English Language Learners - 2015-02-03 (page 2 of 2)

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Anonymous

8:01 PM

corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=36902880

I hadn't thought about แว่น and แว่นตา until I read that question. I think I use แว่น most of the time, and when I want to be specific or when I talk to a stranger, chances are I will use แว่นตา rather than แว่น.

So it's sort of like eyeglasses vs. glasses in this respect.

Anonymous

There are some examples of wearing eyeglasses there that seem natural enough

Anonymous

Though there are 10x more results for wearing glasses

Anonymous

Note that sunglasses is also a common word, and it's unambiguous

@snailboat Only 12! Apparently, people wear sunglasses way more often than that. :-)

8:03 PM

Good evening @Hanaa!

Hah! Those examples sound almost like those occasions that I would use แว่นตา!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I enjoyed Harry Potter. I'm not as big a fan as a lot of people are, but I did think they were decent books

Anonymous

I haven't seen all of those films

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Neat!

Anonymous

Of the ones I did see, I felt that most weren't as good as the books

8:04 PM

@snailboat Somehow I think Thai and English share a lot of stuff at the semantic level.

Anonymous

Especially as the books got longer, they tried to cram more and more into each movie, and it just didn't work

(I should probably say English and Thai, but!)

Anonymous

But then in the fifth movie, which was made from the longest book, they cut a lot out

Anonymous

And that made it a much better movie

@snailboat Oh, I haven't read the books, so I don't really know. ~~Much~~ But I think I've seen all of its sequels as movies. (Note to self: What was wrong with your fingers, huh?)

Anonymous

8:06 PM

Whoever worked on that movie realized that changes were necessary to make it work as a movie

Sorry i didn't reply bcz of bad connection

Anonymous

I don't understand "Much I think"

@Hanaa Ahh... It's okay. Glad you're back with us.

Anonymous

Was that "But I think"?

Hello @CopperKettle!

8:06 PM

@DamkerngT. The books are good. (0:

@snailboat Oh, I don't really know why my fingers typed Much!

Thanks @DamkerngT.

Anonymous

They are. They aren't all equally good, but

Anonymous

In general they're fairly good

Anonymous

The series changes in tone as it goes on and "grows up" a bit

Anonymous

8:07 PM

The last book is a bit clumsy and has a 300-page camping trip in the middle of all the important stuff

Anonymous

The author wrote the ending of the last book at the same time she wrote the first book, and it shows

Anonymous

Because her style changed quite a lot over those years

@Hanaa Don't worry!

Anonymous

And suddenly it was back to the style she had years ago!

Anonymous

Still, I recommend reading them.

Anonymous

8:08 PM

I bought all seven at the same time and read them back-to-back

Anonymous

(I didn't read them as they came out)

@Hanaa Is your connection bad because you're still in that cold city?

@snailboat I feel like I've read a lot of excerpts from the books, though. Thanks to Listenever. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes! Specifically the first book :-)

Yes@CopperKettle

8:09 PM

@DamkerngT. (0:

Anonymous

Although I think she's read all of them, she's quoted the first book more than any of the others

Ahh

@snailboat How do you know it's she?

Anonymous

She hasn't asked many questions lately.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle That was two years ago and I no longer remember

8:10 PM

Listenever's questions are one of the best IMHO, they really force one to dig into the books

I've already forgotten how I came to know she's female, but I think I know she is.

@CopperKettle :D

@snailboat I think she turned her interests to listening tasks.

Who is she?

Maybe she is busy listening to something. :-)

@Hanaa Listenever, one of high rep users on ELL.

@Hanaa Listenever, a Korean woman

Yep. That's her.

8:12 PM

A ha

I passed two quizzes today

Hooray!

@Hanaa Congrats! (0:

It was a hard but sweet day :D

Hooray=?@DamkerngT.

It's the sound of joy.

