English Language Learners

Anonymous

16:00

Well, again, it depends on what you want.

Anonymous

I have the OED at hand and still use other dictionaries pretty often.

Damkerng T.

My vocab size is still about the size of someone 15. :)

Anonymous

There's no real limit to how much vocabulary a person can learn, so it's possible to learn 60,000+ words, but that number is more or less meaningless

Anonymous

People don't actually do that

Damkerng T.

nods -- I bet some people might do that, though.

Anonymous

16:02

And vocabulary is, to a large extent, in how we use the words we know, the phrases we're used to seeing them in, and so forth

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Only people who have memorized the technical jargon of a large number of fields.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I know a lot of jargon, like IHB!

Anonymous

That is, the concept of "knowing a word" isn't really helpful

Anonymous

You have to know how to use a word, have a sense for its shades of meaning and the phrases it appears in, to know when it sounds right or not

Anonymous

And that's not something you can do by memorizing a word off a list

Damkerng T.

16:03

Exactly!

Talking about words...

0

Q: "Across" vs. "over" as adverb

Across as adverb cited from OALD: 1 from one side to the other side It's too wide. We can't swim across. The yard measures about 50 feet across. 2 in a particular direction towards or at somebody/something When my name was called, he looked across at me. 3 across from...

user116848

By coming to SE I have learned that knowing to make good sentence structure is better than knowing a huge amount of words.

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Yeah, very much so.

user116848

And thanks to you guys too for correcting me from time to time :p

Damkerng T.

> Are these adapted sentences idiomatic? Any nuances between them and the original ones?

Anonymous

Oh . . .

Damkerng T.

16:07

I think there should be a rule (I don't mean it as a law) that learners should ask themselves first if they had heard those of their hacks being used somewhere before.

Anonymous

> It's too wide. We can't swim over.　　　　　　　　　　　　←　？
> The yard measures about 50 feet over.　　　　　　　　　←　？？？
> When my name was called, he looked (over) at me.　　　←　ok
> When my name was called, he looked (away) at me. 　　←　？
> There's a school just over our house.　　　　　　　　　　←　hee

Damkerng T.

trying to visualize the last one... :)

Anonymous

1

A: "Across" vs. "over" as adverb

It's too wide. We can't swim over. That's sounds fine to me. The yard measures about 50 feet over. That is OK but sounds very old fashioned. When my name was called, he looked over at me. That's fine for over but you'd need to use looked away from me for away. There's a...

Damkerng T.

Lara Croft, in her diving suit, gesturing to a tunnel under the river, "It's too wide. We can't swim over."

Anonymous

See, here's a native speaker helpfully giving their intuitive judgments

Anonymous

16:12

I like that sort of answer

Anonymous

It doesn't require any technical knowledge

Damkerng T.

I know it could be fun for native speakers. However, I question its usefulness for learners.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That sounds like "We can't swim over it."

Damkerng T.

Ms. Croft might elide it. Hmm... Is it possible?

Anonymous

You can't in general ellipt the object of a preposition although some prepositions can be used intransitively (in traditional grammar, they would be called adverbs in these uses)

Anonymous

16:15

I don't think an intransitive use is available there

Anonymous

But maybe.

Anonymous

You could get someone else's opinion.

Damkerng T.

I'm pretty sure it's a rare thing to say for me. :)

Anonymous

Oh!

Anonymous

2

A: Doesn't pervade = prevail?

The intent of the question seems to be to make you comment directly upon the fact "that inanimate objects are referred to as being gay" rather than to answer using the passage. If you reason directly from the statement in the question then (a) is incorrect because there is no mention of the frequ...

Anonymous

16:19

That's an interesting reinterpretation of connotation

Damkerng T.

Maybe in a right context...

I will admit that I skipped that question.

Anonymous

Instead of com- + notation, they've internalized it as co- + notation! Which is fair since co- and com- are allomorphs

Damkerng T.

I wonder what their L1 is. Probably some European language.

Anonymous

Who?

Damkerng T.

The OP

Anonymous

16:24

I guess I assumed LP was a francophone.

Anonymous

Their Google Books links always have the language set to French, at least.

