English Language Learners

StoneyB

16:00

When you state that "X is my opinion" you are stating a fact: it is your opinion. When you advance a judgment (e.g. "We must respect...") you are not stating a fact.

Trevör Anne Denise

@DamkerngT. It looks great, and matches the size of the blanks !

Damkerng T.

Hold on. I haven't really read the text.

Reading a long text from screen is hard for me.

StoneyB

@TrevörAnneDenise "As a matter of fact" requires a following comma; the absence of one in that slot makes that expression unsuitable.

Damkerng T.

I'm thinking that I might need to swap Indeed and As a matter of fact.

Trevör Anne Denise

@StoneyB Does it mean that the absence of comma would have changed the meaning ? Or simply that the absence of comma would have made the sentence incorrect ?

@DamkerngT. Why ?

Damkerng T.

16:04

I think in the place I put indeed there, I need something to make a contrast, but I think I have no other choices left.

StoneyB

@DT Seems to me "Furthermore" belongs with ", one must take responsibility..." since there's a change of direction there

Trevör Anne Denise

@StoneyB But you couldn't swap it with indeed or this is the reason why

Damkerng T.

I see, swapping Furthermore and As a matter of fact.

Too bad that I can't edit it after two minutes.

Trevör Anne Denise

I must go, thank you to you guys, you helped me a lot and it was a great discussion...

Damkerng T.

Sometimes, paper and pencils work much better indeed.

Trevör Anne Denise

16:07

And again I don't see how can I swap it with indeed !

Good bye

Damkerng T.

Good bye, and good luck!

StoneyB

Good luck!

Damkerng T.

A-ha! I think what works best is probably swapping these furthermore, as a matter of fact, and indeed in a loop.

> Indeed, I don't think that ambition... -- As a matter of fact, such an argument is unacceptable on all accounts. -- Furthermore, one must take responsibility ...

Hmm... I don't like to use indeed this way.

> Furthermore, I don't think that ambition... -- As a matter of fact, such an argument is unacceptable on all accounts. -- Indeed, one must take responsibility ...

This one is better, I think.

> Furthermore -- for additional supporting ideas

StoneyB

OR --- First of all, I cannot agree ... As a matter of fact, I don't think ... In my view, such an argument ... Indeed, we must respect ... Furthermore, one must take ... This is the reason why I strongly object

Damkerng T.

A-ha! I was fixated on In my view and forgot about it!

StoneyB

16:16

That way "As a matter of fact" takes 'cannot agree' to a higher level. I'm not real happy with either 'indeed' or 'however', but you gotta dance with the girl you brung.

Damkerng T.

Putting indeed there sounds right to me.

StoneyB

I want "On the contrary" there, but she wasn't invited to the party.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I'm not fond of this kind of exercises much. In my opinion, it's not really about language learning.

It demands too much reasoning power. (Which is arguably necessary for polishing language skills, but not very good for language acquisition.)

StoneyB

I agree that it doesn't help you learn a language; but it does help you use any language, including your L1!

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think it fits better for the later stages of learning.

StoneyB

16:27

In fact, there's a school of thought that holds the best way to learn a language is by using it. Which would put ELL out of business ...

@DamkerngT. Yeah, it's hard to build a house if your only tool is a hammer.

Anonymous

Using a language is necessary but possibly not sufficient.

Anonymous

Many learners stop making progress at one point or another.

Damkerng T.

I'd say the best way to learn a new language is by absorbing it, but that would probably don't make any difference for ELL. However, I think ELL can give a lot of good information for learners.

StoneyB

I'd put it the other way - learning is necessary but not sufficient. The goal is to put the learning behind you, or at least inside you, and to get the point of using it.

Damkerng T.

I remember that in my English classes, there were many of reasoning exercises, like when the teach would give us a list of occupations, and then they would ask, what is: APCIMLEON?

Thanks to these classes, I became good at math. :)

Anonymous

16:38

...and then they would ask "What is APCIMLEON?"
...and then they would ask what APCIMLEON is/was.

StoneyB

What on earth is APCIMLEON?

