English Language Learners

Ice Girl

08:12

@DamkerngT. Hi

Can you help me?

I have a question

Damkerng T.

What is it?

Ice Girl

House where you feel safe,comfortable and settled.

problem?

Damkerng T.

What is the problem?

Ice Girl

What's the grammatical problem?

Damkerng T.

It's not a complete sentence.

Ice Girl

08:19

Please say what the problem is

Damkerng T.

1 min ago, by Damkerng T.

It's not a complete sentence.

Ice Girl

PLEASE

You tell me

Damkerng T.

House where you feel safe,comfortable and settled is not a complete sentence.

Ice Girl

Correct it

I know it is not correct

Damkerng T.

Is it an exercise?

Ice Girl

08:22

Yes

Damkerng T.

Then it might not want a complete sentence.

Ice Girl

Can you correct it?

Damkerng T.

It's probably just an exercise for practicing the use of articles.

Ice Girl

It is my problem

Damkerng T.

If that's the case, just add a in front of house.

Hmm... probably the.

Without context, you can use either.

Ice Girl

08:24

Thanks

Damkerng T.

But you need an article.

Ice Girl

But no matter how much they look differ,....

how about this one?

Damkerng T.

Should be they differ or they look different

Ice Girl

Are you sad?

Damkerng T.

You don't have to ask.

Ice Girl

08:29

It's important for me

You are not proud

Damkerng T.

Please don't mind it.

Ice Girl

OK

when the curtains are close, the sunlight allows to come inside the house.

problem

please

Damkerng T.

closed

Ice Girl

allows change to allowed?

Damkerng T.

Remember: The shop is open. but The shop is closed.

is allowed

Ice Girl

08:33

OK

There are many natural flowers that every person comes to our house pay attention to the flowers.

Damkerng T.

to pay, probably

Ice Girl

Thank you so much

See you soon

Damkerng T.

See you.

Damkerng T.

10:52

"the enemy that had a sword" indeed

And I was kept trying to think of a better phrase than "the enemy with a sword" for a couple of hours. :)

(for example, "the enemy (who was) wielding a sword" or "the enemy (who was) holding a sword")

Anonymous

12:19

There are lots of ways you could phrase it. I felt have was closest to with because it was a common and nonspecific word

Anonymous

You don't know from with if they were wielding it, holding it, or simply had it on their person (perhaps sheathed)

Damkerng T.

Ah! Hello!

Anonymous

Hello!

Damkerng T.

Anyway, I think He killed the enemy that had a sword, sounds better than He killed the enemy wielding a sword.

Anonymous

I think earlier when you did Ice Girl's homework you got an answer wrong

Damkerng T.

12:22

I guess some of my answers could be wrong.

Anonymous

However it seems like too much effort to reply properly on my phone

Damkerng T.

You can simply hint me which ones, and I might have a second thought on them.

Anonymous

The wielding one is strange

Anonymous

The pay attention one

Damkerng T.

Actually, on my first read, I thought there was nothing wrong. :)

So I thought, maybe to pay or pay an attention.

Anonymous

12:26

Never *pay an attention

Anonymous

It's uncountable.

Damkerng T.

If it wasn't her exercise, I wouldn't see any problem. :)

@snailplane Thank you.

Anonymous

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to do with Ice Girl's sentence-ish things, so I'm not sure what the right answer is. But I figure I can at least tell what the answer isn't :-)

Damkerng T.

^^

Perhaps it was a trick question.

And the correct answer might be: (nothing wrong)

Anonymous

Here's one possible way you could change the sentence: There are so many natural flowers that every person who comes to our house pays attention to the flowers.

Damkerng T.

12:32

That sounds better.

Anonymous

The original is ungrammatical

Damkerng T.

Really? a little confused

Anonymous

As people on the internet once said, yarly

Damkerng T.

You mean kinda?

Anonymous

No

Damkerng T.