Anonymous

And their name is French.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

And they participate on French.SE

Anonymous

Oh, but they mostly ask questions there

Damkerng T.

16:25

When I find a learner who has a rather strong grammar and good vocabulary and yet still makes some simple mistakes, I usually feel like they must be a European.

Anonymous

Maybe French is an L2.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

It would be nice if more people wrote what languages they speak on their profiles

Damkerng T.

nods -- I'm sure that will help a lot.

Anonymous

Although you can always write about English in a vacuum, speakers of different L1-L2 pairs face different challenges

Damkerng T.

16:34

Totally agree!

Parth Kohli

@DamkerngT. Hey.

I remember you mentioning a book here.

Do you happen to remember which one it was?

Damkerng T.

16:50

@ParthKohli Hello! I don't know which book you're referring to.

Is it a novel?

Probably, A Farewell to Arms.

Be back soon, 5-10 minutes.

HostileFork

18:44

HostileFork, The Æther

1k 5

grammar meaning vocabulary word-usage word-choice grammaticality usage

Woo. 1k. I don't really remember what that means.

"It was a gamble: would people really take time out of their busy lives to answer other people's questions, for nothing more than fake internet points and bragging rights? It turns out that people will do anything for fake internet points."

Ice Boy

HostileFork

►

Damkerng T.

19:10

@HostileFork Congrats!

@HostileFork I think that misses something important. Frankly, if they don't relate some privileges to points, I probably don't care about points at all.

And I'm sure I'm not thinking along that line alone.

But hey, points are fun, too, I know that.

HostileFork

@DamkerngT. I don't think good ideas should require points to be absorbed. "I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some chihuahuas with some good ideas." - Jack Handey

Damkerng T.

That's very barbaric, I think.

HostileFork

"That" => ?

Damkerng T.

Choosing a king by size.

HostileFork

Right. Well, I've been doing some more cryptocurrency reading and looking at things in that vein. It was interesting to read about the difference between cryptographic assumptions and cryptoeconomic assumptions.

Damkerng T.

19:16

In any case, I have to admit that the point system is really clever. :)

HostileFork

Working in a highly adversarial environment is a challenge, in any case.

Hence we wind up with game theory and trying to square that circle.

But what always troubles me is not the complexity of that mathematical game. I have a pretty fair grasp of balance in systems.

►

Maybe it just feels cold. I remember a moment when I was a kid, fairly young, and was around some other kids and there were cuts of pieces of cake. And I saw how much someone wanted a bigger piece of cake and I just thought "well, it seems to mean more to you than to me" so I let them have the bigger piece. As silly as it may seem, that was a bit of a "revelation".

Damkerng T.

I'm halfway through, and I like it already!

HostileFork

I can understand ideas like attempts at fair cake-cutting algorithms - like "I cut, and then you pick". Then to think about how to make that algorithm fair. "How would N people iteratively divide a cake into N pieces fairly vs just 2 people?"

And we could spiral into the interesting mathematical questions of it forever.

Damkerng T.

Or we could just enjoy the cake together.

HostileFork

Maybe.

Damkerng T.

19:21

Some people always seem to want a bigger cut, though.

HostileFork

Or maybe, the cake is a lie, and that is the FUNNIEST JOKE EVER.

Damkerng T.

Hahaha! So true!

Remind me the second time.

HostileFork

@DamkerngT. The firm that made the video is a French group, they do corporate stuff.

►

Damkerng T.

Do you also have to watch the ad for at least 5 sec before getting to the video on YouTube over there (in the US)?

@HostileFork Nice graphics!

HostileFork

@DamkerngT. Where I am, it is the same, yes. Perhaps just a captcha to see if the mouse moves enough to hit "Skip Ad" :-)

Damkerng T.

19:30

This is weird. I don't get the first two verses of the song!

I thought it might be French, but I'm rather sure that it's English.

I give up! -- Looking for its lyrics on the web...

Oh! -- Oh! -- Got it!

Anonymous

What do you think the lyrics are?

Damkerng T.

Okay, I'll pretend not knowing. Let me transcribe it...

> Gotta make a move to your town spoodie.

Anonymous

Hee.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Pretend takes a to-infinitival complement. "I'll pretend not to know."

Damkerng T.

