# With my American teachers co-workers



## Bagsensei

Hello, everyone.

"with my American teachers co-workers."

Writing a photo caption, does the word order of the sentence correct?
I just want to emphasize that they are American aside from simply saying "with my co-workers"
-5 Americans in the photo

Thank you.


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## perpend

I'd probably just use a slash.

"with my American teachers / co-workers"


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## heypresto

Yes, 'American' is in the right position. But are they your teachers or your co-workers?


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## Bagsensei

heypresto said:


> Yes, 'American' is in the right position. But are they your teachers or your co-workers?


They are my co-workers.


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## Bagsensei

perpend said:


> I'd probably just use a slash.
> 
> "with my American teachers / co-workers"


Thank you for your reply, Perpend. The American teachers I'm referring to are not my teachers they are my co-workers.
I just wanted to emphasize that they are American teachers because I also have Canadian, New Zealander, etc co-workers. How should I paraphrase it?


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## heypresto

Do you mean that they are your co-workers, and that they are teachers by profession? If so, is it necessary to say they are teachers?

Going back to the original question, I'd suggest: ' . . . with my American co-workers'. 

But I may be missing something still.


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## perpend

I guess "Here me with my American teachers along with my co-workers".

I'm not quite certain at this point, Bags!


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## boozer

And I would use the word colleagues: With my American colleagues.
Anyone who knows you are a teacher will understand the Americans are teachers, too.


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## perpend

My bad, I think. I realized that there are at minimum 2-3 perspectives for such a selfie.

I hadn't considered the scenarios.


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## Bagsensei

heypresto said:


> Do you mean that they are your co-workers, and that they are teachers by profession? If so, is it necessary to say they are teachers?
> 
> Going back to the original question, I'd suggest: ' . . . with my American co-workers'.
> 
> But I may be missing something still.


Thank you so much fro your input, Heypresto. That's right, they are teachers by profession and they are my co-workers.


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## Bagsensei

boozer said:


> And I would use the word colleagues: With my American colleagues.
> Anyone who knows you are a teacher will understand the Americans are teachers, too.


Thank you so much for that, Boozer.


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## Bagsensei

perpend said:


> I guess "Here me with my American teachers along with my co-workers".
> 
> I'm not quite certain at this point, Bags!


Thank you for your suggestions, Perpend. Combining everyone's helpful suggestions, I have come with this, "Here me with my American co-teachers." How's that? Since, I am a teacher, too. Thanks as always!


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## perpend

Thanks for following up! It is clear now.

Boozer hit in on the head (understood it clearly). I would use "American colleagues": Here me with my American colleagues". 

There's just something that gets lost in translation: "co-".

I've just thought about "fellow": "Here me with my fellow American teachers". ("fellow" ties in the "co-")

Boozer's version is just smooth and concise, though. I'd go with that.

EDIT: I didn't say this but "my American co-teachers" doesn't sound idiomatic for some reason.


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## Parla

> Combining everyone's helpful suggestions, I have come up with this: "Here me with my American co-teachers." How's that?


Sorry, Bagsensei, but "here me" is not grammatical English. And "my American co-teachers" sounds as if all of your co-workers are Americans; you have said that some are from Canada, New Zealand, etc.

This would work: Here I am with some of my co-workers, American teachers.


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## perpend

"Here me ..." sounds idiomatic for a caption, for me. It's just me, but that gets too wordy for a caption (your suggestion), in my opinion.


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## Andygc

Bagsensei, you appear to want to say that they are American, they are teachers and they are co-workers. That means that you are not including co-workers who are American, but not teachers (classroom assistants, administrators etc). The simplest way is to use "teacher" as a modifier (adjective ). You started with a perfectly good caption, which had the advantage of not being ungrammatical (here me  ). All you need to do is to remove one letter "s".

"with my American teacher co-workers."


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## perpend

I said it above, but "(with my) American teacher co-workers" is not idiomatic in American English.


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## Andygc

perpend said:


> I said it above, but "(with my) American teacher co-workers" is not idiomatic in American English.


No you didn't.


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## perpend

perpend said:


> EDIT: I didn't say this but "my American co-teachers" doesn't sound idiomatic for some reason.



I certainly tried to say it there (see above).


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## velisarius

"Me with my American teacher colleagues" sounds better to me, since teaching is a profession. "Co-workers" is very inclusive; it could include people on the school staff who are not teachers, couldn't it?


