ELL's Cabin - 2015-04-17

next day → last day (499 days later) »

4:34 PM

I'm the first poster. MWAHAHHHHHA!

2

lol -- Oh, no!

room topic changed to English for Learners and Non-Native Speakers: A place where advanced learners, non-native speakers (along with native speakers and teachers who want to help these people) who are on their own quest of mastering their English. (no tags)

room topic changed to English for Learners and Non-Native Speakers: A place for advanced learners, non-native speakers (along with native speakers and teachers who want to help these people) who are on their own quest of mastering their English. (no tags)

And then there's thy first starred message.

Hooray!

3 hours later…

7:22 PM

1

Q: Behold! A new chatroom approaches

It's been decided to create another chatroom for ELL. A place for advanced learners, non-native speakers (along with native speakers and teachers who want to help these people) who are on their own quest of mastering their English. What does that mean? We want to help users who ...

discussion chat

There goes nothing!

(in Lorax's voice) Hello, I'm the Robot, and I speak for learners!

Now I think all we should do is not sleep at night, biting out fingernails on this.

LOL

Biting fingernails

Oooh, the symptoms are showing themselves sooner than expected.

Or we can grab a learner here and do an interview with them. ;-)

7:25 PM

They fly too fast!

Hello @MARamezani, I think your English is very good. How long have you been learning English?

Why you little...

Hahaha!

Hullo @Dam I'm 16 and I've been learning English for 106 years.

o_O

thinking to himself: Is that even possible?!?

7:27 PM

Nothing is impossible. - Steve Jobs

My statement isn't nothing, so!

1

Q: Software for learning pronunciation?

Is there some kind of program/app like Duolingo for learning pronunciation of the English language? With consistent use of English as a written medium, you cannot not get better (in most cases), but how to improve pronunciation without studying/reading phonetic notation?

This is a good example of question for the room.

Yes.

IMO more obscure pronunciations are only better with phonetic notations.

BTW @Dam we should be talking to snailor and Jimbie about this.

Or instant feedback from a native speaker.

@MARamezani I agree that we should, but I think our Jim is already in bed, and I haven't seen snailboat yet today.

And Stoney and probably Ben and Catija.

That would be perfect!

I haven't seen Ben much lately.

7:35 PM

Me too. Who else did we forget?

Maybe Araucaria. But Araucaria just started looking around the main room only earler today (I guess).

Ah yes.

10

Q: How can we encourage more people to participate in chat?

How can we encourage more people to participate in chat? Anyone with 20 reputation can participate. See the chat FAQ for more information about it. This particular chat room is for general discussion related to ELL.

discussion chat

I think the question is now: How to do that Kiam?

I know the answer to that question. "Just drag a robot in. :P"

Around January 2014, there were basically two people, sometimes three, mostly one, in the ELL chat room.

I was so happy that the room grew to ten people half a year later.

Another thing we should do is probably thinking about what our "advanced learners" means.

I think it's a bit misleading.

It is.

But advertising is a dirty job.

Maybe, self-reliant learners is a bit better.

@MARamezani :D

You know, I think you can be a marketer just fine. ;-)

I think some people say marketeer rather than marketer.

7:45 PM

@DamkerngT. What. Is. That Emoticon?

A. Typo!

It looks like a winking Kiwi.

@DamkerngT. Done. Edited.

Oh, I meant in the description of this chat room.

But your edit is okay, too.

I was thinking whether "advanced" will scare some people away.

Well, you're advanced.

Way more advanced than modern technology.

@MARamezani In terms of robotics?

Hahaha

7:51 PM

Oh, another upvote for our Q.

Oh, yay!

Did you post the link to this room in that meta post?

Oh Cra... I didn't!

lol

@DamkerngT. Done. Edited.

Yay!

8:29 PM

Welcome to the room @Iplodman!

Hullo! :)

Hullo!

