English Language Learners

Anonymous

20:10

@user4550 Frame here is sense 3 for the verb in Oxford: "Create or formulate (a concept, plan, or system): the staff have proved invaluable in framing the proposals"

Anonymous

When you "frame a resolution" to avoid a particular evil, you're declaring to yourself that you'll avoid it. (Except you're using fancier words :-)

Anonymous

But (the quote says) we usually don't decide to avoid something bad until it's too late!

Damkerng T.

Ah, you're here. Hello @snailboat.

Anonymous

@IceGirl In that sentence, dwarf is a verb: "Cause to seem small or insignificant in comparison: the buildings surround and dwarf All Saints Church". It has nothing to do with the imaginary creature, nor with people who are small. "Each generates heat and light to dwarf ConEd" means they generate much more heat and light than ConEd (a company that provides electricity, gas, and steam). Of course, it's figurative

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hello!

Damkerng T.

20:16

It's my slow day today. How is your day?

Anonymous

In terms of etymology, the verb dwarf does come from using the noun figuratively, but it was derived a long time ago and the metaphor is so ingrained in our language that we don't think about it when we use the word. Language is full of metaphors like that

Damkerng T.

I missed @IceGirl and @skullpatrol's chat entirely. :D

Hello @Chenmunka.

Chenmunka

Hello

Anonymous

Hello!

Chenmunka

I've spent more time on the site today than any since I joined recently - getting the hang of it.

Damkerng T.

20:20

I think it's the first time you're here. Your profile says that you're from England.

Chenmunka

First time in chat yes. I'm from Wiltshire, not far from Stonehenge.

Damkerng T.

I joined the site less than 4 months, I think. Not very new, but still don't know ins and outs.

Oh, Stonehenge!

Something I would like to visit once!

Chenmunka

There are other stone circles around here, smaller, less famous but almost as impressive.

Stonehenge gets all the tourists!

Anonymous

20

Q: Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile?

I have seen people say both 0.25 mile and 0.25 miles. Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile?

Anonymous

It seems like this question doesn't have a good answer yet

Damkerng T.

20:22

I think I saw some of them in documentaries.

31 upvotes!

Anonymous

But votes don't tell you if an answer is any good.

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's from 3 years ago.

Chenmunka

I think Simon Whitaker's answer is good - 0.25 miles or quarter of a mile.

Damkerng T.

Me too!

Chenmunka

Then quarter of a mile is really a spoken form, not formal writing

Anonymous

20:25

You do say 0.25 miles or a quarter of a mile, it's true.

Anonymous

I'm not sure what that has to do with writing.

Damkerng T.

Reading the OP's question, I'm not sure he was asking about writing or speaking.

Chenmunka

Nothing really. It is just more common to say quarter of a mile and write 0.25 miles. Maybe I just do more technical writing.

GATA

Hi all :) Can I ask a tiny question?

Chenmunka

The first line of the question says "say". I must admit I took it to be a question about written English

Hello - go ahead

Damkerng T.

20:28

Hello @GATA

GATA

Thanks :) hi :)is it natural to say...

"The website is not contently rich"

Chenmunka

It would be a lot better to say "The website content is not rich"

Damkerng T.

I'm sure I don't like it very much.

Chenmunka

"Contently" doesn't work

or.. "The website is not rich in content"

GATA

Me too:)

Thank you Chenmunka :)

Chenmunka

20:32

Pleasure

Damkerng T.

Strange that "content-rich" isn't as popular as I thought. (Just googled a bit.)

GATA

Thank you damkerng too:) I am curious to know is there any adverb to use instead of it.

Anonymous

@GATA When people talk about "rich content", the word content is a noun. You can't add -ly to a noun to make an adverb.

Anonymous

There is an adjective content, but it has a rather different meaning.

Damkerng T.

I was about to offer: The website is not content-rich. But Google seems not to support my sentence strongly enough.

Anonymous

20:35

(And contently as an adverb formed from that adjective would be unusual, I think :-)

GATA

Ah thanks snailboat :)

Anonymous

Hmm... "Content rich"...

Anonymous

It would be a noun in that phrase, too.

