Some people think that it is better to be able to speak English rather than having the correct pronunciation, reading or writing skills. Well, that depends on your needs and age –gap really.

But if you want to work for an international company or within the corporate world, then you need to have C1 advanced English level or Business English. Here you cannot use common/informal grammar, like wanna, gonna, gotta etc.etc. It is not grammatically correct. Yes, you will hear it in the USA and in music which is mostly for the lyrics to rhyme.

Why the schools here teach this kind of English I don’t know. It is very important to pronounce each word properly and clearly, emphasising the T, H, Y, or some words can be misheard and have a whole different meaning. The most common are Beach, Sheet, and Coke.

In London the new generation of kids have a mish- mash of English; they change the ending of each word that ends in- ER - to- TA i.e. Water- Wat-ta, Paper- Pay-pa, Printer- Prin-ta, Sister –Sis-ta. As you say in Colombia (gas).

Another example would be for us, foreigners,

I am 20 years old. Tengo 20 años. Or- Tengo 20 anos!! Without the tilde not quite the same, hence this long list of punctuations, they are important in any language.

Punctuation Marks

There are fourteen punctuation marks commonly used in English grammar. These are as follows, full stop, question mark, exclamation marks, comma, semicolon, colon, dash, hyphen, parentheses, brackets, braces, apostrophe, quotation marks, and ellipsis.

Full stop / period/ punto (.) is placed at the end of sentences, statements and after many abbreviations.

Question mark (?) to indicate a direct question when placed at the end of a sentence.

Exclamation mark (!) is used when a person wants to express a sudden outcry or add emphasis.

Comma, semicolon and colon are often misused because they can all indicate a pause in a series.

The comma (,) is used to show a separation of ideas or elements within the structure of a sentence. Additionally, it is used in numbers, dates and letter writing after the salutation and closing.

The semicolon (;) is used to connect independent clauses. It shows a closer relationship between the clauses than a full stop would show.

A colon (:) has three main uses. The first is after a word introducing a quotation, an explanation, an example, or a series.

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The second is between independent clauses, when the second explains the first, similar to a semicolon: The third use of a colon is for emphasis:

Dash and hyphen these marks are often confused with each other due to their appearance but they are very different. A hyphen is used to join two or more words together into a compound term and is not separated by spaces. A dash is used to separate words into statements.

Brackets, braces and parentheses are symbols used to contain words that are a further explanation or are considered a group. Parentheses ( ( ) ) are curved notations used to contain further thoughts or qualifying remarks. However, parentheses can be replaced by commas without changing the meaning in most cases. Brackets are the squared off notations ([ ]) used for technical explanations or to clarify meaning. If you remove the information in the brackets, the sentence will still make sense.

Braces ({ }) are used to contain two or more lines of text or listed items to show that they are considered as a unit.

Apostrophe, quotation marks and ellipsis, unlike any of the above theses are not related to one another in any form.

An apostrophe (') is used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters from a word, the possessive case, or the plurals of lowercase letters

Quotations marks (“ ”) are a pair of punctuation marks used to mark the beginning and end of a passage attributed to another and repeated word for word. They are also used to indicate meanings and to indicate the unusual or dubious status of a word.

Single quotation marks (') are used most frequently for quotes within quotes.

The ellipsis is most commonly represented by three periods (. . .) although it is occasionally demonstrated with three asterisks (***). The ellipsis is used in writing or printing to indicate an omission, especially of letters or words. Ellipses are frequently used within quotations to jump from one phrase to another, omitting unnecessary words that do not interfere with the meaning.

British v American English slightly different names for some of these to save time and space look online. Full stop (British) --- period (American) or in Spanish punto.

Until next Tuesday- Be good.

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