English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

12:15 AM

archive.org/stream/rulesforcomposi01presgoog#page/n6/mode/2up

I love this kind of thing!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Some seem to be missing entirely

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I take it you weren't listening to this because you're a game fan

Anonymous

If only because you said before that you aren't really :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It was because the promo video of Under the Dome that got me curious.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Google doesn't synonymize Blu with Blū

Anonymous

12:26 AM

facebook.com/officialbluholliday/info

Anonymous

Blū Holliday

@BluHolliday, California

contact: officialbluholliday@gmail.com I write & sing.

1.3k tweets, 6.2k followers, following 4.7k users

Damkerng T.

Hey, this one-box is new!

A-ha! So I guessed right--she is really a native speaker!

Anonymous

Apparently from Sacramento

Damkerng T.

> Influences: To many to name! I like some of the same artists you like, and some you don't know about yet.

Hehe! I think she could use an edit. :-)

Anonymous

She really does have a good voice

Damkerng T.

12:31 AM

dropbox.com/s/hu03qsd2nl6j936/under-the-dome-rtl-promo.mp3?dl=0

That's my first encounter with her voice. :D

And it was kind of making me really curious (Why can't I make it out? Why?). :-)

Damkerng T.

12:44 AM

0

Q: Is "of course" polite?

I read someone's journal in lang-8.com, he is asking whether "of course" is a polite enough to use because her teacher (which is american) told her "of course" is not so polite because it sounds like the answer is a certainty and no one should not ask such that question. for example : Q: Do you...

politeness

If only they had read my imaginary book, 159 Ways to Say Yes and No, they wouldn't've asked the question. :-)

Anonymous

159 ways to say yes and no!

Anonymous

1. Slowly

Anonymous

2. Somewhat more quickly

Damkerng T.

3. Hedge slightly

4. Hedge a lot

Anonymous

Ah, I hedge sometimes

Anonymous

12:50 AM

I think

StoneyB

155. Fists

156. Axes

157. Bazookas

Damkerng T.

2:23 AM

@StoneyB Bazookas as a Yes or a No!

Anonymous

2:42 AM

books.google.com/…;

2

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Depends on the question ...

@snailboat Yes!

Damkerng T.

I found a great tool for doing research on speech, though it's limited to what people speak on the news.

archive.org/details/tv

I just noticed that I can search the entire transcripts of 629,000 shows since 2009!

@snailboat I guess adults learn better with visual aids.

Anonymous

It'd be nice if there were online or app textbooks where every example sentence has an audio recording associated with it, and an F0 graph parallel to the text

Damkerng T.

My first try: archive.org/details/tv?q=%22even%20comment%22

Anonymous

I find paper + CD combinations to be somewhat cumbersome to use

StoneyB

2:51 AM

@DamkerngT. Of course. If you just tell em to listen they only hear what they have already trained themselves to hear; they don't hear what they've trained themselves to ignore.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I usually record what got my interest as sound clips, and then I'd work on them.

StoneyB

You have to show them what is actually happening that they don't know how to listen for.

Damkerng T.

nods

StoneyB

@snailboat And a synched up waveform, so they distinguish pitch stress and volume stress.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's a new kind of audiobook!

Anonymous

2:56 AM

I have a friend who's taking Japanese classes, and her class gives her recordings of dialogues that they made at her school sometime in the 80s in a back room with a cassette deck

Anonymous

It applied some really awkward dynamic range compression to the recordings

Anonymous

So part of her class is learning to listen to Japanese dialogue while an automated goon plays with the volume knob :-)

StoneyB

I can find you actors and a studio ...

Anonymous

We have the technology to do a new sort of textbook with synced audio and audiovisual information, but in the classroom people are still using, well, that :-)

Anonymous

Money, money, money

StoneyB

2:58 AM

Do it in Flash, distribute online and on DVD

Damkerng T.

Or apps!

StoneyB

Oh, my. Teachers will love that. "Now boys and girls, take out your phones!"

I suppose a LAN with limited outside access.

@snailboat What's cheaper: 20-something textbooks or a digital projector?

Damkerng T.

Even though the idea of having pitch contour is not exactly new, I wonder why we don't have this kind of thing in our schools before.

Better English Pronunciation (which was first published before I was born) included pitch contour like we are discussing. books.google.com/books?id=QRpw_igmHnkC&pg=PA109

StoneyB

Very interesting, but I'd take issue with a lot of his readings. MEM: Multiple readings of passages, to capture the range of options.

Damkerng T.

