English Language Learners

user116848

17:00

Heh

Anonymous

@MARamezani Your English, if I must say …

Anonymous

…

Anonymous

drum roll

Anonymous

Your English is fine. You seem particularly fluent, like you aren't ever really stumbling over trying to find the right words. You have an alacrity about you.

Anonymous

There are occasional times when you do end up picking the wrong word, and then I can't understand.

Anonymous

17:03

But that's fine, 'cause I can just ask you what you meant.

Anonymous

If I had to guess, I'd guess that you started learning relatively young.

MARamezani

Coming from a native, that means a lot to me! Thanks!

Yes, I started from the 2nd grade, if that counts as "relatively young".

Anonymous

Yes, it does.

MARamezani

I think the reason I sometimes blunder is the vast differences between the languages I learn.

Not to mention differences between them and my mother language.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India A tip of my nonexistent hat to you, Man from India

Anonymous

17:08

@MARamezani Which languages might those be?

Anonymous

In my opinion, French is rather like English

Anonymous

At least compared to more distant languages

Anonymous

Of course, there are still plenty of differences! :-)

MARamezani

My mother language is a [wierd] dialect of Turkish, while

I study Persian in an advanced level,

Arabic in a pre-intermediate level,

and English as an enthusiast and someone who needs the "scientific" language.

Anonymous

Ahh

MARamezani

17:11

Though Arabic and Persian are quite similar to each other.

Anonymous

That's a rather diverse set overall, though!

MARamezani

Tell me about it!

Man_From_India

@snailboat Thank you :-)

I haven't read the answer though, yet I have upvoted it from the impression that it's going to be superb :-)

MARamezani

@snailboat You could have said: "A tip of my hat to my old man, @Man_From_India..." :)

But you aren't stoney.

Or tetsujin.

Man_From_India

I am not old at all :-) and my mind is even younger ;-)

Anonymous

17:14

I'm relatively certain my father is, in fact, not from India

Anonymous

Also, he's older than me rather than younger :-)

MARamezani

Hi @Majid. Just jumping in. I like that!

@Man_From_India

> b. Known through long acquaintance; long familiar: an old friend.

thefreedictionary.com/old

Anonymous

Well, now I've written four answers! In the last day, I mean. Though I ended up deleting one of them because I misunderstood the question

Anonymous

But old man is special.

Man_From_India

@MARamezani Then I have no problem :-)

Anonymous

17:16

My old man is my dad.

MARamezani

Yes.

I had a question about that alright!

Man_From_India

:-)

MARamezani

That's the point!

Anonymous

Well, I still say he's not my dad! ;-)

Anonymous

Hey, is there an echo in here?

Damkerng T.

17:18

It's indeed unclear.

Why is this unclear? — MARamezani 47 mins ago

It's indeed unclear.

MARamezani

Though I see natives use the ol' a lot.

Anonymous

I just got doubles on my last two messages. But then they went away.

Man_From_India

Another great example to demonstrate it
1. The shopkeeper sells the books.
2. The book sells well.
But if in passive form
3. The book is sold (by the shopkeeper).

Anonymous

@MARamezani Yeah, that's the same thing.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I don't know what happened!

Anonymous

17:19

@DamkerngT. Chat's gone crazy!

Anonymous

They probably plugged something into something they shouldn't. :-)

Man_From_India

i am not into it :-)

Damkerng T.

I think I didn't even click on "Retry".

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. I repeat: Why is it unclear?

This happens to you too?

Damkerng T.

What happened to me?

Oh, First of all, it's unclear what they (the people who spoke to the OP) meant by consider the topic was tiger.

Anonymous

17:21

@Man_From_India Sell is a 'middle' intransitive

Damkerng T.

(A-ha! I should just ignore all the Retries that keep popping up!)

Anonymous

It's different in that the intransitive is interpreted as having an unexpressed causer

Anonymous

The term 'middle' is a reference to the idea of a 'middle voice'

Man_From_India

@snailboat Oh I thought it's also ergative as well

Damkerng T.

(The responsiveness of the chat is not really good at the moment, I think.)

Anonymous

17:22

Whereas intransitive change is not necessarily interpreted as having an unexpressed causer

MARamezani

The poster says: "Think that someone has told us to speak about tigers."

And the OP's problem is the emboldened.

Majid

@MARamezani you are really peaceful

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani That's what the OP thought, so we have to factor that out.

Man_From_India

Yes I remember I had once some confusion about that middle voice and I had asked some questions in linguistic SE

Damkerng T.

(Or at least, not regard it that it means that literally.)