Hip hip hooray (also hippity hip hooray; Hooray may also be spelled and pronounced hoorah, hurrah, hurray etc.) is a cheering called out to express praise or approbation toward someone or something, in the English speaking world and elsewhere. By a sole speaker, it is a form of interjection. In a group, it takes the form of call and response: the cheer is initiated by one person exclaiming "Three cheers for...[someone or something]" (or, more archaically, "Three times three"), then calling out "hip hip" (archaically, "hip hip hip") three times, each time being responded by "hooray". In Australia...

8:17 PM

Someone says, "Hip, hip!" Others say, "Hooray!"

You like quizzes !

It's ура in Russian

I hooray'ed for your pass (of the quizzes). :-)

Quizzes are blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

Btw i meant by passed : had

I don't know the mark

Ypa hooray

Oh, but you sound like you did well. :-)

Anyway, it will be either tears of joy or tears of sorrow, once you know the result. :D

8:20 PM

Yes @DamkerngT.sixth sense man

Oh, speaking of which, @snailboat have they sent you the result already?

@Hanaa Hehe!

@CopperKettle definitions hunter where have u been in last days?

@Hanaa (0:

@Hanaa Doing some translation (0:

A ha

I think my last sense is not well done

@Hanaa What?

8:27 PM

@snailboat

@CopperKettle i mean its form

@Hanaa Do you mean "sentence"?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. No, but I probably didn't do well enough on the listening section is my guess :-)

Yes sorry fr the mistake

@Hanaa "Hey, definition hunter, where have you been in THE last days"?

Anonymous

I think I probably did fine on the rest

Anonymous

8:29 PM

So I've been assuming that and doing listening practice! :-)

Yes @CopperKettle

Anonymous

@CopperKettle The last FEW days, perhaps?

@snailboat Would "the last days" imply "the last days of your life" without few?

Thaaaanks @snailboat

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I don't know. It sounds like it must mean something dramatic.

8:30 PM

@snailboat I still believe you will pass the test just fine. :-)

@snailboat I see (0:

Anonymous

The last days of someone's life, or the last days of the world, or the universe

Anonymous

Point being, they're the last days in some set of days

Ooooh

@snailboat What if we drop THE? Would "in last days" fix the meaning, I wonder

8:31 PM

Where have you been in the last few days @CopperKettle?

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Then it seems ungrammatical rather than unusual

Or are we only allowed to drop the before the singular last/next day...

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Give me an example?

Where have you been last day?

@snailboat The cake maker said the cake will be ready next day.

Anonymous

8:33 PM

@Hanaa "in the last day"

I think my natural choice is "Where have you been these last few days?", if I want to say last.

What will u present in the next day?

Anonymous

@CopperKettle That doesn't seem especially likely to me, but if you did say it, it would be a special lexicalized use of "next day", as in "Next day shipping is available".

I remember that we can drop the before "last/next + time period"

A ha @snailboat ok

Anonymous

8:34 PM

@CopperKettle That's not really true…

@snailboat I remember reading that this dropping will change the meaning

Anonymous

Of course they occur without the, but they're different.

Anonymous

It's not just the meaning, it's the grammar that changes

I have an appointment with the dentist next Wednesday morning

Anonymous

And so, there are places where you must include the and places where you must not

8:35 PM

@CopperKettle @snailboat Probably when we drop the preposition altogether? I was here last night. I want to go there next week.

Anonymous

So it's a mistake to analyze it in terms of the-dropping

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Those are fine of course

?????!

Anonymous

You're right that utterances like "I was here *in last night" and "I want to go there *in next week" would be ungrammatical

Anonymous

(And likewise for whatever other prepositions you might propose)

8:36 PM

@snailboat Ah, I see! I'm just too sleepy, it's 1:40 AM here (0:

Why those of @DamkerngT. are fine. He dropped the?

Anonymous

No, there was no the there in the first place

@Hanaa I don't know why, but they're what I've heard.