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## Andygc

Perpend, I really don't see how 





> "my American co-teachers" doesn't sound idiomatic for some reason.


relates to 


> "with my American teacher co-workers."


I don't find "co-teachers" idiomatic in BE either, but "co-worker" appears 742 times and "co-workers" appears 1880 times in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, so I guess that passes for idiomatic AE.


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## Andygc

velisarius said:


> "Me with my American teacher colleagues" sounds better to me, since teaching is a profession. "Co-workers" is very inclusive; it could include people on the school staff who are not teachers, couldn't it?


Not if the word "teacher" is there 
But I do agree that "colleagues" is preferable in BE.


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## Thomas Tompion

perpend said:


> "Here me ..." sounds idiomatic for a caption, for me. It's just me, but that gets too wordy for a caption (your suggestion), in my opinion.


If it's a caption, I don't see any need to put *Here etc.*

If the caption is obviously specific to the photo put *Me with my etc...* as others have suggested.

If you must put *Here etc.*, in BE *Here me etc. *sounds extremely uneducated, and is to be  avoided energetically.

You could say *Here I am with etc.*


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## perpend

"Here me ..." doesn't sound uneducated for a caption for a pic in AmE. Why do you think otherwise?


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## Thomas Tompion

perpend said:


> "Here me ..." doesn't sound uneducated for a caption for a pic in AmE. Why do you think otherwise?





Parla said:


> Sorry, Bagsensei, but "here me" is not grammatical English.


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## Loob

I like veli's solution in post 20:





velisarius said:


> "Me with my American teacher colleagues"


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## Thomas Tompion

Loob said:


> I like veli's solution in post 20:


Yes, so do I.  We are agreeing for once, Loob.


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## perpend

And hence, Bagsensei's text has turned into a BrE text. Kudos, BrE!


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## Loob

What do you mean, perp? You said earlier that you liked "colleagues".


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## perpend

I would keep it like Boozer proposed way above: With my American colleagues.

I see no need to include "teacher". Shall I, I would try to tie in "fellow" as stated above.


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## perpend

For the record "Here me ..." isn't unacceptable in AmE because Parla doesn't use it, for a caption, TT.


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## Thomas Tompion

perpend said:


> For the record "Here me ..." isn't unacceptable in AmE because Parla doesn't use it, for a caption, TT.


Certainly she is using it for the caption, and I'm afraid she says that the form you propose in AE is "not grammatical English".

If I'm wrong about this, she can put me right.

She goes on to suggest the educated form (in BE and in AE (apparently)) *Here I am with etc.*


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## Loob

Re post 30:

Perp, if you wanted to use "fellow", wouldn't it have to be "my American fellow-teachers" rather than "my fellow American teachers" as in your post 13?


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## perpend

Nope, I'd have to bring the "fellow" forward, like in my post (#13).


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## Andygc

perpend said:


> "...... with my fellow American teachers".


Would work if Bagsenei was American, or a teacher whose subject is "American", but Bagsensei is Japanese and I don't think "American" is a school subject.


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## perpend

But Bagsensei has said in this thread that he/she is a teacher. From my understanding thus far, his/her fellow teachers are in large part American.


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## perpend

Andy, when using "fellow teachers", is there a race involved, when you read it?


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## Loob

My fellow American teachers = *my {fellow American} teachers *or* my fellow {American teachers}.*
My American fellow-teachers= *my American {fellow teachers}*.


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## velisarius

I refuse to believe that such a simple caption can be a source of AE/BE friction. I'm perfectly happy with Parla's version anyway. In fact I'm happy with any of the versions suggested so far - apart from the dreadful "Here me..", (which reminds me of "Me Jane-you Tarzan"). 

Since Bagsensei has taken the trouble to come to a language forum for advice on how to best phrase his caption, I think it's our duty to provide him with something that is correct, coherent and idiomatic.

Glad to see that we at least speak the same language, Parla.


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## sdgraham

velisarius said:


> I refuse to believe that such a simple caption can be a source of AE/BE friction. I'm perfectly happy with Parla's version anyway. In fact I'm happy with any of the versions suggested so far - apart from the dreadful "Here me..", (which reminds me of "Me Jane-you Tarzan").



Indeed.

On its face, it seems to be mocking the attempts of learners to write good English.

