Japanese Language

Anonymous

12:01 AM

Should we close the question by "fooon"? It is obviously a troll question, but I don't know if that makes it automatically off-topic or whatnot. (What close reason would we use?)

Anonymous

dainichi left a comment and voted to close

Anonymous

There are two close votes now.

Anonymous

The close reason is "shows no research effort. Easy to answer by consulting a dictionary. Likely to be a trolling question."

Anonymous

12:22 AM

I wonder what impression people get when characters say 我輩 in fiction today

Anonymous

12:46 AM

0

A: How would you use 裏切り in a sentence?

As the noun form, it can also be used simply like this. 彼の裏切りにカットした。 (I, or someone else) flew into a rage at his betrayal.

Anonymous

Can we distinguish カッとする from カットする?

Anonymous

It sounds almost like they intended it as a pun

Darius Jahandarie

2:11 AM

@snailboat 名前の無い猫を思い出せる。

But that's just me.

Anonymous

2:44 AM

@DariusJahandarie I know people make that association, but sometimes it seems like it might be inappropriate

3 to 5 business days

0

Q: What is wrong with this?

この問題でguestさんの解答はなぜダウンボートされたんですか。ここの人たちは馬鹿なの?死ぬの?

word-choice

never seen anyone do this before...

Anonymous

3:10 AM

I was watching a cartoon called Coppelion, and it has an old, rather grim soldier who says 我輩

Anonymous

@DariusJahandarie Although actually, your response reminded me of something

Anonymous

In Japanese, Snape says 我輩 :-)

Anonymous

islaya.sarashi.com/haripota01.html

Darius Jahandarie

Hah

I've definitely seen it used in other places, but the strongest association I have is with 吾輩は猫である.

ルシウスのニヤリとした顔、こわっｗｗ

Anonymous

Yeah, it makes sense that that would be the first thing that pops into a lot of people's minds

Anonymous

3:20 AM

I liked Harry Potter enough in Japanese (the first one)

Anonymous

But part of the reason is just because audio books aren't very popular in Japan, and that's one of the few books you can easily get one for

Darius Jahandarie

I wonder how many years it's going to take to actually feel like I don't suck at Japanese.

I feel pretty knowledgeable about Japanese right now, as in, I could talk about it and give all sorts of neat explanations for hours, but honestly that knowledge does not convert into proficiency.

Rilakkuma

How to type "infinity" ?

Anonymous

むげん

Anonymous

∞

Rilakkuma

3:30 AM

yes, that one!

Anonymous

You can't get it with むげん？

Rilakkuma

@Darius: ∞years.

Anonymous

Oh, good :-)

Darius Jahandarie

Hah, I read that as a Jeopardy-style response, I didn't think you were actually asking. :)

Rilakkuma

@snailboat no, does not come...

Anonymous

3:31 AM

Sad! Well, it does on my computer

Anonymous

Glad to be of service :-)

Darius Jahandarie

I get ∞ with むげん

mozc here, IIRC.

Anonymous

I feel more and more confident with Japanese all the time.

Anonymous

I'll probably never be good at it.

Anonymous

But I don't worry about that so much :-)

Darius Jahandarie

3:32 AM

Dunno. I'm an interesting mix of competitive and elitist, so I do worry about it quite a bit. :P

For something I've invested so much time into, I'd at least like to see the path to being extremely proficient with it, but I don't really -- not a viable path.

Rilakkuma

some 10 years ago I thought "wow, one day I would answer the phone and speak Japanese so easily, so then I will not suck"

Anonymous

Oh! I didn't mean that as a recommendation. :-)

Anonymous

We're all different people learning different things in different ways.

Rilakkuma

today I speak Japanese one the phone and people on the other side do not recognise I am not Japanese... But still feeling of "I suck" is not gone, because there are so many things I just don't get yet.

Darius Jahandarie

I didn't consider it to be a recommendation.

The only path I see is one which involves living in Japan for multiple decades and doing some serious reading on the side the entire time.

And that's absolutely not a path I'm interested in taking currently.