@DamkerngT. I remember the use of the term deixis in the description of this the/no the metamorphosis with "last/next time period"

Interesting! -- checking out the link

Anonymous

8:38 PM

@CopperKettle Deixis is non-anaphoric reference

How? Last day is wrong. last night correct

Anonymous

When I say "I" or "you", that's deictic reference (to the speaker or listener)

Anonymous

When I say "My brother keeps pet hamsters. He really likes hamsters." Then I'm using anaphoric reference: he refers back to what was previously said ("my brother")

Anonymous

@Hanaa You can always post questions on ELL

Anonymous

I'll be right back

8:39 PM

Hmm... that page's probably not quite related to the or no the.

Ok

I mean the use of "no the" with "next year", say is "deictic".

"In 2001, we decided that we will travel to India next year" (meaning, 2016, because I"m saying this in 2015)

I still can't see it as the reason for dropping the.

My intuition says: last day wrong bcz it equals yesterday

I think deictic is about next is a deictic reference.

8:41 PM

"In 2001, we decided that we will travel to India the next year" (meaning, 2002, as opposed to 2016 in the sentence without the)

Hmm... that's an interesting point of view. I haven't thought of it from that angle before.

@DamkerngT. I even read some linguistic PDF article on that.. well, skimmed over it is more like it

(Though, of course, we'd arrive at the same meaning for those sentences.)

Whereas last night is an adverbial phrase not a preposition and indirect object like in the last day

@Hanaa what?

8:44 PM

@CopperKettle nods -- I think I understand your point, though I don't know if I'd want to say that the dropping the is because it's deictic, or it's just something semantically, and it's normal usage of the definite article.

@CopperKettle @Hanaa What? (+1)

"..the references of temporal nouns change with the use of the before last/next, e.g. In 2001, he said he’d come back Ø next year (= in 2008) vs. In 2001, he said he’d come back the next year (= in 2002)."

Ok

(the PDF was published in 2007)

@CopperKettle That's right. I still think it's a typical case of the definite article.

"Definite article usage before Last/Next Time in spoken and written American English", by Isaiah WonHo Yoo

8:46 PM

Using adverbial vetbs is easier than preposition+indirect object

(Being a lumper, I tend to lump similar cases together, because it'll be easier to handle for me.)

Sorry i meant adverbial phrase

@DamkerngT. It's quite a strange usage, and I did not know about it until a couple of years ago (0:

@CopperKettle I think that's because we perceive articles differently from native speakers. It's one of the gang of four!

@Hanaa Grammar terminologies aside, I think you have a good point about last day vs. last night.

In English, the usage of day and night isn't symmetrical.

(An expression in the night is fine, but in the day is probably not as fine.)

This reminds me of other asymmetrical cases, such as open vs. closed.

I remembered being told at school to always put the before "last", "most" etc., so the omission of the article before "last day", "next day" seemed strange..

8:49 PM

I think we can't replace yesterday and tomorow by adverbial phrases like next day and last day

@CopperKettle Ahh... My mind wasn't really in my class when my teacher was teaching those, so... :-)

@Hanaa I'll read up on this next day.. or tomorrow.. or (the?) (next?) day after tomorrow (0:

@Hanaa Yes, because we already have yesterday, last day would sound strange. It's the same for tomorrow, I think.

But, last night is different. We don't have a word for that. So it's fine.

Also, I don't think next night is commonly used; it'd be tomorrow night.

Don't ask me why. I just express my intuition.

"Last night I had the strangest dream I've ever had before. I dreamed the world had all agreed To put an end to war."

nods

YouTube!

8:54 PM

I'd go and catch me some z's (0:

Good night, @DamkerngT., @Hanaa!

@CopperKettle Rest well!

(I stole snailboat's phrase again. :-)

(0:

Anonymous

@Hanaa "In the last day" could mean "roughly over the last 24 hours"

Anonymous

If you're at work and around 5 PM you ask someone, "So, what have you done for the last day?", you probably don't mean "What did you do yesterday?"

Interesting, I think she sang, "I'vaver had before".

