Ur absolutely right

TTFN

You know, spell checker is a real failure.
It is absolutely useless at spotting the correct use of words like "here" and "hear". I mean, what good is it if it can't sought these simple words out? And what happens with speech programs. Bough and bow? It will never get that right. Sure, the frequency with which bow is used is probably higher so it will probably opt for that but is this a gambling game?
I think Bill Gates has a lot to answer for.

Their you go, picking on all those people who can't get they're sentences to come out quite right.  There going to be upset if they here about it.

Your write.  I was being two picky.

DaveAtkins

Dear All,
        it seems like some spelling mistakes are more likely to be made by English-speaking guys, rather than by us Foreigners, may be because we pay more attention on what we're typing... Do you think so?
    Of course, errors of people from other Countries are different... but could you tell where one is from, just by reading his English?
    Where am I from (please don't look at my profile...)?

   Thank you for playing,
'NGL

I guess India, because the way you type sounds almost British, but you say you are not originally an English speaker.

DaveAtkins

    Sorry, Dave    the first answer is wrong...
    Come on, please try again, before I tell you!
    Bye to all,
'NGL  

anegri: My guess would be Italy since we have an Italian restaurant back home which is run by the Negri family.

My experience has been that often non-native English speakers have better written grammar because they've actively studied English with a desire to learn it rather than having it forced upon them in school.

Far too many people don't consider proper grammar to be important.

I don't have a guess as to where anegri is from, but I do agree with NanoMan about why non-native English speakers have better written grammar.  I would further speculate that non-native English speakers are less likely to use slang and sloppy grammar in speaking, which also tends to creep over to writing for those of us who are native English speakers.

Actually, a lot depends on who does the teaching.
TEFAL courses are designed to teach people how to teach english as a foreign language. As a commercial enterprise, and because in these modern times discrimination os frowned on, it means that the only qualifications required seem to be that they can afford the course. They are then equipped to go to foreign countries and teach english.
So far, so good. That is, until you meet a group of Japanese whose TEFAL teacher was from Glasgow, Scotland. Inevitably, they all speak English with a pronounced Glaswegian accent and actually speak in dialect. I don't expect this is what they anticipated but how were they to know any diferent?

You should try to understand Mandarin spoken with a French accent as it was taught in my high school   Oy ve!

TTFN

Ni shuo bu shuo ghong guo, oui?

Regarding accents, I used to work with a British guy who'd studied Spanish in Spain. I speak American English and have studied Mexican Spanish.

It was funny to hear Castillian Spanish spoken with a decidedly British accent.

.
OK, guys, Try this little spelling exercise on for size...... Just quickly read the following paragraph through and you'll be amazed at the results:
----------------------
Wolud you eevr beviele taht one culod witre scuh suftf as tihs and atcaluly hvae poelpe udnresantd it?
-----------------------
So there! You'll have to admit that the preceeding spelling fiacso is probably worse than what most engineers deliver, and you can still make out what is being said.

A study made by some people (who obviously didn't have anything else to do) shows that if you put the first and last letter of a word in its correct place (and please note my proper us of the possessive "its"), and include all the other letters of that word somewhere in between , you will most likely be able to make out what the whole word is.

But as long as we're on a trivia roll, why not include grammar as well?  Bad grammar, to quote Winston Churchill, "is the sort of thing up with which I will not put!"

I'm outta here......

http://www.spiraleng.com

Or, as US President Andrew Jackson is reputed to have said:

It's a poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word"

Yes, NanoMan has hit the mark!!!  

        And, once again, I've been betrayed by... the good food!     May I ask where do those "far relatives" of mine run their Restaurant? May be I can get a discount when it happens I come there...

        Yes, I'm from Italy (check my profile), and precisely in the north: I live and work between Piacenza and Parma (see, although it's all in Italian:
   http://www.comune.lugagnano.pc.it/index.shtml ;
or, in English, but more general:
   http://www3.sympatico.ca/giorgio-lidia.zanetti/valdarda... ).

        I studied French for three years at secondary school, then I studied English at high school for five; after this, at University, I exerted my English only with some technical books and... songs. In the last two years, I attended to the SHENKER English Course (see http://www.shenker.com/) organized by my Company. (Just for information: TEFAL, here in Italy, is a well-known trademark for... PTFE-coated frying pans!!)!

        In my Firm, we easily switch from English (as we belong to a Multinational Company) to... our Piacentino dialect and back! But this is a common thing here, for example in the summer Fridays, at the weekly markets: in fact, in the past decades, many people from this Valley moved to seek their fortune abroad, most of all to London and UK. So, when those emigrants (and their sons) come back, they take a funny "mixed" language with them...
        In the same way, my uncles from Calabria (in the South of Italy) moved to Perth (AUS.) in '60s and now my Cousins do not speak Italian, but a kind of... "Calabrish" (= Calabrese dialect + Engish), as I call it. This reminds me about "Spanglish" and "Portuñol"... have ever heard about them?

        Sorry if I went off the point; I didn't mean to bore you!

Thanks to all,            'NGL
        

Or the unique blend of Chinese and English spoken in Singapore...

An e-mail circulated recently that addressed what Polecat mentions above regarding misplace letters.

Here's a link that talks about it. In short, sometimes it works and sometimes not.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/