My english essay

[Blood]

Alrighty, I decided to post this here to learn from my mistakes and get some commentary on the essay I wrote last thursday on one of my english courses. It's a farewell speech for an american exchange student visiting Finland. Here goes:

Good day everyone. It was decided that I will give our visitor from the United States of America, John Doe, his farewell speech. Since I am known for my notoriously long-winding announcements on the school radio, I decided to cut to the chase this time. Though it has been a whole year, it seems to have passed by in a heartbeat. Around this time last year, we were wondering who the peculiar-looking stranger attending our classes was. It was not long, however, before we really got to know John. It was his ability to be open-minded that made it easy for us take him in to our group. It was also no small feat for John to adapt to our customs with ease, something in which I propably would have failed in, had I ever travelled abroad as an exchange student. We finns can be stubborn sometimes. I have a gift for you, John, from the entire school, to commammorate your time here and something to remember us by during all the years ahead of you. I present to you a miniature sauna, a bottle of beer and a packet of sausages. We felt that these items would symbolize our nation best. With these words and one last thank you, I bid you farewell and hope to see you once more some day.

I bolded some words and phrases I'm going to try to discuss now and hope you realize what an idiot my teacher is:

Good day everyone. -My teacher felt that this was a "a bit glumsy beginning". Yes, GLUMSY, exact word. Maybe a bit trite, but worth underlining with a red marker? I don't think so. These sort of things are rarely commented on by the teachers anyway.

to cut to the chase -Now I'm not 100% sure about this phrase, but I think I've heard it on TV enough times to use it in an essay. Not sure if it's without the second 'to', just 'cut the chase', or something. I'm sure you all know what it means, getting to the point, but my english teacher felt that this phrase did not exist and the dictionary did not allow the word chase to used in such a way.

us take -Alright, I missed a 'to' here, thanks to not proof-reading the text afterwards. I admit my mistake.

finns -Also missed the capital letter here.

commammorate -Now I don't think this is a word, or at least how it's spelled. I've heard this somewhere a few times, and I thought it meant something like signifying something, commammorating your time here, like in the text. My teacher accepted it though, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

one last thank you -For some reason, my teacher felt that there should be a "," between the words thank and you. She admit her mistake in the end, but still it's pretty weird.

So, why did I post this here? I want you, who speak the language as your native language, to comment on my text, to tell me how to improve it and to correct the errors my teacher did not spot. This essay may seem short to you, but for us it's a foreign language and the essay is standard high school length. I received 95 points out of a maximum of 99.

[Blood]

this goes out to troll king

[ZeUs!!]

Edit: spasticated

[ZeUs!!]

Re: My english essay

Originally posted by Blood
Good day everyone. It was decided that I will give our visitor from the United States of America, John Doe, his farewell speech. Since I am known for my notoriously long-winding it's 'long-winded' announcements on the school radio, I decided to cut to the chase correctamondo this time. Though it has been a whole year, it seems to have passed by in a heartbeat. Around this time last year, we were wondering who the peculiar-looking stranger attending our classes was. It was not long, however, before we really got to know John. It was his ability to be open-minded that made it easy for us take him in to our group. It was also no small feat for John to adapt to our customs with ease, something in which I propably would have failed in, had I ever travelled abroad as an exchange student. As we finns can be stubborn sometimes, I have a gift for you John, from the entire school, to commammorate your time here and something to remember us by during all the years ahead of you. I present to you a miniature sauna, a bottle of beer and a packet of sausages. We felt that these items would symbolize our nation best. With these words and one last thank you (correctamondo) I bid you farewell and hope to see you once more some day.

[Blood]

yeah i remember thinking about that when i wrote it, but i thought long-winding was just as right

[cundor]

You are no longer permitted to write...

[Fruitang]

My only beef is with the commas, my english teacher taught me that any details between 2 commas in the same sentence can usually be left out. Since it's a modern language essay I gather you have some word target to aim for? So all I have to say is to tr and link sentences together and try not to use more than 1 comma per sentence, 2 if necessary. Anymore isn't needed.

[Verthanthi]

Cut to the chase is a cliche. Maybe that is the problem.

[Facetious]

Re: My english essay

Originally posted by Blood
commammorate -Now I don't think this is a word, or at least how it's spelled. I've heard this somewhere a few times, and I thought it meant something like signifying something, commammorating your time here, like in the text. My teacher accepted it though, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

Yeah, commemorate is a word.

[Troll King]

"Good day everyone" sounds like the kind of thing you would say to start off a business meeting before you sit down at the end of the table, smooth out your tie, open your briefcase and take a sip of the coffee to wet your throat. The problem with this is that it's curt, like something you say just to get the greetings out of the way. In this kind of case, that might not be the impression you want to start your speech with.