I'm assuming that it's not intentional.


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## cyberpedant

boozer said:


> And I would use the word colleagues: With my American colleagues.
> Anyone who knows you are a teacher will understand the Americans are teachers, too.



colleague (n.) 


1530s, from Middle French collègue (16c.), from Latin collega "partner in office," from com- "with" (see com-) + leg-, stem of legare "to choose" (see legate). So, "one chosen to work with another," or "one chosen at the same time as another."
Really seems to be the best option.


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## Thomas Tompion

If you wished to make clear 

1. that the people in the photo are Americans,
2. and teachers.
3. and that you worked with them, I'd say

*With my American teaching colleagues*.

This is very close to Velisarius's suggestion back in post #20.  I prefer the adjective *teaching* to the noun-adjective *teacher*.

I prefer *colleagues* to* co-workers*, partly because *co-workers* is modern technoslang to me, and partly because some people drop the hyphen and take us into the dairy.


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## heypresto

Thomas Tompion said:


> and partly because some people drop the hyphen and take us into the dairy.


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## JamesM

Thomas Tompion said:


> If you wished to make clear
> 
> 1. that the people in the photo are Americans,
> 2. and teachers.
> 3. and that you worked with them, I'd say
> 
> *With my American teaching colleagues*.
> 
> This is very close to Velisarius's suggestion back in post #20.  I prefer the adjective *teaching* to the noun-adjective *teacher*.



That's an excellent solution, in my opinion.



			
				Perpend said:
			
		

> "Here me ..." doesn't sound uneducated for a caption for a pic in AmE.



I'm afraid to does to me.  "Here* is *me" or "Here's me" sounds colloquial to me, non-standard but still like American English.  "Here me" doesn't.  It sounds like a non-native speaker wrote it.


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## srk

Thomas Tompion said:


> *With my American teaching colleagues*.


With the American that I own, seen teaching my colleagues.  (In keeping with today's seeming effort to make an issue out of everything.)


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## Loob

That's really very funny, srk

(What's your solution to the original question?)


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## srk

Loob said:


> What's your solution to the original question?


I like Andy's "teacher co-workers" or "teacher colleagues."  I like perpend's "teachers/colleagues."  Of course, TT's "American teaching colleagues" works too.


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## velisarius

Perpend's suggestion back in post #2 was "with my American teachers / co-workers", which could be interpreted as meaning that some of the people in the picture were teachers and others were co-workers. (Also there should be no space each side of the slash.)


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## Bagsensei

Parla said:


> Sorry, Bagsensei, but "here me" is not grammatical English. And "my American co-teachers" sounds as if all of your co-workers are Americans; you have said that some are from Canada, New Zealand, etc.
> 
> This would work: Here I am with some of my co-workers, American teachers.


Thanks so much, Parla.


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## Bagsensei

Andygc said:


> Bagsensei, you appear to want to say that they are American, they are teachers and they are co-workers. That means that you are not including co-workers who are American, but not teachers (classroom assistants, administrators etc). The simplest way is to use "teacher" as a modifier (adjective ). You started with a perfectly good caption, which had the advantage of not being ungrammatical (here me  ). All you need to do is to remove one letter "s".
> 
> "with my American teacher co-workers."


Thanks so much, Andy.


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## Bagsensei

velisarius said:


> "Me with my American teacher colleagues" sounds better to me, since teaching is a profession. "Co-workers" is very inclusive; it could include people on the school staff who are not teachers, couldn't it?


Thanks a lot for your great suggestion, Velisarius.


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## Bagsensei

Thank you very much everyone for all your input. I am learning a lot from your responses.
'Here I am with are my...' was given by Parla in her post. I'm wondering if I could also use 'Here with me are my...' as an equivalent?


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## RedwoodGrove

"Me with my American teacher co-workers" would have been more than sufficient and very sincere. It is how photos have been signed for numerous decades. You don't have to be 100% grammatical all the time.


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## Thomas Tompion

RedwoodGrove said:


> "Me with my American teacher co-workers" would have been more than sufficient and very sincere. It is how photos have been signed for numerous decades. You don't have to be 100% grammatical all the time.


You imply that this is ungrammatical, RedwoodGrove.  I don't see that it is.  It was 'here me' which several people didn't like.


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## RedwoodGrove

OK, my mistake.


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