Anonymous

What is APCIMLEON? :-)

Anonymous

Hee.

Anonymous

My question no verb.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wish I could insert a comma before my what is there.

Anonymous

16:40

I edited it to the verb in the sentence.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Do you want me to put a comma there? :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Please. :)

@StoneyB It's an English word, but with letters shuffled around.

Thanks!

Anonymous

map on lice

Damkerng T.

Oh, no! Map on lice wouldn't be on a list of occupations, I think. :D

Anonymous

Pal, nom ice!

Damkerng T.

16:43

LOL

Anonymous

No mice, pal?

Anonymous

I'm not very good at this.

Damkerng T.

You appear to be very good at giving the wrong answers!

StoneyB

"Map on lice" sounds like my job: organizing a lot of nits.

The nittiest of all being the compliance orcs.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB LOLOTF

Anonymous

16:45

Moon is awake. She's hiding in her little plastic house. :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, shy's a bit shy, I guess.

Anonymous

She sleeps outside her shell now, though. Some pet snail owners think that means they feel safe.

Damkerng T.

How much of her body is outside her shell?

Just her head, maybe?

Wait, this means that you can tell that she is sleeping, right?

Anonymous

They pull their eyestalks in.

Anonymous

It looks silly. :-)

Damkerng T.

16:49

I don't think I can tell whether a snail is sleeping or not.

Oh!

Anonymous

I wonder sometimes how I manage to type sentences that are missing words I'm sure I had in my head

Anonymous

Like when I type a sentence no verb.

Anonymous

I look back at it and I think, "Wait, what? How did I type that?"

Anonymous

Of course, sometimes I manage to say things wrong, too.

Damkerng T.

I think using JavaScript could be one of the factors. I'm sure it is for me.

Anonymous

16:54

How so?

Damkerng T.

I mean, it's rather obvious that I make a lot of mistakes I don't usually make elsewhere.

It slows things down a bit.

Anonymous

Oh! I have a relatively fast computer

Damkerng T.

I imagine that it would be kind of like walking in a bit of the dark.

Anonymous

I think I have to take credit for my own errors. Or at least blame it on a convenient target, like my brain.

Anonymous

Stupid brain, not listening to me!

Damkerng T.

16:56

Some patterns of my errors here is rather unique. (Some of them are very unlikely to happen in other things I wrote.)

Anonymous

Uh-huh?

Damkerng T.

But of course, a lot of mistakes are really mine.

I think typing think as thing could happen sometimes.

StoneyB

Is there any language with no verbs?

Damkerng T.

But it would never happen elsewhere (or very unlikely) because I could see it before I would type the next word.

@StoneyB That would be kind of fun!

Anonymous

degruyter.com/view/j/lity.1997.1.issue-2/lity.1997.1.2.123/…

Damkerng T.

16:59

Hah, without nouns either!

I wonder how they would call things in Tongan.

Providing that they don't have any nouns and verbs.

My assumption: every language must have a noun. If a language claims that it doesn't have any nouns, there must be something equivalent to nouns.

StoneyB

They want 30€ to read it; but it looks like the argument is that Tongan has a distinction which is orthogonal to the traditional noun/verb distinction.

Damkerng T.

Tongan has articles, too. Three, even!

Indefinite, definite, and semi-definite.

The Tongan language distinguishes 3 numbers: singular, dual, and plural; and 4 persons: First person exclusive, first person inclusive, second person and third person.

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. A, the, some?

Damkerng T.

> - indefinite ha. Example: ko ha pālangi ('a white person', or any other person from somewhere other than Tonga)
- semi-definite (h)e. Example: ko e pālangi ('the white person' in the sense that the person does not belong to some other race, but still rather 'a white person' if there are several of them)
- definite (h)e with the shifted ultimate stress. Example: ko e pālangí ('the white person', that particular person there and no one else).

This makes pālangi sound like a noun to me.

StoneyB

But no copula, so a noun could also act as a predicator?

Damkerng T.

17:08

Hmm... Perhaps. I can't find copula being mentioned there.

Anonymous

I don't think Tongan has a copula

Damkerng T.

