English Language Learners

Jasper Loy

02:04

This chat is dead.

Jasper Loy

04:51

This chat is really dead.

Cerberus

No it aliiive!

cue creepy mummy

Fantasier

It's aliveeeeeee

Damkerng T.

05:22

meow...

Damkerng T.

05:49

@WendiKidd I got your point, and I have the same feeling as you for "writing perfectly". I think "detailing" is fine in first sentence since it is actually "always detailing", but the pen is not "always writing". That's where awkwardness happened in "write" but not "detail" — CYC 11 hours ago

Reading this comment, I think CYC didn't have any problem with objects used in the active voice. It's a bit deeper than that.

You could say, "Writing perfectly, the pen left a sharp and crisp image on the paper." — Jay 9 hours ago

I think Jay got it.

reading the answers...

Damkerng T.

07:23

@snailboat You deleted lots of comments which contain lots of useful information. :-)

Anonymous

07:33

I try to clean up my comments sometimes. I leave too many lying around

Damkerng T.

As we all know, comments on ELL are more useful than answers.

skullpatrol

But we learn so much from them :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh no :-)

Anonymous

Do we really all know that?

Damkerng T.

Heehee.

Anonymous

07:35

@snailplane If this question makes no sense then why did you have to use "certain constructions" in your comment? If my question was so senseless, then why didn't you simply say "Tell is used with prepositions"? — Sandeep Dhamija 23 mins ago

Anonymous

They were getting upset and they over-interpreted what I wrote, so I felt it was best to remove my comments

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure, but I think I got a glimpse of a comment saying something about "tell that to him" vs. "tell him that" and then it was gone. :-)

Fantasier

I have a feeling that that question would lead to other topics (other than intransitive-transitive)

Anonymous

Like the dative alternation? :-)

Fantasier

(Took me a while to look that up) Yeah. And perhaps as far as phrasal verbs versus prepositional verbs.

Anonymous

07:50

I leave describing phrasal verbs to people who know how learners learn that sort of thing. I don't, to be honest

Anonymous

I wrote up a description once, but I'm not sure it was really useful to anyone here

Anonymous

And I don't want to duplicate that effort and confuse everyone again :-)

Anonymous

Avoiding the term "phrasal verb" makes sense to me, but maybe not to other people

Anonymous

(Since, you know, they're neither phrases nor verbs)

Fantasier

What would you call something like "look up" then?

Anonymous

07:54

Looks to me like an idiomatic verb + particle combination.

Fantasier

I see, so that's how.

And for "look at", You call it a verb + preposition combination?

Anonymous

Well, here I use particle to mean "intransitive preposition", so the distinction is whether the preposition takes a phrase as its object or not

Anonymous

In "Look something up", it seems clear that something is not syntactically the object of up

Fantasier

Yeah, I meant "look at" as in "look at me" (at takes me as its object)

so you wouldn't call it a particle, would you?

Anonymous

Yeah, I'm drawing a contrast, but I'm multi-tasking so you started typing before I could finish :-)

Damkerng T.

08:00

Btw, I think the question began to stray from where it should go when "Tell to Win" was mentioned.

Fantasier

I think to win there is "in order to win"?

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure. That's one logical interpretation. It's a book title.

Anonymous

So we can see an alternation between "look something up" versus "look up something", and we can see that an unstressed object can't appear after the particle "look him up" but not "look up him"--it only works if you exceptionally stress him

Anonymous

Whereas in "look at him", we have a phonologically different kind of phrase, and one which doesn't alternate with "look him at"

Anonymous

So there it's clear that him is the object of at

Anonymous

08:03

So the structure is V + PP

Anonymous

The other is V + P + NP in alternation with V + NP + P

Anonymous

And these combinations are often idiomatic to varying degrees

Anonymous

So semantically I explain their meaning as idiomatic (and point out that idioms need not be constituents)

Fantasier

nods

Anonymous

But I don't want to call them phrasal verbs since the verb is still the verb, the V + P combination hasn't become a verb

Anonymous

08:05

or whatever combination you've got

Anonymous

There's another reason to distinguish particles from intransitive prepositions, though, which is that although intransitive prepositions make up the large majority of particles in V + P idioms, some come from other parts of speech

Anonymous

Another reason I find "phrasal verb" confusing is that for some people it's distinguished from "prepositional verb", but others use "phrasal verb" as a hypernym for both types of construction

Anonymous

In general, talking to someone random on the internet, I can't know what they mean by phrasal verb (or how they'll understand my use of the term)

Anonymous

Unless I sit down and ask them.

