English Language Learners

Anonymous

12:43 AM

@F.E. It's even harder to find stuff in Martin's 1975 Reference Grammar of Japanese :-(

Damkerng T.

12:54 AM

@F.E. My earlier version selves would accept it; however, I think my current version regards it as ungrammatical.

Hello everyone. -- catching up with the chat...

user116848

@DamkerngT. Hey Damks :)

Damkerng T.

Oh, another new avatar!

user116848

Yes it is!

user116848

Did you get my message?

StoneyB

@F.E. I think you hafta go with they there. A) The adjacency to are is demanding. B) That's a literary way of speaking, not a colloquial.

Damkerng T.

12:57 AM

@Arrowfar I'm sorry. I must have missed it. I think SE's notification is weird at the moment.

user116848

9 hours ago, by Arrowfar

@DamkerngT. Damks sorry I left here in the mid-conversation some time ago since I was having some internet connectivity issue. Thought I’d let you know in case you minded that :)

Damkerng T.

@Arrowfar Ah, don't worry. I guessed that might be the reason. :)

user116848

hehe

Damkerng T.

It's a great site indeed. Thanks once again.

user116848

BTW how can we find the pings to other users that we sent in the past?

user116848

1:00 AM

I mean there are many. So can we sort it?

Damkerng T.

I think if we missed them the first time, it would be quite difficult to search for them.

user116848

I think so too.

user116848

So how do users here quote their 2-3 years old posts sometimes? How do they find them?

user116848

Search is not great either for that purpose

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB I think it's strange that I feel "You, not them, ..." sound more natural (and it's more likely that I'll say it spontaneously). However, if I think about it, I agree that "not they" seems to be more correct.

@Arrowfar nods -- Indeed!

F.E.

1:06 AM

@DamkerngT. You might want to do a rollback to one of your earlier versions, as it's considered to be standard usage (imo). :)

Trust your (metallic) ear! :)

Damkerng T.

@F.E. It seems like I should!

Ah, I can recall now...

The cake or cookies example... Let me find it...

Anonymous

I think "We've already discussed it" and "We already discussed it yesterday" sound better

F.E.

@StoneyB Why would you consider the adjacency to the verb "are" to be a factor? . . . Consider: "He, not she/her, is responsible for that".

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Formally only they is acceptable. But colloquially the default personal pronoun these days is the objective, and the nominative only appears as an explicit subject--and not even there if it's conjoined with another nominal, which is why them sounds more 'natural' to you. BUT: "You, not X, are responsible" isn't natural colloquial English either.

F.E.

@StoneyB "But colloquially the default personal pronoun these days is the objective" -- Are you saying that this is a "recent" occurrence?

Damkerng T.

1:12 AM

@StoneyB What I really thought of was "It's you, not them, who are responsible". Maybe it's different. (Saying just "You, not X, are responsible" sounds a bit too terse for me.)

Hmm... If I want to be brief, it might come out like, "You are responsible. Not them."

Ah, I found it! The cake examples.

F.E.

I think a vetted grammar source might come in handy in this discussion on: "You, not they/them, are responsible for that." -- also, on what the verb is in agreement with. :)

Damkerng T.

May 27 at 19:49, by Damkerng T.

> "Cup cakes taste wonderful. Have you baked any yourself?"

May 27 at 19:49, by Damkerng T.

> "This cake tastes wonderful. *Have you baked it yourself?"

F.E.

@DamkerngT. Is it supposed to be "Did you bake it yourself?"

Damkerng T.

I think after that discussion, I revised my internal grammar to not accept "Have you baked it yourself?". "We have already discussed it yesterday." sounds similar to me, so my current self regards it as ungrammatical.

StoneyB

@F.E. Because that puts THEx actually as well as formally in subject position, and colloquial speakers resist an objective subject unless it's conjoint. And yes, my impression is that this use doesn't emerge until the 19th century - at least I don't recall it in older drama. But I could be wrong.

Damkerng T.

1:15 AM

@F.E. Yes.

F.E.

@DamkerngT. Well, I hope you're under warrantee! Because my earlier present perfect example is grammatical (standard English).

Damkerng T.

Hmm... (curious)

Is it possible in both AmE and BrE?

F.E.

@DamkerngT. Usually, a past time adjunct isn't allowed with a present perfect, but there are always exceptions, and that kind of usage is a standard one of them.