(I'm reading en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_language.)

StoneyB

I think Aristotle put adjectives and verbs in the same class ...

Damkerng T.

As an aside, my language (Thai) uses copulas sparingly, too.

@StoneyB That's very interesting!

(For example, we don't need the be (is) in "The sky is blue." We can just say [sky blue].)

Anonymous

> Tongan does not have a copula verb. Adjectival and nominal predicates appear in a position immediately following a tense marker. The subject is marked by the ABS case marker. In other words, sentences with an adjectival or nominal predicate are of an identical form as the intransitive verbal construction. (Ergativity in Tongan, chapter 3)

Anonymous

17:13

Parts of speech are controversial in Tongan, I think

Anonymous

But I think there are people who assume that noun and verb are linguistic universals

Damkerng T.

I'm rather sure about noun, but not very sure about verb.

Anonymous

And so the only real problem is to identify the classes in each language you'd like to apply these labels to

Anonymous

Given that assumption, I mean.

Damkerng T.

nods

I still can remember that line: a noun is a person, place, or thing.

Anonymous

17:16

Yeah. It would be better to say "A person, place, or thing is typically a noun"

Anonymous

That is, we can use this "person, place, or thing" guideline to identify which word class we want to stick the label "noun" on

Anonymous

It doesn't mean we actually expect it to be a satisfactory semantic definition of "noun"

Anonymous

Since any semantic definition of a word class will fail on the edge cases.

Anonymous

But we don't need to worry about the edge cases when deciding which class to call "noun".

Anonymous

It is pretty clear which one we want to call "noun" in English, at least :-)

Damkerng T.

17:17

In Thai too.

StoneyB

Color absence greenness thought dormancy fury.

Damkerng T.

I think it's rather safe to say that it's the same in Mandarin and Japanese too.

@StoneyB Hah!

Anonymous

It's not so clear in Japanese.

Anonymous

Not everyone agrees about what a noun is in Japanese.

Anonymous

Nor an adjective, nor a verb.

Damkerng T.

17:18

Oh! Only on the edge cases, I guess.

Anonymous

Japanese has two major word classes that you could call adjectives.

Anonymous

One is kind of noun-like, and one is kind of verb-like

Anonymous

On top of that, it has verbal nouns. :-)

Damkerng T.

Now, is a verbal noun a noun or a verb, or both?

Anonymous

Well, it's pretty safe to call it a noun.

Anonymous

17:20

But it has verbal attributes. It's semantically verb-like, and it can be used as a verb-like predicator (although you can posit the omission of a light verb)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Come to think of it, several words in English are ambiguous too.

Anonymous

Well, the word classes I just described are pretty big.

Damkerng T.

Words like, look, walk, run, sit, hit, etc.

Anonymous

English and Japanese word classes need to be defined differently.

Anonymous

In Japanese, there are very strong morphological motivations for defining word classes.

Anonymous

17:22

Every single verb ends in -(r)u

StoneyB

Like Latin.

Anonymous

And like Latin, Japanese has a rather well-developed case system.

Anonymous

And fairly free word order.

StoneyB

Clitic prepositions?

Anonymous

In Japanese, you can usually tell what class a word belongs to by looking at it out of context.

Anonymous

17:23

Not like in English: "Have a look" "Look at it"

Anonymous

To use your example, Damkerng

Anonymous

@StoneyB Except in Japanese they're postpositions

Damkerng T.

Hee.

StoneyB

Locatives, then

Anonymous

Huddleston & Pullum argue that we should use preposition without respect to position, treating the pre- in the word as a matter of etymology

Anonymous

17:25

But they're pretty much the only ones. :-)

Anonymous

At least among those who work with Japanese, postposition is far more common

Anonymous

I like adposition, but almost no one uses it.

StoneyB

@snailboat Latin grammarians put adjectives and nouns in the same category, because they decline similarly and adjectives can act as nouns.

Damkerng T.

I think postposition (the term) is also not widely used in English.