Anonymous

And instead of sitting down and asking them, it's usually easier to just say what I mean

Fantasier

08:10

Some learner's dictionaries use phrasal verb as the hypernym. I was once confused by that and misled.

Damkerng T.

I think the term phrasal verb is not very useful for learners.

Fantasier

Oh, and I think your solution (saying what you mean) is actually good and very clear.

Damkerng T.

I think I can learn English just fine without having to know it.

But I found that I've had to say "phrasal verb" more often since I joined ELL.

Fantasier

Yeah. Because it's easier than saying "verbs like ...."

Damkerng T.

Sometimes, it helps.

Fantasier

08:12

(Or "combinations like ..." to be more precise, perhaps)

Damkerng T.

I think it depends on how each learner previously learned.

But I like this: "So there it's clear that him is the object of at" (in look at him).

Anonymous

But on ELL, future users may have learned differently, so you can't assume that everyone reading what you write will have learned the same way.

Fantasier

Well, the way I learnt those verbs, they use the term to mean both V + NP <-> P and V + PP.

Damkerng T.

I think I was confused for a long while (when grammar still turned me off) when a teacher mentioned "phrasal verb".

I was like, "What?". I think I thought it was better to understand "look at him" as "look, at, him".

Anonymous

Some people use "phrasal verb" in a semantic sense rather than syntactic, I find

Damkerng T.

08:15

And for "look it up", it's just a two-word verb, "look + up", and "him".

Anonymous

Where I would use the term "idiom", these people use "phrasal verb" to communicate that the combination has non-compositional meaning

Damkerng T.

Oh! That could be even more confusing, I think!

Anonymous

People on ELL do it.

Anonymous

Here's an example of using phrasal verb as a hypernym that includes prepositional verbs: ell.stackexchange.com/a/21653/230

Anonymous

Here's a definition of phrasal verb meaning "idiomatic combination of verb and preposition":

Anonymous

08:21

2

A: "The front door slid open" grammar explanation

I wouldn't call it a phrasal verb. In phrasal verbs, the the two words together take on an entirely new meaning. For example, when I say: Why don't you grow up? I don't mean, "Why don't you grow taller?"; I mean, "Why don't you act more mature?" However, when I say: Would you please sl...

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, I stopped reading that question once StoneyB said "off-topic". :-)

Anonymous

> I wouldn't call it a phrasal verb. In phrasal verbs, the the two words together take on an entirely new meaning.

Anonymous

It's not really true, though.

Fantasier

^ That was what made my answer -2 long ago on ELU.

Damkerng T.

I see.

Anonymous

08:22

In many cases they do, but not all.

Anonymous

@Fantasier I don't know what you're referring to

Damkerng T.

Me either.

I think "slid open" is a rather new question.

Fantasier

@snailboat Defining a phrasal verb as 'idiomatic combination of verb and preposition (with a new meaning)'

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see.

Had anyone used the term "two-word verb" before on ELL?

Anonymous

Here's an answer by StoneyB describing different uses of phrasal verb:

Anonymous

08:25

4

A: How to judge a phrase is a phrasal verb?

In contemporary grammar the term phrasal verb has two somewhat different meanings. In one meaning the term names any idiomatic combination of a verb and a preposition or locative/directive adverb whose meaning cannot be understood from the ordinary senses of the words involved. Under this me...

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That seems like an oxymoron to me.

Damkerng T.

Ouch! Really?