Anonymous

17:23

See CGEL pages 307-8

MARamezani

@Majid that's cuz I'm doing yoga. :)

Anonymous

English doesn't have a middle voice, strictly speaking, but the term 'middle' is still useful here

Damkerng T.

@snailboat "Middle voice" is a nice way to think of it, at least for me.

Man_From_India

@snailboat thanks :-)

Majid

@MARamezani Oh :-)

Damkerng T.

17:26

@MARamezani For me, it's almost as if I can hear "Considering that the topic was tiger".

Anonymous

Since the original is ungrammatical, we have to guess at what semantics were intended.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

My best guess is generic tigers, but you could fix the ungrammaticality another way and come up with another interpretation that corresponds to your fix.

MARamezani

Close it then! It's not like it's my Q or something. But don't expect the OP not to swear! :)

Anonymous

I don't want to vote to close it.

Damkerng T.

17:28

I think there are good chances that they will complain if we close it. :-)

Anonymous

Well, people do that if you close all sorts of stuff.

Anonymous

No matter how good or bad it is.

Anonymous

0

Q: A word that has the same meaning as its negation

Is there a pair of words in English, where one is a grammatical negation of the other, but they are synonyms? For the negation I'm thinking about a negative prefix or suffix, like de-, dis- or -less, but it can also be built in other way. For example for the word 'likely' the hypothetical pair wo...

Damkerng T.

I hope the OP will come back and add more info soon.

Anonymous

This got closed as a duplicate earlier, although it isn't one

Anonymous

17:29

My sole reopen vote is languishing, doomed to die alone

MARamezani

Good god! Good thing I didn't close it!

Damkerng T.

Aww

MARamezani

Or did I?

Anonymous

Doesn't look like it.

MARamezani

Physics' laws say it's not improbable.

Damkerng T.

17:30

The first word came to mind: untangle.

Maybe also, unravel.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Wait, can untangle mean 'tangle'?

Damkerng T.

I think I was confused by unravel. :-)

Anonymous

To the dictionary!

Anonymous

Aww, I was hoping there was a super secret definition.

Anonymous

Araucaria gave the right answer:

Anonymous

17:33

2

A: Which Words Should I Stress?

When the preposition in a phrasal verb has no noun complement afterwards it is usually stressed: Take off the jumper Take the jumper off Take off For this reason all the instances of back in the Original Poster's example will probably be stressed. As the Original Poster has indicated lexical ...

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, I can remember now. It's this pair: tangle, entangle

Man_From_India

There is another old confusing question from Law Area.

0

Q: Noun vs Suffixes '-ism' vs 'ity'

In his [Sir Stephen Sedley]'s view: The notion that the prime function of human rights and indeed the Rule of law is to protect the weak against the strong is not mere sentimentality. Source: p 43, The English Legal System 2012-2013, Gary Slapper What's the big picture...

difference suffixes

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ah, but that en- isn't a negator

Man_From_India

he asked two questions there...can u help with question #1?

Damkerng T.

I think bolding stressed words/syllables could be misleading. It suggests that there are only two level of stressing (stressed and non-stressed).

@snailboat Yes. Somehow the pronunciations tricked me. :-)

Anonymous

17:36

@DamkerngT. True. But it's still useful―when only one level of stress is indicated, it's primary stress

Damkerng T.

nods

@Man_From_India I don't know if I can help. I virtually ignore all the Xfixes.

MARamezani

Ah, sorry guys. Had to get rid of a troublesome new user's post back at chemistry. Where were we?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. And in fact that en- is spelled in- in many words, such as implode

Anonymous

It's the opposite of ex-

Damkerng T.

nods -- So we have both entangle and tangle that potentially could mean the same thing.

Anonymous

17:38

Though it often assimilates: implode : explode :: irrupt : erupt

2

Damkerng T.

Oh, irrupt is new to me!

Anonymous

Yeah, that's rare compared to the other three

Anonymous

Somewhat more common in the derived form irruption, but still an uncommon word

Damkerng T.

nods -- eruption is much more common.

Anonymous

Definitely true!

MARamezani

17:40

Irruption... Thanks for the new word!

Anonymous

And if you say irruption, odds are people'll think you meant eruption

Anonymous

So it's nearly a print-only word ;-)

Damkerng T.

Ahh -- I think that's true!

Anonymous

Still, it's worth knowing if you play scrabble.

MARamezani

I'll use it in scrabble!

Damkerng T.

17:43

lol

I remember that me and my friend once argued if IM was a word.

(They claimed it's I'M.)

Anonymous

What conclusion did you arrive at?

Damkerng T.

I can't really remember. I think I let him win.

:D

MARamezani

Nah, not really. I'll go with hangman.