> youtube.com/…

Anonymous

8:58 PM

@CopperKettle That's a good observation!

Anonymous

But that's clearly not the only determining factor.

Anonymous

"One year ago, I bought a new computer. The next day, it broke!" Here, the next day is relative to one year ago

Anonymous

"Next day, it broke!" This isn't grammatical (or if it is, it's because the has been elided via conversational deletion, as we talked about―it's like the is still there but not pronounced)

Anonymous

But there are situations where you can make a contrast between e.g. next week and the next week

Anonymous

I can talk about this more later after I eat

9:01 PM

Oh, that makes me feel hungry a bit. :-)

9:12 PM

A ha i see @snailboat

Ok@CopperKettle thanks in advance

Good night

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How many errors can you find?

Because language isn't algebra. Because language evolves organically, without any centralized oversight or direction. Because there is no purpose in or attempt to rationalize English or make it completely self-consistent. In other words: because. — Dan Bron 15 mins ago

Probably true in any language.

Anonymous

10:16 PM

@DamkerngT. Do I hafta? :-)

Anonymous

My brain turns off halfway!

Anonymous

Everyone interested in next versus next seems to have left

Anonymous

When you say "I'm going to Paris next year", there's no the being omitted

2

Anonymous

Rather, next is a determiner

Anonymous

Compare:

Anonymous

10:17 PM

"I'm going to Paris this year"

Anonymous

There's no the omitted here, either.

Anonymous

It just wasn't there in the first place. The determiner slot is already full in both examples.

@DamkerngT. Language isn't algebra, but algebra is a language :D

10:35 PM

@snailboat Not really. :-)

@infinitesimal Hehe! Nice!

@snailboat That makes perfect sense!

Anonymous

I found a flower: quarplet.com/flower

Is that a wallflower? :-)

Anonymous

I called it a pipe flower! :-)

I like them. I like the green things, too. (Not sure what it is.)

Anonymous

The clover?

10:45 PM

Probably clover.

Anonymous

There's lots of clover growing there.

Anonymous

It's considered a weed, but I think it's nice.

Looks nice. Yeah!

We don't have clover here, I think.

Anonymous

No matter how much watering we did, the lawn here has been unhappy.

Anonymous

The grass just doesn't seem to want to grow

Anonymous

10:46 PM

Or it didn't, anyway

Anonymous

Until it finally started raining!

Oh, lawns are always thirsty!

Anonymous

And then it was suddenly happy.

Anonymous

It seems to like rainwater better than our sprinkler water!

Same here!

Anonymous

10:47 PM

I think the grass is some kind of water snob.

Anonymous

It wants only the best, fresh from the sky.

I usually give them enough water for them to manage to survive the weather.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, I tried, but I didn't manage to do it very well :-)

@snailboat Indeed, but they are hard to die out, too.

Anonymous

I'm not really good with plants, I suppose

Anonymous

10:48 PM

I mean, the grass is still there

Anonymous

But it didn't really grow

I perfectly understand that!

Anonymous

I didn't feed it anything except water.

Anonymous

And I didn't plant anything.

Anonymous

Except an onion.

10:49 PM

It doesn't need anything much, apart from water and sunlight.

Anonymous

The onion flowered, but at one point I think someone stepped on it and broke it in half

Anonymous

Poor onion.

Oh, you have onion flowers. Nice!

Anonymous

Yes! Well, I did.

Aww

Anonymous

10:50 PM

I am secretly hoping more onions will pop up on their own someday as a result of its flowering :-)

Hehe! I don't know. I haven't planted onions before.

Anonymous

I used a store onion

Maybe they will.

Anonymous

Someone told me that because they cut off the end parts of the onions they sell in stores, it wouldn't be able to get enough nutrition to grow

Anonymous

But they were wrong! It made a fine flower!

10:51 PM

My papayas grew from the seeds of my leftover store papaya. :-)

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

user image

@snailboat Oh, I remember that. It's beautiful!

