian press throw crap like this at us in a daily basis? Releasing news that rarely are news, but still sound bad and in long term, finally brainwashes their people into thinking we're pure evil?

Now, why should average russian wake up in the morning, and read about how badly British know grammar before starting his day? Does this sound like news, entertainment, or rather like another invisible sting of negativity towards West this russian gets every day from his beloved government?

[Radiant]

If people can make themselves understood, does it matter if they are gramatically correct or not?

Yes, because encouraging sloth and sloppiness in the Future of the Nation is never a good idea.

[Lionmonkey]

News from Russian site, criticism-related one and about Brits.
What's wrong here? Where have I seen this before?

Lionmonkey, you live in Riga, yes? Did you think before making this thread, at all?
Aren't we, Balts, under never-ending propaganda war every day? Doesn't Russian press throw crap like this at us in a daily basis? Releasing news that rarely are news, but still sound bad and in long term, finally brainwashes their people into thinking we're pure evil?

Now, why should average russian wake up in the morning, and read about how badly British know grammar before starting his day? Does this sound like news, entertainment, or rather like another invisible sting of negativity towards West this russian gets every day from his beloved government?

1) I am a citizen of Latvia, however, my mother language is Russian. If you know about this as much as you think you do, you should understand,

2)That site, where I found this got this information from BBC. Communism and everything about it is dead. Russians now hate it even more than Americans. Let everyone be equal? Sheesh, it gives me heebie-jeebies.

3) The reason, I've posted it is because these news show us, or more like Great Britain citizen, that there IS a problem. And this is really a BIG problem, which should be corrected. Don't let your nation be ashamed, do something about this!

[Oliwerko]

I think that grammar knowledge and not making mistakes is important only to some extent. I hate people making mistakes and trust me, here in Slovakia, the grammar knowledge is horrible by my classmates. Things like piramids (in slovak Pyramídy) are common.

It is important indeed, but only to some extent. I, however, do not like to make mistakes since I am planning to be Russian - English - Slovak translator. If you are not translator, writer or anything like that, mistakes does not matter as much. But it is stupid to make them.

Excuse me if I am not using apostrophes, I just completed a 10-finger writing course, and I dont have apostrophe on my slovak keyboard