Scrabble isn't really popular here.

Unless,

I play with myself, or the wall.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani I think you beat the wall, every time. :D

MARamezani

Nah. Last time I lost. :)

Damkerng T.

17:46

Hah! Poor you!

If you keep practicing, you will win the wall next time!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hmm, I don't think you can "win" your opponent.

Anonymous

You can win the game, or win a prize, or win against an opponent

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see!

MARamezani

You beat an opponent, right?

Anonymous

Yes.

Anonymous

17:49

You can also beat a video game

Man_From_India

It's time to say good night :-) See you...

Damkerng T.

Good night!

Anonymous

Rest well, Man from India, land of ergativity!

Damkerng T.

:D

MARamezani

Bye...!

Man_From_India

17:50

@snailboat Ahhhh :-O

Damkerng T.

Someone just called me on my phone, but it was a mis-dialing, I think.

I spoke to the phone. No reply.

Man_From_India

i am getting missed call from international number :-)

MARamezani

@snailboat You drink noodles, or eat them?

Damkerng T.

Nice! They might want you to join their team!

@MARamezani Argh! Noodles aren't smoothy, I think!

Man_From_India

do you know any number starts with +252....

i mean where from?

Damkerng T.

17:52

@Man_From_India Google says it's Somalia!

Anonymous

@MARamezani I have noodles.

Man_From_India

my god :-(

Anonymous

"I'm having ramen right now."

Anonymous

Have is how you cheat if you don't want to say eat or drink :-)

Man_From_India

when I hear somalia I always imagine of pirates :-D

Anonymous

17:52

But I think most people would say you eat noodles

Man_From_India

ok bye..

MARamezani

@snailboat We have a local food that we prefer to call - noodles.

Damkerng T.

My mysterious call could be similar to a Japanese ghost story!

Anonymous

Is it the same food I'd call noodles here?

Damkerng T.

One Miss Call -- Brrrrr!

Anonymous

17:53

In my best friend's dialect of English, all forms of pasta are called "spaghetti". This weirds me out no end.

MARamezani

And it's smoothy alright!

Damkerng T.

Wait, it's really smoothy?

Oh, looks like smoothie is the proper spelling.

Anonymous

@MARamezani corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=37212329

MARamezani

Yes, the main ingredient is "spaghetti-like noodles". Let me get an appropriate image.

Anonymous

Agh, I just put a new giant smeary fingerprint on my glasses. I just cleaned them an hour ago!

Damkerng T.

17:55

@snailboat Hey, I like SLURPING NOODLES!

Anonymous

Oh, yeah.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, no!

Slurping makes it very vivid!

Anonymous

Slurping your noodles is generally considered kind of rude in the US

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

But not slurping your noodles is generally considered kind of rude in Japan

MARamezani

17:56

Anonymous

It makes it sound like you're not enjoying them.

Majid

@MARamezani I have a question

baba It is enough

MARamezani

Believe me or not, they're noodles!

Anonymous

So step one of learning to speak Japanese is slurping your noodles.

Majid

you are crazy

Anonymous

17:57

@MARamezani I, um, well, where's the noodles?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think eating (or having) noodles quietly could be considered impolite in Japan, iirc!

MARamezani

And that white thing is yogurt, or again some sour local additive.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ninja'd!

MARamezani

Noodles you can't see in that, I agree!

Majid

17:57

I'm Iranian and we don't call it noodles

MARamezani

But they're there, and lots of them.

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at in that photo!

MARamezani

Noodles are the main ingredient!

What do you call it

Anonymous

I prefer food that contains hot peppers.

Majid

Yes, but it is not noodle

Anonymous

17:58

Are there hot peppers in it?

MARamezani

@Majid?

Damkerng T.

If the main ingredient were rice, I'd call it porridge.

MARamezani

No, the main ingredient is noodles.

Damkerng T.

(Keep in mind that I'm not particularly good at cuisine vocabulary.)

Anonymous

My cuisine vocabulary does not extend as far as that dish.

Anonymous

18:00

It mostly extends to type of peppers.

Damkerng T.

lol

Majid

@MARamezani What do we say"لج کننده" in English?

MARamezani

@Majid "being stubborn".

And that would be "stubborn".

@Majid if you want to use that in biology.SE, don't.

Majid

I want to say " user which are------"

question in meta

MARamezani

Say "That user which is determined to .....".

Damkerng T.

18:04

who is probably better.

Majid

As an adgective

MARamezani

Yes, sorry, who @DamkerngT.

was my intention.

@Majid Determined.

Majid

Thank you

MARamezani

Anyways, @snailboat I figure out broth is really close to our local food, but

the main ingredient in ours is only, and only, noodles.