Maybe if economic and social things change quite a bit, but I don't really see that happening. :)

I think in a few years I at least won't make mistakes anymore in basic conversation, but I can't see having a large vocabulary or being able to read well anywhere on the horizon.

Hell, my vocabulary in English is still abysmal.

Rilakkuma

3:36 AM

I think no one is actually proficient enough to read everything in Japanese

Anonymous

帝王切開 is an interesting translation for C-section

Rilakkuma

...and even when you know enough about it eventually you bump into a local dialect which is pretty much a different language or at very least some very archaic form of the actual Japanese.

Anonymous

Some things that get called dialects are actually different languages.

Rilakkuma

I agree.

I visit Hachijo island often and islanders speak what they call 八丈語。Officially it is a large branch of four dialect groups of Japanese language but in fact it is very different from 標準語 and barely feels a dialect at all.

lexics are different, grammar is different.

寒い -> こぎーる for example

美女 -> めならべ

Darius Jahandarie

. o O (I guess a foreign language wasn't really a great time investment if I was aiming for mastery. :)

Anonymous

3:45 AM

@Rilakkuma I think linguists generally consider it a separate language.

Rilakkuma

Really? That's good. I've only read about it as "the most archaic dialect of Japanese".

Anonymous

I don't know. People classify stuff differently. Traditionally, all the Japonic languages were considered dialects of Japanese.

Rilakkuma

Yes, even Ainu language. But that's for political reasons.

Anonymous

4

A: Consensus among linguists about Ryukyuan varieties of Japonic

Having talked to Shibatani after the book was published, I can pretty safely say that he has since changed his mind. I think the basic consensus among linguists who have some specialization in Ryukyuan is that there are at least seven Japonic languages in two subgroups. The first subgroup is the...

Rilakkuma

I think it would be worth to actually study Hachijo language more at least to classify it properly. It has a lot of influence (or the opposite?) of Ryukyuan languages and of what is spoken in Kochi.

Anonymous

3:53 AM

Apart from thinking that language variety is a great thing on general principles, I have no personal interest in learning any Japonic language aside from Japanese

Rilakkuma

why?

Anonymous

It'd be a major time investment, and the path I see ahead of me doesn't leave huge amounts of time for interaction with native speakers of those languages

Rilakkuma

looking into another dialect or even a language of the group would widen the expertise within the "general" language I think

Anonymous

Sure. But it's a major tradeoff that you have to want to make.

Rilakkuma

Indeed it is.

While living in Japan I found out that actually learning the very proper "book" Japanese is a challenge, not the opposite way. Simply because of the great diversity within Japan - very little people actually speak "the proper" language.

and this is a myth of Tokyo speaking NHK language too. Most people stick either to Tama or Yamate dialects which tend to be quite different from what is considered normal.

Anonymous

4:31 AM

You don't think people are capable of switching between regional dialects and Standard Japanese to some extent, depending on what the situation calls for?

Rilakkuma

indeed they can to some extent but mostly I can hear where are people from during official speeches which means the switch is just to some extent. :) mostly pronunciation, not what they speak though.

to native Japanese this could be easier to catch because they actually learn "book" Japanese in the schools. For foreigner the largest language practice is within the language spoken by locals of a particular place.

Anonymous

Oh, I meant the opposite, dialect and not accent (which is harder to learn to switch)

Anonymous

I don't think Standard Japanese is quite as imaginary as you paint it to be, but I'm certain there is a lot of dialectal variation in Japan

Anonymous

I'm certainly capable of speaking Standard English, even though I speak non-standard English all the time :-)

Choko

4:57 AM

@DariusJahandarie うへえ

釣りにしか見えないよね

ちゅーか、ヘンタイに見える

@snailboat 男の人で、あまり若くなくて、

なんか賢そう？

口ひげとか生えてたり

なんかインテリみたいな

やくざのおじさんとか、チンピラのにーちゃんは言わないね

@3to5businessdays うわｗｗｗ

この人の常識では「馬鹿は死に値する」のか・・

@snailboat ああ、ほんとだ

3 to 5 business days

How do you downvote if you're dead?