Anonymous

(And then you have the confusion of trying to explain to someone the difference between apposition and adposition, both of which have ad-)

Anonymous

17:26

@DamkerngT. That's 'cause English doesn't have many things you could call postpositions. Maybe ago and the like

Anonymous

@StoneyB Ah, I remember that

Anonymous

Adjective isn't one of the classical parts of speech.

Anonymous

Meanwhile, Japanese has two morphologically distinct categories of adjectives :-)

StoneyB

Right: there were adjective nouns and substantive nouns.

Anonymous

People who try to work out Universal Stuff have taken all sorts of approaches to try to rationalize the Japanese adjectives

StoneyB

17:29

Morphologically distinct at the 'base' or in the inflections?

Anonymous

The inflections, although there are patterns in the way the bases are formed that are different

Anonymous

Some people lump them into the verb and and noun categories, which they're morphologically similar to.

Anonymous

Then you have to be content with calling the latter nouns even though they can't be subjects or objects

StoneyB

Latin likewise: three adj declensions corresponding to three of (4? 5?) noun declensions.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat A noun that can't be either a subject or an object! What good is it for, then?

Anonymous

17:33

@DamkerngT. Well, they describe stuff! ;-) The Japanese word for adjective means "describing word"

StoneyB

Attributives.

Damkerng T.

Somehow I'm feeling like I like my ESL (Entity-Specifier-Linker) grammar even more than ever! :-)

Anonymous

Jul 27 at 16:14, by Damkerng T.

I think I might try to promote my ESL grammar some day.

Anonymous

Has that day come? :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe. Some day. Just some day. :-)

The concept of ESL grammar would fail if there is a language that has not a thing in it.

Anonymous

17:42

I don't worry about universality.

Anonymous

It's nice to recognize that there are patterns in the world's languages.

Anonymous

It doesn't mean they all have to have the same things, though :-)

Damkerng T.

I think ESL strips things down to the bare bones. Or at least I hope so.

StoneyB

If it accounts for English modals I'll buy in.

Damkerng T.

English modals would be specifiers. :D

(They hint (in other words, specify) the modality.)

StoneyB

17:50

Sorta determiners for verbs?

Damkerng T.

In English, I would lump nouns and pronouns together as entities. Verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are specifiers.

Determiners and articles are specifiers, too.

StoneyB

Sounds very Aristotelian.

Damkerng T.

By all means, I don't really want it to be pedagogical, I just think it could be a good idea for beginners to grasp the concept of sentence/utterance structure.

Hah! I haven't read his classification before.

StoneyB

I haven't read it since grad school 40 years ago.

Anonymous

2

Q: Why is "UFO" pronounced as if it were a word?

In English, "UFO" (Unidentified flying object) is generally pronounced with each letter being pronounced. By contrast, I've read in my textbook that in Japanese, "UFO" is pronounced "ユーフォー". Is there any particular reason for the difference in pronunciation, such as one of the letters being har...

pronunciation

Anonymous

18:03

I think this question is interesting from an English-speaking perspective

Damkerng T.

Oh, strange. Macmillan has only /ˌju ef ˈoʊ/.

Anonymous

How often do you think you've heard the run-together pronunciation?

Damkerng T.

Maybe 20% of the time.

I remember that it struck me as weird the first few times. Then it's not as weird anymore.

Anonymous

I edited my answer to add a line:

Anonymous

> Certainly I think everyone can agree that the most basic pronunciation in English is as you say, "with each letter being pronounced".

Anonymous

18:15

Hopefully that seems reasonable :-)

Damkerng T.

I think I can agree with that. :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sometimes I hear people talk about setting goals.

Anonymous

They say learners shouldn't set unrealistic goals like "I want to be the same as a native speaker"

Anonymous

I've never really had any goals

Anonymous

I just sort of do stuff :-)

Damkerng T.

18:18

Hah!

Anonymous

It makes me worry. Am I seventeen years overdue on setting some goals?

Anonymous

I did set a language learning goal a couple years ago. And then I accomplished it, and I've been goal-less since :-)

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if we can really be the same as a native speaker.

Anonymous

Maybe that counts.

