English Language Learners

Anonymous

05:00

@Arrowfar The old system is when everyone gained a year on the same day

Anonymous

That is what is no longer used

Anonymous

And in that system

Damkerng T.

Ah, so Chinese system is a bit different. It's more like the common system plus one year.

user116848

@snailboat So, it means they used to calculate it from the conception, right?

Anonymous

The starting age was reckoned based on when you were conceived, so plus 9-10 months

Anonymous

05:01

So depending on when you were born, you could be either 1 or 2 years older in the traditional system

Damkerng T.

@snailboat One year older makes sense, but two years?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You don't just add a year

Anonymous

Hmm, there should be a good explanation online

Damkerng T.

Ah, I see. One extra year, and one year older every new year.

user116848

Yeah, two years older doesn't make sense. Unless it is of Elephant's.

Anonymous

05:03

Well

Anonymous

Imagine if you are born 1, and then on the new year you gain a year

Anonymous

So now you're 2

Anonymous

But you haven't hit your first birthday yet . . .

Anonymous

So in western terms, you could be a few weeks old

Anonymous

See how that works?

user116848

05:05

Yeah it does. But Damk's question seemed valid to me.

user116848

> One year older makes sense, but two years?

user116848

I get it now

Damkerng T.

Damkerng got himself out of the problem with "One extra year, and one year older every new year." :-)

user116848

:-)

user116848

It is 26 degrees here (Celsius)

user116848

05:07

Hot!

Damkerng T.

That's very cozy for me. :-)

user116848

Yeah, it is okay though.

user116848

I mean in Summers it used to be very very hot!!!!

user116848

I usually stay inside.

user116848

but when I go outside I melt like an ice.

user116848

05:08

Yuck.

user116848

I should say something pleasant now, I guess.

Anonymous

It's 10℃ here

Damkerng T.

Think Frozen!

user116848

@snailboat Lucky! :D

Anonymous

Oh, lucky :-)

Anonymous

05:10

I thought Lucy was some reference I didn't get!

user116848

@snailboat Yeah, it was a scary typo.

user116848

lol

Anonymous

Lucy!!

user116848

Who is she? lol

Anonymous

►

Damkerng T.

05:12

> I don't know why, but I always love the idea of summer, and sun, and all of hot!

user116848

@DamkerngT. I wish I was like you too!

Damkerng T.

Kristof said so! youtube.com/watch?v=UFatVn1hP3o

user116848

I always think about cold cold weather!

user116848

@DamkerngT. Oh, him. I didn't notice the quotes

Anonymous

That show really belongs to another era

user62015

05:14

Hi!

Damkerng T.

@user62015 Hi!

user116848

Hi

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I wonder if they really sounded different or it's because of the sound recording.

user62015

I have a question which I have already asked but I need to understand it again.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. English pronunciation has changed over the last 62 years.

Anonymous

05:15

It's noticeable.

user62015

I am on a mobile so please forgive my typo mistakes.

Anonymous

But yes, the recording is completely different from anything people would do in 2014

Anonymous

Both in terms of the equipment and recording technique

Anonymous

You can tell what decade it was recorded by listening

Damkerng T.

Oh!

That's cool! -- I'm not sure if I really can.

Anonymous

05:18

Well, you should be able to place it approximately.

Damkerng T.

nods -- For me, it's probably just "old", "new", "it used to be this (between new and old)", and "really old".

Anonymous

You don't need to nail it down to the year, but you're probably aware of some differences in the way recordings from different eras sound.

Anonymous

I know a guitarist who refuses to listen to anything from the 70s or earlier because he can't stand the "quality"

Anonymous

Drives me nuts.

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

user62015

05:20

From a novel "his cigarette dangling from his lips" my question is that let's say I don't tell you more details then how can you tell me the tense in the sentence. I know the writter is talking in the past tense. So I want to understand that sometimes writters don't mention helping verbs as readers know by the stories which tense is going on or something else the reason behind this? As there is no helping verb.