Anonymous

You can say eat soup if it has solid stuff in it, and drink soup if you're talking about drinking the liquid, I think

Anonymous

18:07

Some people don't like to say eat soup. If not, you can always be specific: "I usually eat the noodles first, and then I drink the soup that's left" :-)

MARamezani

Would it be a suitable Q for ELL?

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Broth still makes me think of rice, but I think it's closer to your dish.

Anonymous

Hmm, what is the question exactly?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh! I've never associated broth and rice

Damkerng T.

It's perhaps because rice is my main food!

MARamezani

18:08

@DamkerngT. That's because you're Thai, I suppose!

Damkerng T.

Yes, I think so!

MARamezani

@snailboat The question would be "Drink a soup or eat a soup"?

Anonymous

@MARamezani Oh, sure! Drink soup or eat soup!

MARamezani

And it won't take much of you guys' time to close it!

Majid

@MARmezani Can you edit my question in Biometa? I think it should have some grammatical problem.

MARamezani

18:14

Give me the link. I'm too lazy to find it myself!

Damkerng T.

> Take the jumper off.
http://ell.stackexchange.com/a/51003/3281

I just realized that the meaning came to my mind was a piece of electronics thingy, not something people wear!

Majid

I'll give it 5min later. I have some work to do.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, yeah!

Anonymous

I remember jumpers.

Anonymous

I mean, I'm sure they still exist, but I haven't had to worry about them in nearly a decade :-)

Damkerng T.

18:18

I have a few on my new motherboard!

Anonymous

Ooh!

Damkerng T.

I bought Intel G3285, and I've heard a rumor that this new motherboard can run at only 12W when it's idle. So I give it a try.

Anonymous

This is my motherboard: asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V

Damkerng T.

I'm still waiting for my new PSU.

Oh, mine is ASUS, too!

H97M-E

Anonymous

That might be newer than mine.

Damkerng T.

18:20

Probably!

Wow! Your MO looks really cool!

Anonymous

It's my first desktop computer with wifi! :-)

Damkerng T.

The Z series is usually a bit more powerful than the H series, I think.

Anonymous

It's got the whole kit and kaboodle.

Damkerng T.

Neat!

Hmm... I'm not sure if I should abbr. motherboard as MO or MOBO.

Oh, your motherboard supports USB Flashback too!

Anonymous

Yes! It supports that thingy you just said that I don't know about!

Damkerng T.

18:24

(I might need to flash my BIOS to be able to overclock G3285.)

@snailboat lol

By the way, one trick I use to cut down my bill is to remove VGA cards, which I don't usually use them.

I measured it's about 9W less (per PC), without the VGA card.

Anonymous

You're a better Earthican than me.

Damkerng T.

Earthican!

That sounds nice!

Anonymous

It's from Futurama.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

I know only Earthling. :-)

Anonymous

Earthican is silly :-)

MARamezani

18:31

Guys, I just typed the "drink\eat soup" question.

Anonymous

Yay! Use a forward slash

Anonymous

That's a backslash.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Yay!

MARamezani

Which tags should I use?

Anonymous

Good question! word-choice?

Damkerng T.

18:31

Something usage?

Anonymous

We don't appear to have a food tag. We have that on Japanese.SE.

Damkerng T.

:D -- Hah!

MARamezani

What about comparison?

Anonymous

One of our users has on their profile a message saying his goal is to be the number one answerer in the food tag.

Majid

3

Q: Why can I vote on closed question?

When we vote to close a question , we doesn't allow question to get answers,but we can vote up or down this question. I think when don't allow a question to get answers, we should not allow it to get vote? Ans why should vote on a question which is not valuable? Why can I vote on closed question?

discussion

Damkerng T.

18:32

Eh? Why comparison?

Anonymous

@MARamezani That's a useless tag.

Anonymous

It should be removed from every question, merged into word-choice.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That sounds like a good goal!

MARamezani

Yes, I'm still challenged about the use it can have! :)

Anonymous

I started a meta post about the comparison tag

Anonymous

18:33

Halfway through I decided tags on ELL were too big a mess to tackle, and I gave up :-)

Damkerng T.

:D

MARamezani

@snailboat I'm indifferent to which I'd use! :)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, have you seen this: stared.github.io/tagoverflow/?site=ell&size=32

I got it from infinitesimal.

MARamezani

I love it!

Anonymous

@MARamezani Only the forward slash is used in that manner in English.

Anonymous

18:35

And when people just say "slash", they mean the forward slash.

Damkerng T.

It's clear that grammar is very important on ELL.

MARamezani

Oh forget it!