3:18 AM

@StoneyB Oh, like 159 ways to pronounce Yes and No! :-)

StoneyB

159 is a bit much, but in industrial voice work the actor is routinely asked to give a dozen different readings of a particularly important phrase.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Oh, you mean they have to read the same line in a dozen or so different ways?

Really interesting!

StoneyB

Yep

fahdijbeli

7:18 AM

morning

Damkerng T.

@fahdijbeli Hi, how are you?

fahdijbeli

thanks,fine and you ? @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

I'm good. A little busy. :-)

fahdijbeli

ah ;)

Damkerng T.

Upvote Law Area 51 Proposal

1.2k 19

meaning-in-context difference grammaticality legal meaning ambiguity etymology

Hey, their name sounds like a request for help!

Anonymous

1:57 PM

Creative name!

user116848

How are you @snailboat @DamkerngT. ?

user116848

I have a question.

user116848

I was waiting for you.

user116848

Nope! :-)

user116848

just kidding

Damkerng T.

1:59 PM

You don't have to wait for us. You can just ask away.

user116848

I mean I do have a question..

user116848

types

user116848

Matt answered half of my question. Can you answer the other half here? @DamkerngT.

user116848

I want to write like:

user116848

> it looks backwards?

user116848

2:01 PM

That okay ^

user116848

Or should it be:

user116848

> it look backwards?

user116848

Without (s)

Damkerng T.

I agree with Matt.

Anonymous

@Arrowfar You didn't capitalize it.

user116848

2:02 PM

> It look backwards?

Anonymous

That matters because I thought you might be talking about just part of the sentence, but the Or mattered there

user116848

@snailboat So, "it look(s) backwards?" is not correct? With 's'

user116848

If I don't want to use "Does" in that sentence.

Anonymous

That's the wrong question

Anonymous

"It looks backwards?" is a grammatical declarative question, though

user116848

2:03 PM

Oh, that.

Anonymous

What's your reason for not wanting to use do in that sentence?

user116848

Yeah, I thought you'd ask that :-)

Anonymous

I'm afraid I don't agree with that reason, whatever it is

user116848

I have this reason:

user116848

@snailboat Because I already used "Is it...." construction before, so I don't want to throw another interrogative question at the other person.

Anonymous

2:05 PM

You just said "Is that okay?" That's a neutral question, not expecting to hear specifically yes or no

Anonymous

Then you said "or", giving an alternative with equal weight

Anonymous

Then you said "it looks backwards?", which is a biased question expecting a specifically affirmative response

user116848

I mean, doesn't it sound a bit too much if I post two interrogative questions together in one sentence?

user116848

I see

user116848

So, it is okay.

Anonymous

2:07 PM

You can't give a neutral question and a biased question as alternatives

Anonymous

It doesn't make any sense

Anonymous

You have to say "Or does it look backwards?"

user116848

Oh, so "Does" is necessary.

Anonymous

Yes, "Or it looks backwards?" doesn't sound right at all

Anonymous

It's not technically ungrammatical, but it doesn't make sense here

user116848

2:09 PM

Thanks for clearing it up snail :-)

Anonymous

You would need a very specific situation for it to make sense...

user116848

Much appreciated :)

Anonymous

That is to say, you could almost never say that question felicitously.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's the grammar beyond a single sentence!

I don't know why, but I really like to end my sentences with the exclamation mark. It keeps me awake, probably. :-)

user116848

@snailboat nods

Anonymous

2:11 PM

@DamkerngT. There are people who would subsume this under grammar

Anonymous

And say it's ungrammatical here

Anonymous

These people would describe the grammar as licensed by context

Anonymous

That is, a specific set of contexts license declarative questions, and outside of these contexts they're ungrammatical

Anonymous

I must admit labeling the sentence ungrammatical would satisfy my intuition :-)

Anonymous

There are times when you can also delete the auxiliary through conversational deletion, and then the verb look would be non-finite: "~~Does~~ it look good to you?" But you can't delete words following an initial or, and in any case deleting that does seems unlikely to me

user116848

2:15 PM

@snailboat Nice explanation!

user116848

Sorry, I am starring all the good answers I am getting :-)

Damkerng T.

It's all right. I think that's what stars are for!

user116848

Yeah :-)

user116848

It is strange why teachers never picked on mistakes like these in my school.

user116848

Maybe they themselves didn't know!

Damkerng T.

2:19 PM

Were your teachers back then native speakers of English?

user116848

No

user116848

@DamkerngT. In your school?

Damkerng T.

It's really difficult for non-native speakers to catch these errors.

user116848

Were they natives?

user116848

@DamkerngT. Oh yeah. I agree.

Damkerng T.

