How to prevent deterioration of your English language skills due to use of Technology
Posted on | September 8, 2009 | 3 Comments
Technology has been a boon, especially in the field of communication. We can speak to many without much effort. Want to tell your friend what you are doing or what you are feeling, just tweet or do a status update in Facebook and all your friends will come to know about it in a jiffy. We also use the old fashioned text message. However, due to the constraint of space we have learnt to use slang words and poorly formed sentences. This has resulted in deterioration of our language skills.
We are not able to spell, use correct words at correct time and frame correct sentences.What’s more your handwriting might have taken a beating. The problem is severe if you are a programmer and spend most of the time in front of a computer.
Well there are several solutions to this problem. The first and the most important one is to write whenever possible. Read physical books whenever possible. Computers have replaced both these things, but the real way of reading and writing does improve your language skills. Read newspapers as they have editorial columns,etc. which are good source to improve your language. You might argue that the same paper is available online, but internet is mostly and automatically used by many to get information quickly but not to improve any language skills because it is the way most of us are ingrained.
When you write a blog or an important email, physically write it first and then type it. Use a physical thesaurus and a dictionary. It is because, as old people say, you might learn new words in an attempt to find one word as well as remember those words for later use.
If you have to type turn off the auto-spell check and then type. Check all the spellings and grammar yourself and then hit the spell-check button to verify.
There are many sites like reddit and slashdot where you can go and read good comments. These sites user are particular about the English and will not tolerate slang language. Users of Reddit write witty comments which are entertaining to read while improving your command over language.
Write proper sentences and words in forums. This is not possible in IRC,etc. But, try to write completely wherever possible.
The last thing is don’t google for a word. Use thesaurus or a dictionary to find that word. This is an interesting article about how Google is ruining our intelligence.
Give English exams that are available online, most of them are free. Play word based games. This will help you have command over the ‘Queen’s Language’.
One of my teacher had once said “Technology can be used only to learn technology based things. It can’t substitute the way we learn the real things”. Partly true.
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3 Responses to “How to prevent deterioration of your English language skills due to use of Technology”
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September 16th, 2009 @ 5:10 am
good job man…whatever u say is valid…but think of a more practical side to it…think about ti…u r blog wouldn’t be here if there was no email…or internet…eh!!..it saves a lot of time…and time is galleons..buddy…
September 17th, 2009 @ 4:59 am
That is what I have written, do the job manually, whenever you can. Will help you in the long run.
February 11th, 2011 @ 11:27 pm
Keep it up bro, this is what i’ve been looking for.
Back in my school days, i used speak and write so fluently that people thought it was my right to do so. But now that i am out of school, i am gradually backsliding in my speaking and even, writing abilities.
Also, please tell me, can listening to rap affect one’s way of constructing sentences? Because i do that too often and i not only listen to it, i have too many rap lyrics up in my head.