Chenmunka

I think that if you used "contently" it may be misread as "contentedly" which has a completely different meaning. @GATA puts the reason well

Anonymous

I suppose "content rich" and "rich content" are two different things.

Damkerng T.

20:37

I'm sure I've seen media-rich before.

Chenmunka

"Rich in content" is a reasonably commonly seen phrase. Often in reviews of written articles

Anonymous

Although to be honest they both sound a bit too buzzwordy for me.

Damkerng T.

I believe "rich in content" is a good choice here.

Anonymous

COCA has 8 examples of rich in content:

Anonymous

> Unlike Web-based classes, which are rich in content but low in back-and-forth interactions, SL classes can involve informal chatting and collaborative work on 3-D models of molecules, engines -- anything.

Anonymous

20:38

> Chapter 5 of the Report is rich in content and clear in format regarding mobilizing Arab minds abroad and at home.

Anonymous

> While I regret that this issue is not fully encompassed in one volume, I do hope that the reader will benefit from the extended presentation because all of the articles presented here are rich in content and vary widely in their perspectives.

Chenmunka

@snailboat, yes, thats the sort of thing I meant.

Anonymous

Hooray!

Anonymous

I like "rich in content" better than "content-rich", I suppose.

Anonymous

COCA has 2 examples of content rich (neither with a hyphen):

Anonymous

20:40

> So we have to ask ourselves: Do textbooks really provide students with the elements of deeper reading that they need? Or can curriculum maps, developed by teams of teachers for a content rich curriculum, be built in such a way that they will eliminate the need for the overview that textbooks provide?

Anonymous

> The environmental movement right now is content rich but signal poor.

GATA

"Rich in content" sounds good to me too.

Anonymous

Two isn't very many in a 450,000,000 word corpus.

Damkerng T.

Me too. It's much safer, though I think content-rich might be okay too, say if I found one on a web page.

Anonymous

Content rich really does sound buzzwordy to me.

Damkerng T.

20:42

If f(x,y,z) = f(y,z,x), then f(x,y,z) is a cyclic expression. — Damkerng T. 4 hours ago

Anonymous

Did you answer that question with a comment?

Anonymous

'Cause I hear answers are for answers, while comments are for comments. :-)

Damkerng T.

I didn't post it as an answer because I'm not sure if it's on-topic here. (StoneyB also seems to think it's off-topic.)

Anonymous

Rumor has it, at any rate.

Anonymous

Yeah, I remember one time Gilles objected to someone asking a question about English math terminology.

Damkerng T.

20:45

J.R. seems to think it's fine here. So now I'm rather reluctant.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna convert it into an answer. If it's gonna be closed, let it be.

Anonymous

Well, I think that when you start learning a language, you tend to learn words like me and house and walk

Anonymous

But the more advanced you get in learning, the more the vocabulary you learn is drawn from specialized domains

Anonymous

That's true for native speakers, too.

Damkerng T.

I think I've seen some of AlexSu's questions about math before. Perhaps she's a math teacher.

Anonymous

After around 25,000-35,000 words or so 99% of what you learn will be (1) archaic / obsolete or (2) technical vocabulary

Anonymous

20:47

I made up that 99% of course. I could hedge and say "a large portion" instead :-)

Anonymous

It would probably be more accurate.

Chenmunka

Many overseas speakers without fluent English skills are familiar with maths and scientific terms as so many such terms get borrowed into other languages.

Anonymous

But there's really only so much everyday vocabulary to learn.

GATA

Really 35000 words!

Chenmunka

They are likely to need help using the terms correctly and in context

Anonymous

20:48

@GATA Yeah, almost all native speakers know less than 35,000 words. (Depending how you count, of course.)

GATA

Dress dressed dressing

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if abnegation is archaic or obsolete.

@GATA 1 word

I think usually they count only headwords.

Anonymous

Yeah, that's a single lexical item with respectively (1) no marking (2) the inflectional affix -ed and (3) the inflectional affix -ing

GATA

In Wikipedia it's different

Chenmunka

Isn't Wikipedia a swear word?

Anonymous

20:50

"Hey man, Wikipedia you! Wikipedia you up the Wikipedia!"

Damkerng T.

Eh? Since when? :D

Anonymous

It's like smurf.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

GATA

Have you ever checked the most common words listed in Wikipedia?