@DamkerngT. It's good to my AmE ear, and it's a, er, CGEL example. :)

Damkerng T.

I see. Thanks for the information! I think I have interesting homework now. :)

F.E.

@StoneyB "this use doesn't emerge until the 19th century" 1800s? er, that's a bit a long ago . . .

StoneyB

1:21 AM

@F.E. Linguistically it's day before yesterday.

F.E.

@DamkerngT. Your original ear might be good on the other example too, but I'll have to try and find a vetted grammar source (as both sound acceptable) . . .

Damkerng T.

@F.E. I'm so curious now!

StoneyB

But I suppose what I had in mind was its growing acceptance into all but the strictest formal registers, which is quite recent--within my lifetime. Which I guess, on consideration, is only recent to me.

F.E.

@StoneyB Yeah, but I wasn't around back then. Also, back in the 19th century, the non-restrictive "that" clause was still in common use. And so, that's kinda a bit far back (imo).

@DamkerngT. I hope I can find the info! . . .

I can still recall some of the rationale (I think), but . . .

StoneyB

@F.E. I'd take Have you baked it yourself as acceptable but not desirable :)

I cannot imagine circumstances in which I would use the perfect rather than the preterite.

F.E.

1:30 AM

@StoneyB My ear had no problem with it either. I had to force myself to look for something, as though it were a test, so to say. :)

StoneyB

However, I can imagine it with a different reference than "this cake tastes wonderful" ... "You were talking about how difficult a dobos torte is--have you baked it yourself, or is that just what you've been told?"

There you've got a pretty clear resultative perfect.

F.E.

@StoneyB A perfect example. :)

StoneyB

<groan>thank you</groan>

F.E.

@DamkerngT. I think ah found it! CGEL page 510 [39] . . . oh, you don't have CGEL?! :)

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Ah, it is not this cake anymore! -- Nice one!

@F.E. I'm afraid I don't have it!

F.E.

1:42 AM

@DamkerngT. It was in one of the last places within CGEL that I looked, but with hindsight, I now realized it should've been the first place!

But it only deals with subject/verb agreement. (Nothing about pronoun case.)

But I think we can infer somethings, from knowing that, and from seeing the pair of commas around the so-called 2nd-coordinate. imo.

Damkerng T.

I think it strongly depends on what the it refers to, considering StoneyB's example.

F.E.

One example: "Ed, and not the twins, is (~~are~~) here."

Damkerng T.

That makes sense.

F.E.

I'm thinking of writing an answer post for that question, but I would like to track down a grammar source for the pronoun's case in the 2nd coordinate. (I have an idea what it is, and the evaluation, but it's only an idea, and my memory is kinda aging on me, so I'm reluctant on relying on it.)

StoneyB

1:57 AM

See also 458-463. There's an example with trailing "not X' on 461, but not one of the "Y, not X" construction. It's really borderline: neither coordinate nor simple.

F.E.

2:13 AM

@StoneyB The page 461 [14] "Gary took the call, not I/me." ? -- Yes, that will help my answer post that I'm writing. (There's a similar structure on page 1313 [62], but it didn't use pronouns: "They had invited Jill, not her husband.")

F.E.

3:18 AM

Well, I wrote an answer, though I didn't fill in all the blanks in the rationale, but then, the post was getting rather long anyway . . .

happenask

4:03 AM

hi

skullpatrol

4:30 AM

hi

F.E.

6:28 AM

. . . scratch . . .

F.E.

6:51 AM

73

Q: How do the tenses and aspects in English correspond temporally to one another?

Non-native speakers often get confused about what the various tenses and aspects mean in English. With input from some of the folk here I've put together a diagram that I hope will provide some clarity on the matter. I offer it as the first answer to this question. Consider it a living document....

I wonder how their picture-graph would explain something like:

> 1. "I wish I knew if this painting was genuine."

How do the time relationships of those three verbs relate to each other?

Two of those verbs are past-tense verbs, and so, what does their picture-graph on tenses say here?

skullpatrol

Ask him?

F.E.

(cont.) . . . yes, yes . . . I do like to beat on a dead horse.

@skullpatrol It's a three year old thread.

skullpatrol

Oh? Oops sorry :-)

F.E.

Hopefully, all those who were involved in producing that, er, picture-graph will now know better. . . .

But the bad influence from that picture-graph will continue on to mislead.