2:20 PM

@Arrowfar I never have teachers who are native speakers of English.

I've never lived in any places where people are native speakers of English, either.

user116848

@DamkerngT. Yeah, me too. Although when I was in five class there was a native British female teacher who came to our school to teach English. But she left after a month or two. Maybe she hated the environment here.

user116848

:-)

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar Also, I think even when they can catch one, it's even more difficult to correct those clumsy things easily.

user116848

@DamkerngT. nods. You are right there.

user116848

So, I like all the guidance that I get here on SE.

user116848

2:25 PM

I wish this site had existed in the past too.

user116848

I used to visit Wordreference though. I still do sometimes.

Anonymous

That's a good site, isn't it?

user116848

Yep :-)

Damkerng T.

Grammarly is also worth keeping an eye on. Too bad that I don't have enough eyes to keep watching everything. :-)

user116848

So, many questions on Wordreference and ELL/ELU are duplicates. So, can a person copy paste their answers here?

user116848

2:29 PM

It is wrong I know

user116848

Just asking

Damkerng T.

I've seen a lot of cross-site duplicates.

user116848

Yeah, me too

Damkerng T.

Both in our questions and in our answers.

user116848

Yeah

Damkerng T.

2:32 PM

For me, a really good answer, just one, should be enough.

user116848

But sometimes answers there are of good quality. That's why I am asking.

Damkerng T.

But different learners could tackle the same question with different approaches.

user116848

Exactly

user116848

Different approaches are good

Ice Girl

@Arrowfar Nice picture

user116848

2:36 PM

@IceGirl Thanks! How are ya?

Ice Girl

@Arrowfar I'm fine thanks. You?

user116848

@IceGirl I am good. Thanks!

Anonymous

@IceGirl Did you see that other question about "by way of contrast"?

Anonymous

"By ways of comparing" sounds wrong to me

Anonymous

"By way of contrast" sounds okay, but that other question discussed a simpler alternative

Ice Girl

2:41 PM

@snailboat Hi. No. But I have both of them in my book

Anonymous

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Damkerng T.

It's an incorrect choice in an exercise, perhaps.

Anonymous

No results for "by ways of comparing"...

Damkerng T.

Got one! books.google.com/books?id=cg_SBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA7 (Q9)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Google has a minimum # of results before they include an n-gram in their charts

Anonymous

2:45 PM

@DamkerngT. It won't show me the interior of that book

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That makes sense!

Anonymous

Is it given as an incorrect answer?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, probably they know that you don't need it. :-)

Ice Girl

@DamkerngT. Hi

Damkerng T.

> 9. My sister works extremely hard. ____, my brother is rather lazy.
A. By way of contrast B. By ways of comparing C. By similar means

@IceGirl Hi

Ice Girl

2:47 PM

I think A is correct

right?

Damkerng T.

You should be correct.

I don't really read that book, though.

Ice Girl

:)

Anonymous

@IceGirl A is the answer I would pick

Ice Girl

Okay

Anonymous

Just a remark -- in American English, "ain't" is lost even in extremely informal speech in the dialect of most speakers, with the notable exception of AAVE (I don't know about other countries). I don't recommend using it as a non-native speaker -- it won't make you sound informal, it will just sound weird. — hunter Dec 12 '13 at 16:18

Damkerng T.

2:50 PM

Hmm... The book was published in 2004, in London. I think they should give A as the answer too.

Anonymous

Ain't Endangered!　　←　　This is a headline. A snail headline.

2

Damkerng T.

Oh, I remember that comment. I was so surprised!

Anonymous

I haven't done a survey of most speakers, so all I have at the moment are my personal impressions―until I read that comment, I thought ain't was alive and well!

Damkerng T.

Me too.

What should I do with "If it ain't broke" now?

Anonymous

I, erm, may even say it myself once in a while . . . though I do talk funny :-)

Anonymous

2:54 PM

@DamkerngT. Ah, but ain't could be otherwise dead and we'd be left with that phrase as a lexical exception! :-) A set phrase we carry around in our vocabularies more or less as a preassembled whole

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Okay, I will make it an exception, then! :-)

Anonymous

You'll notice people say that phrase in contexts they'd normally avoid saying ain't in

StoneyB

It's been pretty well stamped out. I only hear it these days in fixed phrases ("If it ain't broke, don't fix it", "It ain't the heat, it's the humidity") or used ironically to give an impression of folksiness.

Anonymous

Poor ain't!

Damkerng T.

I think I like the sound of "I ain't gonna do it" better than "I'm not gonna do it" or "I won't do it".