Anonymous

Only a little more cumbersome.

Anonymous

20:51

Well, there's a list but it's not very rigorously put together...

Damkerng T.

@GATA Nope. Never. Is there a link for that?

Anonymous

Hey, that applies to basically all of Wikipedia. :-)

GATA

Lol

Yes damkerng :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. "Headword" has a kind of vague relationship to the concept of "words"

Anonymous

For that matter, "word" has a pretty vague definition. Or rather, a bunch of different definitions.

Anonymous

20:53

To be helpful, a dictionary needs to contain information about all the lexical items you need to understand.

Damkerng T.

Agree. I also used it vaguely, I think.

It's strange that I couldn't find "cyclic expression" in Wikipedia.

Going to try Wolfram.

Chenmunka

I think you stand a lot more chance on Wolfram.

Wikipedia is not very well supported for anything useful

Damkerng T.

Oh, heck, I couldn't find it on Wolfram either.

Except for in some discussion threads, of course.

I give up. Maybe I will just go with the link J.R. got.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. geocities.jp/ikuro_kotaro/koramu/2375_i4.htm

Anonymous

It's a 巡回式! ;-)

Damkerng T.

20:58

LOL

GATA

This the list damkerng en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists

Anonymous

Those lists can be helpful but you do have to keep in mind their limitations

Damkerng T.

Oh, thank you! I will take a look at it once I'm done with this cyclical thingy. :D

GATA

Ok :)

skullpatrol

Hello, hello...

GATA

21:00

Limitations?

Chenmunka

Hello @skullpatrol

Anonymous

Well, they didn't parse any of the data and assign POS, so they conflate words with the same orthographic form, for example

Anonymous

You'll probably notice that different frequency lists contain rather different data!

GATA

Yes they use different sources

Anonymous

Yes, that is one other reason why.

Anonymous

21:03

By the way, I don't see an English Wikipedia word list there...?

Damkerng T.

Hoo-ray, it's done.

Anonymous

Hooray!

Damkerng T.

I finally found a good page for that, too!

skullpatrol

Hip, hip

Anonymous

Yeah? What did you find?

Damkerng T.

21:05

Hooray!

kwiznet.com/p/…

skullpatrol

Interesting^

Damkerng T.

:D

I just took a look at 100 basic Thai words.

I'm sure that ควาย (buffalo) shouldn't be on the list.

Fractaliste

Hi, does the english word decline mean both to refuse and to enumerate like in french?

Chenmunka

Refuse yes. Enumerate, not exactly...

In Latin, nouns decline

Damkerng T.

Does it mean enumerate in French?

Anonymous

21:10

@Fractaliste No, the latter meaning is obsolete in English.

Anonymous

People won't understand the word if you use it that way.

Fractaliste

@DamkerngT. Yeah, a policman can use decline ton identé to mean what is your name, surname, nationality, ...

Damkerng T.

@Fractaliste Ah, I see. Thanks. That's new to me.

Anonymous

Sense 20b in the OED: "To say or recite formally or in definite order. Obsolete"

Chenmunka

It isn't obsolete but it is now very restricted. In both Latin and Russian languages, you decline a noun into cases.

Damkerng T.

21:11

In English, I think it means either to refuse or to become lesser than before.

Anonymous

@Chenmunka That sense is not obsolete.

Chenmunka

That declension is a recitation of the cases

True, it is not obsolete in that sense

Anonymous

Yes, the senses are closely related but not the same.

Fractaliste

Or for instance you can decline colors from red to yellow : its like a fadding

Anonymous

The sense you're describing is 20a in the OED . . . ;-)

Chenmunka

21:12

It isn't often used for colours...

Damkerng T.

20a! More than 20 senses!

Chenmunka

although I can see it being used in a declining frequency from 800nm (red) to 400nm (violet)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Set has 430 senses in the OED.

4

Chenmunka

That would be a bit exotic

Damkerng T.

speechless :D

skullpatrol

21:14

That is the record

430

Fractaliste

Thanks guys

skullpatrol

Thanks for asking :D

Anonymous

public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/dictionary-facts

Anonymous

> Longest entry in Dictionary: the verb ‘set’ with over 430 senses consisting of approximately 60,000 words or 326,000 characters

Anonymous

But!

