English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

2:01 PM

Ah, I didn't catch the /s/ in beggars the first time (so the best I could do was beckham :-)

Anonymous

Maulik apparently agreed that Mars Bars was hard to identify.

Damkerng T.

And he should be more used to BrE accent than I am.

Anonymous

I don't think I heard it right the first time either.

Damkerng T.

At least I think Indian accent is closer to BrE than AmE in general.

I don't know if that was the actor's real accent or it's just his acting accent.

But I think an Englishman could sound just like that indeed, depending which town he came from.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hmm... I'm not really sure. I think it depends on the speaker.

Damkerng T.

2:08 PM

Perhaps.

Now it's easy for me to understand what he said.

Anonymous

→ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English#Phonology

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yay!

Anonymous

Do you listen to BrE or AmE more?

Damkerng T.

Mainly AmE.

Anonymous

I know AmE speakers who have trouble understanding BrE accents.

Damkerng T.

2:10 PM

I can adapt myself to listen to BrE and AusE to, but it takes some time to adapt.

Anonymous

For the most part, I have no trouble. I think people in the US hear more and more English from UK media these days, with the popularity of shows like Doctor Who and so forth

Damkerng T.

I think I heard American /r/ in his Bars! :-)

Anonymous

Oh?

Damkerng T.

Just a hint.

(which is why I think it might not be his true accent.)

@snailplane Oh, Doctor Who. And don't forget Sherlock!

I found Sherlock is easier to understand, compared to this clip.

Anonymous

Oh, yes, I've heard of this Sherlock.

Anonymous

2:13 PM

Wow, semirhoticity has very few Google hits :-)

Damkerng T.

It's a word?

Anonymous

I don't know. What does being a word entail?

Damkerng T.

I don't know either. Perhaps being listed in some popular dictionaries.

Anonymous

Ah, I don't use that definition for beingawordliness.

Anonymous

It seems that some other people do, though.

Damkerng T.

2:17 PM

Your Indian English link is helpful; I might need to read it again, to understand hellodear2. Thank you.

Anonymous

Hmm... Should I vote to close that question I answered? (Oops)

Damkerng T.

Because?

Anonymous

Well, in ye olden days, it would've been closed as Too Localized.

Anonymous

These days, we've got no such Close Reason.

Anonymous

But, well, the original user is now gone.

Anonymous

2:20 PM

So now the answer will be useful to exactly zero users...?

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

So I thought I might replace my answer with a comment

Damkerng T.

It was useful for me, though. :)

Anonymous

And vote to close and let the question get cleaned up . . .

Anonymous

Oh, well, I suppose I could leave it :-)

Anonymous

2:23 PM

James Corden

James Kimberley Corden (born 22 August 1978) is an English stage, television and film actor, comedian, television comedy writer, producer and presenter. His biggest early success was as co-creator, co-writer and star of the BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey (2007–2010), for which he won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Comedy Performance. He was also featured on the No.1 single "Shout" along with British grime artist Dizzee Rascal an unofficial anthem of the England football team for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010. In 2011 he attracted international attention as the lead ...

Anonymous

It looks like he was born in London.

Damkerng T.

I've heard that London is a pool of lots of accents.

Anonymous

Probably.

Anonymous

I've never been, myself.

Damkerng T.

I read it from somewhere. :)

Anonymous

2:25 PM

Ah, my statement had a false implication

Damkerng T.

I think it went like "within a 15-minute walk, the accent would change".

Anonymous

I wouldn't be able to characterize the accents of London even if I had visited it :-)

Anonymous

Oh, people always talk about how diverse the accents of England are.

Anonymous

Some of those same people like to characterize American accents as all alike, amusingly enough!

Damkerng T.

I can hear the variety of American accents rather well, I think.

Anonymous

2:26 PM

I suppose it's because when you're English, you hear the broadest differences in American accents first, like rhoticity

Anonymous

And it overwhelms what seem like details.

Damkerng T.

That sounds reasonable.

I also sometimes misheard AusE as BrE.

Anonymous

While over on this side of the pond, we hear major features like non-rhoticity and go "Oh, that's a British accent!"

Anonymous

Me too. Although I eventually had to work with Australian coworkers.

Damkerng T.

