English Language Learners

Damkerng T.

8:52 AM

I just found this very interesting sentence:

> Just as the future, the past is not 'here and now', in front of our eyes.

> -- Communicating about the Past through Modality in English and Thai., K. M. Jaszczolt and J. Srioutai.

I think it holds the key to understanding English tenses.

Because...

I don't see the world that way.

The present, the past, the future, the unreal, in short everything, can appear right in front of my eyes, always, any time, at my own will.

Perhaps, English native speakers can't do that!

In other words, it seems like English native speakers thing in tenses, and I don't.

So, I always have trouble expressing my thoughts in English in appropriate tenses, because I don't have to in my native thoughts.

(I have much less such trouble now, compared to the time before I joined ELL.)

s/thing/think/

Nico

To me the past are memories and the future imaginations, only the present exists,

but I think this idea is beyond what the first language is.

Do you mean perhaps that when you write a sentence you can do so without thinking of the tense?

Damkerng T.

The paper reminds me of the word will in Thai. We can use them for the event in the past, in the present (tangled with conditionals), and in the future.

Exactly!

My L1 has no tenses at all.

I mean, if tense is something related to form.

Nico

For example, in Spanish most words distinguish male from female, and so I always have to think of the gender, whereas in English you can easily avoid mentioning the gender.

Damkerng T.

My L1 also has no gender.

(Except for those words borrowed from other languages.)

My L1 also has no articles.

Again, my L1 also has no plurality.

(If we talk only about the forms.)

Nico

9:07 AM

I sounds like it's very easy to say something ambiguous in Thai.

Damkerng T.

But that sentence "Just as the future, the past is not 'here and now', in front of our eyes." struck me, and I think I found something really important.

@Nico Agree. :-)

Thai is very flexible, imo.

It's kinda like English letters are more flexible than Chinese characters...

just because English has less number of letters.

So we can create a lot of new words more freely than in Chinese, I guess.

(It might also depend on how we consider what the words are.)

Nico

Simplicity and versatility sometimes go along :)

Damkerng T.

Generally, I feel like I have to use another brain when I think in English.

@Nico Yeah!

Nico

In terms of phonetics I don't think so. I think we Spaniards have a huge handicap when learning other languages because of the limited amount of sounds we have.

Damkerng T.

trying to imagine what would happen if Spanish were the international language...

I think I might like it. :-)

Nico

9:13 AM

I'm not gonna look for it, but there is paper arguing that speaker use have a different personality when they express themselves in different languages.

Imagine it was latin!

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Latin resurrected!

Nico

indeed

Out of curiosity, how many vowel sounds are in Thai?

Damkerng T.

We have a lot! 22 vowels, but 9 pure ones.

Nico

I need to vent: I hate MS word! Why do people inflect Word on themselves?

Damkerng T.

(The number of vowels depend on how we count them. So let's keep it simple and say that Thai has 9 vowel sounds.)

Nico

9:18 AM

I spend more time formatting the document than actually writing the text!

Damkerng T.

Hah!

I think you might like LaTeX.

Or the markdown language we use in our chat room.

Nico

I do, although I admit is not for everyone.

Damkerng T.

The first time I knew about wiki (I mean the mother wiki), I fell in love with the concept at once.

I can write lots of notes, related to one another, without having to worry about the formatting. It keeps me focused.

Nico

Do you use a online wiki or you have desktop program for that?

Damkerng T.

I use a desktop one.

I wrote it myself a long time ago.

Nico

9:22 AM

and what do you use as markdown?

Damkerng T.

(Well, not entirely, I adapted the code and the syntax from an existing one.)

It's almost like Wikipedia, it's in Tcl.

Nico

and what text editor do you use?

Damkerng T.

I ripped the engine of the early prototype of this engine: wiki.tcl.tk, and remolded it to serve my needs.

It has a big textbox that I can type my text into.

Nico

These days I use gvim a lot, so I miss it when I'm typing.

Damkerng T.

Vim is a very nice editor!

Many people overlooked it.