And it has a +100 vote count. :(

skullpatrol

Then it should be removed.

F.E.

6:58 AM

@skullpatrol Or even better, a big fat warning sign written over it. Like a big fat red X. :D

A sign saying: "DANGER! DANGER!" :D

That is one of the biggest problems, or errors, that I see constantly being made.

People are confusingly trying to coerce every past-tense verb they see into a past time usage.

And thus, they get all confused.

And discombobulated.

And confused.

skullpatrol

THIS POST IS NOT STANDARD

F.E.

@skullpatrol It's standard for ELU.

It's just another example of why there is a need for a separate grammar site.

skullpatrol

But the disease will spread.

Ice Girl

@skullpatrol Hi

skullpatrol

Hi

F.E.

7:03 AM

Like, can you imagine some poor soul trying to use that picture-graph to figure out a normal sentence like: 1. "I wish I knew if this painting was genuine."

It uses two past-tense verbs, and neither of them have anything at all to do with past time.

skullpatrol

They are not English teachers

F.E.

@skullpatrol Er, don't be so sure about that. I'd think it be safe to assume that some of them are.

skullpatrol

If there are any English teachers there they are shouted out by the programmers

F.E.

Both groups are often the problem.

skullpatrol

True

F.E.

7:07 AM

. . . yawn . . . (It's 2 AM in Tigerland.)

Time for a nap . . . bye :)

skullpatrol

Later pal

Anonymous

What if we put together a convoluted sentence like "A few days from now, the rain will have been sporadically starting and stopping for about three months."? How do you draw that on the timeline?

skullpatrol

7:23 AM

You may need general relativity for that one :-)

Nico

10:20 AM

> However, as is the case with psychoanalysis, none of these claims is based upon objective findings that establish the presumed mechanisms involved in causation.

Is this an example of a single preposition functioning as a subject? :)

> below is hell, above heaven

an adverb or a preposition?

Damkerng T.

@Nico I think this could be read in many ways, but I guess that the standard way to read it in English is "Hell is below, (and) heaven (is) above", where "Hell" and "heaven" are subjects.

Laure

10:36 AM

@TrevörAnneDenise There's no redundancy if you say "debout et bien réveillés". C'est comme ça que je le traduirais.

Ice Girl

Hi all

Nico

10:55 AM

> Below is hot and cosy, above is cold and lonely.

Maulik V

Hi @DamkerngT.

Hi @Nico

Damkerng T.

@Nico My L1 allows treating "below", "above", etc. as a noun, so it still makes sense to me. I'm not very sure how to analyze them in English, though.

@MaulikV Hello!

Nico

@DamkerngT. I think it's not about the language (English admits those constructions). It is about modern grammar frameworks deal with these cases.

Maulik V

three toasters have died on me

what's that :(

Damkerng T.

A very odd sentence out of context.

Maulik V

11:03 AM

why is there a preposition?

how those deaths are related to me :P

Nico

I've hard that use before

Damkerng T.

Oh, on me is common, I think.

Nico

I means they stopped working while you were using them

Damkerng T.

nods

Maulik V

I use it when we go to some restaurant and finally, when the bill comes, I say "it's on me" meaning I'll pay

Any other use? on me in that similar context?

The car stopped working on me?

Nico

11:05 AM

idioms.thefreedictionary.com/die+on

Damkerng T.

@MaulikV I don't know. It's not the way I learn languages.

Maulik V

Aha! Thansk @Nico

I din' know that

Damkerng T.

I think I'm still learning some languages.

Maulik V

My car died on me, and I couldn't get it started.

that's it!

thank you!

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I think it's much more flexible than that.

> Your notes can be referred to by you whenever you need to.

Looks fine to me.

Nico

11:17 AM

It sounds good to my ear. I just found the example a bit forced.

For instace, he has a similar example for reflexive verbs:

> He washed himself

> *Himself was washed by him

But I'd say instead:

> ?He was washed by himself

Damkerng T.

Strange, I couldn't come up with a passive version that I would accept.

Anonymous

2:42 PM

Lots of sentences have no corresponding passive (or active) version

Nico

4:44 PM

I'm trying duolingo.com

Anonymous

Very popular. My housemate is using it for French at the moment

Nico

what do they think?

Anonymous

She and I have both been learning French for a long time, but neither of us particularly actively, I'm afraid

Anonymous

She's quite happy.

