Some selected lyrics from Denison Witmer‘s song “Are you a Dreamer?“:
Dream, are you a dreamer?
Are you a dreamer?
Do you dream?
Sleep, are you a sleeper?
Are you a sleeper?
Do you sleep?
[...]
Love, are you my lover?
Are you my lover?
Do you love me?
Save, are you a savior?
Are you a savior?
Will you save?
As a linguist with experience teaching English, my reaction was, this song could be good material …
No, not THAT kind of contractions…
One thing I’ve noticed about students of English in China is a tendency to ignore contractions. Chinese college students tend to be weak on spoken skills in general, and one of the symptoms is this failure to use contractions. We native speakers like to use contractions in informal speech, and as a student of English, failing to follow suit makes you stick out. When I taught English in Hangzhou, I used to focus on …
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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