Anonymous

Well, in my personal world, verbs are by definition single words

Anonymous

So if you were to use two words like a verb, like if you started saying "I look-upped the fact", in my mind it would be reanalyzed as one word

Fantasier

Hah. Found the question:

0

Q: Difference between verb+preposition and phrasal verbs

I am reading a book on grammar. Now I can't understand the difference between the verb+preposition and phrasal verbs. For example He never thinks about(or of) other people. and put on your coat Why this book call think about a verb+preposition and put on a phrasal verb. What's the dif...

grammar

Anonymous

08:26

But if you said "I looked up the fact" or "I looked the fact up", the verb to me seems to clearly be just look

Anonymous

John Lawler analyzes V + P as a constituent, but Huddleston & Pullum do not

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier I guess that you've already deleted the answer. (I have not enough rep there to see deleted answers, so I couldn't see yours.)

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. I deleted just a while ago. It was too bad an answer.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I don't know how much reputation you need there. 10,000?

Damkerng T.

08:30

@snailboat Bookmarked

Anonymous

At one point I set a long-term goal to get to 3000 reputation on ELU, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it

Anonymous

I have 2733 right now

Anonymous

I don't know if being able to vote to close is really very exciting to me there

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Really!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, I did use a question mark :-)

Anonymous

08:31

I'm not active on any non-beta sites

Fantasier

You are particularly interested in beta sites (because they are beta), or it's just what happens?

Damkerng T.

Oh, it looks like 10,000 rep points indeed.

Anonymous

I'm mostly interested in Japanese.SE

Anonymous

The programming sites aren't particularly interesting to me

Anonymous

Enough people come to me with tech problems already without me looking for more

Damkerng T.

08:34

It's only 2,000 rep points here. Maybe that is why people could be so aggressive about the points sometimes.

Anonymous

And I've never been in a situation where I've had a problem I couldn't solve and needed to ask about on a Q&A site

Damkerng T.

I think I feel the same way about those tech stacks.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hmm?

Anonymous

Also, looking at answers on SO puts you in constant facepalm territory.

Anonymous

Usually maybe 1 in 10 is a good answer.

Anonymous

08:36

So it's kind of depressing.

Anonymous

Most of the questions are brain-hurting, too.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I haven't really looked into them. Is it that bad?

Anonymous

Maybe Q&A sites are doomed to have a certain level of brain-hurting facepalm.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

skullpatrol

Indeed.

Anonymous

08:37

I mean, people who ask questions on Q&A sites most often do it because they're confused or don't have access to the resources they need, right?

Damkerng T.

I guess so.

Anonymous

If everyone were thinking perfectly about their problems with perfect access to information, they probably wouldn't ask as many questions.

skullpatrol

Yes.

Anonymous

And that's okay.

Anonymous

I think it varies a little by topic.

skullpatrol

08:39

and subject too

Damkerng T.

But you were talking about answers, not the questions.

Anonymous

Sure. Don't ask me what the difference is between topic and subject, by the way.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, I was talking about both.

Damkerng T.

I see, I see.

Anonymous

Here on ELL, you've probably noticed that a lot of people just make up their answers out of whole cloth.

Anonymous

08:39

That's okay, sometimes.

Anonymous

Among people who've tried to learn some basic linguistics, you have the problem that different people have different "basic linguistics" :-)

Anonymous

Natural language is fuzzy, anyway.

Anonymous

And besides being fuzzy, it's hard.

skullpatrol

logic can be fuzzy too :-)

Anonymous

Hah.

Anonymous

08:41

Hey, nima_persian has 2023 posts on TheFreeDictionary forums.

Damkerng T.

True. We have fuzzy logic.

Anonymous

107 questions on ELL.

Damkerng T.

Wow!

Fantasier

Oh

my

Damkerng T.

I've noticed another trend.

Anonymous

08:42

41 on ELU.

Fantasier

@DamkerngT. What trend?

Damkerng T.

Some users posted a question here, then waited a while, and would post the same question elsewhere.

Maybe because the first answer was not very satisfying.

Anonymous

How did you discover this trend?

Fantasier

> Damkerng is everywhere!

Damkerng T.

I usually spent time reading questions/answers.

And sometimes some answers got me a "Whuh?"

Fantasier

08:44

(Just kidding, of course)

Damkerng T.

So I searched. :-)

skullpatrol

You are well rounded :-)

Damkerng T.

@Fantasier I can't do that physically, I think. :-)

Thanks.

Fantasier

It's not really a bad thing though, this trend.