12:35

I'm not used to yarly.

Oh! It means "yeah really".

Anonymous

It's "yeah really". It's not worth learning :-)

Anonymous

There are many natural flowers that every person {who/that} comes to our house pays attention to ~~the flowers~~.

Anonymous

1. You can replace who with that, but you can't standardly omit it because the relativized gap is in subject position

Anonymous

I prefer who, though, since that was just used and this isn't parallel

Anonymous

2. Every person is a third person singular form and pay is a finite verb that must agree with it, so it takes the 3rd sg form pays

Anonymous

12:45

3. The object of the preposition to at the end of the sentence contains a gap that cannot be filled

Anonymous

So it's ungrammatical, though there's more than one possible set of changes to fix it.

Damkerng T.

About point 2, wouldn't to pay is better than pays?

As in I came home to find that ...

Anonymous

No. It sounds weird to say "I went to their house to [=in order to] pay attention to the flowers."

Anonymous

It's not ungrammatical but it's unidiomatic

Damkerng T.

I see.

It's more like Come (and) have a drink.

Anonymous

12:49

It's not a quasi-serial verb construction

Damkerng T.

That (and) was dropped so often that I thought it was from "come (to) have a drink" sometimes.

Anonymous

Every person who comes to our house is a NP subject of pay

Anonymous

Come is not adjacent to pay in the tree

Anonymous

(Come have a drink is a QSV construction)

Damkerng T.

But not come and pay?

Anonymous

12:53

Inserting and would be ungrammatical

Damkerng T.

Wait, but Come and have a drink is grammatical, yes?

Anonymous

Yes

Anonymous

The structure is completely different

Damkerng T.

Hmm...

How about: Come and pay attention to my flowers?

Anonymous

That's fine, it just isn't structured like our example sentence above

Damkerng T.

12:57

Isn't it? (I read it that way.)

Anonymous

I tried explaining the difference

Damkerng T.

I understand. I just want to be sure about the possibilities in interpretation.

Anonymous

A-ha

Damkerng T.

Here is how I read it the first time: There are [many natural flowers that [(every person) (comes to our house pay attention) to the flowers]].

After you suggested that it should be a NP...

Anonymous

I see, you can parse it differently if you don't insert my who/that

Anonymous

12:59

But it's strange.

Damkerng T.

I'm sure that most sentences in ELL's exercises are strange! :)

Anonymous

You still need to delete ~~the flowers~~ in that case

Damkerng T.

There are [many natural flowers that (every person comes to our house) pay attention to the flowers].

Anonymous

Well, it's highly unlikely that every person comes to your house. That's a lot of people!

Damkerng T.

Must be some important natural flowers. :)

Anonymous

13:01

It's semantically suspect so it's an unlikely parse

Anonymous

But then, the original was ungrammatical

Anonymous

So to parse it at all you have to make changes, and which changes you decide on is a judgment call

Damkerng T.

Absolutely agree.

Anonymous

I understand now why you said what you did

Anonymous

Though I do think it's less likely

Damkerng T.

13:03

Because it was an exercise, I thought there should be one and only one mistake.

That's what most ELL exercises do.

And I couldn't come up with one fix that could make the sentence sound natural enough. Hehe.

But your NP suggestion is sound.

Anonymous

Further reading on QSVs: arnoldzwicky.org/2012/08/28/qsv

Damkerng T.

Thank you for the link. :)

I didn't know it's called QSV before.

Anonymous

I'm still on my phone

Anonymous

Can't sleep

Damkerng T.

Huh?

Anonymous

13:07

Too lazy to get out of bed though

Anonymous

So I'm typing from my phone

Damkerng T.

I assume that when you're on your phone, you're outside (of your house).

Anonymous

I have a headache and can't sleep, unfortunately

Anonymous

That's true sometimes

Anonymous

Just not right now :-)

Damkerng T.

13:09

I usually use that Thai Lite book as my sleeping pills.

