FB: Personal Profiles Task

Hi there!

Hereunder you will find some important feedback from your exercise presenting yourself to your new employer in the form of a 'Personal Profile'. Please READ this, commit to memory and USE this in your future work/English conversations as soon as you can: once you USE it you OWN it and it will come naturally in future. OK?

I WILL go over this in class…..

Tutor's observations:

1. I set this up as a professional exercise and was expecting a professional response, yet I think only three people actually produced something using a PC: why?  If your boss asked you to produce something for the company magazine or website, it goes without saying that he would expect it to be produced digitally to be scanned/OCR-read….  In future, please would you produce things using a PC and print them (unless I give you instructions to the contrary)  It is easy, you can type faster than you can write, you can legitimately USE the help offered by the English spellcheck facility in WORD, it looks more professional and is easier for me to read.
2. Have a look at personal profiles online – most people on Linked-In have one.  Look HERE for some advice about how to write profiles…. you will see that they are NOT just a couple of lines hastily thrown together: companies would expect something SHARP, perhaps on a half or full typed page.  Some of you were offering only 5-7 lines handwritten: it just isn't enough (for the purpose or for me to really judge your English).

EXPRESSIONS

• Not 'I have growed up', but 'I grew up'
• Not 'during three years', but 'for three years'
• 'A little city': do you mean a 'town' or a 'village' (In England places are 'cities' because of massive populations, the existence of a cathedral and because of the King/Queen's charter.)
• 'Few people' (relative term) is not the same as 'a few people' (absolute term). I might say 'Few people watch FC Mulhouse nowadays' and mean a couple of thousand as opposed to the ten thousand that used to watch…. whereas 'a few people' means 5 or 6 perhaps: a very small number.

VERBS

• Not 'I have 23 years' but 'I am 23' or 'I am 23 years old'.
• 'He learn me': No: someone else teaches you and you learn.
• 'I practice football'… Mmm this is OK, but a bit strange.  Usually practice means you are not yet any good and can't play properly.  Better to say: 'I play football' / 'I enjoy motocross' etc.
• 'I did this for 10 years' means it is finished / I don't do it any more.  'I have been doing this for 10 years' means you were and you still are doing it.
• 'I prepare my degree'.  No you don't you 'do a degree' or you 'read for your degree' or you 'study for your degree'.  If you are 'preparing to do your degree' it means you have not started it yet: you are getting ready to do it. If anyone has prepared your degree… then it is your teachers who designed it and got it ready to teach you!
• Faire = to do OR to make.  Mostly in English it is 'DO-ing'. Only use make when something is being rather literally created by the hands or the mind.  'My son made a mess of his homework'…'I am making a model of Concorde'.
• Permettre. Here there is a permissive sense and a facilitating sense in English. 'I allowed my son to drive my car' = permissive sense.  'The money we had saved enabled us to buy a new car' = facilitating sense.
• Could, would and should.  'COULD.  'He could always move house' = it is possible / he may.  WOULD. 'He would move house if he had the money' = Something that will be done, only conditional upon some other event.  SHOULD. 'He should move house' = he ought to / he must, but there still remains a possibility that he will not.

PREPOSITIONS

• At / in ENSISA.  In this case 'at' refers to an attachment, so 'I am studying at ENSISA' means that is your faculty and sometimes you are there. 'I am in ENSISA' speaks of actual physical position at a moment in time position – 'Where are you?  I'm in ENSISA Werner'.
• In / to / into.  'I am in the east of France' is as above: a physical position.  .  'Germany is to the East of France' is position. 'The troops moved west into France' = movement from outside to inside.
• 'On your service' – no 'At your service, Madame'.

FAUX AMIS / False Friends

• Serious in English does not mean assiduous or determined, it means 'grave'!  You would never say on a cv: 'I am an extremely serious person'!
• 'I am particularly sensible to' means perhaps that you have an allergy to something – you are very 'sensitive' in some way.  'Sensible' in English means you have good common sense!
• No, you did not do a 'formation' at ENSIA.  You mean 'training' or 'education & training'.  Formation in English means one of two things: the very beginning of something: 'the formation of the Beatles was in the early 1960s' means that they got together NOT that they learned how to play and took music lessons!!! ..OR.. the arrangement of something: 'The Red Arrows RAF display team fly their jets in close formation'. 
• 'Fournitures' (fr) does not mean 'furniture'.  Furniture are things like seats, chairs, tables: 'meubles' in fact!  By 'fournitures' you mean materials / equipment.

CONVENTIONS

• Titles.  the French are clever!  They begin a title with a capital letter and automatically know where the title will end.  The English aren't so clever: we like to be told where the title starts and finishes. In French then it would be 'The world commission on environment and development explains that….' In English: 'The World Commission on Environment and Development explains…..   Please get this right!
• Names.  In a letter or on a cv I am Tony Jolley… I am not JOLLEY, Tony or Tony JOLLEY even.  By convention the first name comes, well, first and the family name last. There is therefore no need to CAPITALISE your surname to distinguish it from your first name!  The English are simple, uncomplicated and logical really.
• Letters. Always 'Dear…..', and then 'Re:' (The equivalent of the French 'Objet'.  Why, because the English are more polite – we greet you first and then tell you what it is about!
• US v UK and rest of the world.  They say the UK and US are 'Two nations DIVIDED by a common language'….. There are some important differences you would need to be aware of depending upon whether you are writing to one or other of the nations.  Re / er. Fibre = UK  / Fiber uk US… same goes for theatre and theater.  S/z. Despite our pronunciation sounding like a 'z' in the UK we would write: organiSe, SpecialiSe realiSe whereas the US prefer organiZe and realiZe.  this is where your Word Spellchecker comes in handy: you can set it to UK or US English.
• 'School' in English is almost exclusively used for primary and secondary level education.  You would never say: 'I went to school at ENSISA'… 'I went to the Engineering School at the University of HA' would be better to make it plain.

CONJUNCTIONS.

• Conjunctions JOIN/LINK things together as the name suggests. Therefore, generally it is not considered to be good style to commence a sentence with a conjuntion

SINGULAR or PLURAL?

• Some words are automatically both singular and plural: information, advice, knowledge, fish – they do not need and 's' added to them.

ARTICLES.

• 'A incredible journey'. No, 'AN incredible journey'…. when the word starts with a vowel (and more often than not with an 'h') the indefinite article 'a' changes to 'an'….. because it doesn't sound very nice to say 'a incredible'.

NOUNS / Adjectives / Spelling

• It is 'Mechanical Engineer…. not 'mecanical' or 'Ingenieur', OK?
• Sebastien Loeb is NOT a 'pilot' (unless he flies a plane!!) – he is a rally driver.
• 'The Direction' means 'the Management' in English.
• Not 'usefull', but 'useful' – just one 'l'. Apart from the word 'full' itself, all other words with the sound of 'full' at the end have only ONE 'l': hence 'beautiful', 'doubtful' etc
• 'wich' only appears in the word 'sandwich'. 'Witch' means a sorceress and 'which' gives you 'Which is my glass?' or 'The glass which is on the table is yours, Tony'.

We will doubtless add other such lists with each successive assignment.  Commit these to memory and use them!  I will be testing you…. and so will TOEIC!!!