Anonymous

21:16

public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/…

Anonymous

> Set (the verb) no longer the longest entry in the OED
> For many years the verb to set has been cited as the longest entry in the OED. But a recheck shows that it has at last been toppled from this position. The longest entry in the revised matter is represented by the verb to make (published in June 2000). However, it is quite possible that set will regain its long-held position at the top of the league of long words when it comes itself to be revised.

Damkerng T.

Umm... Wiktionary Frequency List of words in project Gutenberg also counts schließlich as an English word.

Anonymous

Hah

skullpatrol

@snailboat how many definitions are in those 430 senses?

Anonymous

Um.

Anonymous

21:18

I'll confess here, I use "definition" to refer to the big thing and "sense" to refer to the little enumerated bits :-)

Damkerng T.

I think it's fair to count protégé as an English word.

Anonymous

YDMV

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes, long since

Anonymous

Though the spelling is often regularized to protege

Anonymous

We tend to throw out accent marks in English.

Damkerng T.

21:20

Do you have to write finalé, or finale is just fine, when we're talking about the last episode of a series?

Anonymous

Consider for example naïve and naive. Few write the former.

Anonymous

Finale is normal in English.

GATA

Wiktionary Frequency List "book,s" is listed as a separate word :)

Damkerng T.

Thanks.

Hah! Hehe.

skullpatrol

Accents are rare in English written words.

Anonymous

21:21

And if you do write them, we mostly ignore them. :-)

Chenmunka

The most common french-derived words in English that retain the accents are probably café and fiancé.

Damkerng T.

I felt strange every time I saw résumé written as resume. But I think it's rather normal.

Chenmunka

Resume is US English

Anonymous

Some people use diareses to indicate a syllable boundary between repeated orthographic vowels (as in coöperation)

Anonymous

But even café and fiancé(e) are often written cafe and fiance(e)

GATA

21:23

Salute

Damkerng T.

I think fiance is common enough.

Anonymous

Speaking of which, we also use those final silent e's willy-nilly. :-)

Chenmunka

True cafe is seen but the accent is very common. For diaresis even words like oolite no longer seem to use it

Damkerng T.

Ah, I learned a new word today. Thank you for oolite!

Chenmunka

They make stone circles out of it in these here parts

Anonymous

21:26

I think that was a problem with Hepburn's romanization scheme for Japanese—it used macrons to indicate long vowels! But we English speakers (or at least English writers) ignored those thingies as unimportant, so Tōkyō became Tokyo and Kyōto became Kyoto...

Anonymous

And after all, they are unimportant in English. We don't have phonemic vowel length distinctions, generally speaking.

Damkerng T.

I see. That's interesting!

I didn't know it should be Tōkyō before you told me so.

Anonymous

These days it's pretty much normal not to mark vowel length in English transcriptions of Japanese names, and I wonder if that would be true if the words had been transcribed Tookyoo or Toukyou or Tohkyoh or such . . .

Chenmunka

@snailboat. Indeed, a similar problem applies in Korean transliterations. I spent a while living in Korea and haven't found a westener yet who can pronounce Hyundai correctly!

Anonymous

Ah, Korean romanization is a mess! :-)

Chenmunka

21:28

Oh yes!

Damkerng T.

Hah! Isn't Hyundai pronounced something like [Hy]un-dai?

In any case, I'm rather sure that in Japanese, Toyota isn't pronounced as Toy-yoda.

Chenmunka

The 'Hyu' is a single syllable. Not Heye-un-deye but [Hy]un-duh

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's really tricky!

Anonymous

Hyundai is another example of a company with an official English pronunciation that is unlike the Korean pronunciation. People generally pronounce it the way they hear it in commercials, at car dealerships, talking to people about cars, and so on . . . Toyota is another example, yes.

Anonymous

Although I think BrE and AmE settled on different pronunciations.

Anonymous

21:31

It sounds to me like you're describing the BrE pronunciation.

Chenmunka

Yes. The chaebols settled on approved western pronounciations

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. In Korean, hjəːndɛ

Anonymous

Crud, brain freeze! Suddenly I'm unable to remember how we pronounce it here in the States :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat That's amazing! (I had no idea that it should be pronounced like that.)