Somehow it has that effect.

Anonymous

So my apologies if I'm a bit slow right now

Damkerng T.

Don't! Because I'm so happy that you are as slow as me. Yeah!

Anonymous

As befits a snail

Damkerng T.

^^

What time is it there?

Anonymous

5

Damkerng T.

13:11

Ah, I couldn't remember the offset (-3 or +3).

So I should convert night to day and -3.

(And you can convert day to night and +3 to get my local time.)

Anonymous

Soon the sun will rise, and then I'll have to act like I'm awake--and if I'm lucky, my brain will catch up at some point

Anonymous

Ah, I try to stick to 24-hour time

Damkerng T.

24-hour time is clearer.

Anonymous

It always seemed easier than modulo 12 and a sign bit

Anonymous

Particularly since 0 is spelled 12

Damkerng T.

13:14

I hate 24:00 on a clock.

Makes me confused. :)

Anonymous

I don't have any clocks that spell 00:00 24:00

Damkerng T.

I had some. :)

Always made me wonder, what's the next minute? 24:01?

Anonymous

I think we discussed how Japan has times like 26:00

Damkerng T.

Ah, I remember.

Anonymous

Luckily there are no leap minutes :)

Damkerng T.

13:16

^^

Anonymous

23:59:60 but no 23:60

Damkerng T.

Aw... 23:59:60 looks... ugly!

Anonymous

Sorry, I'm not in charge of leap seconds :-)

Damkerng T.

Was Bangkok Shutdown on the news there?

Anonymous

I think they were invented to confuse programmers

Damkerng T.

13:18

@snailplane Quite likely.

Anonymous

I didn't read the news

Damkerng T.

Ah, okay. There's nothing much.

They just shut our city down. :)

Anonymous

I only heard about it via chat

Anonymous

Eep!

Anonymous

Did the city reboot successfully?

Damkerng T.

13:19

I'm glad that I live in suburb. :)

Perhaps not so soon. We're still in the process of shutting down. :)

That's one of our main streets. :)

Anonymous

Wow

Damkerng T.

^^

Anonymous

I'm not up on my current events, so I don't know what they're protesting

Damkerng T.

Our PM dissolved our parliament the last December.

According to our laws, we must have a country-wide election this Feb 2.

Anonymous

Erp

Damkerng T.

13:24

The protesters don't want the election.

Anonymous

Whuh?

Damkerng T.

Because they know that it's very likely that the PM and the same parties will come back in charge of the government.

Anonymous

Ah

Damkerng T.

I think you might remember our political incidents in the past 5-7 years.

Anonymous

(Here in the US, the same Demopublican party is guaranteed to remain in power after each election)

Damkerng T.

13:26

(Actually, politics might not be a good talk for someone who is trying to get some sleep. I'm sorry.)

Anonymous

Ah, it's okay.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Isn't that two parties?

Anonymous

In theory.

Damkerng T.

I couldn't see a good way out at the moment. :)

Anonymous

When the sun comes up, I'll have to officially give up on the idea of more sleep. :-)

Damkerng T.

13:28

^^

Anonymous

Maybe I should just get up now and make some tea.

Damkerng T.

How long have you been staying up today?

Anonymous

I went to sleep at 22:00.

Anonymous

I woke up whenever I started commenting on ELL.

Damkerng T.

Ah, so you have slept like 6-7 hours?

Anonymous

13:30

Hmm. Maybe. I have no idea when I woke up

Anonymous

I have a poor sense of time.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane That fits SE perfectly.

Anonymous

Hehe!

Damkerng T.

:)

Anonymous

Well, that's why I block distractions sometimes.

Damkerng T.

13:32

thanks for the cooperation – gnp

I don't know what he meant. Hehe.

(Maybe about my cooperation in answering his question. :-)

@snailplane I understand that perfectly.

If you feel tired, it'd be better to block all communications and take a rest, I guess.

