English Language Learners

Cerberus

16:00

But I would expect a Japanese writer to know that.

Anonymous

I think there's a fair chance it was intentional.

Cerberus

Either that or a misprint.

Fantasier

> At last the Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth.

At last the Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth.

Anonymous

Yeah, and then he got all solar on the rest of the sentence, which has already vacated my short-term memory

Anonymous

Or rest of the paragraph, judging by the period you've got there

Fantasier

16:02

Hmm

Anonymous

(This is an example of me making an argument in a very rigorous fashion.)

Anonymous

Too bad we can't go back in time and ask him.

Anonymous

6 hours ago, by Damkerng T.

Too bad I couldn't travel back in time. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe.

Cerberus

The word heaven itself is associated with the sun, so I'm not sure that context makes a huge difference...

Anonymous

16:02

Yeah.

Damkerng T.

I wish I could, though.

Anonymous

@Fantasier Although Yellow there doesn't represent the sun, I don't think.

Damkerng T.

Yellow is the color of the King.

Anonymous

At least not if you take the phrase "Yellow Emperor" out of context.

Damkerng T.

Also, dragons with five fingers.

Anonymous

16:04

Hey, do they get opposable thumbs?

Damkerng T.

They mean each hand.

Anonymous

That would be neat.

Damkerng T.

They usually grab a crystal ball.

Avinash Raj

16:16

@DamkerngT. did you remember me?

Damkerng T.

I remember you from the set question. Was it you?

Fantasier

Well, I think it's appropriate to talk about the why now...

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm not sure if they'd even have a thumb. -- chinadaily.com.cn/life/2011-01/16/content_11874989.htm

Fantasier

I've thought about this again, but can't figure out why why inside the clause "why I mentioned" can't be an adverb (but rather a pronoun)? I mean, it's replaced an adjunct of reason, which modifies the verb (tells why the subject does the action). In this sense, isn't it an adverb?

Damkerng T.

In a sentence like this one? -- That was the reason why I mentioned those.

Fantasier

16:27

Yeah

I'm talking about the same sentence we discussed before.

i.e. This is the reason why we mentioned it

Damkerng T.

And you're thinking that why I mentioned those describes was (or is).

Fantasier

No

I'm looking only at why I mentioned it.

Damkerng T.

But you suggested that it's an adverb, right?

Fantasier

And thinking that why replaces whatever (an adjunct of reason) that tells us why the subject I mentioned it.

I suggested that it may be viewed as an adverb in the relative clause only. But for the whole sentence, I already agreed that it's a relative pronoun.

Damkerng T.

I don't think that this why replaces anything.

Fantasier

16:30

It does (at least from the explanation of snailplane)

9 hours ago, by snailboat

It's replaced an adjunct of reason, and it's also been fronted (moved out of its basic position to the front of the clause). CGEL says it's coindexed with a gap in the basic position and occurs in pre-nuclear position

Damkerng T.

I think it was about the other case: This is why we mentioned it.

Hmm... thinking...

I think you're right (about which sentence).

> We mentioned it [ because XYZ ].

> We mentioned it why.

Fantasier

And move why

Yeah

Damkerng T.

> ... why we mentioned it.

Then yes, why can be considered an adverb. (At least to me.)

But only the why, not the whole clause.

Fantasier

Sure.

Damkerng T.

I think I've said that it's an adverb before.

Fantasier

16:37

You have.

Damkerng T.

confused -- So we agree with each other, I think. :-)

I think CGEL re-categorizes the buckets (PoS).

Saying that it's an adjunct is better for their analysis, I believe.

Fantasier

I asked about it again because snailplane said it's a pronoun (in the relative clause), so I'm just trying to figure out how to view it as a pronoun. (Or maybe I misunderstood something)

Damkerng T.

I think I also said that it's a pronoun.

My brain reads it as a pronoun by default.

I'm so lucky today!

Fantasier

How do you view it as a pronoun in why I mentioned it?

Wow!

Damkerng T.

> That was the reason why I mentioned those.

Why refers back to the reason.

Fantasier

16:46

I'm talking about only why I mentioned it...

Damkerng T.

Not good. This case is better.