Chenmunka

I worked with DaeWoo, they suggested we call it Deye-whoo. Then when it became better known in UK the adverts suggested Day-ooo. Koreans say The-u

Damkerng T.

21:33

I think [ae] and [e] sounds are merged already in Seoul.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Toyota is /toyota/ in Japanese. :-)

Anonymous

But them there slashes are Japanese phonemic slashes, and you can't apply American English phonetic processes to them. You can't flap that intervocalic /t/, for example

Anonymous

And you can't reduce any of the vowels to schwa.

Chenmunka

Seoul in Korean is two words. Say-ool. It literally translates as Nation's Capital

Not very original

Damkerng T.

That's another surprise. I thought its sound is the same as soul.

Chenmunka

21:35

Everyone in the west says Soul

or stretches the vowel more than just Soul

Anonymous

Much like Kyōto in Japanese! It more or less just means "Capital". Which is funny, since the capital is now Tōkyō (lit. "Eastern Capital"!)

Chenmunka

Ah yes. The orientals are very literal with their names

Our names may have been similarly literal in the past but have lost their original meaning

skullpatrol

Being overly literal has its dangers though.

Anonymous

Thinking about capitals in the West, most that come to mind are named after people.

Anonymous

Or, hmm. There's Springfield!

Damkerng T.

21:39

The real one or the one in The Simpsons?

Anonymous

Where I grew up, the capital is named Springfield.

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see. Sorry. :-)

Anonymous

I went there once. Played a concert. :-)

Anonymous

Fun was had by all!

Chenmunka

I think Capetown wins for the most literal capital in an English speaking country

Although SA seems to have several capitals

skullpatrol

21:43

They wear capes there?

Chenmunka

Maybe so!

skullpatrol

:D

Anonymous

@skullpatrol Oh, didn't you know?

skullpatrol

Nope

Anonymous

Common knowledge, that. They wear red-and-blue tights, too.

Anonymous

21:46

Hmm. I wonder what word in what Japanese dictionaries have the most senses.

Anonymous

Kakaru came to mind, so I checked Nikkoku, and it had 48.

Damkerng T.

I don't know this one, perhaps it has nothing to do with kokoro.

Anonymous

Oh, good choice! Kokoro has 28 :-)

GATA

Lucky Luke :) nice shot

Anonymous

Ki only has 18, but it links to 143 entries for idiomatic phrases beginning with ki. :-)

Anonymous

21:51

That's a bunch.

Damkerng T.

trying to recall any ki- words...

Maybe kirene.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Kirei ne?

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes. I don't know how to spell it.

Anonymous

Kirei means pretty/beautiful.

Damkerng T.

I don't know how to express ne in English, either! :D

Anonymous

21:53

I wonder if I can figure out a good way to sort those ki-expressions by frequency

skullpatrol

520 definitions is strange

Anonymous

Me either. A lot of the time I think it's best untranslated

Damkerng T.

@skullpatrol That's more than 430!

skullpatrol

Have you guys heard of the visual thesaurus?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ne is a discourse particle. I'm not sure what a good one-line summary is, but some people say "ne is agreement"

Damkerng T.

21:55

I'm not sure it's the same thing that I've seen a few years ago.

Anonymous

I don't feel like that gives you a very good sense of what it means or when to use it, though :-)

Anonymous

But since you'll hear it in like one out of four Japanese sentences you'll probably get a good idea of it if you ever learn Japanese

skullpatrol

If you type in "set" it looks like a sea weed

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It's easy for me, just change Japanese's ne to Thai's na. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh! Japanese has a na too! :-)

Damkerng T.

21:56

Now I'm not sure about Japanese's na.

Anonymous

cblle.tufs.ac.jp/dic/th/thja

Anonymous

Aww, it doesn't have ne.

Damkerng T.

นะ (na) 〜な,〜よ,〜ね

Anonymous

Ah!

Anonymous

It has ne going the other direction (assuming you used the website I just linked to :-)

skullpatrol

21:58

Gotta go, talk to ya guys later :D

Damkerng T.

@skullpatrol I will try that. See you!

Anonymous

@skullpatrol Have a good afternoon (or whatever time of day is appropriate!)

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