Nico

Are you happy with the translations?

Anonymous

4:45 PM

Between us we have a fair amount of other French resources she could be using instead

Anonymous

@Nico I haven't used it myself, so I can't say.

Nico

Is there anything wrong with this sentence: "She's got few friends"?

Anonymous

"She only has a few friends" sounds more natural to my ear

Anonymous

Or "She's only got a few friends", to change it as little as possible

Anonymous

I'm afraid I've forgotten the details about the distribution of have and have got in AmE and BrE

Nico

4:47 PM

Apparently the correct translations are:

> She's few friends.

> She has few friends.

Do they sound any better?

Anonymous

What dialect is that?

Anonymous

I know possessive constructions tend to differ from dialect to dialect…

Anonymous

It's easiest for me to explain what sounds natural to me

Nico

AmE

Anonymous

I'd never say "She's few friends".

Nico

4:52 PM

At least the icon uses an American flag.

Perhaps I should report a problem witht he translation

Anonymous

The have of possession is an example of stative have.

Anonymous

Stative have is lexical for most speakers, but auxiliary for some, particularly older BrE speakers.

Anonymous

In AmE, it's always lexical.

Anonymous

And we don't generally reduce it to clitic form

Anonymous

The has in the has got possessive construction can be reduced: "She's got few friends" is marginally better in AmE than "She's few friends"

Anonymous

4:56 PM

But "She only has a few friends" or "She's only got a few friends" both sound significantly better to my ear

Anonymous

Sorry that I can't adequately describe has off the top of my head

Anonymous

I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment :-) Need more caffeine

Nico

The sentence in Spanish doesn't specify only, but if I add "only" to the Spanish sentence then "few friends" becomes "a few friends" too.

@snailboat Don't bother, you've helped a lot already

Anonymous

Few is an approximate negator.

Anonymous

It means "only a few".

Nico

5:02 PM

> In American English, "have" is always a lexical verb and for that reason generally it doesn't get reduced to its clitic form. In other words, "She's few friends" doesn't sound good to an American ear.

Anonymous

So "She has few friends" 〜 "She has only a few friends"

Anonymous

Oh, I didn't say "for that reason" :-)

Nico

:p

It was begging for a link

Duolingo's voice synthetiser is funny

If it was a male voice, it'd feel like Stephen Hawking talking to you.

Anonymous

Ah, voice synthesis tends to sounds very distinct, doesn't it?

Anonymous

Like Dr. Sbaitso or Microsoft Sam, etc.

Nico

5:11 PM

a little choppy

Many of the sentences seem generated, not really real uses.

Anonymous

5:28 PM

Ahh, that's too bad

Anonymous

I must admit I wasn't personally interested when I saw Duolingo

Nico

Perhaps, it's because the basic levels are "basic".

Anonymous

The idea of crowd-sourced translation is potentially useful but I don't think it can replace an actual translator for real work

Anonymous

There are always a lot of popular new language learning methods, sites, etc.

Anonymous

Some of them are kind of neat, to be sure

Anonymous

5:30 PM

At this point I feel like my best bet for learning is to just keep using the language :-)

Nico

Shame... I don't have a microphone here. It looks like you can record yourself in some of the exercises.

Anonymous

Neat!

Anonymous

I do have a vocal microphone

Nico

what's that?

Anonymous

I had a USB headset, but it seems there's something wrong with the cord, so I can't really use it

Anonymous

5:31 PM

I have a Bluetooth headset somewhere which I got for my old phone, but I haven't used it in so long I don't know where it is...

Anonymous

@Nico A vocal mic? I have a large-diaphragm condenser

Anonymous

Probably the best vocal mic for a reasonable amount of money is the SM58 dynamic

Anonymous

A comparable quality condenser costs quite a bit more and is more or less useless without a good space to record in

Anonymous

These days USB mics are very popular though.

Nico

Neat. I imagine this has to do with your musical skills :)

Anonymous

5:33 PM

Oh, uh, maybe :-)

Anonymous

Probably closer to musical lack of skills.

Nico

yeah yeah

Do you only play the guitar or you sing as well?

Anonymous

Me, I sing poorly.

Anonymous

I pronounce stuff funny.

Anonymous

Even though English is my native language.

Anonymous

5:36 PM

Even though I've had speech therapy.

Anonymous

But singing is fun.