For what it's worth, I thought guest's answer fits my line of thinking the best... though I'm not sure how people use 死ぬ、他界する、亡くなる in real life.

Choko

5:26 AM

@fooon's 「ここの人たちは馬鹿なの?死ぬの?」 sounds to me as 「ここの人たちは馬鹿だから、死ね。」

I mean, if I read something like "(お前は)馬鹿なの？死ぬの？" then I'd think it means "You're an idiot so you should die"

3 to 5 business days

Ah ok, I see...

I thought he meant "Are the people here stupid or dead?".

Anonymous

Hello! :-)

3 to 5 business days

Why hello

forums.adobe.com/thread/742523

I don't understand why some programs don't allow users to change interface language...

If it detects your locale is Chinese for example, then you're stuck with Chinese interface

Though, there's always the "rename the localization folder" workaround to get back the English interface

Rilakkuma

5:46 AM

+1

Anonymous

I started thinking about 友人 and 友達. What if I'm unconsciously mixing up 友人 and 親友?

3 to 5 business days

Most likely

Anonymous

Maybe that would be why I had that impression that 友人 could sometimes mean a closer friendship

3 to 5 business days

Same here

Anonymous

Well, that's why I didn't try to answer the question... :-)

Anonymous

5:49 AM

I don't trust my intuition there

3 to 5 business days

I just felt like there's a word that expresses a more intimate relationship than 友達

Rilakkuma

セフレ (笑)

3 to 5 business days

I don't know. I think intuition is not good enough.

Choko

親しい友人とか

3 to 5 business days

Need to have some solid references to back up.

Rilakkuma

5:51 AM

But actually I can't remind anything useful too.

3 to 5 business days

Common sense and intuition can be deceptive

Anonymous

@Choko Thank you, it's interesting to hear what you think of :-)

3 to 5 business days

Like that time when I thought 心中 was something innocuous... never again, I tell ya

Anonymous

The word 心中 comes up surprisingly often in fiction...

3 to 5 business days

Which 心中?

Anonymous

5:53 AM

The one you're talking about. 心中（しんじゅう）

Rilakkuma

my dictionary shows only one array of meanings

3 to 5 business days

In fiction?

Anonymous

Well, more often than I expect it to. :-)

3 to 5 business days

You gotta read some lighter stuff yo

Can't be always reading depressing stuff like that

Rilakkuma

I only come across this word in the crime news and in 大島's 訳あり物件 map

3 to 5 business days

5:57 AM

What's 訳あり物件?

Choko

こわい・・

Rilakkuma

Properties with some "flaw" which normally means it is either haunted or has some grim history behind.

3 to 5 business days

hmmm why are there 訳あり物件 real estate sites?

Rilakkuma

oh yes!

just google it and it will come out :)

not so much of them though... Normally such stuff is covered using different tricks

3 to 5 business days

bukken-info.net

Rilakkuma

6:02 AM

ah you asked why

3 to 5 business days

yeah what do people do with it?

Rilakkuma

because they are cheaper and some people just don't care about the fact someone killed himself in a horrible way in this room

3 to 5 business days

Is it because it's cheap?

ahh

Rilakkuma

yes

3 to 5 business days

At first I thought people just want to scare the shit out of themselves

Rilakkuma

6:04 AM

but actually I looked at few properties listed in 大島‘s map - there are few in the walking proximity of my home and most of them seem abandoned by now

and actually look quite creepy :D

3 to 5 business days

So uh... you getting one?

For science

Rilakkuma

not really, but sometimes I look through such properties too because sometimes 訳あり means something different

such as weird shape of the house or something like that

3 to 5 business days

oh ok. Not just horror house

Rilakkuma

not so long time ago I found very nice apartment with some 20 meters long corridor, for example. That's quite weird type of a house but otherwise nothing wrong with it

3 to 5 business days

> otherwise nothing wrong with it

Rilakkuma

6:06 AM

I am afraid to think how to evacuate from there in case of something like Godzilla comes

3 to 5 business days

that's what you like to think... hehe

Rilakkuma

hehe :D

3 to 5 business days

I just realized that there's "God" in "Godzilla"

Rilakkuma

there's no... :( ごじら

Gojila

3 to 5 business days

No, I mean the English transliteration

Rilakkuma

6:08 AM

Indeed. But remark about Godzilla was quite serious by the way

I used to live in a little アパート for some 3 years and also when the 2011 quake struck. At time looking for best ways to evacuate was really hot topic

3 to 5 business days

Yes. Don't want to get eaten up.