Anonymous

Certainly native speakers are unlike one another.

Damkerng T.

18:19

@snailboat Hah!

I mean, I can't find anyone who started learning a L2 later in life and absolutely no one can tell that he or she is not a native speaker.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's much easier to find people who pass for native speakers online than in person.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I often hear learners of Japanese talking about people not being able to tell they're non-native over the phone.

Damkerng T.

I've heard that some people can tell the other's dialect on phone by just hearing their Hello!

Anonymous

I don't really know why that's a thing.

Anonymous

18:22

But the people who concern themselves with this sort of thing tend to be less advanced students, in my experience

Anonymous

I speak my own language funny. :-)

Anonymous

Even after a fair amount of speech therapy.

Damkerng T.

I'm sure I sound funnier than you in English. :)

Anonymous

You sound like a newscaster!

Damkerng T.

Ah, thanks! You're kind. :)

Wait, was that a compliment?

I thought it was a compliment, now I'm not so sure. :D

@snailboat I guess it is most likely because of the phone or the other was kind.

Anonymous

18:27

Haha! It was not an insult! When I heard you, you were reading the news, and your reading seemed appropriate to the task :-)

StoneyB

My high school French teacher told me I spoke French with a strong Alsatian accent.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Phew! :D

@StoneyB I think French sounds a bit different.

StoneyB

Apparently my French sounded a bit different!

Damkerng T.

Hehe. I couldn't tell that because I haven't heard your French. One thing I'm certain is that your French is way better than mine.

One word I had to learn quick when I was in Paris was Sortie. :D

StoneyB

Exit? Party?

Damkerng T.

18:34

Exit. Of course.

Anonymous

in Japanese Language, 1 min ago, by 3 to 5 business days

Do you know who uses the /ˈjuːfoʊ/ pronunciation?

Anonymous

What a difficult question! :-)

Damkerng T.

Their metro is like a labyrinth.

@snailboat Oh, I'm sure I heard it sometimes on History Channel, but which program, I'm not sure.

StoneyB

I've actually never been on a subway.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB That could save you a lot of headaches. :D

By the way, I got into Louvre for free!

StoneyB

18:37

Ha-ha!

Damkerng T.

Because I wasted lots of time finding my way out of the labyrinth, so I got there very late, and it was less than two hours before the closing time. So they allowed me to get in for free. :D

Anonymous

I was too quick to assume that /ˈjuːfoʊ/ was a reduced pronunciation. It's very easy for me to imagine it that way

Anonymous

But I should properly research it :-)

Anonymous

So I removed my answer for the time being

Damkerng T.

Well, see if I can find it on my Internet TV. I can watch my cable TV on iPad now!

StoneyB

18:40

I once got into a free concert from the Vienna Choir Boys at the Hofburg.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I haven't been to Austria.

Must be nice there.

StoneyB

@snailboat I betcha the Germans say /u:fo:/.

@DamkerngT. I was there when I was ?12? Lifechanging for a boy from Alabama.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Quite likely. I'm not very sure now. I shouldn't trust my memory too much. :D

Anonymous

Ah! My answer was dead wrong!

Damkerng T.

Hah! How so?

Anonymous

18:50

It was the original pronunciation.

Anonymous

That means it wasn't (at least historically) reduced.

Anonymous

I edited it. :-)

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Anonymous

I'm a misinformation factory.

StoneyB

Willie Wonka and ... no, that's not quite right. pondering

Damkerng T.

18:53

Umpa Lumpa, or whatever sounds like that. :-)

Anonymous

> The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short."

Damkerng T.

Oh, Yoo-foe is rather clear.

But admittedly, I think I've heard it pronounced as U-F-O way more often.

Anonymous

It's still very easy for me to imagine it as a reduced pronunciation.

Damkerng T.

I'm now confused about the new rules.

Anonymous

As pointed out by oerkelens' meta post?

Damkerng T.

19:02

Should quoting example sentences from the web be treated as plagiarism?

Yes.

:17487289 Very strange. I think I thought confused, why my fingers typed confusing?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I've had this problem in speech before.