Until an Australian says a word like day or today.

Anonymous

2:29 PM

And after I got used to talking to Australians all day long, they didn't seem that similar anymore.

Anonymous

I think the same phenomenon occurs: as an American, it's easy to go "Hey, your R's are funny! That's what I associate with England!"

Anonymous

Although I think vowels are the most distinctive qualities of most accents of English

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's possible that you might think I sound funny too. :)

Anonymous

Probably. I think I sound funny.

Damkerng T.

Would you like to hear my voice?

Anonymous

2:34 PM

Sure, if you like.

Anonymous

I can record myself--I have a vocal mic--although I don't really like to, since I have a lisp :-)

Damkerng T.

Bringing up DropBox (finger-crossed, usually it takes about 80 MB)...

dropbox.com/s/aaf3202hsz8r174/…

Anonymous

It says 2.35MB, not 80MB.

Damkerng T.

I meant DropBox will take that much of my memory. :)

And it could crash my programs.

Anonymous

Vertical donuts!

Damkerng T.

2:38 PM

Yes. :)

I read NPR transcripts once in a few days.

Anonymous

Do you just read from the text, or after listening to the original announcer?

Damkerng T.

That's my own accent.

I think it's about 70% American.

I read it from an NPR's transcript, without listening to the news first.

Anonymous

It does sound noticeably American, particularly when you're saying "again and again"

Damkerng T.

I still keep a good amount of my Thai-ish, I think, about 10-20%.

Anonymous

What is "Thaish"?

Anonymous

2:43 PM

Oh, accent?

Damkerng T.

Thai accent quality.

Anonymous

Hmm. Can you merge the i in -ish with the end of Thai like that?

Anonymous

Thaish. Thaiish?

Anonymous

I think I might even go for Thai-ish

Damkerng T.

Probably not. But I already did it. Oops! :)

Anonymous

2:43 PM

Just to make it clear that they're separate.

Anonymous

I need to do more recordings of myself speaking Japanese.

Anonymous

Hey, Japanese has no [θ] or [ð]! :-)

Damkerng T.

That's good news!

Anonymous

That means that even if I mess up those sounds in my native tongue, they don't cause me problems in Japanese. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe.

Anonymous

2:46 PM

Do you want feedback on your recording?

Damkerng T.

Oh, please.

You can give both general feeling and specific comments on specific parts.

Anonymous

Long portions of it are pretty clear, especially in the middle to second half.

Anonymous

There are specific words which sounded funny to me.

Anonymous

Frozen, bargained, injured

Anonymous

It sounded like you accented the second syllable of injured instead of the first

Damkerng T.

2:48 PM

Oh, yes.

Anonymous

Same with bargained--you accented the second syllable and reduced the first (so it sounded kind of like *beginned)

Anonymous

But the accent is supposed to be on the first syllable, so you can't reduce it like that.

Damkerng T.

I should make the bar in bargained longer, but it seems like the rhythm forced me to pronounced it like that.

What about frozen?

Anonymous

Yeah, bar and gained should be about equal length.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see, I didn't drop the tone of zen in frozen.

Anonymous

2:59 PM

If you want a challenge, I can share that clip of Japanese.

Anonymous

(The one I had trouble with.)

Anonymous

It repeats a phrase eleven times.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I could try, but I can't guarantee the precision of my Japanese transcription. :)

Anonymous

Oh, it's just for fun.

Damkerng T.

Yes, I'd do it.

I need to do something for about 15 minutes and then I'll be back.

Anonymous

3:00 PM

Okay - what phrase is repeated eleven times in this clip? quarplet.com/eleven.wav

Damkerng T.

Only the repeated part?

I heard yamete too. :)

Anonymous

Yes, one person says yamete, followed by something else. (Should I say what?)

Anonymous

In the background, the other person keeps repeating what they're saying :-)

Damkerng T.

I think the repeated part is yenamzin or ienamzin.

Perhaps yamete tuttattemo?

Anonymous

Close!

Damkerng T.

3:04 PM

Yay!

I think that's the best I can do. :)

Anonymous

It's yamete, futari-tomo! [yamete ɸɯtaɾitomoː]

Damkerng T.