Rilakkuma

exactly. That アパート got little funny after the quake, its shaking during quakes was somewhat like half-melt jelly, while it felt "springy" before.

so I moved out of there and looked at 大島's map at the moment, just for science you know :)

Darius Jahandarie

6:39 AM

11 hours ago, by Darius Jahandarie

I couldn't convince myself to what extent I was just mixing it up with 親友 and to what extent it's actually closer than 友達. I'm pretty sure it's at least a little, but am confused why dictionaries aren't mentioning that.

Anonymous

Ooh, somehow I missed that the first time

Anonymous

My poor, incapable brain! :-)

Darius Jahandarie

Hmm, I wonder why 非回答者 is using 食べてる instead of 食べる in his examples...
「そんなもの食べてると元気になれないよ。」
「そんなのばかり食べてると元気になれないぞ。」
「そんなの食べてると身体に悪わるいぞ。」

While 食べてる is obviously fine, I would think 食べる would be the default / shorter / simpler

Anonymous

@DariusJahandarie You could ask it as a Question! :-)

Darius Jahandarie

I guess it's like the difference between "if you eat that you won't feel good" and "if you were to eat that you won't feel good"

Hmm, or maybe that isn't the right parallel.

Rilakkuma

6:47 AM

I am rather concerned of the ぞ but that's ok :)

Darius Jahandarie

@snailboat Maybe. It feels weird asking a question to the entire site about how a specific user writes Japanese.

@Rilakkuma I'm pretty sure the reason he has the よ／ぞ there is precisely because you wouldn't even say anything like that in a more polite register. It would be said quite differently, IMO.

Anthony

Ayo!

Rilakkuma

why not? I can clearly imagine saying this to some friend who eats MCdonalds all the time - そんなの食べると元気になれない- and the ending is usually じゃん but normally it would be just finished there without ぞ or よ

Anonymous

@Anthony Hello!

Rilakkuma

Hi @Anthony

Anthony

6:57 AM

@snailboat Hallo. Do you know where お陰で takes it's meaning from? What does that 陰　mean?

@Rilakkuma Hello.

Anonymous

@Anthony We have a question about that.

Anonymous

It links to gogen-allguide.

Anonymous

gogen-allguide.com/o/okagesama.html

Anonymous

It's that おかげ

Anthony

Hmmm....

Darius Jahandarie

6:59 AM

@Rilakkuma Eh. In my head if you say anything like that, you're clearly preaching a little bit and if you're at all in a position to be doing that then よ is totally fine, and ぞ is totally fine for males. Having neither of them seems weird to me personally, and having じゃん has a different meaning to me (like you're using it as the reason for something else?)

Anthony

I'll read through that, thanks! :)

Darius Jahandarie

I guess have no particle seems a little curt or unnecessarily distant to me. If I'm giving someone shit for something then I'll at least try to be boisterous about it.

Rilakkuma

@DariusJahandarie well, I understand your thinking... However, if one says ぞ do you expect the same person to refer to himself as 俺 ? To me it sounds a little childish, like teenager boy speech.

So while I definitely can imagine a person saying this way it falls into a little limited scope.

Darius Jahandarie

Ah well, no use in quibbling about this.

I should probably sleep.

Good night!

Anonymous

Rest well!

Rilakkuma

7:03 AM

You are right.

Good night! :)

非回答者

おめーら文句あんならスレで言え。大して日本語知らねーくせに！

Rilakkuma

そんな言い方ちょっと失礼じゃない？

Anonymous

7:20 AM

We do have a rule here: Be Nice

2

Anonymous

I sort of understand why the discussion above might be frustrating―I would feel rather strange participating in a discussion that criticizes a native speaker's choice of 終助詞

Anonymous

It's my job as a learner to try to understand how native speakers use the language, not to tell them how to use it...