Nico

9:28 AM

I'm going to go idle for a while.

Damkerng T.

Being an experimentalist, I've written my random thoughts into a Piggydb for a while. I found it a few years back, but didn't really give it a try.

Nico

It's always nice to talk to you.

Damkerng T.

I see. It was a nice chat. See you soon.

Also, have a nice day! :-)

Nico

I'll be around.

Fantasier

9:44 AM

@DamkerngT. Vim as opposed to emacs ?

(I'm not in the war, btw)

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Vim and Emacs as opposed to everything else, I think. :-)

Fantasier

I use neither of them lol

Damkerng T.

Because I don't have to code a lot anymore, I don't really have to use it myself too. :-)

But if I have to write some small pieces of code, I will use SciTE.

It's small and portable.

Fantasier

Never heard of it before.

Damkerng T.

It's not that hard to find, but its documentation is.

Fantasier

9:53 AM

Well I'm not really in the field anymore.

Damkerng T.

Hehe. :-)

By the way, how was Bang Saen?

Fantasier

Too noisy.

They went all crazy for the whole night.

Damkerng T.

Oh! Lots of people there, I guess.

Ah, all-nighters.

Fantasier

I just stayed in the hotel and swam.

Damkerng T.

In the sea?

Or in a pool?

Fantasier

9:58 AM

In the pool!

Damkerng T.

Oh! Hehe.

Swimming is fun. Always is.

Anonymous

4:26 PM

I use vim every day! Not just for programming, but for stuff like taking notes, writing SE answers, . . .

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't really think in tenses. I don't usually think in language, though of course I'm capable of thinking through words, just like anybody else

Anonymous

Oh, we got rid of our source-error tag on Japanese! :-)

Anonymous

So now its existence won't mislead people on other SE sites

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, you are a true fan of Vim!

I think most of my thoughts are multi-modal.

@snailboat Hooray!

Anonymous

4:43 PM

@DamkerngT. It's just really ingrained.

Anonymous

I've been using vi for most of my life :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, I love vi and vim!

Anonymous

Any time I use another editor, I miss it.

Damkerng T.

I switched to SciTE because I needed a small portable editor that works on Windows.

Anonymous

Oh, I've heard of that one!

Damkerng T.

4:45 PM

I know how you feel!

Nico

Hi lad and lass

Anonymous

Hello!

Damkerng T.

Hola!

Nico

I will be travelling for the next 10 days, so I may not be able to join ELL as often as I would like to.

Fantasier

Hello

Nico

4:54 PM

:(

Damkerng T.

For business or pleasure?

Nico

pleasure! Back to Spain to see my dad.

Damkerng T.

Oh, wow! Then, have a good time traveling!

Nico

@snailboat how do you use vim to write answers? do you copy'n'paste?

Anonymous

5:09 PM

@Nico Yeah. But there are browser plugins you can use to hand off textareas to external editors such as gvim

Nico

I read Tyler's comments on AHK. I wondered a few times how he has the patience to format his answers so neatly and I imagined he was using some kind of bookmarlet.

People here seem to know a lot of tricks :)

Anonymous

@Nico What's AHK?

Anonymous

I can tell you a few tricks.

Anonymous

If you use <code></code> and <pre></pre> instead of backticks and indenting with spaces, you can use HTML tags in fixed-width text

Anonymous

So you can use bold and italic or insert links

Nico

5:15 PM

AutoHotKey

Anonymous

Oh, right!

Anonymous

I've used AHK a little. I don't have much use for Windows, though

Anonymous

Another trick is putting two spaces at the end of a line to insert a line break.

Anonymous

Do you know all these "tricks" already? ;-)

Anonymous

In chat, you can use　　　　　　wide spaces　　　　　　to space things out

Anonymous

5:18 PM

But spaces are deleted at the beginning of a line ←

Damkerng T.

Oh, I haven't known about wide spaces!