Anonymous

The other thing is, the more popular a SE site, the less it seems votes are correlated to quality.

skullpatrol

08:45

true dat^

Anonymous

Most of my highly upvoted answers on ELU weren't especially great, but the questions got promoted one way or another, so they got lot of views.

Anonymous

Some other answers I felt were better got pretty much no upvotes.

Damkerng T.

I felt that very often. (And not only for my answers.)

Anonymous

As ELL becomes more popular, the same thing has been happening here, I think

Anonymous

Not to the same extent, yet, maybe

Anonymous

08:47

I wrote this answer on my phone in about 30 seconds as I was falling asleep:

Anonymous

24

A: "I'm a large." (Seinfeld)

It's a clothing size. He wears a large. His joke anticipates clothing, given as a gift, being re-gifted to Jerry.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I remember that!

I'm an M.

But hey, sometimes I needed an XL.

Anonymous

My most upvoted answer is on a question that got lot of views because it had sex in the title:

Anonymous

14

Q: Real English, Cleaning Meaning Sexual Intercourse

Just read a tweet, My fantasy is having two men at once. One cooking. One cleaning. Is it a word play in wich 'cleaning' refers to a sexual intercourse or, actually, 'cleaning' is there intended having its literal meaning?

grammar

Damkerng T.

That's very likely.

Anonymous

08:49

This is my most upvoted answer on ELU:

Anonymous

48

A: Polite alternative to the term "bitch" when referring to a female dog

I think the obvious answer (the one you already know!) is the best: You can refer to a female dog as a female dog. You can refer to a male dog as a male dog. Of course, if you really need to specify that they're adults, you could do that: An adult male dog could be referred to as an adult m...

Anonymous

The one who actually solved the OP's problem had their answer converted to a comment

Damkerng T.

Umm... "..."

Anonymous

My answer didn't really add too much of value, though it was well-intentioned :-)

skullpatrol

Sex will always sell.

Anonymous

08:51

But I think most of those votes are again from views due to a shocking, scandalous question title

Damkerng T.

> You can refer to a female dog as a female dog.

I think it sounds very Zen-ish.

Anonymous

Yes! I am full of wisdom.

skullpatrol

a she-dog

Anonymous

When I have gone over answers on SO, I've often found that there are very good answers without any upvotes whatsoever.

Anonymous

Meanwhile, there are okay-ish answers with 150+ upvotes.

Damkerng T.

08:53

I think it's the same here, or at least it's becoming.

Anonymous

SO has a lot of people contributing, so the core of really helpful users, small though it may be relative to the size of the userbase, is still much larger in absolute terms than, say, here

Anonymous

Look here, by the way: ELU is #5! stackexchange.com/sites#traffic

Damkerng T.

I remember that! (from the Hats season)

Anonymous

Though note the disparity between 8k questions/day and 52 questions/day :-)

Damkerng T.

I can't see the stats. (Or I looked in a wrong place?)

Anonymous

08:56

Ooh, ELL is doing pretty well.

Anonymous

Um.

Fantasier

Wow. The difference between SO (#1) and SU (#2) in terms of traffic is ginormous.

Anonymous

I see lots of stats. stackexchange.com/sites#traffic

Damkerng T.

I see. I need to click on that windy icon first.

Anonymous

Today I learned that some people wear gloves when they play guitar: originalguitarfingers.com

Damkerng T.

08:57

For real?!

Anonymous

Isn't that strange?

Anonymous

I've never heard of this, and I've been playing guitar all my life.

Damkerng T.

speechless

Anonymous

Someone said they go through a pair once a month.

Anonymous

> Its no longer necessary for calluses to form to enjoy guitar playing.

Damkerng T.

08:59

I think calluses are necessary.

Anonymous

I know forming calluses is different for everyone, but I've never really known anyone who had a problem with it

Anonymous

Say, did I link to this in here?

Anonymous

-2

Q: Japanese "verbal nouns [suru verbs]" ("suru-meishi")

I am participating in a Japanese-English translation, and 've come across one of many loose boards. This question ONLY pertains to a word index. In accordance with my Japanese principal's teaching method, for who I am doing this translation, there is a special class of nouns called "suru-meishi"...

terminology

Anonymous

They re-asked their question on ELU after it was closed on ELL

Damkerng T.