> Tall to people move and make me move to vincinity!

Anonymous

19:37

I had to listen a couple times to get all the words right

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, thanks!

The rest is fine. :)

Anonymous

> Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me
> Town to keep me movin' keep me groovin' with some energy
> Well I talk about it talk about it talk about it talk about it
> Talk about talk about talk about movin'!

2

Anonymous

That's what I heard

user116848

Cheese crackers

user116848

From Overlook Hotel chat :-)

Damkerng T.

19:39

Oh, cheese and crackers!

user116848

It is crappy, but I wrote it in under 10 mins :D

user116848

Also it is offhand!

user116848

:D

user116848

How is it? Any mistakes?

Damkerng T.

I don't know about mistakes, but somehow it reminds me of having a pizza with anchovies.

user116848

19:41

haha :-)

Damkerng T.

Yeah, and anchovies were eating the pizza! :-)

user116848

Well, then go and have some pizza dude :D

user116848

It is a very appetizing topic

user116848

I feel like having some biscuits myself.

HostileFork

►

(Don't watch that, @snailboat...)

Damkerng T.

19:45

@HostileFork Does that mean, "watch that"?

:-)

HostileFork

I tried to link the original scene at first but it didn't hit the snail part, so I edited.

"The Jerk" is a classic.

Shashank Sawant

How to better say the engine is mostly made up of aluminum?

HostileFork

@ShashankSawant "The engine is mostly aluminum."

Damkerng T.

@HostileFork I think I haven't watched this one.

HostileFork

"The engine is made of mostly aluminum"

Shashank Sawant

19:47

@HostileFork Thanks!

HostileFork

I met some of the founders of crowdflower many years ago. They were big on the idea of quick decentralized Q&A like "translate this sentence". Basically like Amazon Mechanical Turk. They had a different scoring system to try and gauge quality, a bit like the review system here.

They did, for instance, crowdsourced Haitian translation during the 2011 relief efforts.

Damkerng T.

That was nice.

HostileFork

Real time answers are good. In the translation sphere, an interesting story from when I was in high school is this...

I had been given a mix tape of music by a friend, who had fairly eclectic tastes. On the tape was an Enya song... Cursum Perficio. While I know South Park enjoys likening listening to Enya to what it means to be dead, I thought it was kind of cool. I was young.

But it would never have occurred to me that I could in a reasonable amount of time translate the song.

I'd have to go to the <shudder> library or find a Latin teacher or something. Not that I consciously even thought I could answer the question of what the words were. (Though today I can recognize Latin or things trying to sound like Latin)

It was many years later, while playing the piano and realizing I was kind of playing Cursum Perficio that I thought "Oh, darn it, no I've heard that before." Then I thought "What the heck does 'cursum perficio mean anyway'?" And by then I had Internet.

Latin

Cursum perficio.
Verbum sapienti:
quo plus habent,
eo plus cupiunt.
Post nubila, Phoebus
Iternum

English

I finish the course.
A word to the wise:
the more [people] have,
the more they want.
After the clouds, Phoebus

watermark translation notes

Damkerng T.

I always listen to Enya as melodies!

But it was a long time last I listened to her songs.

HostileFork

Well, I'm pointing out the particular interesting point of an untranslated song that goes years without translation... then years later you can instantly look it up... and when you do, what it says is "A word to the wise - the more people have, the more they want."

Damkerng T.

20:01

Nice translation!

I think English has something along that line, like "Give a man power", I can't remember the rest.

HostileFork

I'm a sort of scientist. I got in an argument on parenting.stackexchange with people who were trying to figure out when the age was to tell their kid who still believed in Santa that there was no Santa.

"I lied to you, and I thought you'd have figured out the lie by now... what do I do now when you're too old to be believing it?"

Me: "So your question is 'when should I stop lying to my kids'? How about... don't lie to them? Ask them if they want to hear a story, and offer them your knowledge as best you know it..."

And of course they downvote you because on parenting.stackexchange lying to your kids is cool.

Damkerng T.

LOL

HostileFork

I'm not making this up.

Damkerng T.

I haven't tried the parenting stack before.

HostileFork

Not a parent myself, so I can only speak to the extent of having had parents.

Well, I still do.

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