Anonymous

　　　　　　　　But if I put a zero-width space before the first wide space, it's not deleted ←

Anonymous

So you can use that trick to help format your chat messages

Anonymous

~~Strikethrough~~ works in chat: use three dashes on either side. On the site itself, you can use <s> or <strike> or <del>

Anonymous

In comments, though, strikethrough is not supported. You can use Unicode strikethrough instead, but it may not show up on all phones.

Fantasier

5:21 PM

S-s-s-so cool

Anonymous

Wide spaces are also useful on the site itself.

Anonymous

Anyway, those are some tricks.

Nico

I'm so sorry. I gotta go again.

Se you... when I see you :)

Damkerng T.

See you later, and have a good time and a safe trip!

Oh! I just learned a new word: transput!

Anonymous

5:37 PM

It's not really a standard word

Anonymous

What context did you learn it in?

Damkerng T.

From one of our ELL questions!

Anonymous

I think it might be used as a hypernym of input and output in some limited contexts

Damkerng T.

The OP is looking for a hypernym for “input” and “output”.

Anonymous

Oh! Well, there you go.

Damkerng T.

5:38 PM

In a context of electric schemes.

Anonymous

Most engineers don't use the word transput

Damkerng T.

I think it should be schematics, btw.

I've never used it before!

Anonymous

Yeah, that makes more sense

Damkerng T.

And, maybe electrical or electronic.

Anonymous

Thing is, most people just say I/O.

Damkerng T.

5:39 PM

Yup.

But who could know the OP's intention? :-)

Anonymous

I would recommend that over transput in most technical contexts

oerkelens

I never used it, and the "free dictionary"actually sends you to input/output, from where the definition was copied. The abreviation would be I/O.

Anonymous

Yeah.

oerkelens

That is for input/output, not for transput

Anonymous

Yeah, we just covered I/O :-)

oerkelens

5:41 PM

Was the first thing I mentioned on that question :P

Anonymous

I/O is the proper answer, IMO.

Damkerng T.

I saw your comment. :D

Anonymous

Transput is only used in a few limited contexts.

Damkerng T.

I think what the OP is really looking for might be something else entirely, for example, signal.

Anonymous

If so, they asked the wrong question

Anonymous

5:43 PM

I just looked at it

Anonymous

@oerkelens Just leave your comment as an answer.

Damkerng T.

I wasn't surprised by relaxing's comment. :D

Anonymous

Well, you know, a suitably modified version of the comment.

Damkerng T.

I see, transput was perhaps invented in ALGOL's realm.

oerkelens

Not all IT-related neologisms were really successful :)

Anonymous

5:51 PM

@DamkerngT. It occurs outside that context, but it's generally very limited--people don't usually use the term

oerkelens

I bet few people seriously believe a nibble or a mickey has a serious IT-related meaning

Damkerng T.

Of course. I'm not even sure about the language itself. Is it still around?

oerkelens

IT-languages are incredibly hard to kill

Anonymous

I would expect lots of people to know nibble, but mickey? What's that?

oerkelens

Standard movement of a mouse. Mouse-precision was once set in mickies per pixel (mpp)

Anonymous

5:53 PM

Oh, I totally don't remember that

oerkelens

webopedia.com/TERM/M/mickey.html

I have no idea where I picked that one up :)

Damkerng T.

Me neither. It sounds very mickical.

oerkelens

and who has use for nibbles now that we send megabytes across the net? :)

Damkerng T.

I think I still use nibble sometimes.

oerkelens

Then again the Dutch list of obsolete words is longer. We tried to translate everything, but for most things people preferred to use the English name :)

Anonymous

5:55 PM

Nibble is certainly far less common than byte.

Damkerng T.

Perhaps not if you worked with IBM mainframes. :D

Anonymous

But I would still use it to describe the upper and lower nibbles of a byte used to store two different values

Anonymous

As in memory-mapped video with a 16-color palette

Damkerng T.

True, that^

Anonymous

Of course, that's not something most people need to care about anymore, but people still do talk about old hardware

helix

5:57 PM

Re: Transput /// I agree with I/O but I'll leave my answer open for reference.