Anonymous

I just assume that what 非回答者さん wrote is natural because he said it is and he knows better than me

Anonymous

I am curious about 食べると and 食べてると and I might ask a question about it :-)

Anonymous

(If Darius Jahandarie doesn't want to)

Tim

7:32 AM

@snailboat Perhaps it is "subject change"; to describe condition where you have eaten it, and go on doing so on a regular basis (I need to look at my grammar notes to answer this properly)

Anonymous

@Tim Oh, it would be best if I asked on the site itself I think

Tim

Sure. BTW, @Rilakkuma I cannot discuss right now but ぞ is very good example of the phrase that does not get taught. I understand what you mean about introducing people to "neutral Japanese" first but it is overdone. People need to be made familiar with what they hear around them in order to recognise and imbibe it, and then come up with their own way of speaking.

I feel there is to much emphasis on "you can't say that because it is femnine" and not enough "this is how X gets said in casual situations"..

Rilakkuma

you are right, these things need to be taught

Tim

i am glad we agree; i was going to say given that you've taken time to learn regional accents, something some people will say is unnecessary (which I strongly disagree with) I would have expected you to say these things need to be taught.

Rilakkuma

In general I completely agree with your point. Basically what I was against was using of something "non-neutral" in an example for a total (as it seemed) beginner.

that could be just my 好み but after all this is why people have disagreements :)

Tim

7:52 AM

That is a fair point in itself. The examples did not register with me as too difficult for the OP but I'd have to look at them again to be sure.

Rilakkuma

that's great we agreed :)

completely unrelated but sometimes I wish to find some data on how modern Japanese is influenced by other Asian languages right now

because it seems like Japan is integrating tighter into Asia than before and therefore some new barbarisms may come into language

such as パクチー

Anonymous

You mean borrowings?

Rilakkuma

8:10 AM

yes, just trying to distinguish between 外来語 which is already in the language such as リュック and barbarisms which are generally accepted by public while not yet "official" - because I mean the modern language, in its present state

especially in supermarkets it gets very funny

you go look for パクチー but end up buying 香菜

you go look for ゴーヤー but end up buying ツルレイシ or something worse

Anonymous

Ah, I asked since "barbarism" sounds rather judgmental

Rilakkuma

sorry, I meant barbarism as a phrase which is not an official borrowing yet

without any + or - meaning

Tim

9:08 AM

@snailboat: I have noticed you explanation of taigendome:

4

Q: what exactly is "体言止{たいげんど}め"?

There is some discussion about "体言止め{たいげんどめ}" on the internet, but it is all in Japanese. My Japanese ability is too low to be able to read it, so I need some help. At the least, "体言止め" refers to ending a sentence with a サ変名詞{へんめいし} and omitting the "をする". "体言止め" is more than just this, but I'...

words

Partly explains my recent question:

4

Q: Relative clause - noun - copula structure: What does it mean? How can we translate it?

I have two examples of this structure which does not obviously correspond to a pattern in English although it is quite common. I'd like to know what it means, why it is used and how it should be translated (because if I can do that I know I understand it). Example 1 I heard this on a TV series ...

translation usage copula relative-clause information-structure

Or at least, I think it does....(I was referring to you final bullet about changing the word order)

Do you by any chance have any more information on this?

I spotted this while reading the latest question on omitting "で” . @Naruto has referred the OP to your answer.

Tim

10:45 AM

(Example 2 is the one I had in mind. Example 1 is a bit more complicated because the sentence ends in でした.)

3 to 5 business days

3:29 PM

Saw this on 4ch DJT

Darius Jahandarie

4:20 PM

@非回答者非回答者は普段スレのコメントに返事をしないからいやと思った。そんなに腹を立てんな。

Choko

5:13 PM

「朝立ち･夕立」の人、アカウント削除しちゃった

なんだったんだ・・・

Rilakkuma

みんなさん、会田誠と言う画家知ってますか？

Anonymous

5:51 PM

Ahh, 「みんなさん」 again... I still remember making that error :-) I guess a lot of learners do

Anonymous

6:14 PM

I've made lots of mistakes :-)

Anthony

9:00 PM

@snailboat What are the more common books you use for reference? Martin is a name I always see you use.