Anonymous

Besides, I like to think of playing guitar as a type of singing. You sing through your instrument :-)

Nico

In Spain, when someone can't sing, we say that if they sing, it'll start raining.

Do you say the same?

Anonymous

Oh! I've never heard that before. Can you explain why?

Anonymous

The most common English expression is "tone-deaf".

Nico

5:38 PM

It's just a joke.

Anonymous

Oh, I thought there might be some sort of explanation as to how the phrase came about

Nico

Apparently bad singing causes rain

Anonymous

Hee.

Nico

Maybe because frogs sing after the rain?

here "sing" means make "ribbit" :)

Anonymous

Actually, it's kind of funny, in Japanese the literal equivalent of "tone deaf" is onchi, and it's has that meaning, but it's been generalized so you can say you're X-onchi, meaning you're hopeless when it comes to X

Anonymous

5:41 PM

So for example, hōkō-onchi means "has no sense of direction" (lit. "direction-tone deaf")

Anonymous

@Nico I miss my pet frog :-)

Nico

Did you have a frog too?

Anonymous

Yes!

Anonymous

I have had many pets.

Anonymous

Frogs are lovely pets but feeding them is kind of gross. :-)

Nico

5:50 PM

don't tell me you had to catch flies for them!

Anonymous

Oh, no!

Anonymous

You can buy frog food. Meaning little insects, often flightless ones

Anonymous

Drosophila hydei

Drosophila hydei is a species of Diptera, or the order of flies, in the family Drosophilidae. It is a species in the hydei species subgroup, a group in the repleta species group. Bizarrely, it is also known for having approximately 23mm long sperm, 10 times the length of the male's body. Hydei are one of the more popular flies used as feeders in the pet trade. A few varieties are available, some flightless. == References == ^ Greg S. Spicer, Scott Pitnick (1996). "Molecular Systematics of the Drosophila hydei Subgroup as Inferred from Mitochondrial DNA Sequences". J Mol Evol 43 (3): 281–286. doi...

Anonymous

Not as fun to say as Drosophila melanogaster, but whachagonnado?

Nico

I can't find the origin of "bad singers make it rain" :(

I should go home :(

Anonymous

5:53 PM

Oh! Don't feel sad-face sad! Feel happy-face happy!

Nico

I'll look for it some other time

Anonymous

Have a good trip home!

Nico

thx

Anonymous

It's early yet here, but I've managed to have my tea so I'm more awake now :-)

Anonymous

I recently said "My snail is eating the fish food". I'd said the same thing the previous day, and the person I said it to replied "Yes, you told me that already"

Anonymous

6:04 PM

But the interesting thing is that I didn't mean it in a habitual sense, I meant to describe what the snail was doing right now

Anonymous

Ambiguity!

F.E.

7:18 PM

5

Q: "Her whole family IS/ARE biologists"?

I'm not sure whether to put is (number agreeing with the singular her whole family) or are (number agreeing with plural biologists) in this sentence: Her whole family is/are biologists. After some more searching, it seems to make it correct, the whole would need to be removed. Based on t...

grammatical-number verb-agreement copula

I've been found guilty of doing an illegal edit.

OO noooooooes.

Anonymous

Hee.

Anonymous

Well, you're sposta leave a comment, not edit a comment into the post.

F.E.

But many people don't read comments, especially when the comment thread is long.

Anonymous

True. Nonetheless...

Anonymous

Ah, starting a meta thread is another good option.

F.E.

7:23 PM

Now, if those high-rep SWR members would stop closing grammar threads for stupid reasons (like that there's common words between the OP's example/title and another old thread), then maybe someone like me won't be making an "invalid edits."

@snailboat Er, yeah, a thread where a whole bunch of high-rep SWR members get to yap their opinions. Er, no thanks. I've already done that.

Anonymous

Well, do you as you will!

Anonymous

For my part, I added a re-open vote.

F.E.

In that meta thread (by me), someone wrote a post that quickly got accepted. I quickly wrote a comment saying that I hadn't accepted that post as the answer (and that said a few other things too). Soon that post was "deleted" -- where I couldn't see it. I thought "accepted answer" posts couldn't be deleted?!

I sorta wondered if that 2nd vote was yours. :)

Anonymous

@F.E. I'm confused. You should be the only one who can mark an answer as "accepted" on a thread you've started.

F.E.