> That was why I mentioned those.

Why is standing there in place of the reason.

Fantasier

Hmm..

My head's kinda twisted, but I think I get it now.

StoneyB

Hi, guys ... I think we dealt with this matter of why and how heading free relative clauses somewhere on ELL. It doesn't really matter what word class you assign it to, it behaves just like other Wh- terms there. I seem to remember suggesting it acts as a pro-adverb.

2

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Hello @StoneyB!

I don't know if I could find that post of yours.

trying...

Fantasier

Hello!

Damkerng T.

16:52

Sharing...

1

A: What does "what do we do?" mean?

English 'anaphoric' words - words which 'stand for' other constituents of a sentence - are all called pronouns, but in fact there are two different categories: words which act as placeholders for nominal expressions (he, she, it, what, which, who, this, that &c) words which act as placeholders...

6

A: Why is 'where' an adverb and not a pronoun?

Where does not take the place of school, which is, as you say, a noun. It takes the place of to school, which is a prepositional phrase, acting in this sentence as an adverb of directive location complementing the verb go. I am going [to school] → I am going [where] → [Where] are you going? ...

Fantasier

Bookmarking them all.

Damkerng T.

They are from the time before I joined ELL.

StoneyB

You have to be careful not to confuse the expression itself with its paraphrase. You can paraphrase why I mentioned it as the reason that I mentioned it, but that doesn't mean that why = reason.

Fantasier

I see.

Anonymous

I'll repeat something I mentioned earlier: if you object to pronoun, you can call the lot of them relative words

StoneyB

17:00

Once you get into complicated idioms and template expressions like Wh-x S, you pretty much have to junk the notion of word class and start thinking in terms of function, syntactic role. It's sorta like in music discarding the notion of the pitch of a note and thinking in terms of its harmonic role - a G in the key of C is a fifth or a dominant.

2

What snailboat says. They're interrogatives deployed as relatives.

Damkerng T.

What a metaphor!

I was about to star that metaphor, then I saw the other line being starred. So I starred the one already starred too!

StoneyB

It's what I was taught to call an 'emergent' phenomenon - an entity which plays one role when considered in one context has a different role when considered in a 'higher-level' context. The difference between phones and phonemes and morphemes ...

A different meaning at each level of analysis.

Anonymous

(Or if you want to stick pro- in there, you can use pro-form as a general term)

Damkerng T.

nods

Fantasier

nods

Damkerng T.

17:05

I like the word pro-adverb!

StoneyB

Yes, I'm fond of pro-X. But you have to be careful to leave the hyphen or you end up with "do is a proverb"!

Fantasier

LOL

Damkerng T.

Hehe.

Fantasier

I once saw you (StoneyB) 'cheat' (no offence) using the word relativizer. I think it's a catchy term.

Damkerng T.

He who?

I'm reading this answer: ell.stackexchange.com/a/8182/3281

Fantasier

17:08

I

StoneyB

Note, too, that pro- forms don't stand for words (W) but for 'phrases'. A pronoun (or pro-noun) doesn't stand for a noun but for an NP. A pro-adverb stands for an adverbial, which may be a preposition phrase, not an adverb.

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

> Oh, sorry, Weasley, didn't see you there.

The there there is a pro-adverb, then.

There is one unanswered question on ELL. I think it's almost a duplicate of this Weasley case.

Oh, MMJZ answered it already.

StoneyB

Yes. But in that case it is a pro-adverb acting as an adjectival adjunct!

Fantasier

Awww

Damkerng T.

The sentence is another question (ell.stackexchange.com/questions/20885/…):

> There is a clock on the wall there.

Anonymous

17:13

@Fantasier Yeah, and the constituent which is replaced is sometimes called the relativized element

StoneyB

How many grammatical terms can dance on the head of a pin?

Fantasier

@snailboat Good to know!

Anonymous

When a relative clause modifies a head noun (as they do in the basic case), the relative thingy links the missing element anaphorically to that head noun

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB I don't know, but it looks like my head is about to spin.

Anonymous

And we can see e.g. gender contrasts of person in the relative pronoun, relating it to that head noun: [ the person [ who annoys me the most ] ] versus [ the thing [ which annoys me the most ] ]

Anonymous

17:15

Personalness?