Anonymous

@Anthony A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar by Makino et al. are very useful

Anonymous

I don't recommend Samuel Martin's 1975 Reference Grammar of Japanese to most people for several reasons

Anonymous

I have found 初級を教える人のための and 中上級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック to be very helpful

Anonymous

The Makino et al. books are the ones you'll find easiest to use. Martin's grammar is difficult to use, full of rōmaji and idiosyncratic analyses and technical terms, all of which he has reasons for, but it is pretty unapproachable

Anthony

I see...

Anonymous

9:05 PM

初級を教える人のための and 中上級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック have great explanations and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them, except that they're in Japanese so you may have to do some extra work to understand them sometimes

Anonymous

Frellesvig's 2010 A History of the Japanese Language is a fairly in-depth look at the language across time

Anonymous

It too is rather technical

Anonymous

What sort of references are you looking for?

Anonymous

Vovin's 2003 A Reference Grammar of Classical Japanese Prose comes highly recommended, but I don't have a copy yet

Anonymous

Hinds' 1986 Japanese: Descriptive Grammar is another more academic resource which unfortunately for learners relies on rōmaji

Anthony

9:08 PM

Oh thank you. I was just considering flipping through the kind of stuff you reference. I dunno.

Anonymous

Are you looking for books that are more helpful for learning the language, for more academic books about linguistics etc.?

Anonymous

Kuno's 1973 Structure of the Japanese Language is one of the most influential books in Japanese linguistics, particularly for its account of は and が

Anonymous

It's been cited hundreds of times

Anonymous

For phonetics, there's Vance's 2008 The Sounds of Japanese, and for an interesting take on phonology, Labrune's 2012 The Phonology of Japanese (an attempt to unite the western generative phonology with the Japanese school of phonology)

Anthony

Both, I suppose. I'm kind of at a stand still. Ugh. Just looking for interesting stuff.

I don't know all the fields of linguistics.

What is there?

Anonymous

9:12 PM

Shibatani's 1990 The Languages of Japan is another comprehensive reference, very interesting reading

Anonymous

Well, there are a lot of approaches to linguistics and different things you can study, so that's a difficult question to answer

Anthony

Well I mean, aren't there like, categories?

Things like grammar, phonetic, pragmatics....

All words I've heard.

Don't really know how to organize them in my head.

Anonymous

The thing that interests me most is grammar, which we can subdivide into syntax (grammar above the word level: how words fit together to form sentences) and morphology (grammar below the word level: suffixes, how words are formed, inflection, etc.)

Anonymous

In terms of sound, we can talk about phonetics (the study of physical facts of sound production, how the mouth etc. create physical sounds) and phonology (the way we organize and perceive sounds in our minds, a matter of theory)

Anonymous

To make that clearer

Anonymous

9:14 PM

In terms of phonetics, when you say pin and spin, you say two different "p" sounds

Anonymous

That is, physically you do different things to produce the p and if you record them, you can tell the sound waves are different

Anthony

I see...

Anonymous

But in terms of phonology? We native speakers of English perceive both "p" sounds as the same thing

Anonymous

So in terms of how we think about it, there's just one /p/ sound.

Anonymous

In terms of how we perceive it, there's just one /p/ sound.

Anthony

9:16 PM

So weird.

Anonymous

The two p sounds are written in brackets: [p] (unaspirated) and [pʰ] (aspirated), and we call the individual physical sounds "phones"

Anonymous

The psychological concept of a single p sound we write in forward slashes: /p/

Anonymous

And we call this a phoneme

Anonymous

That's the difference between those two branches of study

Anonymous

Of course they're closely related.

Anonymous

9:17 PM

If you're interested in a general introduction to linguistics in the context of Japanese, you could see Tsujimura's An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics

Anthony

I see. I'm actually hopefully going to take such a course next semester.