So it's trending now...

room topic changed to The English Learning Cabin: A place for advanced learners, non-native speakers (along with native speakers and teachers who want to help these people) who are on their own quest of mastering their English. (no tags)

I changed it!

Yay!

room topic changed to The English Learning Cabin: A place for learners and non-native speakers of English (along with native speakers and teachers who want to help these people) who are on their own quest of mastering their English. (no tags)

I guess we're going to have a few more changes. :-)

Oh, I see! The six wives were divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, and survived!

9:06 PM

§

This just crossed my mind: we can craft and draft something akin to canonical posts (but from the learner's point of view) in here.

9:46 PM

@DamkerngT. I was very sorry to see you so unhappy with what happened in The Other Room that you felt it necessary to resign 'ownership'; but I am happy to see you will be keeping up the good work you have pursued so long. You and snailboat have made an enormous contribution to the success and goodwill ELL has enjoyed.

9:59 PM

@StoneyB Thank you very much for your kind words!

No, no, no, thank you.

["After you, Alphonse." "No, no, after you Gaston."]

In fact, unhappy is not quite the right word (but it did have some effects on me indeed), but the reason that I chose to resign wasn't because I was upset (though I felt a bit sad indeed), but because I wanted to see the room be a peaceful place as soon as possible.

The focus on "learning" is always one of my main goals. I hope to see you in here to help learners from time to time.

Oh, yes. I'm not a "chatty" sort of person (after all, that's why I'm a writer!), but whatever I can do to contribute.

I thank you on behalf of the learners in the future in advance.

Well, let's see whether they actually learn anything before extending thanks! Some don't (I refrain from naming names to avoid disturbing your new room's scholarly decorum).

10:09 PM

lol -- I always love your humor. :-)

Anonymous

I usually use a bookmark so I go straight to the chat room instead of to the menu where it shows you the list of rooms :-)

Ahh

Anonymous

I'm adding a bookmark for this room called "Cabin"!

Yay!

@snailboat @MARamezani came up with Cabin, and @Iplodman completed it with English. I quite like the name.

Anonymous

I don't see what your wives sentence is a reply to, but I do see a passive use of die

10:15 PM

Ah, that was about Henry the Eight: youtube.com/watch?v=g0sSmWOj0A8

Anonymous

Interestingly, even though die appears (quasi-?) transitively in the cognate object construction: "He died a gruesome death." There is no passive form of that construction, and apart from that it's intransitive, so it basically never appears in the passive

Anonymous

I was reading a paper the other day where the author asserted that some cognate object constructions can be passivized, as in "A merry dance was danced by all" but not others "A gruesome death was died by all"

Anonymous

All the examples seemed kind of marginal to me so I had trouble getting my intuition to corroborate the judgments in the paper

Anonymous

Wow, nice song! :-)

I think the lyrics don't really have a copula verb with it. I simply listed the six causes (or endings) of the wives according to the song. Maybe the word died should be rephrased.

@snailboat Yes!

Anonymous

10:18 PM

Died is okay in the song. If you want to add copulae, you could add them to the verbs individually: "The six wives were divorced, were beheaded, died, were divorced, were beheaded, and survived!" Hmm, did that work...?

Anonymous

I can't quite make it work!

I think it sounds fine!

:D

Anonymous

When I put it that way, it sounds like all six verb phrases apply to all six wives! :-)

Hehe!

Anonymous

But the song sounds fine to me without a were in sight

10:20 PM

I think (I mean, how unfair!) in the song is cute! :-)

(How unfair that she stayed alive!)

Anonymous

The song just finished!

:D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It feels like it wasn't all that long ago I learned what the § symbol was.

Anonymous

(I'm on my computer now so I can reply to stuff. I secretly switched a few minutes ago!)

Ah, I was trying to see if I can mark a new section in the chat log. (I used --- and ==== on ELL but I think they were kinda failed)

Anonymous

10:24 PM

I guessed that was your purpose!

