@dolas - I agree with the nudges towards ACCA and CPA....and forget abt the ICDL - I rate myself as a grandmaster in MS Word 2003 and a semi-pro with MS Excel though my certificate states "Word Perfect 5.1, Lotus 1-2-3, MS Dos, Dbase III" - forget "vendor certification" - just get right the basics - whether you use Open Office, Star Office, or (shudder) MS Office - it remains the same.

AEMathenge - pls give the guy a break - I see he has asked for "advice" and not "advise" - that to me is an excellent start - when one can distinguish the noun from the verb. His diction and grammar seems OK, though punctuation is absent (perhaps owing to being in a hurry?) Having said that, I think if he is gravitating towards major number crunching, speaking and writing the queen's eegrich will not deter him much...

It's simple: most verbs have continuous tense ending in "ing". Now let's test advice versus advise:

ADVICING

ADVISING

the first one looks funny, doesn't it? Thus it cannot be a verb. Therefore ADVICE is a noun and ADVISE is the verb (the act of giving advice)

Another way of distinguishing them is in the way the are pronounced.

ADVICE = "advais"

ADVISE = "advaiz" ...with a zz sound at the end.

When all is said and done, good English is largely a matter of attitude. Therefore no amount of training will help an adult improve their language if they are not self-motivated to do so. Well, that applies to ALL adult learning, but it is most crucial in language learning in my view.

How many times do we hear people retort that "I am not a mzungu" or "You understand what I mean - don't bother with the grammar" etc.

People with these attitudes will REFUSE to learn and improve their language skills no matter which school, college or training institution you take them to!

I was taught English only up to Form 4 (26 years ago) and since then, I have been trying to improve my skills in the language every time I get a chance. So when some one corrects me, I take it positively and make a note of not repeating the mistake.

I do the same with Kiswahili and Kikuyu. Indeed, sometimes I joke that I speak better Kikuyu than my mother...I have corrected her on several occasions.

Don't you find it embarrassing when senior people are interviewed in Kiswahili on TV and they respond in mix of Kiswahili(20%)+English(80%)? I do. If they are not comfortable in speaking Kiswahili, why not tell the producer that they will only speak English?

@Djinn,

Should he end up in an audit firm (where they'll be plenty of number crunching), he'll find he'll still be required to present reports of his findings to various Boards of Directors in proper "Engrich".

Right here you will see the attitude problem I was talking about. True, many accountants have a poor command of the English language and this is the main reason why many lay people find it hard to understand accounts reports....the accountants are not able to explain the numbers in ordinary language.



Let me correct this one: CPA, CFA, ACCA are NOT acronyms; they are abbreviations.

uuuuh quite economics ooh econometrics and come do dentistry.
1. half the time people are in pain, and do not even care what language you speak.
2. you might never need more papers
3. chances of you getting a job 1 day post campus are very high.
4. we don't ussually worry about carreer progression... there is none.

5......you will deal with smelly mouths, induce pain and see blood almost every day.
welcome