[jelliclesfarm]

English is not my native language, but the medium of education in my school was English.

My grandmother used to make me read three articles from the newspaper. One from the front page, one from the weather pages and one from the sports pages. Puzzles on weekends and it was our job to scan and read out obituaries everyday.

She was born in 1921 and never went to school after 8th grade. She learnt how to spell and write in English because she figured newspaper articles were already spell checked and edited for correct grammar etc. I had to chuckle as I imagined re what she would have said if she were alive in our buzzfeed and dailymail times.

[floren]

Go back and look at archives of old newspapers. Seems like any time I read an old newspaper article, say from the 60s, I spot more grammatical mistakes than say a given Buzzfeed or Daily Mail article.

[jelliclesfarm]

Not in India, it wasn’t..the English was impeccable. Newspapers was how so many people who didn’t go to school brushed up and learnt English grammar and spelling.

When you are 45 and have 3 kids..and as a housewife have never learnt English..a newspaper lying around was great reading material in the afternoons between cooking and cleaning. And it was cheap..almost free. Self paced language lessons!