Anonymous

2:59 PM

AAVE ain't is a little different from non-AAVE ain't, anyway

Anonymous

AAVE ain't also functions in place of auxiliary didn't

Damkerng T.

Which sounds a bit weird to me.

Anonymous

Well, to you :-)

Damkerng T.

I ain't gonna say that they're wrong, though. :D

Ahh... Post-modifier seems to be quite a hot topic lately!

Anonymous

I like terms like premodifier and postmodifier

StoneyB

3:06 PM

@snailboat What's gone unnoticed is its virtually universal replacement in US speech by /ɪn̩/ (damn, this won't display combining diacritics - I mean for that to be syllabic /n/, with the little vertical bar underneath)

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Oh, like, sent'nce, I guess.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Look at the charts starting on page 127 ncsu.edu/linguistics/docs/pdfs/walt/PDF-Urban_AAE.pdf

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Which is actually pronounced /sɛ'ns/

Anonymous

I'm not happy with that as a phonemic transcription

Anonymous

/t/ in coda position has a [ʔ] glottal allophone in AmE, particularly before syllabic /n/

Anonymous

3:11 PM

Maybe not always a complete glottal stop, but there'll usually be a glottal consonant of some kind there

Damkerng T.

@snailboat "He calls himself dancing."!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's right. :-)

Anonymous

"He calls himself acting real nice"

Damkerng T.

What would it be in standard English?

StoneyB

@snailboat Yes. I think it's actually a coarticulated glottal closure which comes to carry the burden of stopness and in contexts like that renders the 'primary' articulant nugatory.

Damkerng T.

3:14 PM

"He says he danced but he didn't."?

StoneyB

Or "He claims to {dance/be dancing/have been dancing/have danced}"

With scornful emphasis on claims.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see. I think "He calls himself dancing," makes sense when it's said by someone seeing him dancing funnily, and to say that he's really dancing would be ridiculous.

@StoneyB nods

I guess my natural choice would be, "He calls that dancing?"

StoneyB

But calls himself expresses scorn for the claim rather than for the dancing.

Anonymous

Well, he's not actually claiming anything

Anonymous

He might not have said anything

StoneyB

3:24 PM

I'll buy that. He represents what he's doing as dancing.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I'm not sure, but I think Thai might've borrowed this idea from English.

Anonymous

You can use the call construction just fine in reference to animals

Anonymous

Who aren't capable of putting things into words

Anonymous

@StoneyB Yes, that!

Anonymous

They seem to think they know what they're doing, but they don't

Anonymous

3:27 PM

So it's a bit of an idiom, not really using call literally

StoneyB

Can you give a bestiary example?

Anonymous

"Look at the dog, he calls himself watching TV"

Damkerng T.

Sometimes, Hagu, my cat, is trying to catch a bird, and he seems to try to fly to catch the bird. He probably calls himself a bird!

StoneyB

Gotcha. Non-verbal, but still anthropomorphic.

Ol Hagu calls himself flyin.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

It's kinda funny, seeing him doing that. :-)

Anonymous

3:32 PM

1

Q: Adjective after noun?

I'm currently struggling with a minor grammatical issue and would love to get your opinion. Sometimes an adjective is placed after the noun. Is there a specific rule when this is okay? E.g., "using the selected methods..." vs. "using the methods selected..."? Thank you very much.

adjectives nouns

Anonymous

Is this what prompted your post-modifier comment, @DamkerngT.?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

StoneyB

@snailboat Ain't, by the way, is still strong in country music. It's a literary form now, like e'er or Yea.

Anonymous

We have to save what little ain't is left!

Damkerng T.

Maybe ain't is the reason I like country music!

StoneyB

3:41 PM

I just checked my 'database' of interviews with a Southern Illinois farmer and his agronomist. In 40,000 words there are two instances of ain't, both fairly gnomic:

you need .. you need the ability to .. be … to change pretty quick. Imean things ain’t gonna stay the same . they’re not uh it’s pretty fluid down here um you you cannot just bet it’s gonna be a certain way every year.

Once you tell me you’ve planted [untreated-sb] yellow soybeans I would say “Oooh .. that ain’t probably the right thing to do because you’ve lost, you will lose along the way somewhere $20 an acre by not having it.

Anonymous

Do you have an LDC account? online.ldc.upenn.edu/search/results/…

StoneyB

Wisht I did.

Damkerng T.

Oh, the logo of LDC says L-D-C!

StoneyB

Heehee!

Damkerng T.

2 in 40,000 words is not exactly endangered, imho.

Anonymous

3:48 PM

@StoneyB Try signing up, there are some free corpora

StoneyB

Hmm... Done! That is very cool.

