Language Overflow

tchrist

00:01

@StoneyB I can't think of any examples where that happens, although I won't swear they cannot.

I would use an -ing inflection for that.

StoneyB

@tchrist Yah, me too. But it's sort of an axiom that anything English might do it has at some point done.

tchrist

Why do you think the sentences differ? Both are grammatical, either one can be used, and they mean the same thing. The fact that there are two or more ways to say something does not mean that one of them has to be better. They are just two equivalent ways of saying the same thing. — John Lawler 4 mins ago

That man will never pass a foreigners English test.

StoneyB

Hell, he'll never pass a US high school English test.

Damkerng T.

00:37

1

A: Usage of the word 'ones' when referring to children

It does not sound natural to my (American) ear. I would prefer one of these options: As children get older, the percentage who own mobile phones rises. As children get older, the percentage of them who own mobile phones rises. As an American, "cell phones" seems more natural than "...

Interesting. Is it "cell phone" or "mobile phone"? (in the US)

Or neither, because nowadays we have only smartphones and mobile devices?

tchrist

@DamkerngT. In the States, they’re cell phones.

But most people just call them phones.

Damkerng T.

Thanks for the feedback!

nods

Hmm... the choice of the percentage of them who is also interesting.

I think I'd expect the percentage of those who.

Looks like people use all of them.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

09:51

Wait now please exclude the tag discussion from this answer. It's irrelevant. — inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M 32 secs ago

Could someone, um.

Damkerng T.

10:05

Technically, "deals with" and "includes" are not the same.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I think he was trying to answer your question.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. It should be in the meta post, not in the ELL question.

cleaning up as much as possible (I'm ready for this big task but I certainly need a dozen more hands!). And now since you raised a genuine concern, I'm all eyes and ears when it comes to the tag grammar. I've already started watching questions with this tag as they come. Canonical post suggesting 'which question should have 'grammar' tag' would be fine. Or else, your own post on ELL's link (it should have some more answers though) is also a good way. — Maulik V ♦ 14 mins ago

Was my concern not genuine last time?! I find that a bit offensive.

Damkerng T.

@Araucaria He did not. Please check the edit history. The "expression" (thanks for pointing that out; I hadn't noticed that part) was added after the closing. If you want to answer the OP's other question, vote to reopen. I'll help. — Damkerng T. 10 mins ago

Phew! :-)

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Sometimes I have to read some messages in the best naive possible manner.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

And?

Damkerng T.

And telling yourself "ignorance is bliss" helps.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well, I can't be ignoring him because he isn't cooperating with me constructively. :/

Damkerng T.

10:14

Maybe it's just his English.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Maulik V ♦, Ahmedabad, India

33.9k 1 10

That number tells me he knows what he's talking about.

Damkerng T.

Nah, you don't really think so, I think.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Gee why are these guys like this? They're overly frank and don't care about how others would feel about what they say.

Damkerng T.

He didn't even know how calling someone by his or her first name before it's suggested so can be considered offensive.

He is rather good in some areas of English; unfortunately, it doesn't help him much in the overall.

But he sure knows how to get rep points.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well, FWIW he's hugging grammar like a mom would do to a child. I'll wait and see what he does when we retag all the questions with grammar.

Mathav Raj

10:18

Hi

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hullo

Damkerng T.

@MathavRaj Hi!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

BTW @Dam I'm desperately looking to tell someone about my teachers.

Damkerng T.

I have a hunch that that someone is going to be me. :P

Mathav Raj

Lol shoot

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

10:23

Well, our math teacher this year is an idiot, much worse than my past English teacher.

Oh, wait, no; because calling him an "idiot" would be an underestimation.

Damkerng T.

Hey, on the bright side, you seem to have a better English teacher this year. :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@Dam for instance, let's solve a "probability" question shall we?

Damkerng T.

Yes?

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

> A family has two children. One of them enters the room and we find out that he's a boy. What's the probability of the other child to be a boy?

Damkerng T.

Huh? That's more like a lateral thinking question than a math question.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

10:26

Indeed. So what is the answer?