Anonymous

:-)

Damkerng T.

I think it's a sign that my energy is getting low. :)

StoneyB

@snailboat Makes sense. US military are big on true acronyms: sinkpack, defcon, radar.

Anonymous

19:32

@StoneyB Wow! Sinkpack doesn't look like an acronym.

Anonymous

21:12

@DamkerngT. I responded

StoneyB

21:23

@snailboat CINCPAC: Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Command.

(Now superseded, I have just learned, by Commander, U.S. Pacific Command (CDRUSPACOM), prolly seadruspacom.

Cerberus

21:35

Sweet baby Jesus.

TheIntern

Just saw that meta post about correctly citing links... Until today I haven't seen that format very much on a lot of questions and answers, does that mean they're all going to get deleted??

Manish Giri

Wow. What a hammering one gets when you try to be helpful.

As if the existing SE rules weren't enough, now you gotta name the author(s) of the cited material too.

I'd like to see how answers from first-time posters are dealt with, henceforth.

Anonymous

@ManishGiri I think the author of the meta post is deliberately using your answer to attack the policy

Manish Giri

Yes, agreed 101%.

Anonymous

I don't think he seriously believes your answer should be removed

Anonymous

21:47

And of course neither do I

Anonymous

. . . although his edit looks a bit excessive.

Anonymous

We're not writing academic papers here :-)

Manish Giri

My point precisely.

I'm wondering if he even took a look at some of my previous answers on ELL or ELU, before deeming my answer sub-standard.

Anonymous

I think I'll remove my meta answer. It seems I've stepped in the middle of something I don't want to be in

Anonymous

@ManishGiri I don't think he believes your answer is sub-standard

Anonymous

21:51

I mean, unless I missed something.

Manish Giri

I might remove my answer even, the point of contention.

Anonymous

I think the point of contention is the policy

Anonymous

I think he's trying to interpret it as strictly as possible to convince people that it's silly

Anonymous

oerkelens is quite often uncooperative

Anonymous

Please don't take the meta post or the edit personally.

Manish Giri

21:54

Yes, it shows!

At this point I'm wondering if he will personally make it a point to ensure that all present and future answers adhere to the new standards.

Anonymous

I doubt it, since I doubt he believes the policy is a good idea

Manish Giri

Or, I'm the only one who got the short end of the stick.

Anonymous

You can mostly ignore his meta post and edit. They don't really matter.

Anonymous

You certainly don't need to be upset over it.

Anonymous

He's just having fun playing at forum politics.

Anonymous

21:57

I'm sorry to hear that you took it personally.

Manish Giri

Thank You. I'm very happy to see someone who begs to differ from his interpretations of the forum policies.

Somewhat restores my faith in humanity!

Anonymous

2

Q: "New attribution rules"

User oerkelens edited one of my answers, with the comment "Saved good answer from potential deletion on sight under the new attribution rules". I had not heard of any new attribution rules, and went looking. But insofar as I found them, I don't see how they apply. I wasn't quoting from a source...

discussion attribution

Anonymous

I think he's deliberately stirring up controversy by misinterpreting the policy in order to try to get it, or at least its interpretation, changed.

Anonymous

I hadn't seen the discussions on ELU meta

Anonymous

So I didn't realize what was going on.

Manish Giri

22:02

"I think he's deliberately stirring up controversy by misinterpreting the policy in order to try to get it, or at least its interpretation, changed."- absolutely spot on.

I wonder what he'll get out of all this, anyway.

I thought perhaps it'd be a good idea to personally mark him in a comment whenever a answer now on doesn't adhere to what he thinks are the forum standards. But then that would simply be cold-blooded vengeance, and I'm not stooping to that level.

Anonymous

I'm sorry to hear the edit and meta discussion troubled you so much. I'm sorry if my meta answer contributed to that.

Anonymous

(I've removed it.)

Manish Giri

You're fine! In fact, had it not been for your answer, I'd have perhaps made it a point to refrain from posting answers henceforth on ELU and ELL. I might still do that, but the point is, I am now crystal clear on what certain members of the forum are unto.

*upto.

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