Anonymous

@helix I see no reason to downvote or anything like that. It is a hypernym of input and output. But I think someone should leave I/O as an answer so it can be upvoted

Damkerng T.

I like that you posted the word!

Anonymous

Oh, I see oerkelens did. I'll upvote that

helix

As I said.

@MaulikV I was thinking: "People don't know what they want unless you show it to them." - Steve Jobs — helix 2 days ago

Anonymous

Oh, Maulik said "according to me" was wrong. I think that phrase is okay.

oerkelens

6:02 PM

@DamkerngT. when I worked with them, you mean :P

Anonymous

Although "In my opinion" may be appropriate more often :-)

Anonymous

@oerkelens People still do.

Anonymous

You don't. I don't. But people do

oerkelens

@snailboat I know :)

Damkerng T.

@oerkelens I don't know if you ever had to work with them, so!

oerkelens

6:03 PM

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I'm ancient

helix

@snailboat I usually hear that as "Well at least according to me."

oerkelens

well, not really, I started in 2000 as a junior Cobol programmer

Damkerng T.

Oh, COBOL in 2000 was nice enough, I think.

I hate CICS.

Lucky me. I didn't have to do it myself.

oerkelens

It was Cobol 74, with a bit of Cobol 85 and with CICS

Anonymous

I'm 32 years old.

oerkelens

6:04 PM

And some ASM

Damkerng T.

LOL

oerkelens

Omg, I am ancient :)

Anonymous

I've never touched COBOL. But I did lots of kinds of asm.

Anonymous

These days I don't. My brother still does assembly.

oerkelens

COBOL is cool. It's a lot like writing English.

Damkerng T.

6:07 PM

trying to avoid talking about things that makes "me" feel older than what I already am...

Anonymous

Hehe, my apologies!

Damkerng T.

:D

oerkelens

@DamkerngT. Remember, those punchcards? :)

Damkerng T.

I can still remember how they felt like.

Anonymous

My dad's in his late seventies and was a programmer all his career, so my benchmark for "ancient" falls on the other side of you all, I think

Damkerng T.

6:09 PM

Yay! -- feel a little better already :-)

oerkelens

:)

Anonymous

I don't think hardly by itself is a good substitute for nearly never

Anonymous

Hardly ever is fine.

Damkerng T.

It depends on context, I think.

oerkelens

hardly on its own is more nearly not

Anonymous

6:11 PM

@DamkerngT. Yes, you could use it if the verb permitted a habitual reading

Anonymous

> I hardly go to the store these days

Anonymous

But I think it would be more natural with hardly ever

Damkerng T.

nods in agreement

Anonymous

But when you suggest it as an alternative, I think it behooves you to outline exactly when it can and can't be used with that meaning

Anonymous

Since I don't think it would normally be used that way.

Damkerng T.

6:17 PM

A-ha! As I expected, if we add "rarely occur(s)" to the chart, "rarely" will be the clear winner.

helix

@DamkerngT. Is "rarely occurs" really semantically equivalent to the rest of the terms?

Anonymous

What are the alternatives?

Damkerng T.

I believe so.

Hmm... It's helix's chart.

2

A: Can I say "nearly never" in a single word?

Not one word, but this phrase is more natural than saying nearly never.: Almost never One word: Hardly Scarcely (used to qualify a statement by saying that it is true to an insignificant degree). Also used as hardly ever. Scarcely or Barely Only just; almost not: Usage graph specifi...

Anonymous

Ah, I missed the chart

Damkerng T.

But I would say "almost never" is a good choice already.

helix

6:21 PM

@DamkerngT. Yes; that's why I put it at the top of my list.

Damkerng T.

"Hardly ever" is also another good choice.

(In that context)

Anonymous

Yeah, a better choice than hardly

Anonymous

Barely ever, too

Damkerng T.

I'm thinking about seldom.

Anonymous

Another good choice.

Damkerng T.

6:23 PM

StoneyB suggested it in his comment.

Anonymous

Ahh :-)

Anonymous

There are lots of ways to express that particular proposition.

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure which one could happen more often between seldom and rarely.