Oh, I couldn't hear the /r/ sound! :)

Anonymous

Ah, I shouldn't write it as [r], I always forget

Anonymous

There :-)

Anonymous

It is /r/, but it's not [r]

Damkerng T.

3:07 PM

But isn't it a Japanese /r/?

Anonymous

Yes.

Anonymous

But the sound is more like [ɾ]

Anonymous

The phoneme is almost always transcribed /r/

Anonymous

It's close to an American flapped /t/ or /d/

Damkerng T.

I see, is this a typical way to pronounce this word in Japanese or it's only this speaker?

Anonymous

3:08 PM

(Remember that when you put something between slashes, the interpretation is language-specific, so that first /r/ is a Japanese phoneme, and the /t/ and /d/ are English phonemes)

Anonymous

It's fairly normal. Just a sec.

Anonymous

9

A: R sound vs L sound

The sound called /r/ in Japanese is not quite the same sound as the L or R sounds of English. And as you've correctly observed, there's more than one way to pronounce /r/ in Japanese. There are a couple technical terms from linguistics that might help: /r/ is considered a phoneme. That means...

Damkerng T.

Perhaps the puzzle is a two-word, like: ye namzin.

Anonymous

Oh, do you want the answer?

Damkerng T.

Please. I'm very curious now. :)

Anonymous

3:11 PM

I would say it's four words.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

Yui no kuse ni

Damkerng T.

Hah! It has a /k/ sound!

Anonymous

It's a very short /k/! :-)

Damkerng T.

Perhaps I heard the whole bunch of /u/ /s/ and /e/ as /z/.

Still hard to hear it as Yui no kuse ni. :)

This is fun. :)

BBL in 15m.

Jeyanthan

3:26 PM

Hi guys, Can I use "I fear I have missed reading your email" instead of "I'm afraid I've missed reading your email"

Damkerng T.

I couldn't give a comment on I fear, but I think I'm afraid sounds good already.

Anonymous

@Jeyanthan You shouldn't. It's grammatical and even makes sense (though the meaning may be slightly harder to get), but it sounds less idiomatic.

Anonymous

What do you mean by "I've missed reading your email", by the way?

Jeyanthan

Thanks @snail

well, I have missed his mail and failed to respond on time.. Is there any better way to convey?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. "I fear" can be used with the same meaning, but it's rather formal.

Damkerng T.

3:30 PM

@snailplane Thanks. To me, I'm afraid already sounds rather formal. :)

Anonymous

Ah, I'm not sure. "I'm afraid I wasn't able to read and respond to your mail in time"?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, it sounds polite to me. It's certainly not informal

Damkerng T.

How about "I'm afraid I missed your email."?

Anonymous

Yeah, I wouldn't bother with the 've myself :-)

Jeyanthan

@DamkerngT. You made it simple :) Yes.. I think I should learn to write crisp and concise.

Anonymous

3:34 PM

"I missed your email" sounds to me like you didn't see it.

Anonymous

(You didn't realize they sent one.)

Cerberus

Hello.

Damkerng T.

That's happened to me often enough. :)

Anonymous

Hello!

Cerberus

@snailplane I think that's American.

Damkerng T.

3:35 PM

@Cerberus Hello!

Cerberus

I would probably write I've, although neither sounds "weird" to me.

Anonymous

@Cerberus Could be. But it is, after all, FumbleFingers' truism, and he's British.

Cerberus

Oh, wait, this is about FF?

Anonymous

No, no.

Cerberus

I kind of jumped in...

Oh.

Anonymous

3:36 PM

He wasn't mentioned yet when I brought him up :-)

Anonymous

I still haven't explained what I meant.

Anonymous

7

A: Verb tenses when asking a question

The guiding principle should be don't use Past Perfect unless you really have to. The uncertainty occurred after the asking - chronologically, and in the narrative sequence of OP's text. That's what normally happens when you report a series of events... I did this. Then I did that. It's gr...

Anonymous

StoneyB keeps linking to that answer with the text "FumbleFingers' Perfect Truism"

Anonymous

Hey, that says Past Perfect! I thought it just said Perfect.

Anonymous

Here's StoneyB's version:

Anonymous

3:37 PM

> the principle that you don't use a perfect if you don't need it.