If you are already standing up and saying this then it's pretty obvious that you're making a speech. Telling people that you are making a speech IN the speech is kind of pointless. Instead, just say that you would like to deliver some farewell wishes, or something like that.

"cut to the chase" is a well used phrase, but if people aren't very familiar with it or if you're worried about it being too cliche, you might want to use something that is more personal, like an inside joke or something. You've already implied that you're known for your wordiness, you might want to throw in a joke about that. There's nothing really wrong about using it here (those who worry about it being cliche, fret not, because it's not really cliche if the audience isn't really that familiar to its use).

The "heartbeat" sentence reads a bit awkwardly. "Though it has been a whole year, it has passed by in a heartbeat"... you have the word "it" used twice in this sentence, but haven't explained what "it" refers to. You might wnat to change the start of the sentence to "You have been with us for a whole year, but". Note that I suggested a "but" after the comma. That is there because you are making a contrast between how long the time has been and how short it felt. The comma is not considered "strong" enough to be used on its own here.

You might want to be careful with describing John as "peculiar". It might be alright, but I don't know enough about the dynamics of your school or how close you might be. If you think people will get it and that John isn't too sensitive about something, then go ahead. If there was something that might actually be "peculiar" about the way he looks and people have been picking on him for it, then don't. That probably isn't the case anyway, but you never know.

Do correct the capitalizing of "Finns", but don't put an "as" like Zeus suggested unless you also plan to combine this with the previous sentence. If you keep "We Finns can be stubborn" as its own sentence, the "as" isn't necessary, but if you changed the period before "we" into a comma, then it would. (For the life of me, I can't see why Zeus chose to combine your describing yourselves as stubborn with the giving of a gift. They aren't giving him the gift BECAUSE they are stubborn, Zeus.) You had it right the first time, Blood.

Facetious is right, it's spelt "commemorate". Think of commemorate as in co- "memory" and you'll see why it's spelt that way. Commammorate sounds like something you do with someone's breasts. I don't know if you and John are THAT friendly.

You don't need the word "something" in the commemorate sentence. The "and" between "to commemorate" and "to remember" should be used to join two logically and syntactically equal things. This is called parallelism. If you don't get what that means, think of it this way: you want the two things surrounding "and" to look more or less the same, in terms of structure and what kind of words you use. If one side has a lot of adjectives, the other side must as well, so it will balance. Right now, you have just "to commemorate your time here" just before "and", so you only need "to remember us during..." afterwards. (NOTE: take out the "by" before during. It's not necessary.) That "something" you refer to is the gift you stated at the start of the sentence, so you don't need to add "something" in front of "to remember' unless you're talking about something other than the gift.

The "thank you" part is alright. The only thing I would say about the ending is
to ask if you're making this speech to represent the school, as in you're saying it but in a way, everyone means it. If you are speaking on behalf of everybody (as you imply by saying the gifts are "from the entire school",) you might want to reflect that you speak for everybody at the beginning and at the end of your speech. Otherwise it just sounds like you're the only one who's saying goodbye.

[ZeUs!!]

Originally posted by Troll King
Do correct the capitalizing of "Finns", but don't put an "as" like Zeus suggested unless you also plan to combine this with the previous sentence. If you keep "We Finns can be stubborn" as its own sentence, the "as" isn't necessary, but if you changed the period before "we" into a comma, then it would. (For the life of me, I can't see why Zeus chose to combine your describing yourselves as stubborn with the giving of a gift. They aren't giving him the gift BECAUSE they are stubborn, Zeus.) You had it right the first time, Blood.

To me it reads easier if you start it with 'as', breaks up the stop/start/stop/startness of all the full stops and capital letters. I just flows better

[Troll King]

You can do that if what comes after is part of the same sentence. Right now, you told him to say: We are stubborn, so that's why we have a gift for you. That is not what he was trying to say.

[za gophar]

the sentence structure was somewhat awkward at times. For instance:

It was decided that I will give our visitor from the United States of America, John Doe, his farewell speech.

First I would change that to: "It has been decided that I am to give John Doe, our visitor from the United States of America, a farewell speech."

that comes across as a little aloof though, like you dont really want to do it at all but rather someone is having you do it.

So instead of "it has been decided that I am to give John Doe....." i would say "i have been given the honor of saying good bye to John Doe, our visitor from the United States, on behalf of the school."

[Blood]

thanks guys, i agree with most of the points made here. zeus is a shithead though. it's funny how my english is top-notch in finland, the grade I got means that I'm in the top 5% of the people my age, and I still have a lot to improve.

i called out for you troll king, and you delivered, cheers

[ZeUs!!]

dickwad