Anonymous

Whatever you call that.

Anonymous

Some references for this stuff: McCawley in chapter 13, CGEL in chapter 12, Quirk et al. in chapter 17 (under noun phrases for some reason)

2

StoneyB

'Person' would get confused with deictic person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, &c). It's not animacy (because beasts can be which) or humanity (because beasts can also be who - at least cats can!).

Fantasier

@StoneyB You meant 'adjectival adjunct' as 'an adjunct that describes a noun/pronoun (you)' right?

StoneyB

@Fantasier Exactly.

Fantasier

17:21

Okay, so I got it right.

StoneyB

@snailboat Under NP because free/fused relatives act as NPs, perhaps?

Damkerng T.

A random stuff: I just noticed that "explain" ~ "draw someone's attention"

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Eh? "Insufficient context".

Damkerng T.

I'm speculating. I guess that it means so in InE.

Fantasier

InE? Indian English?

Damkerng T.

17:24

It seems like an indirect way to say "explain".

Yes.

Instead of saying "I explained this concept to you", they say "I drew your attention to this concept".

StoneyB

There's the famous Ring Lardner line: "'Shut up,' he explained."

Damkerng T.

Surely, he drew someone's attention. :-)

Yea, I know it already Maulik. It was very simple to realize this fact that "studious" is the most applicable word (if I was going to add it to my offered list), but here I was going to discover some slight nuances among my suggested words. Anyway thank you for your attention. ;) — A-friend 20 mins ago

This is one example.

@A-friend Aw! If you want to know the nuances, any dictionary is sufficient to tell you so! I drew your attention that if you are speaking about studying a lot as in your heading, those words may not be suitable at all! Because, most of them, I guess, involve boredom and that may tarnish a studious person's image. Ha ha! — Maulik V 14 mins ago

It seems like the exchange required the attention from both sides.

StoneyB

Ta-ta, folks. My wife needs me to go the grocery store and get tea.

Damkerng T.

I've noticed something like that for a while. :-)

Anonymous

Have a good day!

Damkerng T.

17:28

See you soon!

Have a nice day!

Fantasier

See you! Have a great day!

Damkerng T.

It's fun to see how English being used by people of different L1.

Fantasier

I think that's true for any language, not just English.

Damkerng T.

Yeah!

English just happens to be the international language. So!

Fantasier

My native English teacher (whose wife is Thai) once say in Thai, almost literally, 'Freedom has arrived!' (อิสระมาแล้ว!)

We students laughed so hard.

Damkerng T.

17:31

Hahaha!

No matter how grammatically vulnerable it might be, I like the way The Book of Tea uses the language.

I don't know if anyone here ever read Chinese fantasy action novels before.

Fantasier

I have!

Although I didn't like and never finished any volume of the classic ones, มังกรหยก and such.

Damkerng T.

I read some of them (their Thai translations), and I feel like I'm reading Chinese not Thai whenever I read it.

Oh! The Jade Dragon (or The Legend of Condor Hero) is a classic one by now.

There seems to be a special mechanism for the translation of those novels.

The translations are in Thai (of course!), but they don't sound like the Thai language.

And yet, they don't sound bad, either.

Fantasier

It's the style of a translator.

Like some readers are familiar with and prefer น. นพรัตน์ style etc.

Damkerng T.

Yes, I believe so.

I think I read both versions of The Legend of Condor Hero (both ว. and น.)

Fantasier

Did you know that the catchy ลักลั่นย้อนแย้ง came from a translated novel of this kind?

(I forgot which, though)

Damkerng T.

17:41

I don't!

Fantasier

Many use it to mean 'paradox', and some say that they should use the coinage coined by ROYIN 'ปฏิทรรศน์' instead.

But seriously who would use 'ปฏิทรรศน์'? It's extremely funny.

Damkerng T.

I wonder where it came from. :-)

Exactly!

Fantasier

Oh not a novel, but a comic

Damkerng T.

I've never used ลหุพรรณ (~ software).

Fantasier

What is ลหุพรรณ!?

I think it's ละมุนพันธ์?