Damkerng T.

@user62015 I think nobody can.

Anonymous

It's non-finite. There is no tense.

Anonymous

> He was standing there, his cigarette dangling from his lips.

Anonymous

> He's standing there, his cigarette dangling from his lips.

Anonymous

We can place the dangling in time by looking at the main clause tense

user62015

05:22

But should there be or is it something else?

Anonymous

But the phrase itself has no tense

user62015

So I think we are on the same page?

Damkerng T.

The tense in the main clause will tell you when the dangling happens (or happened or will happen or would happen or would have happened).

user62015

Okay.

I agree. I was thing the same.

Thinking*

I think, I am done. May I leave or is there something else which I should know?

Damkerng T.

It seems like you already have the right idea. I don't know what to add. :-)

user62015

05:29

Thank you so much! I appreciate you guys.

Keep it up 👍

Damkerng T.

You're welcome! Happy learning!

Anonymous

05:45

0

Q: what are the Basic Phrasal verbs for beginners

I want to learn Phrasal verbs from starting, please help me. Thanking you.

phrase-usage

Anonymous

I guess someone could sort them by frequency order...?

Anonymous

I don't know of a frequency analysis of phrasal verbs, though someone's probably done one

Anonymous

academia.edu/1997596/… ←　p.475 has some results of a study on academic English

Damkerng T.

I guess there must be such a list somewhere on the web.

Anonymous

The most frequent in their list is set up

Anonymous

05:49

p.476

Anonymous

set up, set out, base on, carry out, draw up, focus on, lay down, put forward, open up, depend on, make up, report on, find out, call on, move around, take up, follow up, work on, break down, build on, agree on

Damkerng T.

Oh! I think come on is likely to be the first one most learners learn.

Anonymous

Yep, academic English :-)

Damkerng T.

Then, maybe make up.

Oh, I'm sure that pick it up and put it down are very common.

Anonymous

I'm not terribly impressed with the lists I've found so far apart from that one, and although that one seems good it's probably not the right list for learners

Anonymous

05:52

Hah

Anonymous

A web-based study found that sign up was the most common . . . ;-)

Anonymous

fedcsis.org/proceedings/2008/pliks/97.pdf

Damkerng T.

Oh, I guess sign up is very common nowadays! Probably along with log in, on, off.

Anonymous

Well, it's very common on websites!

Anonymous

I'm still looking for a relevant study

Damkerng T.

05:54

Frankly, to me, most phrasal verbs have meanings that make quite perfect sense.

I guess most learners should be able to guess the meanings of about 80% of these verbs.

I'm sure that nobody will question why it's stand up or sit down.

But when phrasal verbs are tricky, they can be really tricky!

Anonymous

How about stand down and sit up? :-)

Anonymous

They probably make sense if you know what they mean.

Damkerng T.

What!?

Anonymous

But they could be confusing if you don't

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see. It sounds odd out of context.

Anonymous

05:59

Well, I bet you never considered them next to stand up and sit down before :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah! Maybe what I was thinking of is like this: Most phrasal verbs are easy to demonstrate. Like, showing what sit down means by sitting down.

@snailboat Indeed!

But there are a handful of them that I think are difficult to demonstrate.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Think over? :-)

Damkerng T.

Yeah!

How can we show thinking over by demonstration!?

I don't know if anyone has ever come up with a complete list of English phrasal verbs. I guess someone might have already done it.

But wait!

> I want to learn Phrasal verbs from starting, please help me.

They might not want to have a list. It might be about "What is a phrasal verb?".

Anonymous

It's not really doable since new phrasal verbs can be coined, and the line between compositional and noncompositional is not as clear as we'd like

Damkerng T.

06:29

0

Q: I had report police

Context: I sent money to buy second hand iphone 5s from　him　but he just whatsapp me the picture of DHL receipt and told me he that he already sent out the parcel. I tracked　the tracking number but HASN'T RECORDED. I completely　called him but never answer.He continue to sells iphone at ...

grammar

The suggested edit edited a lot of things in the OP's passage!

