English conversations

Question

Hi,I am looking for some English conversation, medical topics preferred (as I'm an MD), but I will talk about everything else too - I'm in great need of improving my language  If you have time and would like to talk - feel free to email/MSN me. I can help you practising Polish in return. Best regards for all of you.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

There's a nifty little book for people like you: English in Medicine , Second Edition, Eric H. Glendinning and Beverly A.S. Holmstr=F6m, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-59570-3. There's also a tape that goes along with the book. The package has all kinds of conversational exchanges relevant to your profession in it.

It also costs, as I found out to my chagrin, about seventy euros.

By the way: help somebody DO something, e.g. help sby practise, help sby learn, etc. You may also say and write, 'help somebody TO do something,' but that form is less common. This whole issue of what follows 'help' gets even more complicated when we add 'can't help doing something' to the mix.
Good luck, Adam.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]There's a nifty little book for people like you: English in Medicine , Second Edition, Eric H. Glendinning and Beverly A.S. Holmström, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-59570-3.[/nq]
Thank you very much, I will try to get this book.
[nq:1]By the way: help somebody DO something[/nq]
Thank you for pointing this to me. You see, that's the kind of improving that I was talking about

I know this general rule, but because of lack of practising (aren't there to many "ofs" in this sentence?) I forgot about it.. I have no problems with reading and listening, but when it comes to writing/speaking - ouch, that hurts

One more question about this "help DO sth" - what if I'm doing something right now and I want somebody to help me with this, for example: "I'm washing the dishes, help me doing this". Would it be correct?

Best regards.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]There's a nifty little book for people like you: English in Medicine , Second Edition, Eric H. Glendinning[/nq]
Good bloke Eric Glendinning, I work for him most summers.

DC

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]By the way: help somebody DO something[/nq]
[nq:1]Thank you for pointing this to me. You see, that's the kind of improving that I was talking about

... it.. I have no problems with reading and listening, but when it comes to writing/speaking - ouch, that hurts

[/nq]
The productive skills (writing and speaking) in general lag behind the passive skills (reading and writing) in normal second language acquisition. I speak Greek with relative ease and a bit of French, but writing with the kind of ease you display in English in either language is beyond me. I sincerely hope I have not offended you.
[nq:1]One more question about this "help DO sth" - what if I'm doing something right now and I want somebody to help me with this, for example: "I'm washing the dishes, help me doing this". Would it be correct?[/nq]
No.
I'm washing the dishes. Please help me do it/them. (The "it/this/them" issue here is another strange thing about English.)

I'm washing the dishes. Can you help me (to) do it/them?

By the way, a British English speaker might not use "washing the dishes" but rather "doing the washing up," which would then definitely be referred to by the pronoun "it."
Of course, if you use "help" WITHOUT another verb, all kinds of constructions are possible.
"Help" is a strange verb in English mainly for these reasons, and generally gives a lot of language learners an extraordinary amount of trouble. Just remember: if you're going to use "help" with another verb, the structure is help + object + either full or bare infinitive. It seems that educated Britons tend to use the full infinitive more often than the bare infinitive in this construction...which is something I just learned as well, from my formal usage books.

Could someone confirm this, please? I believe that in an earlier post I told this gentleman that the bare infinitive is used more than the full infinitive. It's one thing to put your foot in your mouth, but negligently misleading language students is quite another. Thank you.

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