That's not an official coinage though.

Damkerng T.

17:44

Oh, sorry, you're right. I'm a little sleepy.

Fantasier

I slept a lot today. Hehe.

Damkerng T.

:D

Fantasier

When will we be a real SE site?

I mean, out of beta.

Damkerng T.

Who knows? But does it really matter?

Anonymous

@Fantasier Unknown.

Anonymous

17:48

SE has a backlog of sites to graduate.

Anonymous

Last year they only graduated 2, despite opening up a whole bunch of new ones, ELL included.

Anonymous

ELL is doing fairly well, I think.

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Fantasier

It doesn't really matter, but it just looks cooler. P_P

Anonymous

Our Japanese SE site is comparatively smaller with less activity, but they said that was on its way to graduation, so

Damkerng T.

17:49

But I revised my opinion a bit. I think it should be kept a beta for another while.

Anonymous

Unless there are special circumstances here, I imagine ELL will graduate at some point

Damkerng T.

I believe so.

Fantasier

I think we have a lot of answers here, but not a lot of good ones.

Damkerng T.

That's one problem I observed.

Fantasier

So yeah, beta probably shouldn't be taken out.

for now.

Damkerng T.

17:51

nods

Quick, and no Google please. Do you know what this phrase means?

> I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian.

Fantasier

No.

Damkerng T.

How about you @snailboat?

@Fantasier I'm surprised a bit that you don't know.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. Don't expect much from me when it comes to idioms and vocabs. I know virtually nothing about them.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. What about me?

Damkerng T.

Do you know that phrase?

Anonymous

17:54

No.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

I speculate that it might become popular.

(or might have become)

It was from Iron Man 3.

Anonymous

I haven't seen that movie yet.

Damkerng T.

So, it's not really about English.

Anonymous

I'm going to be made to before long, I think. :-)

Damkerng T.

:-)

I think that it's interesting to see many people use it.

Fantasier

17:56

(off-topic here, but LOL)

thai-language.com/id/156585

Great site.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

They include that in their dictionary. :-)

It's similar to "I pwn you." :-)

Fantasier

They label it a slang, which is good, I think.

Yeah

Damkerng T.

Is เมพขิงๆ still widely known?

Fantasier

Sure, among gamers.

Damkerng T.

I see. Thanks. :-)

Fantasier

17:58

And internet people.

netizens Yay I feel fancy.

Damkerng T.

You're one of the netizens.

Anonymous

Netizens! People still say that?

Anonymous

Reminds me of the 90s.

Fantasier

They don't say I think.

Damkerng T.

Hehe. Do they?

Anonymous

17:59

I say things online. I'm saying stuff right now.

Damkerng T.

Considering Big Brother is still around, why not netizens?

Fantasier

@snailboat Yeah, I mean say like that, too. They don't say but they use it rather formally in titles, names etc (at least in my country).

Damkerng T.

Another quick test for @Fantasier. Do you know the word นวยนาด?

Fantasier

No, but I can play ระนาด!

Damkerng T.

Oh! You don't know it either!

Is the word outdated by now?

My nephew (one year older than you, I think) also don't know it.

Fantasier

18:04

I looked it up on ROYIN dict.

Damkerng T.

Languages do change indeed.

Fantasier

Hmm... I think I would know what it means in context.

Damkerng T.

Quite likely.

Anonymous

@Fantasier Huh. Really? To me, it's just net!slang (or net.slang)

Fantasier

@snailboat Yes, we have Thai Netizen Network.

Damkerng T.

18:05

@Fantasier You can play ระนาด! Wow! That's something!

I love The Overture (โหมโรง).

Fantasier

I started learning to play it before The Overture!

Damkerng T.

I see. That's really good!

Fantasier

I rarely play it these days though.

Damkerng T.

Btw, ระนาด ~ a Thai xylophone.

Fantasier

I think The Overture is a great film. Before that not many kids wanted to play Ranard. After that kids thought playing Ranard was cool, a lot of kids took Thai instrument courses. It's quite a phenomenon!

Damkerng T.