Anonymous

Hmm!

Anonymous

By the way, I couldn't find anything better using academic search tools than searching on Google for phrasal verb frequency

Damkerng T.

Though it could make more sense, I think it's not a very good idea to edit that.

Anonymous

I suppose you're right

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Can we search the frequencies on Google?

Anonymous

06:31

@DamkerngT. I was searching for frequency lists

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

This isn't directly relevant but it's tangentially so, and interesting: aclweb.org/anthology/D/D13/D13-1060.pdf

Anonymous

I read that A Frequency Dictionary of Contemporary American English has a list of the most common phrasal verbs

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Anonymous

books.google.com/books/about/…

Anonymous

06:34

Mark Davies runs the BYU corpus site!

Damkerng T.

Oh, that's why his name sounds familiar!

Anonymous

He created COCA.

Anonymous

His site also presents interfaces to corpora other people created

Anonymous

I don't have that book.

Damkerng T.

Me either!

Anonymous

06:37

And Google won't show me pages inside of it.

Damkerng T.

But I have Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Too bad that they didn't provide a list of the most common ones.

(Admittedly, I've never used it! I'm sorry, my dear book!)

Anonymous

I have phrasal verb dictionaries on my 電子辞書

Damkerng T.

But it has this interesting section: Particle Indexes, which lists phrasal verbs according to particles rather than verbs!

It's still not very slim. The section is 45 pages long.

But it's much shorter than the rest of the dictionary, which is about 450 pages long, excluding this section.

I think these 45 pages would be useful, if someone wanted to get down and learn all commonly known phrasal verbs of English.

Damkerng T.

07:07

Oh! The suggested edit which heavily edits the OP passage was approved by one of our robo-reviewers!

ell.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/13296

Anonymous

07:32

You can revert it!

Anonymous

Any time I see an edit I don't think should've gone through, I revert it

Damkerng T.

Oh, we can revert it?!

Anonymous

Yes, click the edit history

Anonymous

Find the revision you want to roll it back to

Anonymous

Click "rollback"

Damkerng T.

07:35

Oh, the suggested edit editor just suggested another edit!

oerkelens has already answered the question, so maybe I'd better leave it as is.

In any case, I'm pretty sure that the sense of have to hadn't occurred to the OP, not until they saw the edit, given that they've already seen the edit.

But it would be useful for the OP to know all the suggested alternatives.

Anonymous

07:50

Hey, my book on Japanese onomatopoeia has a bibliography, and it cites some books on English sound symbolism and such

Anonymous

And it has one web page cited! I'm going to type it in...

Anonymous

epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/300/ktaylor/kaboom/Kaboomhome.htm

Anonymous

> A Dictionary of Comicbook Words on Historical Principles

2

Anonymous

> Based on the Latest Conclusions of the Most Dubious Wordologists & Comprising Many Hundreds of New Words which Modern Literature, Science & Philosophy have Neglected to Acknowledge as True, Proper & Useful Terms & Which Have Never Before Been Published in Any Lexicon

Anonymous

Oh god, it's a webpage from 1997! :-)

Anonymous

07:52

It looks it, too

Anonymous

This is a very amusing dictionary.

Damkerng T.

> A Dictionary of Comicbook Words on Historical Principles!

Anonymous

> UUUUUUUUUUUUUNNN... see UHHNNNNN...

Damkerng T.

That sounds like the original name of the OED!

Anonymous

Yes! :-)

Damkerng T.

07:55

Hey, this is really neat!

I think I will have a few uses of it!

Anonymous

Yay! I'm glad you'll have a few uses for it!

Damkerng T.

When StoneyB wrote Bazookas the other day, I tried to think of Ka-BOOM and somehow I couldn't came up with it!