He told me that it's 1/3 LOL.

Sometimes laughs are bitterer than cries

Damkerng T.

HUH?

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I got you!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

He told me that the combination can't be "girl, girl" and can only be "boy,girl", "girl, boy" and "boy, boy" so "boy, boy" is 1/3 of the mother set.

:'O

When I tried to tell him "it's totally unrelated what the status of the other child is", he only told me "I have a citable source that claims this".

Damkerng T.

I'm really sorry that you have to be around him for at least a semester.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Well, you see what I have to deal with one. Whole. Effing. Semester.

Damkerng T.

We do have a lot of that kind of people in real life indeed.

Mathav Raj

10:30

Pride and prejudice sucks

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

On another note, when I'm talking to this semester's Persian Literature teacher, it seems as if I'm talking to @tchrist. :D

Damkerng T.

I once ran into a person who told me proudly that his new server (it was several years ago) could process 600k requests a second.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. . . . And DDoS'ed him with 20 requests per second?

Damkerng T.

I told him, no, you misread the stats; it's only 600 requests a second.

He told me, not so! Don't you see, I know how to read the manual, the manual says it's in k Rps. Do you (he meant me) know how to read?!

As it turned out, it was only 600 requests a second.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. How did it turn out, I wonder.

Damkerng T.

10:33

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I asked his boss who was my ex-teacher to do a benchmark test.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Anyway, @Dam do you have those guys in your documentaries with awesome voices?

Damkerng T.

What awesome voices?

@MathavRaj It could be a good read!

1

Q: Do Americans remove the "t" in "wanted"?

When you pronounce the phrase "I got a message you wanted to see me", is the "t" usually deleted in the word "wanted"? Thank you.

american-english pronunciation consonants

Hey, that's a good questions!

I wonder how often people drop the "t".

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. We have some great voices here in the dubbing industry. One of them is famous for his wildlife documentary dubs. I can't remember his name for the life of me.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Oh, I see. Like an anchor, a talent, or the host of a show.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Yeah, an anchor with some great voice that reminds me of PhD profs.

Damkerng T.

10:39

Yes, I think we do have some. Though no face came up to my mind.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Must be a deep voice. :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

I'm looking for a youtube video you can hear.

Damkerng T.

I've heard that the confusion between /l/ and /r/ is common among Japanese learners of English. This is mainly because /l/ and /r/ are both pronounced as /r/ in Japanese, so theoretically, election and erection could sound the same to many learners from Japan. I can confirm that native speakers can hear the difference of the two sounds very well, and I can hear it too. On the other hand, sometimes I misheard a Japanese /r/ as a /d/ sound. :-) I think our first language and the second language we're learning can have a real impact. But don't give up, the more we practice the better we are! — Damkerng T. yesterday

Hah! +22!

I think we do have more users than before!

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Ah, I can recall one, but he had passed away several years ago. I miss his voice.

Anonymous

11:03

alive     arrive
belly     berry
blacken   bracken
blew      brew
blight    bright
blues     bruise
blush     brush
clash     crash
clown     crown
collect   correct
flea      free
fleas     freeze
flee      free
fly       fry
glamour   grammar
gland     grand
glass     grass
glow      grow
jelly     jerry
lace      race
lack      rack
lag       rag
lair      rare
lake      rake
lamb      ram
lamp      ramp
lane      rain
lank      rank
lap       wrap
lash      rash
late      rate
lather    rather

Anonymous

An incomplete list. /l/-/r/ minimal pairs don't seem that rare to me.

Anonymous

If native English speakers have no problem in distinguishing the pronunciations of "l" and "r", I wonder why there are relatively very small number of words which have the same pronunciation except top "l" or "r". For example such a pair as ring and ling. Isn't it because they consciously or unconsciously avoided possible confusions? — Makoto Kato yesterday

Damkerng T.

nods -- I wonder how a Japanese learner would really hear them.

I guess that they may notice the difference, but the difference is not quite meaningful to them.

Anonymous

When they start out, they don't notice the difference.

Damkerng T.

I tried the standard pattern of five-tone "ka-ka-ka-ka-ka" with my German friends; they said something like that. ("I can hear that they aren't the same, but I can't say them myself.")

Anonymous

11:07

Tones are a little different perceptually.

Damkerng T.

Or even an more interesting phrase ใครขายไข่ไก่. (I think it could be interesting to hear how Google Translate would pronounce it.)

Anonymous

And consonant and vowel quality are also quite different perceptually.

Damkerng T.

nods

@snailboat It must be very tough for them!

Anonymous

Liquids are actually in the middle, although phonologically we call them "consonants".

Anonymous

Phonetically speaking, there's a thing called the sonority hierarchy

Anonymous

11:10

Sonority hierarchy

A sonority hierarchy or sonority scale is a ranking of speech sounds (or phones) by amplitude. For example, if one says the vowel [a], he or she will produce a much louder sound than if one says the stop [t]. Sonority hierarchies are especially important when analyzing syllable structure; rules about what segments may appear in onsets or codas together, such as SSP, are formulated in terms of the difference of their sonority values. Some languages also have assimilation rules based on sonority hierarchy, for example, the Finnish potential mood, in which a less sonorous segment changes to copy a...

2

Anonymous

Take a look at the chart. Liquids are actually quite close to the vowel end!

Anonymous

We usually call them consonants because they pattern phonologically with other consonants.

Anonymous

The more sonorous (in other words, the more vowel-like) a sound, the less categoric the perception function is.

Anonymous

And so for /l/-/r/, it's a little easier for a learner to hear that there's a difference in phonetic quality.

Anonymous

With a pair of unvoiced stop consonants, it's a lot harder for a learner to notice the phonetic difference in the first place.

Anonymous

11:16

For example, imagine a speaker of a language with an aspiration distinction between [t] and [tʰ] but no voicing distinction (no contrast between [t] and [d]). They'll have a harder time noticing that the two sound distinct in another language.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat And yet all(?) languages seem to have all three [p t k]!

Anonymous

Now, regardless of sonority, it'll be hard to distinguish sounds that aren't phonemically distinct in their L1. But there are certain contrasts that are physically easier or harder to notice.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Also b. (?)

Come on! There can't be a language without /m/.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M I agree, but /m/ is not an unvoiced stop consonant.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oh, we're talking about them?

Then I think /t/ is the most common.

Oh wait oh wait oh wait!

Damkerng T.

11:20

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Yes, in contrast to /l/ - /r/.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Arabic doesn't have /p/.

There's even a joke about it.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Eh?

(That's a long Japanese Eh? :-)

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Eeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Anonymous

We have a joke about not having 'p' in English.

Anonymous

> Please keep your p out of the ool!

Damkerng T.

11:23

Or the b will come out of the lue!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

@DamkerngT. Human species p yellowly.

Damkerng T.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M They add something that will turn it to blue in some pools.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

O.o Like what?

Damkerng T.

I don't know its chem name!

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Damkerng T.

11:25

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine-indicator_dye

Hey, it's a fictional substance! :D

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Oooh my, I found my disgusting reading of the day.

(/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ ~ ┻━┻

Damkerng T.

I guess you could make a load of money if you can make it real. :D

Damkerng T.

11:43

Stock message: not an answer (please post your question as a new question)

Welcome to ELL! To help keep our site in order, please ask your own question as a new question: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/ask. You may also want to take a tour of our Help Center: ell.stackexchange.com/tour, and read our help: ell.stackexchange.com/help, before posting your question. Thank you! — Damkerng T. 43 secs ago

Anonymous

0

A: Do Americans remove the "t" in "wanted"?

I've noticed more and more lately that Americans, at least in my region, do tend to elide t's in the middles of words. Thus, "Martin" becomes "Mar-uhn", "wanted" becomes "wan-ned", and "Atlanta" becomes "Atlanna". :-(

Anonymous

I wonder why this has a sad face.

Anonymous

It's not like anyone uses careful pronunciation all the time in any language.

Damkerng T.

Because of the poor "t" that is missing? :D

Anonymous

Anyway, I think a better describe than "wan-ned" would be "/nt/ is often realized as a nasalized flap, with the vowel beforehand nasalized as well"

Anonymous

11:48

So it's not actually missing . . .

Damkerng T.

That reminds me of a Thai song กลุ้มใจ (worried, read "klum-jai", note the "l"). In the song there is this verse: กุ้มใจไม่มี ล.ลิง (worried 'cause there is no 'l', note the missing "l" ล). :-)

Anonymous

That is, in a context where it's possible to flap the /t/.

Anonymous

It's not always.

Anonymous

English phonology is hard to describe!

Damkerng T.

I was surprised by a pronunciation of "winter" once!

"What a winner!" "Huh?"

Anonymous

11:52

[ˈwɪ̃ɾ̃ɚ]?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I tried to transcribe a clip having a couple of sport commentators (in Thai) once, and to my surprise, a lot of phonemes were missing!

@snailboat กลุ้มใจ "klum-jai" -> กุ้มใจ "kum-jai"

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hey @Dam remember about the voice I was talking about? Our teacher's voice is something between this (Go to second 33) and . . . I can't find the other one. OK, you could make that anchor's voice a bit older and figure it out yourself.

6

Q: A proposed solution to the "grammar" dilemma -- Please contribute your answers to the "what is grammar" post

This is the follow-up of Is This Tag Useful? Episode 1 - The Big Boss (grammar). (i.e. intended to be the community decision on the matter, if people agree with the sentiments of this meta post) TL;DR I believe the opposite side has a point, while reaching the wrong conclusion. So I take all of...

discussion tags tag-cleaning

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's related to our local problem that many people pronounce /r/ with /l/.

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

:/ As still as water, and all I get in the past 5 hours is a downvote. This stillness discourages from doing what I'm supposed to do.

Anonymous

Oh, I was trying to transcribe Californian English winter.

Damkerng T.

11:54

@snailboat Oh, you meant "winner". Hmm... it sounded exactly like "winner" to me, but I can't say for sure because it was my perception.

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M Hang in there

inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M

Hanging in there

Anonymous

I don't know if [ɾ̃] is always distinguished from intervocalic [n]

Anonymous

They're pretty similar.

Anonymous

So I could see the words being indistinguishable.

Anonymous

Come to think of it, maybe intervocalic /n/ is sometimes [ɾ̃]

Anonymous

12:04

Hmm, good thing I'm not writing an answer to that question! :-)

Damkerng T.

This is funny!

Here is a new question:

1

Q: Is it correct in formal writing to use Firstly alone?

My colleague will have to present her report some time in this week. She wanted some preparation for the presentation, and asked me to be her audience. In her presentation, she said... Firstly, company A's annual income is at least 4 times more than Company B's. And then... I asked her, "an...

sentence-construction

I read it and thought to myself, hmm... that's a good question, do we really have to use secondly, thirdly, ...?

Then, this useful link showed up:

Helpful: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/18959/… — Maulik V ♦ 6 mins ago

Following the link, I found my old comment :-)

I think the number of times that I found "First of all" in a book or in a presentation, and then I waited for "second of all" or "secondly" or even "and then" and waited, but it never came, is more than I can count. — Damkerng T. Mar 13 '14 at 4:57

I think I agree with myself. :D

Anonymous

Sounds reasonable! :-)

Anonymous

It would probably sound silly if you began a presentation with first of all, went on to second of all, third of all, and so on until you finally got to last of all :-)

Damkerng T.

Quite probably!

Anonymous

People would start wondering about this of all business!

Anonymous

12:10

And forget what you're actually talking about.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

One of the worst things you can do is distract people from what you're saying, making them focus on how you're saying it.

Anonymous

It's easy to do, too, if you're clumsy with words like I am.

Anonymous

(Of course, if you want people to focus on how you're saying things, there's nothing wrong with that.)

Damkerng T.

I found that ironic, in a good way. :D

(I have the album กุ้มใจ in the background. Me enjoying nostalgia. :-)

Anonymous

12:12

Yay!

Anonymous

So the /l/ is missing from the album title?

Damkerng T.

It seems so!

Iirc, the song has received several awards (in an attempt of tradition preservation, I think).

In a humorous manner, I might add.

Anonymous

กุ้มใจ : อัสนี & วสันต์ โชติกุล

►

Damkerng T.

Ah, that's the one!

Anonymous

What is the ampersand doing there, anyway? :-)

Anonymous

12:18

Is that something people do on the internet? Or more generally?

Damkerng T.

Oh, กุ้มใจ = album name; อัสนี & วสันต์ โชติกุล = the artists; they're two brothers.

อัสนี โชติกุล, วสันต์ โชติกุล.

Anonymous

How often do you see ampersands in Thai writing?

Damkerng T.

More often lately. :-)

Anonymous

And how do you pronounce it?

Damkerng T.

"and", sometimes และ (our word for "and").

Anonymous

12:20

I still haven't gotten a straight answer on how ampersands are pronounced in Japanese. So far I go with ando :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe! Ando sounds like a person's name!

Anonymous

Like in Heroes!

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes!

Anonymous

Although that name is Andō (あんどう), strictly speaking.

Anonymous

Not Ando (あんど)

Damkerng T.

12:21

Ahh

It's very easy to forget!

Anonymous

Ando is a word in Japanese, though: 安堵（あんど） 'relief'

Anonymous

It literally refers to the safety of being surrounded by fences (or walls)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... relief inside the fences-- Oh, I see!

Anonymous

That's why the second character 堵 'fence; wall' is used in that word

Anonymous

The name Andō would be something like 安藤, where the second character ('wisteria') is used for its sound

Anonymous

12:25

You'd think 藤 'wisteria' wouldn't be a very common character, but it's in some of the most common names in Japanese, so it's actually quite common! :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, is it a common plant in Japan?

Anonymous

ashikaga.co.jp/season/season03.html

Anonymous

Here, the word for wisteria is written ふじ, without the kanji. There are some really pretty pictures down at the bottom of the page! :-)

Damkerng T.

My heaven would look quite like that! :-)

Anonymous

They're native to Japan.

Damkerng T.

12:29

Maybe I should consider moving to Japan. :P

Anonymous

The great wisteria at Ashikaga Flower Park is almost 150 years old.

Anonymous

I didn't really know the word wisteria until I started learning Japanese. I'm sure I'd heard it before, but I didn't really know what it referred to specifically, and I had no idea they were so beautiful!

Damkerng T.

Very beautiful!

Anonymous

So when I first learned 藤 as a teenager and I saw that its English translation was 'wisteria', I thought to myself, "Okay, won't use that one!" Of course, I was super wrong :-)

tchrist

@DamkerngT. ELU has questions about this. And I wouldn’t say that it’s precisely "dropped".

@snailboat I was frankly surprised to have just discovered they're also native to the eastern United States.

Anonymous

12:32

@tchrist Wow, really?

tchrist

My reaction exactly.

Wisteria

Wisteria (also spelled Wistaria or Wysteria) is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, that includes ten species of woody climbing vines native to the Eastern United States and to China, Korea, and Japan. Some species are popular ornamental plants. An aquatic flowering plant with the common name wisteria or 'water wisteria' is in fact Hygrophila difformis, in the family Acanthaceae. == TaxonomyEdit == The botanist Thomas Nuttall said he named the genus Wisteria in memory of Dr. Caspar Wistar (1761–1818). Questioned about the spelling later, Nuttall said it was for "euphony," but...

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's in the pea family?!

tchrist

Its blossom gives that away immediately.

Damkerng T.

I'm not familiar with it; it's really beautiful to me.

tchrist

Sweet pea

Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) is a flowering plant in the genus Lathyrus in the family Fabaceae (legumes), native to Sicily, southern Italy and the Aegean Islands. It is an annual climbing plant, growing to a height of 1–2 metres (3 ft 3 in–6 ft 7 in), where suitable support is available. The leaves are pinnate with two leaflets and a terminal tendril, which twines around supporting plants and structures, helping the sweet pea to climb. In the wild plant the flowers are purple, 2–3.5 centimetres (0.79–1.38 in) broad; they are larger and very variable in color in the many cultivars. The annual species...

Lupinus

Lupinus, commonly known as lupin or lupine (North America), is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. The genus includes over 200 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Seeds of various species of lupins have been used as a food for over 3000 years around the Mediterranean (Gladstones, 1970) and for as much as 6000 years in the Andean highlands (Uauy et al., 1995), but they have never been accorded the same status as soybeans or dry peas and other pulse crops. The pearl lupin of the Andean...

Oh, I was hoping for better pictures. But you can see that the blossom is of the same form.

Damkerng T.

12:39

nods -- Thanks!

My garden looks mostly green, not many colors. But I like green. :-)

Wisteria is different. I don't know why.

Perhaps its form.

0

A: Describe cannot take two objects?

When a verb has two objects, one is usually direct and the other indirect (used with a preposition). This is usually the case. However certain verbs take two objects without any preposition. We used to be able to say "give it me", but now we say "give it to me". With the help of an intervenin...

> We used to be able to say "give it me", but now we say "give it to me".

Uncommon knowledge?

tchrist

@DamkerngT. It is very beautiful the way its clusters of countless lavender blooms dangle like so many plump grapes bursting with color and aroma.

@DamkerngT. Give me it.

Damkerng T.

"Give me that" is probably more common, but was "Give it me" once common as well?

tchrist

12:59

I believe there are corners of Britain where the latter formulation let lingers.

> Ken ye the rhyme to porringer?
The King he had a daughter fair,
And gave the Prince of Orange her.

Damkerng T.

Argh! The music turns into broken heart songs. This gives me some flashbacks!

Anonymous

13:14

John Wells wrote about winner and winter: phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2011/11/winter-and-winner.html

Anonymous

I found this after looking it up in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary and finding that he described it as the flap-t sometimes being elided after /n/ in AmE.

Anonymous

John Wells suggests that the distinction between [ɾ̃] and [n] can't be very robust, and that makes sense to me . . .

Anonymous

I still don't like conceptualizing it as /t/ being elided, though.

Anonymous

Even though John Wells describes it that way in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.

Anonymous

> This posting was triggered by my hearing an Australian golf commentator on TV referring to ðə ˌsevn̩ˈiːnθ the seventeenth (hole). This violates the constraint barring nt-reduction before a stressed vowel, and I suspect would not be possible in AmE.

Anonymous

13:22

That does sound pretty strange to me!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat An accidental pronunciation, perhaps?

2 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

@snailboat I tried to transcribe a clip having a couple of sport commentators (in Thai) once, and to my surprise, a lot of phonemes were missing!

If I remember correctly, many of the missing phonemes were unusual. But maybe it wouldn't be that unusual if I tried to listen closely to everything in my first language!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't know, but it might be a difference between AusE and AmE. @jimsug What do you think?

jimsug

I can imagine that in rapid speech

Damkerng T.

current track: Shabby Heart

coming up next: Wound In My Heart

coming up later: Bury It In The Ground

Wow! What's with the songs in my generation!?

Anonymous

So yeah, it sounds like a difference between AmE and AusE.

Damkerng T.

13:32

Note to self: Another indicator that L1->L2 translation is more difficult than L2->L1 is lyrics translation.

Anonymous

Just wanted to point out that the usual Japanese term is not いいえ as above (that's just "no") but どういたしまして, douitashimashite, which is usually translated as "you're welcome" but more literally is something like a humble "it was the least I could do". — Ken Y-N 7 hours ago

Anonymous

A comment about Japanese on English.SE!

Damkerng T.

いいえ = "You're welcome"?!

Anonymous

どういたしまして is definitely the textbook translation of "You're welcome", or to put it another way, it's definitely the textbook response to ありがとう(ございます) "Thank you"

Damkerng T.

Hmm... it could be used in the same occasion, I think.

Anonymous

13:34

In real life, どういたしまして isn't the most common response, though.

Anonymous

いいえ is certainly a valid way to respond.

Anonymous

Or variations like いえいえ, which are very common.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Though I think it's more like "Never mind" or "No problem".

Anonymous

"Thank you!" "Never mind." ← This seems weird.

Damkerng T.

I mean the general feeling of iie.

@snailboat Ah, it's not weird when I think of its translation in Asian series/movies. (Not in English, of course.)

Or more literally, "Don't keep that in mind."

I feel like I learn some Asian languages through translationese expressions sometimes. :-)

Anonymous

13:39

@DamkerngT. It's hard to say exactly. After all, you can also respond with はい :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, right!

Anonymous

It makes you wonder what you're affirming or negating!

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

I think we sometimes translate "You're welcome" in that context to (ด้วยความ)ยินดี(ค่ะ/ครับ), lit. meaning "(With) Pleasure."

Anonymous

Although native speakers do say どういたしまして sometimes, one native speaker claimed that it's an unnatural response and that it's first learned in schools as a translation paired with "You're welcome" when studying English.

Damkerng T.

Oh, "to come again"!

That's roughly the same as ได้เลย (which is also about the same as "Anytime!")

I think every language has a similar expression for "You're welcome".

Anonymous

13:45

I'd be skeptical of the claim that You're welcome to come again is the source of English You're welcome.

Anonymous

You're welcome is actually a pretty recent set phrase in English.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I didn't know that it's recent.

Wow! I tried to think of possible responses to "Thank you" in Thai, and found that it's almost countless!

Anonymous

There are a few citations in the early 1900s, but it doesn't seem to have taken off until later in the century.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Me too! Most of them colloquial. "No worries!" "S'all good!" "Not a problem." "I was happy to help!"

Damkerng T.

ไม่เป็นไร. ด้วยความยินดี. เต็มใจอยู่แล้ว. สำหรับนายได้เสมอ. อย่าคิดมากเลย. เราสิต้องขอบใจนาย. ฯลฯ

Oops! ฯลฯ ~ etc. in Thai. :P

Anonymous

13:50

Ah :-)

Anonymous

ฯลฯ ≈ など!

Damkerng T.

I learned a Japanese word!

Anonymous

Ａ、Ｂ、Cなど

tchrist

@DamkerngT. Graecum est; non potest legi.

Damkerng T.

> Do not worry. You're welcome. Willingly anyway. For you it has always been fine. Do not think so. Thanks to ~~Mr. us~~ you.

I used Google Translate and corrected it.

Fantasier

13:52

@DamkerngT. It "sounds" so cold when you end those with periods.

tchrist

translate: ไม่เป็นไร. ด้วยความยินดี. เต็มใจอยู่แล้ว. สำหรับนายได้เสมอ. อย่าคิดมากเลย. เราสิต้องขอบใจนาย. ฯลฯ

(from Thai) That's ok. My pleasure. Willing to live. For Mr. Don't think so much. We want to thank you, Mr. XI., etc.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier I wanted to use commas, but I was lazy to switch between the two languages.

Fantasier

Willing to live That's a good one. lolololol

Damkerng T.

(I don't get into the habit of typing commas in Thai, somehow.)

tchrist

You have spaces, though, eh?

Or not?

Damkerng T.

13:53

Yes!

tchrist

Do they look like spaces?

Damkerng T.

A space is used roughly the same as either a period or a comma.

tchrist

Hm.

Anonymous

But you don't normally put spaces between words in Thai.

tchrist

Ithinkthenyouaresayingthatyoudonutnormallyseparatewordswithspacesunlessotherpunc‌tationiscalledfor?

jinx

Damkerng T.

13:55

> Ithinkthen youaresayingthatyoudonutnormallyseparatewordswithspaces unlessotherpunc‌tationiscalledfor

It would look more like that^

(Which is why I speculate that chunk-based language processing is normal for Thais.)

Anonymous

In Korean, or in Japanese when written without kanji, spaces are usually placed between accent phrases (or "phonological words"), which generally consist of a lexical word plus any following particles or postpositions that are pronounced together with it.

tchrist

Word segmentation can be complex in oriental scripts.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. Ahh, it's much harder when I do it in English.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier Ah, I see. :-)

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