by gavinmac » Sat Jan 14, 2017 12:01 pm
I've noticed that a lot of Cambodians and other learners of English often put spaces before most/all commas and periods. I'm not just talking about beginners, I'm including people who are semi-literate in English and can get their point across in sentences but they still put spaces before every comma. Is there a particular reason why they do that? It's never correct in English to have a space before the punctuation mark, and it's the sort of thing that I, not a teacher, would think could be easily taught to a student on about day 3 of their studies.
Teacher: "Do you see all these spaces before your commas and periods?"
Student" "Yes"
Teacher: "Don't ever do that it's always wrong in English."
Student: "OK"
I've tried googling and it says something about their being spaces before some punctuation in French, is that why some learners mistakenly do it in English? Are there punctuation marks in Khmer and are they following some Khmer rule about spacing?
I've noticed that a lot of Cambodians and other learners of English often put spaces before most/all commas and periods. I'm not just talking about beginners, I'm including people who are semi-literate in English and can get their point across in sentences but they still put spaces before every comma. Is there a particular reason why they do that? It's never correct in English to have a space before the punctuation mark, and it's the sort of thing that I, not a teacher, would think could be easily taught to a student on about day 3 of their studies.
Teacher: "Do you see all these spaces before your commas and periods?"
Student" "Yes"
Teacher: "Don't ever do that it's always wrong in English."
Student: "OK"
I've tried googling and it says something about their being spaces before some punctuation in French, is that why some learners mistakenly do it in English? Are there punctuation marks in Khmer and are they following some Khmer rule about spacing?