(cont.) And then, there was a 2nd answer post, which was somewhat more reasonable, and it had been quickly then accepted as the answer. I didn't do any of the accepting, as far as I know.

@snailboat Yeah, that's what I thought too.

1

Q: A thread asking a grammatical question has been closed twice

I think this thread should be re-opened: "You owe a duty to persons whom it is foreseeable are likely to be harmed" — why "whom"? The "duplicate thread" doesn't seem to have an answer to the OP's question. I think that "closed" thread poses an example that is grammatically interesting, and m...

discussion

(Oh, I had actually opened TWO meta threads.)

7

Q: Questions are getting closed as duplicates, when they shouldn't be

It seems to me that one of the more serious problems on this site is that a good question often ends up getting erroneously closed. By erroneously closed, I mean that the OP's thread is marked as a duplicate and a link is made to a thread that doesn't have a proper answer to the OP's question. ...

discussion

And my latest (most recent) meta thread was itself closed as a duplicate! Hah!

That place over there, ELU, the only reason I comment over there now is to help the OP's out a bit, especially when I see that the answers and comments are so bad. (And to help out a few friends.) That environment is toxic.

Damkerng T.

7:38 PM

@F.E. I haven't read the answers, but I think the sentence itself is quite interesting.

Hello, everyone!

A robot is clanking by. Clank, clank, clank, ...

F.E.

Okay, okay, we're be more PG-like now, to protect Robot's vulnerable ears. :)

Damkerng T.

A robot is mumbling to himself. "Don't have to. Don't have to."

Anonymous

I sent Damkerng a beep on the Japanese.SE chat earlier.

Anonymous

Did it wake you up, Damkerng? :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, I didn't get that!

Anonymous

7:41 PM

Oh!

Anonymous

But... You're there! :-)

Anonymous

Oh! I must have backspaced.

Damkerng T.

It's strange. No bubbles for me there.

Anonymous

I remember typing @Damkerng and something about the White Rabbit graded readers, but I don't see it there.

Anonymous

So I guess I sent you a fictional message.

Damkerng T.

7:42 PM

@snailboat A couple of weeks ago, maybe?

Anonymous

You'll just have to imagine it.

Anonymous

No, I mean a few minutes ago. :-)

Anonymous

There's a user asking about resources for learning Japanese.

Anonymous

For some reason, they've got the idea in their head that I should know something about the topic :-)

Damkerng T.

I think they've got the right idea. :D

@F.E. I tried saying "Her whole family is biologists" and I felt funny.

Anonymous

7:48 PM

@DamkerngT. I could say it. Informally. "Her whole family's biologists, fer crissakes!"

Damkerng T.

Interesting!

Anonymous

Not that I say fer crissakes. Just, you know, in theory. :-)

Damkerng T.

I could say the whole family sentence for cheesecakes. Umm... Is that passable?

Anonymous

Um. :-)

Anonymous

They're biologists for cheesecakes?

Damkerng T.

7:55 PM

LOL

Anonymous

Is that like being bananas for cheesecake?

Anonymous

Could you please give a generic example when it's appropriate to write "the object X", like in "What was the original name of the letter X" — rraallvv 6 mins ago

Anonymous

But I wanted them to be more specific, not less... :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, I just saw that question. It reminds me of some corpus I've read about on the web.

Anonymous

School's back in session. The PA system is, well, it's pretty audible. :-)

Damkerng T.

7:57 PM

All sentences in the corpus are in the form "Move (red|blue|black) box? to ZN."

@snailboat They want you to learn along with their students, maybe. :-)

I still can't recall the name of that corpus.

Anonymous

I don't know what you mean

Anonymous

"Move blue box? to ZN" is a strange sentence.

Damkerng T.

ZN is a placeholder for a coordinate. I can't remember how they say it exactly.

I'm not sure if it's about boxes either.

But theoretically, the sentences are supposed to be commands for a robot.

Ah, found it! It's GRID corpus.

scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/120/5/10.1121/…

> An audio-visual corpus has been collected to support the use of common material in speech perception and automatic speech recognition studies. The corpus consists of high-quality audio and video recordings of 1000 sentences spoken by each of 34 talkers. Sentences are simple, syntactically identical phrases such as “place green at B 4 now.”

> Intelligibility tests using the audio signals suggest that the material is easily identifiable in quiet and low levels of stationary noise. The annotated corpus is available on the web for research use.

Apparently, it's not about boxes. Just colors.