Oh, poor thing.

I had to replace a gas dispenser valve today, too! Almost $90!

Anonymous

09:07

They actually changed the question slightly when they re-asked.

Anonymous

They inserted the line "(p.s. must maintain the noun.)"

Anonymous

And they rewrote one sentence, adding "I think maintaining the 'to do' nuance is important as a temporal cushion, or something!"

Damkerng T.

I think it might work only in the literal translation context.

Anonymous

There's really no way to translate Japanese literally into English.

Anonymous

With some closer languages, it works a bit more often than with that language pair

Anonymous

09:09

But for example, discourse particles like yo and ne don't have any literal translations available in English

Anonymous

And those are super common

Damkerng T.

I think ne might work in Thai. I don't know about yo.

Anonymous

My personal feeling is that you have to start by learning how to express stuff in your target language.

Anonymous

As it's normally expressed, not as it's translated from your source language

Damkerng T.

In the context of learning, I think literal translation could be a bad idea.

Anonymous

09:11

But some reliance on your L1 is probably inevitable.

Anonymous

In the short-term

Anonymous

I assume this person means temporary when they write temporal

Damkerng T.

I think of such reliance the same way I think of the 3rd and 4th wheels of a bike.

Anonymous

I didn't understand that earlier when they wrote this comment:

Anonymous

Thank you both, however in the case of "Benkyou Suru" the meaning is not truly "study," but "to do studies." A difference of nuance and temporal semantic difference. This is my difficulty. — Shakai Apr 21 at 7:44

Anonymous

09:12

Oh! Those are called training wheels

Damkerng T.

Ah, thanks for the word!

Anonymous

By the way, I think for me, I have no problem with a lot of questions, including a lot of relatively confused ones

skullpatrol

Training wheels

Training wheels (or stabilisers in British English) are an additional wheel or wheels mounted parallel to the rear wheel of a bicycle that assist learners until they have developed a usable sense of balance on the bicycle. Typically they are used in teaching very young children to ride a bike, although versions for adults exist. The term "training wheels" is commonly used in the United States, Canada and Australia to describe the stabilisers' role in learning to ride bicycles. Learning to bicycle Training wheels that prevent the bike from leaning also prevent countersteering, so that, as...

Anonymous

But they don't really keep my interest

Anonymous

So maybe I'm just personally not compatible with a lot of those questions.

Anonymous

09:17

Like ZZ's questions--they seem like good enough questions, but I'm probably not going to answer them

Anonymous

I answered a question today!

Damkerng T.

@skullpatrol Thanks for the photo!

Anonymous

It was one that had already been answered, though :-)

skullpatrol

@DamkerngT. we all need them :-)

Damkerng T.

I haven't checked out ELL questions for a few hours already, I think.

@skullpatrol In the beginning, yes.

Oh, it was from The Matrix!

Anonymous

09:20

I don't think I ever had a bike with training wheels. But I did have a child's tricycle, which may amount to roughly the same thing :-)

Damkerng T.

If learning a new language were riding a bike, some folks would seem to stick with training wheels, some would stick with a tricycle! :-)

skullpatrol

You can adjust the height of training wheels...

Anonymous

I still use bilingual dictionaries sometimes.

Anonymous

For a while, I was only using monolingual dictionaries

Anonymous

Then I realized that bilingual dictionaries offer a sort of resource monolingual dictionaries don't

Damkerng T.

09:22

I usually use bilingual dictionaries for completely new words. It's much faster.

Anonymous

At least in the case of the Japanese-English pair, bilingual dictionaries have lots of example sentences

Anonymous

Monolingual Japanese dictionaries, even good ones, tend not to

Anonymous

Usually the actual definition part is less useful in bilingual dictionaries, though

Damkerng T.

Maybe monolingual Japanese dictionaries will include more examples, sooner or later.

Anonymous

It's the sentences where I find gold :-)

Anonymous

09:24

@DamkerngT. I have some large monolingual dictionaries. They're great for certain kinds of examples.

Anonymous

They tend to focus on historic examples, kind of like the OED

Anonymous

Large dictionaries that focus on the modern language tend to have examples for each sense too, but usually not nearly as many as I can find in bilingual dictionaries

Anonymous

I'm not sure why that is.