Anonymous

Great! Look up which textbook the class uses ahead of time, maybe? :-)

Anthony

I dropped the one I told you I was going to take last semester, I was already taking too much, but this one sounds more interesting.

It's not going to use a textbook, the professor just gives us articles, and stuff from the books she's writing.

Anonymous

When you get into linguistics, you'll find that different people define the categories differently.

Anonymous

Ah.

Anthony

9:19 PM

Hasegawa?

Anonymous

Yoko Hasegawa?

Anthony

Yeah.

What's the tic in phonetic?

Anonymous

There are an awful lot of linguistics papers online, by the way, and more that aren't generally available but you can get through your school

Anthony

Yeah! There's so much.

Anonymous

It's segmented t-ic

Anthony

9:21 PM

I really should invest more time in Japanese....

Anonymous

The /t/ comes from a Greek derivational affix

Anthony

segmented t-ic?

Anonymous

That is, there is no "tic", but there is an "ic"

Anthony

Oh I see.

I'm just confused because there are 'ic's like cyclic, which seem to describe, and there are 'ic's like phonetics, kinematics...

Which seem to be like.. studies. But studies use ology, don't they?

Anonymous

It's the same -ic

Anonymous

9:25 PM

You should have access to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) online through your school

Anonymous

Look up -ic

Anthony

Haha, a dictionary I can read!

I will.

Anonymous

The OED should be your primary source for questions of English etymology, although there are other sources

Anthony

Alright...

Anonymous

See EtymOnline's bibliography for a list of sources: etymonline.com/sources.php

Anonymous

9:29 PM

Pretty much everyone now uses the OED in electronic form, by the way.

Anonymous

The version on OED.com is the most up-to-date

Anthony

Alright, I'm trying to figure out how to log into OED...

Anonymous

There are a few books I don't have yet that seem like really interesting resources

Anonymous

Unfortunately it's possible to buy or borrow books faster than you can actually work through them :-)

Anonymous

Iwasaki's 2012 Japanese: Revised Edition seems like another book you might find interesting

Anonymous

9:35 PM

A high-level overview of the language, all of the different "categories" you mention, from a linguistics perspective

Anonymous

I was looking through it on Google Books the other day

Anthony

Ooooh.

I wish I could just absorb these books :( I don't know the last time I actually read a book. :/

I read a lot of online articles, and I skim textbooks for classes... but... So much stuff I should read...

Anonymous

I was impressed by what I saw―it seemed like a very clear-headed approach, presented much more readably than, say, Martin

Anthony

I see. Well I gotta go get ready to leave. Thanks for the information, @snailboat. :D

Anonymous

Although I'm reluctant to recommend a book I've only read bits of, it looks like it might be the book for you to get :-)

Anonymous

9:37 PM

See you later!

skullpatrol

pardon the interruption

in English Language & Usage, 6 mins ago, by Jim

I'm in chat with another user. We are discussing deletion of his question. He believes that there is a penalty for deleting questions (maybe for deleting too many questions). I wasn't aware of this. Can someone set me straight on this??

Anonymous

Hello!

Anthony

@skullpatrol?!?!

I always see you in math.chat.

skullpatrol

Yep, also ELU.

Anonymous

I know skullpatrol from ELL chat.

Anthony

9:40 PM

ELU?

Anonymous

ELU = English Language & Usage
ELL = English Language Learners

Anthony

When it says there are 147 users on the right, does that mean all of chat.stackexchange?

Oh I see.

Anonymous

I don't see that number

Anthony

Hm. My page says "There are other rooms, with 147 users currently talking in 62 rooms."

Anonymous

It looks like there are about 140 users who are "active", 360 users who are "online", and 124,000 users total

Anonymous

9:43 PM

Across Stack Exchange chat.

Anthony

I see. Strange that there are so few online.

Anyway I really should go. Thanks snailboat.

Anonymous

See you!

skullpatrol

10:01 PM

@snailboat Thanks again, see ya :-)

Anonymous

@skullpatrol No problem :-) If you need me, you can always summon me in the ELL room; even if I'm not there, I'm there often enough that I'll get the notification anyway.

skullpatrol

ok

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