Anonymous

You can also say things like "It doesn't occur/happen [very] often"

helix

Still, I don't know why but I feel that rarely > almost never.

In magnitude.

Anonymous

6:25 PM

Yeah, almost never does sound more emphatic, doesn't it?

Damkerng T.

According to Macmillan, rarely ~ not often, seldom ~ not often.

Anonymous

There'll be small differences between all of the choices, probably.

Anonymous

But they're all vague enough to be overlapping, I think.

Damkerng T.

Maybe we need something like very rarely. :D

Anonymous

You could compare almost never to rarely ever

Damkerng T.

6:27 PM

Oh, we can use imperceptibly, I think.

Anonymous

But I think it's understood when discussing "synonyms" that the options aren't necessarily 100% interchangeable.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

It's seldom that we find exact matches in language

Anonymous

Although quite often words are interchangeable in many or most contexts.

Anonymous

arnoldzwicky.org/2010/11/25/how-that

Damkerng T.

6:29 PM

Oh! how & that!

0

Q: All of your doubt will suddenly go away / goes away?

"All of your doubt will suddenly go away when..." "All of your doubt will suddenly goes away when..." Go away or goes away? Which sentence is grammatically right?

I think it's usually more like "All your doubts ..."

Anonymous

Sure. In this case it's irrelevant, since will is followed by the plain form of the verb

Anonymous

Will makes the clause finite, so the following verb is non-finite

Anonymous

So it can't agree in number or person (go can't become goes)

Damkerng T.

That's true.

Anonymous

My snails are all asleep.

Anonymous

6:32 PM

I'm going to go give them new food :-)

Damkerng T.

I just have my doubts beyond the question. :D

Anonymous

Oh, well, I gave you a one-word response to that: "Sure!" I think doubts sounds a little better.

Anonymous

I don't think doubt is wrong, though.

Damkerng T.

zzz <-- snails making sleeping sound effects

Anonymous

It can be a mass noun or a count noun.

Anonymous

6:33 PM

Although when it's a count noun, we generally don't use it in the singular.

helix

@snailboat Kinda off-topic but since you're here I wanted to ask:

Is this question too much to ask?

4

Q: Are these phrases interchangeable? に関して, に対して, において, について, における

There's already a question that discusses にかんして vs について but I found more terms that are more or less the same to me. All phrases seem to be some kind of topic marker that can be roughly translated to "regarding" or oftentimes "in" but I couldn't find a dictionary that discusses nuance or usage. ...

usage nuances

Anonymous

7:28 PM

@helix People on JLSE are fond of putting lots of choices together in questions like that. Sometimes if you list three or four, you'll get comments suggesting you add another one you missed :-)

Anonymous

So I think it's fine by the standards of the community. And I think general questions are fine, but I think sometimes questions about specific contexts are more educational overall

Anonymous

In any case, feel free to repeat your question in the Japanese.SE chat room so other members can give their opinions

Anonymous

(I was away from the keyboard when you asked dealing with a snail emergency. I found a gnat in my snail cage! I just cleaned everything and gave them new food)

helix

7:54 PM

@snailboat Thanks for the advice.

Curious: What do gnats do to snails anyway?

Anonymous

8:20 PM

@helix I don't know!

Anonymous

But I took it as a sign that the cage wasn't clean.

Anonymous

I don't know why there was a gnat bothering one of my pet snails.

Anonymous

I moved the snail around and the gnat tried to follow :-(

Anonymous

So I put my snails in a little jar and covered it up and cleaned everything out

Anonymous

I don't see any gnats now

Anonymous

8:21 PM

I hope it's okay!

Cerberus

Stupid gnats.

I don't imagine they would or could bite snails?

No real blood, right?

Anonymous

Snails have blood.

Anonymous

They have hemocyanin rather than hemoglobin

Anonymous

So their blood isn't red (when exposed to oxygen) like ours.

Cerberus

But can gnats feed on it?

Anonymous

8:28 PM

And their circulatory systems are very simple

Anonymous

I'm not sure.

Cerberus

I should think not...