Anonymous

In speech, people sometimes say slash.

Anonymous

It's become a coordinator.

MARamezani

@snailboat I hardly used backslash, until I met chem.SE!

@Majid I don't have enough rep to edit that.

Anonymous

18:38

@DamkerngT. Neat! :-)

MARamezani

It must have become habitual when I started editing the mathjax (LaTex) in the questions.

@DamkerngT. I just threw grammar out of TagOverFlow!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I thought tenses and articles would've been bigger.

@MARamezani Hah!

MARamezani

Which of you voted the question up?

Thanks.

Anonymous

I haven't seen it yet, so I didn't vote

MARamezani

Haha, so I have two upvotes "pending" ;)

Anonymous

18:43

Hey, I could downvote.

Anonymous

You don't know. It could happen.

Anonymous

(Just kidding. I already upvoted.)

MARamezani

Ah, today my rep bar didn't 'notice' any changes. It does now!

Anonymous

Voting to delete because this is offensive. — snailboat 29 secs ago

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani (Imitating I, Robot): One of us!

MARamezani

18:47

I couldn't vote to delete :(

Damkerng T.

I wonder why they picked that definition!

MARamezani

because I don't have enough rep.

Damkerng T.

Soon you will have enough!

MARamezani

But I flagged it.

If anything, it violates "BE NICE".

Anonymous

I'm used to my ELL flags being declined, regardless of merit, so I don't usually bother flagging anymore

Damkerng T.

18:48

nods

MARamezani

Hah

I don't get 'em rejected that much.

Lucky me!

Damkerng T.

I still use it for not an answer. I think it works quite well.

Anonymous

Well, the ELL moderators and I don't really agree on much, it seems.

Anonymous

Like, they want obsolete and offensive comments to stick around

Anonymous

And comments that give incorrect answers

Anonymous

18:50

In general, they're very anti-deletion when it comes to comments.

MARamezani

Yes. If you take a look at Meta.SE, some posts aren't deleted...

Anonymous

In fact, they prefer for short answers to be made into comments.

MARamezani

because of "historical significance."

Anonymous

Oh, I'm only talking about ELL.

Anonymous

Flags are different on all the other SE sites I use

Anonymous

18:51

Actually, I had a pretty good track record with comments for the first year on ELL

Anonymous

Almost all of my comments were 'helpful'

MARamezani

What was I gonna say? God damn alzheimer!

Anonymous

Lately I only try to flag something I think is a slam dunk

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hah! It's not that bad, perhaps.

MARamezani

Oh, yes. Should you know, J.R. actually likes me now!

Anonymous

18:53

@DamkerngT. Well, declining your flags is a signal that you should stop flagging that sort of thing.

Anonymous

They aren't personal. Moderators can't see who's flagging what most of the time.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Like, he likes you on Facebook or something? :-)

Anonymous

It just means they disagree with your flags, usually.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

So it's not that they disagree with me, it's that they disagree with my flags. Which is a result of disagreeing with me :-)

MARamezani

18:54

An excellent answer like this one sort of nullifies the vote totals on this question. Sure, some regular SE users might be accustomed to a culture that discourages chatty comments that don't add to an overall answer. However, in a language learners environment, some deliberately kind sign-off might make all the difference in the world, as an answer might seem uncomfortably brusque without it. — J.R. ♦ 2 hours ago

Anonymous

So I try to only flag stuff I think they'll approve. But I still get a fair chunk of inexplicably declined flags

Anonymous

So I just don't flag too much anymore.

MARamezani

And he's the only one upvoting my answer!

Anonymous

Not true―you have two upvotes

MARamezani

Ah man! I got my glasses dirty too!

Anonymous

18:56

J.R. is generally very nice. He's a people person.

MARamezani

Oh, he's a real mod!

Anonymous

That's what the diamond means.

MARamezani

"A symbol of highly-respected user" or something like that.

Anonymous

No

Anonymous

The diamond means that the Stack Exchange staff asked him if he'd moderate the site, and he said yes

MARamezani

18:58

Jeff (Atwood) said something like that in one of the faqs.

Anonymous

It's not.

MARamezani

I'm not Jeff!

Anonymous

As it happens, J.R. is generally respected.

Anonymous

But the diamond doesn't tell you that.

MARamezani

Indeed.

Anonymous

18:59

Actually, on a few "graduated" sites, moderators are elected.

Anonymous

But on most eternal beta sites, like ELL, they were appointed early on.

Anonymous

Originally, beta was just s'posed to last 90 days.

MARamezani

Yes, I saw the 2014 election on ELU.

Anonymous

But now four years or more is pretty much normal.

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