Damkerng T.

Oh, you can make a best seller by writing a Japanese dictionary for learners!

Anonymous

Hah

Damkerng T.

09:26

It sounds like something not existing yet, right? :-)

Anonymous

Maybe that's the thing. There aren't really any Japanese monolingual dictionaries designed for learners.

Anonymous

It's really different from English, perhaps because there are so many learners of English

Anonymous

We have lots of learner's dictionaries these days. OALD, CALD

Damkerng T.

Yes. I also particularly like Macmillan's.

Anonymous

Collins and M-W have learner's dictionaries.

Anonymous

09:27

Yay, Macmillan!

skullpatrol

Dictionaries are like training wheels, imo.

Anonymous

But, but, I use English dictionaries all the time! ;-)

Damkerng T.

Longman also has a good one. I don't know if anyone heard about before: Longman Language Activator.

Anonymous

You'll never take my dictionary collection away from me!! sobs

skullpatrol

@snailboat Me too :D

Damkerng T.

09:29

I think I use dictionaries in my slow mode.

When I read something fast, I tend to not to use dictionaries.

Anonymous

I think dictionaries are especially helpful when you're already familiar with a word but you find you don't know precisely how it's used.

skullpatrol

You get a sense of "stability" knowing the definitions.

Damkerng T.

But in slow mode, I have my chances to get to know the words more.

Dictionaries also help me a lot on my pronunciation!

skullpatrol

that too^

Anonymous

That doesn't mean looking up every word you don't know right when you see it

Anonymous

09:31

Unless you have a pretty large vocabulary and really don't mind doing so ;-)

skullpatrol

etymology etc.

Anonymous

Oh, yes! That, too.

Damkerng T.

Also that!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I have a pronunciation dictionary for Japanese on my electronic dictionary

Anonymous

It's been helpful :-)

Damkerng T.

09:33

Yay!

skullpatrol

Is there any way to follow the activity of a particular user?

ie get up dates when they answer or ask questions

Damkerng T.

Just click on his or her profile.

Oh, you mean passively? I don't know.

Jasper Loy

Subscribe to the user's feed.

skullpatrol

like following a tag

Anonymous

101

Q: A "friends list" on Stack Overflow would be nice

I think it would be nice to have a "friends list" on Stack Overflow. This would allow us to be able to follow the questions and answers that are posted by users that we want to watch/monitor. I suggest it be implemented in the same fashion as DotNetKicks.com; where you can add someone to your "f...

feature-request status-declined friends

Damkerng T.

09:37

Does "user feed" include things like comments, etc.?

Jasper Loy

Hmm, I ain't sure.

@DamkerngT. Do you follow AmE or BrE?

Anonymous

They mention RSS there but no way to follow them on the site itself

Damkerng T.

I tend to mainly use AmE, but I'm sure my English is a mixed one.

skullpatrol

@snailboat thanks

Jasper Loy

I see. I see that you used a full stop after etc.

Damkerng T.

09:39

Ah, I see. I didn't notice it myself. Hehe.

Jasper Loy

@DamkerngT. Oh I just got an almost complete set of the Buddha's suttas.

Damkerng T.

Wow! Really? In English or some other language?

I wish I could have one too, but I don't have it.

Jasper Loy

Let me give you the link.

@DamkerngT. wisdompubs.org/collections/…

You can get all the books cheapest on amazon.com.

This is a set of 6 books.

Damkerng T.

My valve delivery guy has just arrived. BBL.

skullpatrol

@JasperLoy How much in US dollars did the set cost?

Anonymous

09:55

@DamkerngT. I didn't notice either.

Anonymous

Is it normal to let the question mark "absorb" the period in "etc."?

skullpatrol

etc? or etc.?

Jasper Loy

@skullpatrol About 190 USD.

Anonymous

Yeah! To period or not to period, that's the question I'm askin'.

Jasper Loy

@snailboat It is not about the question mark.

In AmE, full stops are usually present in abbreviations.

In BrE, they are usually absent.

skullpatrol

09:59

@JasperLoy That's not too much.

Anonymous

Oh, I see

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