Anonymous

But cleaning the cage makes them go away, so I think they eat other things.

Cerberus

Never heard of mosquitos biting anything other than mammals, actually...can they bite reptiles even?

Could be.

Anonymous

There are parasitic mites that attack snails

Cerberus

8:29 PM

Or their eggs just happened to be laid in some moist area in the cage.

Ah, mites.

Anonymous

Luckily, I don't have any of those in my cage

Anonymous

You can kill those with predatory Hypoaspis miles mites, which eat the mites that attack snails

Anonymous

So I can get rid of those if they attack my snails.

Cerberus

And the predatory mites don't bite snails?

Anonymous

But I carefully inspected the snails I found in the wild and brought home ones that didn't have parasites

Cerberus

8:30 PM

Nor humans?

Anonymous

No, they only feed on mites.

Cerberus

OK.

Anonymous

Well, to survive they'll eat plant matter.

Cerberus

You are natural selection personified!

Anonymous

Hehe!

Anonymous

9:24 PM

Someone mentioned in an answer that people frequently say "driver's license" instead of "driver license"

Anonymous

It's funny.

Anonymous

My California driver's license says "driver license" on it

Anonymous

But I would never call it that. It just sounds wrong.

Anonymous

The version with an s isn't just more common in my mind, it's the only thing that sounds right to me

Anonymous

Same thing with "daylight saving time". The only thing that sounds right to my ear is "daylight savings time"

Anonymous

9:26 PM

But officially, there's no s.

Anonymous

I always take these as quirks not of my dialect, but of governments choosing to use variant terminology

Anonymous

But I too write "daylight saving time" when I'm talking about it, because although it sounds wrong to my ear, I've memorized that it's "correct"

Anonymous

The same is not true of "driver license", which seems significantly quirkier to me than "daylight saving time"

Anonymous

And looking online, I see a lot of usage of the proper "daylight saving time", but not so much of "driver license"

Anonymous

So I think I'll pick my battles: I'll stick to "driver's license" but yield to "daylight saving time"

Anonymous

9:30 PM

I'm curious how much dialectal variation there is in "savings" versus "saving" there

Damkerng T.

Just curious, why does "driver's license" sound so wrong?

Anonymous

Am I really in a minority? I can't recall ever having heard "daylight saving time", only having read it. But I see it's actually the majority usage in COCA.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It doesn't. "Driver license" is the one that sounds wrong.

Damkerng T.

I can think of something similar in my language too. :-)

Ah, yes, I mixed them up.

We have lottery for charity.

Anonymous

As for why? Because I can only remember ever having heard the other form, I suppose. But if there's some reason behind that, I'm not aware of it.

Anonymous

9:33 PM

A lottery for charity?

Damkerng T.

Sometimes, they chose to call it "lottery enriching charity" (literally translated into English).

Yes.

I don't know if I should use singular or plural, because it's unclear in my language.

Anonymous

Ah, I was just un-massing the noun :-)

Damkerng T.

"lottery enriching charity" sounds really odd.

I think I can think of this kind of lottery the way I can think of fish in English. :-)

What is the common term for this kind of lottery in English?

Anonymous

I have no idea. A raffle?

Damkerng T.

In any case, the case of "driver license" reminds me of the lottery.

Anonymous

9:39 PM

Uh-huh?

Damkerng T.

Most of us just call it "lottery" or "charity lottery".

Anonymous

So far, the glosses you've given me haven't really indicated to me what it is you're talking about.

Damkerng T.

Why do they have to add "enrich(ing)", I don't know.

Anonymous

A lottery where the proceeds go to charity?

Damkerng T.

Yes, I think.

After expenses deduction.

I gotta go to bed now. Happy hunting the usages in corpora!

See you soon!

Anonymous

9:51 PM

Okay! Rest well!

Anonymous

Anonymous

This is my brother's new hamster!

Anonymous

He's got puffy fur.

Anonymous

11:30 PM

@TylerJamesYoung It's your fault I went to the store and got a chocolate bar today. :-)

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English Language Learners