Sometimes, we are not sure of the words to use so we choose not to speak at all because we are afraid to tripped up on what we say. In this blog entry, I provided some English tips for Filipinos like me who have aspirations to be enlightened with language use.
Common Word Choice Questions
1. Full-fledged not full-pledged – full fledged refers to the full or complete attainment of something such as a full fledged teacher while full pledged does not exist.
2. entitled vs titled- My colleague said according to his professor, it’s wrong to say entitled when you mean title of a book/article or any work. You should use titled instead. Well, just a tip, many style guides prefer the word title to entitle. However, of course, some allow entitled. Even dictionaries allow it, though when you say entitled, it basically means the right to something. Around me though, educated people always correct me when I say entitled, so I also prefer to use titled.
3. especially versus specially – The easiest way to understand this is to bear in mind that specially means doing something in a particular way or for a particular purpose.
E.g. I made this dress specially for you.
Especially on the other hand is to say that something is unique or different from the rest, given other choices.
E.g. I love all kinds of noodles especially lomi.
Again remember the key words: specially = purpose while especially = specifically/particularly (among the rest)
4. who versus whom – The easiest way to remember this is to do the common trick a lot of experts suggest. It is simply replacing the subject with he or him. Him= whom and he = who.
E.g. Whom did you give it to? I gave it to him. You don’t say I gave it to he. Thus whom in the sentence is correct.
E.g. It was Francis who called. It was he, who called.
5. critic versus critique – critic refers to a person who analyzes and interprets something, a critic is an analyst, while critique means an assessment or analysis of something. Moreover, critique as a verb means to analyze while critic is only a noun. We can’t use it as a verb.
Related Article: More Grammar and Vocabulary Tricks
Common Grammar Questions
1. One of this – The correct phrase to use is one of these and not one of this. I am also guilty of this sometimes but yes it should be specifying one among the many things.
2. It’s high time that – I heard this expression from my professor who majored in Corpus Linguistics. She loves giving us grammar tips. One time, she asked us if we have heard of the expression it’s high time that and challenged us to give the right verb for the expression. All of us thought the present tense is the right tense to use. To our surprise, it should be the past tense. Why? It’s because the verb is in subjunctive mood which means it expresses an action which is not a fact or not real anymore. Why? It’s because it’s high time means the time to complete the action has passed.
Example: It’s high time that you changed your toothbrush!
3. for a while – In the Philippines, it is usually used to mean “just a moment” or “hold on”. My assumption is that this expression was used because it refers to a period of time which means for a short time or probably because the meaning mixed up with the noun a while. Of course, for native speakers of the language, this will sound a bit odd.
This article is a great read if you want to know more about Philippine English which may sound unique or odd to native speakers of the language adopted by our fellow Filipinos: “Filipino English” from an Englishman’s point of view (Aguilar, 2004)
4. proceed with versus proceed to – proceed with means to continue with something while proceed tomeans going to do the next action or activity.
5. associated with or associated to – If you search a thesaurus using associated with as your search key, it will give you a lot of synonyms but if you use associated to, nothing appears. Also, associate with is more commonly used.
I hope you find this English tips for Filipinos helpful and enlightening!
Next time, I will make an article about translational equivalence between Filipino and English which is also an interesting topic.
What do you mean by Translational Equivalence?
According to Bruce (1995) as mentioned in the Glossary of Linguistic Terms website by SIL International (2003), translational equivalence means “a corresponding word or expression in another language” (26–27).
Do you know the translational equivalence of the following words/phrases in English? If you know, then feel free to write your answers below. Thanks.
1. kasabay
2. matapobre
3. hampas lupa –
4. patintero –
References:
SIL International. (2003). Retrieved from http://www.glossary.sil.org/term/translational-equivalence.
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