0

Q: Comma after "say", before quotation.

Is it proper to use a comma before a quotation like this: She continued to say, "no" while he took her pants off. I don't think you would generally use a quotation, but this is a report for legal proceedings and, obviously, "no" must be conveyed.

commas

The Q's title makes sense...

Anonymous

Well, I don't want to sleep during the day.

Damkerng T.

but why he had to use this She continued to say, "no" while he took her pants off as his example. :-)

Anonymous

Although my snails are adorable and much more fun to watch at night, since they're nocturnal :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Hah! I didn't know that they're nocturnal.

(I know I am.)

Anonymous

I think they're trying to ask about a real example they need help with. Better not to judge the content IMO

Anonymous

13:37

That there comma be bad, says I.

Damkerng T.

I see. His example just cracked my smile.

Anonymous

It didn't seem very smiley to me personally

Damkerng T.

Maybe a villain's smile. :-)

Hehe.

Anonymous

That's a little disturbing!

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anyway, I think anyone can subscribe to SEE, including kids, so maybe, I don't know, we should be a little careful with the content.

Anonymous

13:40

It sounds like they're discussing a sexual assault, a topic which doesn't readily lend itself to humor (for most but not all anglophones)

Anonymous

So were I you is avoid making it sound like you think it's funny

Anonymous

I'd, not is. Stupid phone.

Damkerng T.

Argh. Auto-correction!

Anonymous

Yeah, and there's no edit feature on the mobile interface :-(

Damkerng T.

I'm sorry that I brought that up.

Anonymous

13:45

I should go make tea

Damkerng T.

Reading it again, it doesn't sound as funny as I thought (like from a joke or something).

Have a nice tea!

Avinash Raj

Native English speakers, plz help me to improve my English speaking skill.Grammar part was so hard to understand.Is there any easy pdf file for that.

Damkerng T.

PDF? Hmm...

(I'm not a native English speaker, btw.)

Avinash Raj

anyway plz help me

Damkerng T.

I don't know a quick and dirty way. It takes time.

Avinash Raj

13:53

it's ok.

Damkerng T.

Did you take a look in our FAQ yet?

I think we have some FAQ about learner resources.

19

Q: Resources for learning English

This is a specifically created Community Wiki which gathers resources for learning English and it has been approved by the Community itself. It should be clear that the resources are not written by one user or only by the mods, but by whoever wants to contribute. Just write in the appropriate a...

discussion faq online-resources

Avinash Raj

plz post the link

Damkerng T.

Couldn't you click on the link above? The "Resources for learning English")

Avinash Raj

wow what a question.

thx for providing me that link,i will bookmark that page.

Damkerng T.

I mean there are several links inside.

I think some websites and youtube might help you get started.

Avinash Raj

13:57

i think all are given in that question

Damkerng T.

@AvinashRaj I think "improving speaking" and "improving grammar" are not the same thing.

Avinash Raj

if i'm strong in the grammar part,then it will help to speak English boldly.

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj Hello!

Avinash Raj

@snailplane hi

Anonymous

D'ah!

Anonymous

14:01

Somehow, the audio notifications in chat turned themselves back on. (Normally I have them disabled)

Anonymous

And my speakers were set to LOUD.

Anonymous

Stupid SE chat.

Avinash Raj

What's the meaning of D'ah?I'm so poor in these chatting terms.

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj Hello!

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj It's not a standard term.

Anonymous

14:02

It was me shouting a non-word in surprise!

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj I suggest you expose yourself to as much English as possible and try to get an ear for what natural sentences sound like.

Anonymous

Grammar is helpful too. Michael Swan's book seems to be popular among learners

Anonymous

amazon.com/Practical-English-Usage-Michael-Swan/dp/0194420981

Avinash Raj

@snailplane plz post the book link

Damkerng T.

+1 to Michael Swan's book.