Cerberus

He is talking about had done, past perfect.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I like StoneyB's version. Before you posted his comment, I was writing "Don't use the present perfect unless you really have to." :-)

Anonymous

@Cerberus By the way, neither sounds weird to me, either.

Anonymous

But as I said, I probably wouldn't bother with 've myself.

Cerberus

And he is talking about must have done, which he calls a present perfect, even though it's not, technically. It's just a past infinitive.

Anonymous

3:39 PM

@Cerberus Yes, that's true--but StoneyB's general-er generalization just says "perfect" :-)

Cerberus

I suppose Stoney's version is easy for those who are in doubt...

But...

You know.

Anonymous

Modal auxiliary + perfect auxiliary + past participle. Present perfect construction.

Anonymous

(Plus a modal thingy.)

Cerberus

I would not call that present perfect at all.

There is only one way to get a "past" sense in an infinitive, and you can use that infinitive both to replace a present perfect and a simple past.

If you look at the transformations, it all becomes clear:

Anonymous

Oh, that's okay. I would! :-)

Cerberus

3:41 PM

> I left my purse in the shop → I must have left my purse in the shop.

There is no other way, is there? To do the transformation.

> You have lived in Austria → you must have lived in Austria.

Anonymous

Although,

Anonymous

I want to go check what Quirk says--I think he might have a special term for the *must have*s of the world

Damkerng T.

Similarly, She said "I left my purse in the shop" → She said she had left her purse in the shop.

Cerberus

@DamkerngT. Yes, the past perfect can also be used to do a (different) transformation based on the simple past.

Anonymous

I need to take better notes.

Anonymous

3:47 PM

I can't find the section I'm thinking of.

Cerberus

Heh.

Anonymous

Ah! I found it. But it doesn't include would've as special.

Cerberus

I would call the infinitive to have done simply "past", not (necessarily) perfect...

Anonymous

I wouldn't call it past. It's an infinitive, so it's unmarked for tense.

Anonymous

That is, in my book, tenses are something finite verbs have, generally speaking.

Anonymous

3:51 PM

I'm thinking about what you said, though.

Cerberus

@snailplane What are the arguments for that?

Anonymous

@Cerberus Well, it's just definitional. A finite verb can be inflected for (among other things) tense. That's what makes it finite.

Cerberus

Perhaps a different name is better to describe that something happened before something else: it is true that e.g. a simple past points directly from the present to the past, whereas the "past" infinitive merely shifts the time referred to one step back from the finite verb.

@snailplane To me, person and number are more essential to finiteness...we have had many questions about this on ELU, with many different answers and perspectives.

One thing that's clear is that there is nothing near a consensus about the meaning of "tense", hehe.

Some say tense is a property of a sentence or clause only.

Damkerng T.

Question of the day: "What is tense?"

:)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I follow McCawley, Quirk et al, H&P, all of whom give English two tenses, called by various names including "past" and "nonpast". This analysis uses "tense" as a description of verb morphology--there is only one distinction in form that is primarily concerned with time, so there are two tenses. Then we can abstract away the idea of "time" from "tense", saying that the central use of tense is to locate events in time, but that the two aren't always in lockstop.

Anonymous

4:06 PM

Then, assuming we've made our terminology clear (since not everyone uses the terms that way), we can talk about the uses of the past tense that aren't related to past time, such as in hypotheticals, and we can talk about the use of the present tense with the modal auxiliary will to express future time, but also the use of the same construction to reflect uncertainty, and so on.

Anonymous

So by this definition, "tense" is a term to describe a morphological distinction, while "time" is a term to describe a semantic distinction.

Anonymous

There are other definitions of tense.

Cerberus

@snailplane That is one approach, yes.

Many approaches are internally consistent and usable.

But I would not favour this one myself.

Anonymous

4:19 PM

@Cerberus You too can answer Damkerng's question, if you like! :-)

Anonymous

That's odd. The last two questions in the feed on my screen don't have the ELL icon. They have a generic Stack Exchange icon.

Cerberus

Same here.

Anonymous

Oh, it can be a little mindbending going between different sets of linguistics terminology all the time.

Anonymous

4:35 PM

H&P add one detail to the above description that I'm not entirely comfortable with. They describe the presence or absence of the auxiliary have as a secondary tense system, and say that it combines with the primary tense system to give four possible tenses: present, past, present perfect, past perfect.