@snailboat My browser is slow as usual. Give me a few minutes. I think I will restart my browser.

Yes!

Anonymous

A new era dawns in the Cabin's chat log.

Anonymous

in English Language Learners, 2 hours ago, by Iplodman

Maybe The English Learning Cabin, or something with ELL in? ;P

Anonymous

I first learned this use of in as a teenager reading Terry Pratchett's Soul Music

I love listening experts discourse in unintelligible technicalities.

Anonymous

10:28 PM

You see, they had Music With Rocks In in that book.

@snailboat It's a bit unfamiliar but once I can understand it, I find it a very nice expression.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's not part of my native dialect. I think it's BrE. My ear expects something like in it.

Ahh

Maybe that's why I thought it was unfamiliar too!

Anonymous

Are snail pictures on topic here? :-)

Anonymous

user image

10:34 PM

Let's make it on-topic here!

What's the snail saying?

Anonymous

"I did it! I conquered Everest!"

Anonymous

Everest is a leaf, three feet tall.

So cute!

Aww... the snail is still kinda translucent. Must still be quite young.

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

Moon eating a slice of banana!

10:36 PM

I remember this one!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Uh-huh! That was a wild baby Helix aspersa, probably less than two weeks old

Anonymous

I found the baby outside on a walk.

Oh! You took that picture yourself!

Anonymous

Yes! A while ago, though.

Neat!

Anonymous

10:37 PM

I like taking pictures with my iPhone better. Phone cameras have come a really long way! :-)

Indeed!

Anonymous

I've taken two thousand pictures of Japanese text that I found interesting since I got my iPhone.

Anonymous

I have them categorized.

Wow!

The camera on iPhone comes with autofocus, right?

Hmm... I think it should, because iPad Air also has autofocus (but the autofocus isn't very quick).

Anonymous

It does.

10:40 PM

@snailboat In the standard Photo app, or do you have some special apps for that?

Is it Photo or Photos?

Anonymous

I use the standard app that comes with the phone.

Anonymous

Oh, I mean, I use the standard app to take pictures.

Anonymous

I organize them once I put them on my computer.

Anonymous

I don't know how to organize them on my phone

Ahh

Anonymous

10:42 PM

@DamkerngT. On mine, it's 写真, which is unmarked for plurality! :-)

All the photos I took with my iPad are still on my iPad! (So I have to use the app Photos anyway.)

Anonymous

I guess it would probably be called Photos in English

@snailboat Hehe!

@snailboat That's right! (I just checked it!)

Oh, we have another writer (author) on ELL!

379 8

grammar meaning word-usage meaning-in-context phrasal-verbs phrase-meaning prepositions

trying to imagine how big a 300-sq-ft apartment is...

Ah, 27.87 squared meters. That's about the size of my old apartment!

Anonymous

10:58 PM

Three hundred is not very big.

Anonymous

It's a small studio apartment

I remember that my old apartment was a 32-sq-m one, but it could be 28 as well, depending on how you count it. ;-)

Anonymous

In the US, apartments don't get much smaller than that

Anonymous

Unlike in some Asian countries! :-)

nods

I remember that I've been in a 24-sq-m room, and I felt a bit uncomfy.

I mean when I visited the two room owners.

Anonymous

11:01 PM

Two!

They're a couple!

Hmm... Did they get married before or after that...

Argh! My old vague memory!

But talking about small, I think I had found the smallest possible room. This guy invited us to his "place". Me and a few friends followed him to his condominium. We went up to his 11th floor and thought to ourselves, "Wow, this guy got a huge room!" -- Then, he led us to a very, very small room, and said, "Oh, that's not my room. I only rent this small room." He opened the room and after the door was his 1.2x2m bed, and that was everything in the room!

By the way, he couldn't even open the door the whole way!

next day → last day (499 days later) »

Transcript for

Apr '1517

ELL's Cabin

This is the former main chat room for English Language Learner...

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile