Language Overflow

Damkerng T.

00:00

Because according to Wikibooks, Korean /j/ is supposed to be either aspirated or tense.

Probably, to Korean people, the voicing doesn't matter if it's aspirated.

Which would mean that the OP may pronounce the English /j/ correctly sometimes if they simply pronounce it like in Korean.

기내 피부관리하기

►

What would you think she say? (Only the sounds, not the words)

A-ha! I think I got it. Their tutor must've said something like "In English, the J sound is DZ," and the confusion ensued.

Note to self: One main root cause of all language learning problems is that we cheat ourselves because we want to go fast, and want to get directly to the point.

Nihilist_Frost

00:27

thing is, English J is usually an affricate and Z is a sibilant fricative.

and the Korean affricates are alveopalatal and English's are palatal-alveolar.

Damkerng T.

I think it's not only the place that's different from English, it's the pose as well.

Nihilist_Frost

Is Y used more as a vowel than as a consonant?

Damkerng T.

This can be quite confusing, because I don't know what Y is.

Nihilist_Frost

@DamkerngT. The letter.

Damkerng T.

Yes, but in what language, and in what way that it's used.

Nihilist_Frost

00:34

@DamkerngT. English.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see!

I think many people say that English "y" is a semi-vowel.

But "y" is /j/.

(when it's a consonant)

Nihilist_Frost

@DamkerngT. And "Y" is the only letter associated with /j/.

in English

Damkerng T.

nods

I wonder if there is a dictionary that gives /t(j)ub/ as the pronunciation of "tube".

Gotta go. See you later!

Nihilist_Frost

bye

Damkerng T.

o/

I wish I could fix many typos in my comments and answers today, but what's done is done.

Fantasier

04:24

@DamkerngT. I think what people say is that the grapheme <y> is a sometimes a vowel, which is true. Candy, for example.

So, when some people recite the vowels in English, it's "A E I O U and sometimes Y"

A semi-vowel, I think, is something only talked about in linguistics.

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier We were talking about sounds, so I assumed that it was about the sound of the letter Y when it was pronounced as /j/. Otherwise, saying that Y is more a vowel than a consonant wouldn't make sense to me. But I didn't make sense out of many things back then!

Anonymous

05:16

@Fantasier It's true, outside linguistics people tend to think of letters as being vowels or consonants, but unfortunately this definition of vowel or consonant isn't terribly useful outside Wheel of Fortune. It makes much more sense to talk about consonant and vowel sounds when discussing language.

2

Anonymous

So I would say it doesn't make much sense to claim "Y is sometimes a vowel". The problem there is is. Graphemes are not sounds! Instead, we should talk about how phonemes are represented by or correspond to graphemes.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. "Y is more a vowel than a consonant" doesn't really make sense to me, either. But if you look at the sonority hierarchy, it does make a kind of sense:

Anonymous

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

I wouldn't say exactly that, though.

Anonymous

Phonetically, glides (also known as semivowels) are very much like vowels, but phonemically they pattern like consonants.

Anonymous

05:24

/j/ is the semivowel corresponding to /i/, and /w/ is the semivowel corresponding to /u/.

Anonymous

The biggest difference in each pair is whether they appear at the edge of a syllable, like a consonant, or in the middle, like a vowel.

Anonymous

So we should be specific and say that, rather than saying "Y is more a vowel than a consonant". But to be fair, I don't know what context this quote is from. Maybe it makes sense in context.

Anonymous

I'm reading more of the chat history now.

Damkerng T.

06:05

@snailboat They're rounded rectangles!

Anonymous

How synaesthetic!

modulusshift

As a glide, I'd say it's conventionally a consonant. Vowels are supposed to be pure sounds. Consonants are modifiers or stops. I know this doesn't really have a basis in linguistics, or even in reality, since many "pure" vowels in English are diphthongs.

Anonymous

Conventionally? Pure? Modifiers?

modulusshift

conventionally: layman's knowledge, what most are taught in school and never question.

pure: Any vowel that can be written as a single grapheme. (Obviously a conventional definition, not a technical one.)

modifiers: Um...non-stop/fricative consonants? glides are all I can think of right now that actually fall under this.

I guess the second c in crescent is also a modifier. It isn't and can't be sounded separately, but is necessary to express the sound used there.

But then you could make a solid argument for many modern silent e's to be modifiers.

Well, it's not like I claimed this was consistent. :)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

07:31

@snailboat They should use SI terminology instead.

. . .

(@snailboat™ Institute)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

09:19

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Tweeted by Nick_Craver on January 28, 2016 at 1:54 AM in reply to Nick_Craver

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lekon chekon

10:41

Hey.
I was curious about something.
I was wondering if the omission of "As" was okay in sentences like.
"I was getting worried that you would come off (as) a weirdo who was into that sort of stuff".

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@lekonchekon IsOkay = true

lekon chekon

._.) what?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

It's okay.

lekon chekon

do you mean i should've used is, instead of the "was" that precedes the "okay"?

oh. :3

thanks. :3

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

:4

lekon chekon

11:01

where were you all these days?
I haven't seen your being online here in a while. :|

Araucaria

11:31

@Nihilist_Frost what's the difference between alveopalatal and palatal-alveolar?

@DamkerngT. I think the problem was the /z/ there not the /dʒ/ :)

Damkerng T.

I still have to good idea what the OP's Z is!

or J, but maybe their Z is /ʒ/ like you said.

I wonder what their teacher's comments are on their SH and CH sounds.

0

Q: Is "The user conference had a videographer who filmed the participants as they spoke about their experience using the software." correct?

"The user conference had a videographer who filmed the participants as they spoke about their experience using the software." I wonder if the sentence is correct. Aren't "of" or "On" needed to put in between "their experience" and "using the software"? I think that if "using the software" i...

> "The user conference had a videographer who filmed the participants as they spoke about their experience using the software."

Sounds like it was said or written by a non-native speaker, or maybe someone who had to come up with that spontaneously.

CopperKettle

12:58

Today is forecast to be the coldest night here, down to minus 30. (0:

So here's some Robert Burns (an autobiographic verse written in 1778):

♫ Scottish Music - Rantin' Rovin' Robin ♫

►

Anonymous

14:58

@CopperKettle Brr!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Not so cold yet. (0: I even jogged! The second time, after two months of couch potatoeing. (0:

My calf seems to have healed enough. (0:

Damkerng T.

A funny expression I just heard (hoping I didn't mishear it): trying to be ruthlessly nice

@CopperKettle Yay! That's great news!

I haven't checked out our main site yet, but it looks like there are lots of (sorta) proofreading requests today. (Though they may not be off-topic.)

CopperKettle

It is only minus 16C at this point in time -- "at this point in time", an expression much hated by stylists

Damkerng T.

:D

CopperKettle

I wonder if Keats made a dedicated effort to learn Scots.. I can't make heads or tails and need to consult translations when reading Burns.

Damkerng T.

15:06

I think Keats has been mentioned a few times on ELL.

CopperKettle

Keats idolized Burns.

And Keats is one of the finest poets in English.

To Autumn

"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821). The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet...

> One of the most anthologised English lyric poems, "To Autumn" has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Oh, I'm glad your calf is better now! Have you been injured for a while?

CopperKettle

@snailboat No, it just started aching out of the blue in the autumn. Nobody knew what it was. I was hobbling for some time, and made injections.

Damkerng T.

@CopperKettle Besides the poem, I like the illus in that Wikipedia article too!

CopperKettle

Then I discovered I had a subclinical hypothyroidosis

@DamkerngT. Yes, nice pictures. (0:

I memorized that poem by heart. (0:

I've been taking L-tyroxine since January 12, and have been feeling better.. I wonder if calf pain had anything to do with that.

That's unlikely..

Damkerng T.

16:30

1

Q: What are all possible usages of "Should have done" & "Should have been doing" & "Should be doing"?

You should have done it. You should have been doing. You should be doing it. It is almost confusing. When we say You should have done it , does it always mean that you were supposed to do it but you did not do? Can it also mean as an equivalent to "you would have done" or "you ...

sentence-meaning

When seeing a question like this, I wonder if the Q&A format can really help the OP.

I wish we could make sure first whether or not they know what "should" mean, like, try to paraphrase "You should do it" in your own words without using the word "should".

And then we may be able to build up from there.

CopperKettle

"it is almost confusing" (0:

"You should have been doing" must also have it or that or this at the end to make sense. — CopperKettle 8 secs ago

> "you will have done" - no, this implies experience

experience?

Damkerng T.

16:46

I wonder what he meant, too.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Well, they use the word supposed, so I suppose they know what should means.

Damkerng T.

(Though sometimes I think people use "will have done" for something happened in the past.)

CopperKettle

> There's someone knocking on the door. My son will have done his homework by now. If that is his friends, I'll let him out to play with them.

Damkerng T.

nods -- That sounds about right to me.

CopperKettle

16:59

This guy Jim Malcolm is like Robert Burns combined with Bob Dylan: A Man's a Man for A' That

And Rantin Rovin with a harmonica accompaniment! Too bad there's no better version online

Is There for Honest Poverty

"Is There for Honest Poverty", commonly known as "A Man's a Man for A' That", is a 1795 Scots song by Robert Burns, famous for its expression of egalitarian ideas of society, which may be seen as expressing the ideas of liberalism that arose in the 18th century. Renowned Scottish folksinger Sheena Wellington sang the song at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in May, 1999. The song was also sung at the funeral of Donald Dewar, the inaugural First Minister of Scotland. It is also known in translations into other European languages, for example the German "Trotz alledem und alledem" by Ferdinand...

Jim Reynolds

17:12

@Cop Sounds cool. I'm a better egalitarian than anyone else, though. O.O

@Araucaria The positive resolution of a misunderstanding or conflict, big or small, builds trust much better than the avoidance of all such, certainly for "Westerners" at least. Cheers.

Damkerng T.

6 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

I still have to good idea what the OP's Z is!

It must've been a very late hour for me!

What was I trying to say?

Perhaps "I still don't have a good idea ..."

I wonder if it was me or my autocorrect that made that.

Damkerng T.

17:40

3

Q: Can 'nor' be used to negate a positive statement?

I would like to ask whether the following constructions are correct: 1. He refused to listen to me. Nor is he ready to leave. or 2. We missed the plane. Nor did we catch the train. From this discussion I understand that we can use 'nor' to negate a sentence after another negative sentence, a...

conjunctions neither-nor

It would be nice if the examples were taken from somewhere on the web.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

18:15

@DamkerngT. O_o

CopperKettle

@JimReynolds (0:

Photos: Yekaterinburg in winter

Damkerng T.

19:33

@CopperKettle Nice views. Love the ducks. The smoke from the factories, not so much.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. No, there's almost no smoke there on the photos. In the cold air, 90 of the smokey stuff there is water wapor, especially on the photos where the skyscraper is present - it has a steam-based heating system.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... so those are just vapor.

CopperKettle

Yes, there are some plants here, but they are not in the center of the city. The photos have been taken in the center.

In some nearby towns, the ecology is quite wrecked, and in some districts of Yekaterinburg.

Even in the center there must be some bad things in the air, but there's not much actual smoke, and the snow does not turn colorful from particulates, like in some towns.

In Reftinsky, you can smell sulphur as you approach the settlement, for instance. One of the world's highest smoke-stacks is there.

There's a gigantic power plant burning brown coal, and the plume is evident from space.

> The station’s chimney 4 is ranked among the highest in the world with its height of some 320 meters.

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