Avinash Raj

14:04

ohh thanks

Anonymous

It seems like a good book, though I haven't read most of it myself, just bits and pieces.

Avinash Raj

if i had any doubts in English,may i ask here.

Anonymous

Doubt is not a synonym for question in American or British English.

Anonymous

You may not be understood if you say "I have a doubt"

Damkerng T.

Avinash Raj

14:06

We follow British English.

Anonymous

Almost. Indian English has its own idiosyncrasies which are not part of British English, such as doubt

Damkerng T.

I see, you already joined ELL.

Avinash Raj

sorry don't know the meaning of the word "idiosyncrasies"

Damkerng T.

idiosyncrasy ~ a mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual; a distinctive or peculiar feature or characteristic of a place or thing.

In short, each dialect has its own quirks.

Avinash Raj

is there any free pdf file of this book.I don't want the paperback.

Damkerng T.

14:12

I bought it as an app on my iPad.

(around 30 US dollars)

But I think it's worth it.

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj Asking for free copies of copyrighted files is probably frowned on around here.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. There are app versions of books now?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

Time shock.

Damkerng T.

I really enjoy it.

I can search through topics quickly. :)

Avinash Raj

14:14

But some sites provides free pdf file of a book.

Damkerng T.

Some authors might make their books available online and we can download them freely.

But that's not the case for most grammar books.

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj I'm aware, but unless it's provided with the consent of the author, it's probably not legal.

Avinash Raj

ok

i'll buy that book

Damkerng T.

If you really want free stuff, I guess that there are many websites that can help.

Have you ever heard about Grammar Girl?

Avinash Raj

@DamkerngT. i don't know about her.Is she was beautiful?

Damkerng T.

14:17

Hehe. Perhaps.

quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj Beauty does not a grammarian make.

Damkerng T.

I don't know if she is the only one Grammar Girl, but she's good looking to me.

Avinash Raj

@snailplane i accept your point.

i think the you recommended was the best one for learning english.Am i correct?

Anonymous

I don't know.

Damkerng T.

It's hard to decide what is "the best".

Anonymous

14:22

I don't have every pedagogical grammar, and the ones I have I haven't read in their entirety.

Anonymous

But it is popular and does seem good.

Avinash Raj

or is there any book better than that.I'm going to buy.plz help.It was easy to understand the contents given in that book.

Anonymous

> This question had a bounty worth +50 reputation from snailplane that ended yesterday. You must award this bounty as soon as possible

Anonymous

ASAP!

Anonymous

I picked 243's answer.

Damkerng T.

14:25

The one that I joined the club?

Anonymous

I thought I'd let the bounty award itself automatically to the highest voted answer, but I looked it up, and apparently doing so cuts the value of the bounty in half.

Anonymous

Luckily I managed to pick an answer just in time! :-)

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Oh, I see.

Avinash Raj

can i buy this 3rd edition flipkart.com/practical-english-usage-3rd/p/…

Damkerng T.

I believe that it hasn't changed much.

Anonymous

14:27

Oh, interesting! That edition is specifically for Indian learners of English, it seems.

Anonymous

That sounds like a good thing, although I'm not familiar with the details myself.

Damkerng T.

How much is Rs. 248 in dollars?

Anonymous

I typed 248 INR to USD into Google, and it came up with 4.03 USD.

Damkerng T.

Wow!

That's almost like one-tenth of my app.

Anonymous

This is in stark contrast to the Japanese DVD box set I looked up yesterday which cost 180 USD. (And the exchange rate is favorable right now!)

Damkerng T.

14:29

Very.

I just got a new phrase from Thai TV.

Bazooka light

Avinash Raj

why the book available here at low price?

Anonymous

@AvinashRaj Something to do with economics. Beyond my ken, I'm afraid.

Damkerng T.

I think it's possible for educational purpose too.

In my university days, I bought many books from Prentice Hall International Series.

They were much cheaper than the same ones in the US.

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