@snailboat How likely is it for a native speak to read "My snail is eating the fish food" in a habitual sense? (For me, it's very unlikely, but I don't use -ing for habitual much.)

@snailboat Ah, it's funny that I just heard this word in a Japanese dorama a few days ago. Too bad that I watched it in Thai. They translated this Japanese word to [ear-blind]. :-)

Anonymous

8:21 PM

@DamkerngT. Eh. Likely enough :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. 音痴（おんち）！

Anonymous

I like "ear blind"!

Damkerng T.

Ah, I thought [ear-blind] was a literal translation from Japanese. It seems like I was wrong.

Anonymous

Oh! No. 音痴（おんち） is most literally おん "sound" (the same one you know from おんよみ "sound readings" = Chinese readings of kanji) plus 痴（ち）

Anonymous

痴（ち） is defined as おろか which is usually translated to "foolish" or even "stupid", and it most generally means someone who doesn't think enough or properly [before acting], but in this case it refers more to another kind of mental deficiency, an insufficiency in the mental ability to hear or reproduce sound properly

Anonymous

8:32 PM

Of course, 音痴（おんち） is very commonly used like English "tone deaf" to mean something more like "someone who's bad at music" with no technical meaning intended

Anonymous

But it comes from that deficiency of mind meaning, which I'm not sure "foolish" quite works for in English--otherwise I'd gloss it as "sound-foolish"

Anonymous

At any rate, those are morphemes rather than words, so the whole is a single word that can be translated as a single unit to "tone deaf"

Damkerng T.

"sound-foolish" makes sense!

nods

Anonymous

With the caveat that it's been generalized to 〜〜音痴 as in 運動音痴（うんどうおんち) "bad at athletics / un-athletic"

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Nico mentioned duolingo.com. (I tried to avoid the ping. I guess it's nighttime there now.)

I wonder how duolingo works.

Nico

8:43 PM

still here

Anonymous

@Nico Gasp!

Damkerng T.

Oh, hello!

Nico

actually I'm playing again with duolingo

Damkerng T.

Well, speaking of Nico, Nico comes. :)

Nico

as usual barging in!

Anonymous

8:45 PM

0

Q: "depend on" in relative clause

Collins Cobuild English Grammar says "If the verb in a relative clause is a phrasal verb ending with a preposition, you cannot move the preposition to the beginning of the clause." Macmillan says "depend on" is a phrasal verb. So is "I’m looking for an assistant on whom I can depend" wrong?

grammar relative-clauses

Anonymous

This question is hard to answer because of the nebulous term "phrasal verb" :-(

Nico

At the moment, the lessons are sentences that you translate

they also have some synthetised recording that you have to transcribe

Damkerng T.

@Nico You mean we have to translate the sentences ourselves. Or the sentences are something shared?

@Nico Ah, transcribing is a good idea.

Nico

you translate the sentence and it matches what duolingo thinks are the right answers

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I think it could work.

Nico

8:47 PM

if you don't agree, there is a discussion thread

Damkerng T.

nods

Nico

and you also have the option to report anything that you believe is wrong

Damkerng T.

Yeah... I think it works.

However, there is a catch, I think. It's about "what duolingo thinks are the right answers".

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Or possibly "What a bunch of learners agree is the right answer" :-)

Damkerng T.

nods -- That's a real problem.

Anonymous

8:49 PM

Certainly learners of any language face certain common misconceptions. Think about false friends, for example.

Nico

+1 what snailboat says

Damkerng T.

So, it could work and it could be misleading at the same time.

Nico

I imagine that with time it'll improve. But these are my first impressions, perhaps my opinion will change when I get to the more advanced levels

Anonymous

I don't know.

Damkerng T.

Transcribing is more accurate (given that they provide accurate transcriptions), and simply just works.

Nico

8:52 PM

I don't think it's really a platform for learning, I'd say it's for exercising.

Damkerng T.

My idea about language learning is practicing. (I usually compare it with sports.) So, exercising is definitely good for learning. :)

However, we can't be good at a sport by just exercising without good direction.

Nico

One problem I see is that it encourages mechanic translations without enough context.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... So the stuff there is not dialogue-like, I guess.

Context is very important.

Nico

No, I think most of the examples are generated, at least in the basic levels.

At the end of a lesson theu offer you the option to translate a longer text, but I haven't tried it out yet

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