Formal and informal English
No sooner had I written down this title I realized it could be too big as a subject. In fact the reason I want to talk about this is because I have been really bothered by that. And I couldn’t find out the feasible and effective way to fix it.
Since I entered the university, with so much suggestion saying how important English could mean to me, I have been keeping learning English. Through textbooks and classes I had mastered so many new words and known how to build up a beautiful composition orderly and clearly. With the help of oral training class I had been taught how to speak standard and beautiful English.
But all of these were completely over before this year. Since I am neither an English-major nor an English-related student, that means, from the third year, there could have no English classes for us any more. So for we students who really want to improve our English we need to find a way to keep moving on it. Then here the problem appears.
For me I do read a lot English in my daily life, On the one hand, I choose some magazines and newspapers, such as English World, English Salon, China Daily, Shanghai Star, 21th century as my learning materials. The school library, in this sense, contributes a lot to my English learning. I don’t need to buy all of them and cram them all the time.
In addition, I do also read a lot books concerning oral English, written English, advanced grammar, idioms and etc. Sometimes even I myself could felt perhaps I was a bit too crazy about it. On my bookshelf there are so many English books that sometimes I even don’t know which one I should choose.
But soon I found out it seemed my English had no any improvement. That didn’t make any sense! Worse than that, I began to confuse which word and expressing way I should use when writing some articles. I figured out English was not under my control any more.
I guess, the disordered and unorganized reading habits I chose somewhat resulted in my problem. I couldn’t differentiate which usage could be formal and which is informal. When writing articles I always mixed them up. And one thing that really beats me is I know I have problem but I can’t find it on my own.
I tried to make what I have written as clear as possible, whereas, in most time, when writing, the sentences just come up almost automatically. Although, from time to time, I want what I wrote could to be relatively formal, but it turned out to be always the same, Formal and informal expressions are all mixed up, which really depressed me a lot.
Once my teacher asked me to help him to translate his adviser’s paper. But as soon as I got it, I knew that was impossible. For I read and found the subject of the paper was very serious and formal, which means formal translation should be a must. But, as you know, I was totally unfamiliar to that. I am a layman
This thing frustrated me for a long time. I began to realize that how important separating formal English from informal English is and how badly I need to focus on it. For,generally speaking, as a tool of communication, English is divided and used in two different environments, that is, common and casual situation and official and formal one.
For me, if I want to build up my near future in some foreign company or joint venture, that means I need to focus more on formal English comparatively, for in those environments documents and all stuff need to be built up in English. And as most of them would be filed for reference and admitted by law, which means any error and inappropriate expression should be avoided as much as possible. So you see, whenever I thought of my future, I couldn’t stop worrying about my English.
I don’t know whether some of you here could also have such wondering in your life. If it does exists, then how is your way to break away from this dilemma and make your English more beautiful and sensible? How do your feel about formal and informal English? Does that really make difference or not?
I am looking forwards to your response, which would surely be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
