Discussion Groups / British English / January 2008

I can't at the minute think of a more self-centred word than
"supposed".
G DAEB
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I am a Chinese graduate student. The following is part of my master's
thesis. Who can help me polish my language. Thank you very much.
William Somerset Maugham (1874--1965), born in Paris, is one of the
most popular writers in British literature. He has created about 20

The following is part of my master's thesis. Can you help me
correct my language? The format needn't correcting. Thank you so much.
    1.4 A Brief Survey of Images of China in British Literature
........(some parts are omitted here)

for a translation of an article I am looking for the correct english terms
of the following item:
German "Etagenhangbau" = engl ???:
This is a form of agriculture of grassland on the slope of a hill

I stumbled upon the latter use recently, and it got me thinking.
There seems to be some exceptions to the simple rule that I still
use when deciding on "a" or "an"...
If you go by the word "decrease", the "a 80% decrease" would be