{"id":996,"date":"2012-03-31T17:26:52","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T21:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=996"},"modified":"2014-08-01T16:32:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T20:32:33","slug":"language-learning-you-can-always-learn-something-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/language-learning-you-can-always-learn-something-new\/","title":{"rendered":"Language Learning: You Can Always Learn Something New"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you think you have gotten a language straight in your mind, it goes and throws you a curve ball. This is exactly what happened to me a few weeks ago. Despite being a native English speaker and even having studied and taught the language, I am still learning things on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

When I moved from America to the United Kingdom there was a completely different learning curve to the language to figure out. I\u2019ll talk more about that in a future post but the slip-up I had a few weeks ago, did come down to a British \u2013 American difference.<\/p>\n

Practise versus Practice<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I have always found it a bit of a challenge to keep the difference between practise<\/em> and practice<\/em> clear in my mind. When I would write anything that needed one of these words, I would usually end up grabbing my language book to check that I was using the correct one. This became irritating enough that I decided to spend a few minutes actively memorizing the difference between the two words. Here\u2019s what my language book had to say about the two:<\/p>\n

Practice \u2013 Practice is a noun<\/a>. For example:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctor\u2019s practice is open from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. every day.\u201d –> Here practice basically means an office or a physical location where the doctor works.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to put these ideas into practice.\u201d –> Here practice means a habitual or customary action or way of doing something.<\/p>\n

Practise on the other hand was slightly different.<\/p>\n

Practise \u2013 Practise is a verb<\/a>. For example:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTo learn English<\/a> well you have to practise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must practise the violin everyday if you want to sound any good.\u201d<\/p>\n

I spent some time remembering the difference between the two and was feeling pretty good with myself (as you do when you learn something new!). And then I wrote a post for the Transparent Language English blog. I was using practise<\/em> as a verb in the title so spelled it with an \u201cs.\u201d A few minutes after posting the post I got a quick note to say the editor had changed the spelling to a \u201cc.\u201d<\/p>\n

We had a quick chat back and forth, I did some searching and as it turns out, in the States the word practice<\/em> (with a c) is used as both a noun and verb.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story? You can always learn something new about a language, even if you are a native speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Just when you think you have gotten a language straight in your mind, it goes and throws you a curve ball. This is exactly what happened to me a few weeks ago. Despite being a native English speaker and even having studied and taught the language, I am still learning things on a regular basis…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[134956,135139,135370],"tags":[4067,191037,930,218664,2416,191150,191152],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-grammar","category-english-language","category-english-vocabulary","tag-american-english","tag-british-english","tag-english","tag-learn-english","tag-practice","tag-practise","tag-practise-versus-practice"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t