18:09

*didn't -- just scrolled back to see what I typed

@Fantasier Yeah! I'm glad that it happened.

jackopen

18:24

which are good books to learn english language grammer for kids(k10~k12) living in non-english countries?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. A Thailophone!

Fantasier

What's k10? 10-year-old?

jackopen

studying in 10th standard

@f

@Fantasier

Fantasier

Hmm... I don't really know, sorry.

jackopen

@Fantasier it is ok

Damkerng T.

18:34

@snailboat Hah!

Fantasier

Damkerng T.

@jackopen Back in the old days, someone told me that Student' English Grammar by Jake Allsop worked for him.

To me, not a single grammar book worked.

Right now, I mainly use Practical English Usage by Michael Swan.

Then again, I don't really use it as in reading it. I use it like a dictionary.

jackopen

@DamkerngT. i ll check it out, thanks for recommednation

Damkerng T.

No problem. :-)

Fantasier

That's how we use a reference, isn't it?

Damkerng T.

18:39

Yes. But it seems like some people actually read it. So it works differently for each of us, I guess. :-)

jackopen

some interactive learnign session for grammer would also be fun for kids, if you know any

some application/website/software

Damkerng T.

Hmm... VOA and BBC should be good starting points.

jackopen

BBC is news? what is VOA? correct me please

Damkerng T.

I suggested VOA to my nephew once. It's good for beginners, but it could be quite boring for intermediate learners.

jackopen

www.voanews.com/‎

Damkerng T.

18:41

VOA for English learners. I think.

Wait. See if I can find it.

Oh, it's call VOA Special English.

jackopen

i think they even cant understand bbc also

as their mothertoungue is different

Damkerng T.

learningenglish.voanews.com

Fantasier

BBC Learning English? bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish

But it's not fun for kids, I think.

jackopen

thanks for your efforts

Damkerng T.

I think BBC has a special section for kids.

jackopen

18:44

is it free?

Damkerng T.

See here. There might be something useful for you: bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio/genre/childrens

I usually use only free sites.

jackopen

me too

Damkerng T.

CBeebies: bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/cr

Grade 10-12, right?

Maybe CNN for Students works too.

jackopen

like brekely & standford have university level coruses for managamemnet, computer etc.. arent there any university who is offereing free courses for english langauge grammer?

yeah grade 10-12 or you can say grade 5-12!!

starting of grammer

Damkerng T.

Oh! I think Grade 5 and 12 are quite different.

Here is VOA stuff: learningenglish.voanews.com/section/level-one/3774.html

It might not be very grammar-ish.

If it's not about grammar, I would suggest Sesame Street.

jackopen

18:50

yeah that is what

i said k10

because i think those kids want to learn serious grammer in layman;s langauge

Fantasier

K–12 (education)

K–12 (spoken as "k twelve", "k through twelve", or "k to twelve") is a designation for the sum of primary and secondary education. It is used in the United States, Canada, Turkey, the Philippines, and Australia. P–12 is also occasionally used in Australia. The expression is a shortening of kindergarten (K) for 4- to 6-year-olds through twelfth grade (12) for 17- to 19-year-olds, the first and last grades of free education in these countries, respectively. Usage The Term is often used in school website URLs, generally appearing before the country code top-level domain (or in the United S...

jackopen

sorry grade 10

Fantasier

How 'serious'?

I mean, I have no idea what they already knew.

jackopen

they only know reading english

& little bit understanding

& nothing in grammer

Damkerng T.

bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/english

Fantasier

18:58

^ That could work

Damkerng T.

It's for native children, I think.

But it's for children, so it could work. :-)

jackopen

ok

Damkerng T.

Hey, it looks fun, even to me!

> The dog is dirty.

> That dog is absolutely filthy!

> Why haven't you bathed the dog?

Hehe.

> She ran down the road but he chose to walk.

> The big, brown dog had a very loud bark.

jackopen

seems preety nice for kids

Damkerng T.

Yes.

I think they have KS1, KS2, and KS3.

KS3 seems to be more advanced.

> The boys walked down the road and their parents waved from the house.

Fantasier

19:16

Despite long sleep earlier today, I'm sleepy. See you!

Damkerng T.

See you soon! Sleep tight!

jackopen

good night

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