Anonymous

That was my very first onion flower! :-)

Anonymous

All I did was put an onion in the ground and feed it water.

Anonymous

10:53 PM

For a while, a spider lived on it.

I think some of my trees just have their flowers blooming today. Well, yesterday, I mean.

I'm not sure what species they are. They came with the house. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yay!

Anonymous

Yes, almost all of our plants came with the house.

Anonymous

I know them as "that bush over there" and "the tree with the funny branch" and so on

Anonymous

We actually have only 19 redwoods.

Anonymous

10:54 PM

The 20th redwood, it turns out, is a cedar.

lol -- Almost the same for me. I'm glad I know some of them. :-)

Anonymous

We have a couple rose plants.

@snailboat Oh, neat! I don't really know cedar, but its name sounds nice.

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

This is That Bush Over There.

10:55 PM

Roses aren't very resilient, imo.

Anonymous

It's grown flowers!

Anonymous

I water it sometimes. I used to think it was dead, but it turns out it was fine.

They're blooming!

Anonymous

See, an old lady used to live here.

Anonymous

And she had a nice big family, but most of them have moved on to do their own things now

Anonymous

10:56 PM

And she wasn't really able to keep up with all the nice plants she had

Oh, I like the form of its branches. I tried planting a Christmas tree (sort of) once. It died. :(

Anonymous

And for the last year before we moved here, they were mostly on their own.

Anonymous

(Part of that time, the house was under construction and no one was living here.)

@snailboat I see.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sad!

10:57 PM

Yes, it was really sad. I guess it didn't like the weather here much.

Anonymous

I think a Christmas tree is usually a pine tree.

Anonymous

But sometimes they're other sorts.

I didn't know its exact species; I bought it from a tree market because it looked like a Christmas tree.

Anonymous

Yay!

A very, very small Christmas tree.

Anonymous

10:59 PM

Ohh.

Anonymous

When I was little, we had great tall willows. I miss those.

Willows make me think of poems.

Chinese poems sometimes are about willows.

I still don't know what kind of tree my Big Brother is.

Anonymous

In Japanese poetry, yanagi ("willow") is a kigo ("seasonal word") for spring

Oh, I think I've heard ginko or gingko before. Not sure.

And I don't know what it is.

Anonymous

Ginkgo is an English word borrowed from Japanese

11:03 PM

Ahh

So, it's a kind of tree.

Anonymous

It doesn't exist in that form in Japanese (it was borrowed via a misprint)

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

That's the picture on Wikipedia

Nice shape!

Wow, judging from the sign, I think that tree is really big!

Anonymous

It does look that way!

Anonymous

11:06 PM

I don't think I've seen one in person

Anonymous

It's a very pretty tree!

Anonymous

In Chinese, they called them "duck-feet"

Anonymous

Because of the shape of the leaves

A-ha!

Anonymous

But the modern name is cognate with the Japanese one that Ginkgo was borrowed from

11:09 PM

Oh, the Wikipedia page (in Thai) says that it can help fighting dementia.

Anonymous

(I found the words for this plant in different languages interesting, so at one point I looked a lot of them up! I was surprised to learn that the English word was from Japanese!)

Anonymous

Oh, yes, many people believe that and take supplements.

Ahh

Anonymous

It goes back to ancient China

Anonymous

It was used as a medicine thousands of years ago

11:10 PM

I'm not sure about the Thai word (แปะก๊วย - "pae-kuay"). I think แปะ is a Chinese word meaning white.

Anonymous

I think my father takes it as a supplement

Oh, I hope it helps.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, or 'silver'

Anonymous

Mandarin yín

Anonymous

Assuming it's cognate

11:11 PM

แปะก๊วย doesn't sound Thai at all. :-)

Anonymous

Mandarin 银杏 yínxìng is cognate to Japanese 銀杏 ginkyō

Anonymous

That Mandarin /y/ goes back to Middle Chinese /ng/

Anonymous

I don't know how to connect that to pae-kuay

Anonymous

But if it's the same pair of morphemes, then its literal meaning is ≒ "silver apricot"

Probably because Thai usually borrows Chinese words from another dialect.