Anonymous

You can search Switchboard and Fisher

StoneyB

I see!

Damkerng T.

Oh, Archive.org is also useful! I found a lot of ain't in archive.org/details/tv?q=ain%27t

I'm pretty sure it's gonna be my new toy!

Oh, keen got 16,318 results in the archive, ain't got 37,807 results!

isn't 302,779; aren't 212,613, wasn't 283,227, weren't 140,078.

So, roughly, in the database, we got one ain't for every four weren't's.

StoneyB

4:07 PM

You also have to contrast it with is not, are not, am not, have not and has not.

But not with weren't and wasn't - ain't is present tense only.

Anonymous

Ain't is also a perfect auxiliary and (in AAVE) a negative past auxiliary

StoneyB

Also 's not 're not hasn't haven't

Damkerng T.

Oh, they filter out some basic words such as not, in, that.

Anonymous

Stopwords! :-(

Amit Joki

Is it wrong if I say "Voice Assistor"?

StoneyB

4:14 PM

@snailboat Sorry -- I count present perfect as a present. But past auxiliary e.g.?

Damkerng T.

So we can search for ain't but not am not or is not or are not.

@AmitJoki Assistant, perhaps?

Anonymous

@StoneyB "I ain't do it"

StoneyB

@AmitJoki What sort of assistance is provided?

Anonymous

= "I didn't do it"

Amit Joki

ah! Sometimes I'm at loss of words! I made up that word

@StoneyB The context -

"Purtuna then pressed one of the button on her 3rd tentacle to her left and there came a green colored transparent screen to her view. She responded to a voice from the screen.

"What?"
"A room"
"Which one?"
"The usual one"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Really?"
"Hell, YES!!"
"Request acknowledged."
By the time the voice from the screen ended, Purtuna's pseudo-legs raised till it was level with Prof. Dale who was sitting above on the stage and said in a cold voice, "I'll resign as the sorter of Arielle if you don't replace that dumb-ass with some better voice assistor." "

StoneyB

4:21 PM

Ah. Me, I'd say "PA" and make the reader figure out what it means.

Amit Joki

@StoneyB seems a good option. BTW, your profile pic is on a lot of memes on 9gag!

StoneyB

Is that good or bad?

Anonymous

Amn't supposedly still enjoys some currency in Ireland and Scotland, but I get the feeling it's dying out

StoneyB

That's one I haven't heard in a long time.

Amit Joki

@StoneyB memes are fun. Don't know what's good and bad.

StoneyB

4:40 PM

Well, it looks like it's used very appropriately on the Swedish translation of Bloom's Western Canon. Bloom and Dr. Johnson have a lot in common.

Damkerng T.

Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. Since the publication of his first book in 1959, Bloom has written more than 20 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and a novel. He has edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. Bloom came to public attention in the United States as a commentator during the Canon wars of the early 1990s. == Early life... ==

Oh, it's nice to learn about the Western Canon!

StoneyB

5:05 PM

There are a lot of critics these days who would disagree with you -- follow the Canon Wars link!

user116848

9:49 PM

So, they sat parkour is the most videod sport.

user116848

Parkour

Parkour (French pronunciation: [paʁkuʁ]) is a holistic training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training. Practitioners aim to get from A to B in the most efficient way possible. This is done using only the human body and the surroundings for propulsion, with a focus on maintaining as much momentum as possible while still remaining safe. Parkour can include obstacle courses, running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling, quadrupedal movement, and the like, depending on what movement is deemed most suitable for the given situation. Parkour is an...

user116848

I heard it on youtube etc.

user116848

It is fun to watch.

Ice Boy

of course "they" are going to say that..."they" want you to watch :-)

user116848

I tried once but hurt by toe and hands.

user116848

9:51 PM

@IceBoy haha

Ice Boy

the world series is getting exciting...game 5 tonight with the series tied at 2-2

user116848

NFL?

Ice Boy

MLB

baseball

user116848

Oh

user116848

So, you are a baseball fan too?

user116848

9:53 PM

Good :-)

Ice Boy

yep, do you like cricket?

user116848

Yeah, people here are crazy about cricket.

user116848

I am not though.

user116848

I just find the scores. That's about it I guess :)

Ice Boy

hmm...looks tough

user116848

9:55 PM

You mean cricket?

Ice Boy

yep

user116848

It is not tough. I think American Football is tough :)

user116848

I mean there a lot of hitting in the Football.

Ice Boy

i meant compared to baseball

user116848

Oh, that. Yeah

Ice Boy

9:57 PM

i need sleep, see ya pal

user116848

See ya pal

Transcript for

English Language Learners