Anonymous

(Which they call "compound tenses".)

Anonymous

But they still refer to the morphological distinction made by verbs between past versus nonpast as the primary tense distinction, and they give them the names "present" and "preterite".

Anonymous

I feel like that complicates the terminology unnecessarily.

Anonymous

I also like the terms "past" and "nonpast", although at this point I'm fairly used to calling them by any name you can throw at them, as long as we're talking about the same distinction. (It takes me slightly longer to catch up when I hear a "future tense", because it indicates to me that I have to think about things in a very different way.)

Anonymous

I'm not entirely sure what the argument is for calling perfect tenses "perfect tenses".

Anonymous

6:34 PM

I wrote some answers instead of chatting.

Anonymous

I like chatting better, though.

Damkerng T.

Me too!

I'm just hoping that hellodear2 will drop by today, but it seems unlikely looking at the time.

Anonymous

Ah, is it past hellodear2's usual dropping-by time?

Anonymous

I'm afraid I had far too much caffeine last night.

Anonymous

The thought of sleeping never even crossed my mind.

Damkerng T.

6:38 PM

I think it's now his midnight.

Anonymous

At least I managed to channel a little of that garrulity into an answer or two :-)

Damkerng T.

I just read that transparent question.

Anonymous

Funny, innit?

Damkerng T.

I think this usage is new, perhaps. (< 20 years)

Anonymous

Oh, I bet.

Damkerng T.

6:39 PM

It also reminds me of my Hagu.

Anonymous

I can't say I'm really aware of that myself, but it sounds like a reasonable time frame to me.

Damkerng T.

My sliding doors must be transparent to him, so he ran into the doors quite often.

Anonymous

Certainly we have plenty of people objecting to it as an unwanted innovation. Although that happens with older usage from time to time, too :-)

Anonymous

But in this case it seems to have an association with the software industry, I think.

Anonymous

Aww, poor Hagu!

Anonymous

6:41 PM

My snails run into the transparent walls. Well, run might be a bit of an exaggeration.

Damkerng T.

Yes, poor him. :)

Anonymous

They keep going though, up the walls, and then onto the ceilings.

Anonymous

And by ceilings, I mean ceiling. I don't think they have more than one.

Anonymous

Although I haven't checked on them all night--I should probably make sure they haven't innovated a ceiling.

Damkerng T.

That's another thing special about snails, they can walk on walls.

Anonymous

6:42 PM

Yes!

Anonymous

They sure can.

Anonymous

They like climbing :-)

Damkerng T.

^^

And my cat likes ripping my wallpapers apart.

Anonymous

Would you like to see more snail pictures?

Damkerng T.

Yes, please.

Anonymous

6:44 PM

Here are Dee and Snaily (the two parents) batting eyestalks. I thought they might be about to mate, but they didn't--they just bonked eyestalks for a while!

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

Duo snails!

Anonymous

They get all excited when they run into each other. See how Snaily's all stretched out? :-)

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Anonymous

And they speed up a lot, and start wobbling their eyestalks all around, and they keep touching each other

Damkerng T.

6:45 PM

They must like chatting too!

Anonymous

But this time, neither of them showed any signs of mating. They just liked touching :-)

Anonymous

Here's Dot, who is growing bigger by the day!

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

He's a big Dot now.

Anonymous

Uh-huh!

Damkerng T.

6:46 PM

There's one more, I think.

Anonymous

For comparison, this is how big Dot was in January:

Anonymous

See that tiny snail in the middle of the picture? :-)

Anonymous

With that giant spoon off in the distance!

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

6:47 PM

I suppose it's hard to compare the two photos, but all stretched out she's about four times as long.

Damkerng T.

Now he looks more like the other one on the upper-left corner.

Wow!

Anonymous

She's bigger than the ones in the corner, now.

Damkerng T.

Hah! Big Dot!

> Somehow, most people understand which sense is meant, despite the two apparently opposite meanings. Confusing? Probably. But that's English for you.

I can think of something similar in Thai too.

Anonymous

Oh yeah?

Damkerng T.

We have a word which now means being defeated but it was winning a few hundred years ago!

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