last day (17 days later) » 

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23:00
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A: I cut a carrot with <the> knife perpendicular to it

James KIt's all a very weird way to talk, but not an actual mistake in grammar. It's weird because you are including details that could easily be inferred from the context. Of course, you used a knife. Nobody would think you would use a saw or wire to cut carrots. Of course, the cuts were perpendicula...

Kaguyahime
Kaguyahime
Thank you, @James K. In my sentence, does "rounds" make "with the knife perpendicular to it" unnecessary?
Thank you, @KateBunting. I don't know what a "parallel cut" is. Is it a carrot round in my context?
Thank you, @KateBunting. I think I'm familiar with sliced bread to some extent.
Thank you, @PaulTanenbaum. I don't what "in direction along it" means in my context.
Thanks, @PaulTanenbaum.
@KateBunting I think parallel cuts can be oval. But, your point seems to be that using "sliced" would rule out that possibility in my context.
Oops. I made a terrible blunder. Cuts are three-dimensional objects, so they can't be oval. Thank you, Andy and Kate.
James K
James K
No, cuts are not "objects" they are actions. They are not three dimensional. The slices are three dimensional, but thin, so can be described as "oval". "Oval" can mean either a 2d or 3d shape. Both eggs and ellipses can be called "oval".
But this is all silly talk. You cut the carrot into rounds. You don't need to say "perpendicular" or "knife"
Kaguyahime
Kaguyahime
Thanks, @JamesK. I didn't know the expression "cut something into rounds". I must say English language education in Japan is execrable. Most Japanese don't even know the word "armpit". It's very hard to learn practical English without living in an English-speaking country.
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines "oval" as "a shape like a circle, but wider in one direction than the other". Is this definition inaccurate?
James K
James K
It's accurate enough, but eggs are also oval.... "cut into rounds" isn't a fixed expression. It's just a description: It's a sentence I made up from the meaning of the words "cut" and "round". "cut (the carrot) into pieces that are round".
Kaguyahime
Kaguyahime
23:17
I've realized that "round" and "まるい" are not always interchangeable. I've learned English mostly through English-Japanese translation. That is one of the reasons that my English is inaccurate and unidiomatic. I wish I could learn English without using English-Japanese dictionaries.

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