Anonymous

11:14 PM

Middle Chinese ngin-hæng

Anonymous

/h/ and /k/ are easy to connect

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, and unfortunately I don't know enough about the relevant sound changes and so forth to connect the dots

I don't know enough words in Teochew either.

Anonymous

But it doesn't look similar enough for me to posit a connection …

Anonymous

Could it be from one of the other names?

11:18 PM

The other name, meaning duck-feet, is pronounced หยาเจียว (ya-jiew) in Thai Wikipedia.

Anonymous

Ah! Yes, that is 鸭脚 yā jiǎo

A-ha!

Anonymous

In Mandarin

Anonymous

That one looks pretty close! :-)

Anonymous

I mean, to the one you just said.

11:19 PM

Indeed!

Anonymous

Was it perhaps borrowed more recently?

I tried to find its origin, but to no avail.

Anonymous

In Japanese, 鸭脚 yā jiǎo is 鴨脚 ichō, but it's usually written instead with the kanji 銀杏 (the same kanji for ginkyō)

Anonymous

That is, it's written like silver-apricot, but pronounced like duck-feet

Oh, that's interesting!

Anonymous

11:21 PM

Japanese does things like that with kanji on a semi-regular basis

A word which is written one way but pronounced another!

Anonymous

That's one of the many reasons the Japanese writing system is more complex than Chinese... :-)

Anonymous

Like, there's a native Japanese word からだ meaning 'body', and a Sino-Japanese synonym しんたい

Anonymous

So sometimes, people use the kanji for しんたい, which are 身体, but pronounce it からだ instead

Anonymous

Or to put it another way, instead of writing 体 (which is からだ), they write it as 身体 (which is normally しんたい)

11:25 PM

Interesting! Isn't that a bit confusing?

Anonymous

Yes!

Anonymous

:-)

Anonymous

Sometimes you don't know which way they intended for something to be pronounced.

Anonymous

The word くらげ 'jellyfish' has been written 水母, 海月, 水月, 久羅下, and 鏡虫

Anonymous

Sorry, typo

11:27 PM

Oh, another clue I found is that แปะก้วย (pae-kuay) is Teochew. In Cantonese, it's ปากก๋อ (pak-koh).

Anonymous

Oh, one of my good friends is a native speaker of Cantonese

You can try asking him (or her) what "pak-koh" for gingko is written in Cantonese.

Anonymous

白果

Anonymous

That first one is 'white'!

Oh, that's quick!

Anonymous

11:31 PM

That's not the same word as 銀杏! I guessed it was because it was 'silver', which is close!

Anonymous

And you said the first one was 'white', so I thought that was close enough to make sense... :-)

Anonymous

So that's Mandarin báiguǒ 'white fruit'

Oh, so it's a different word!

Anonymous

→ zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BD%E6%9E%9C

báiguǒ and "pae-kuay" are close enough, I think. :-)

Anonymous

11:33 PM

Wikipedia redirects from 白果 báiguǒ 'white fruit' to 银杏 yínxìng 'silver apricot'

Nice!

Anonymous

So I guess it's another name for the same thing :-)

Anonymous

Yay! Today I learned more names for Ginkgo!

Hehe!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, see, it's a lot easier to understand how those two would be connected!

Anonymous

11:35 PM

Let's look up the Baxter-Sagart transcriptions for 白果 in Middle Chinese

Anonymous

bæk-kwa

Anonymous

Teochew is supposed to be close to Middle Chinese phonetically

They use "æ"!

@snailboat Ahh

Anonymous

pae-kuay < bæk-kwa seems like a pretty clear derivation!

Yeah!

Teochew speakers are the largest group of Chinese descendants in Thailand.

Anonymous

11:38 PM

Ahh

So, naturally, most loanwords from Chinese are based on the Teochew dialect.

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