> KA-BOOOMM see KA-BOOM
KA-BOOOMMMM see KA-BOOM
KA-BOOOOM see Ka-BOOM

They're synonymous!

> KA POKK also KA-POKK also KA-POKK!POKK [Detective Comics vol.47 #529, 1983] The sound of an exploding spray canister

Neat!

> KEKK [Dare Devil: The Man Without Fear vol.1 #2, 1993] The sound of a foot hitting and tripping over an object

A lot of mysteries solved!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It would be troubling if they weren't . . . :-)

Damkerng T.

> OW [The Adventures of Tintin: Explorers on the Moon, 1954] also OOWW [2099 Unlimited vol.1 #4, 1993] also OWW [Ripley's Believe It Or Not: True Ghost Stories #53, 1975] also OWWW [X-Factor vol.1 #84, 1992] also OWWWW [Avengers West Coast Annual vol.2 #8, 1993] A cry of pain
OWW see OW
OWWW see OW
OWWWW see OW

Another set of synonyms!

Anonymous

09:02

I wonder if KA-BOOOMMMM might be a bit of a bassier, rumblier KA-BOOOOM

Damkerng T.

Hah, you mean they come in different tones!

Anonymous

shrug :-)

Damkerng T.

I really enjoy TV News on Archive.org.

Anonymous

I don't know if anyone else would have the same impression as me

Anonymous

Yay!

Damkerng T.

09:05

It makes me feel like I'm sitting on top of everything happening around the world!

Really useful as up-to-date info and as a corpus!

By the way, I find that I'm almost not able to understand some lines in The Heat because they censored almost the entire lines!

Anonymous

Eep!

Anonymous

What's The Heat?

Damkerng T.

It's a movie.

Anonymous

It sounds like The Shield or The Wire or one of those

Damkerng T.

Exactly, but this one is about two female cops!

Anonymous

09:08

Ah! Is it good?

Damkerng T.

It's quite good, but it comes with a lot of f, s, c, and a words!

They didn't censor some of the a-(hole) words.

Anonymous

That's quite a few letters!

Anonymous

A colorful movie.

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

So, I heard they say "What the -- is this?" or "What the--?" or "-- Christmas" very often, which is really weird.

When it happens too often, I think it's very distracting!

And their censor technique is so neat. It sounds like the actors just made a short pause in place of those words!

Wow, it made its way into the chart!

> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

The f-word happens 158 times in 117 minutes. That's 1.35 words a minute!

Anonymous

When I was young, this scene of this movie was on TV: youtube.com/watch?v=PNcDI_uBGUo

Anonymous

09:19

But it was censored!

Damkerng T.

Oh, Spaceballs!

Anonymous

But they didn't put in short pauses

Anonymous

They replaced it with moron!

Damkerng T.

Major A-hole!

Theoretically, they shouldn't have to censor any of these words, because presumably everyone who owns the cable TV set-top box is legally adult, and there is a settable password to protect our minors to watch undesirable programs. But practically, I guess that nobody bothers with the password.

So kids and adults can access anything on any channels, equally.

Anonymous

In the US, I think there's been a trend toward less censorship of taboo speech

Anonymous

09:25

I don't really know what the FCC rules are right now

Anonymous

I never really did, though

Damkerng T.

:-)

I don't know those rules of our censorship recommendations around here exactly, either.

I remember it's more like recommendations than regulations.

And all operators will need to make their own judgements.

So sometimes what they censored or not censored made a headline.

Anonymous

Oh really?

Damkerng T.

Yes. Once, a teen committed suicide imitating what she had seen the night before on TV. This one is probably the most controversial.

Another was when a young lady took her top off and painted a canvas with her body on the most popular got talent show.

Things could go international in some cases! news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7199886.stm

Damkerng T.

09:44

Hello @VISHWANATH!

Anonymous

Unfortunately, users with less than 20 reputation can't type in chat

Damkerng T.

Wow, I followed bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/…. I tried Childhood, and the dialogues sound really different from the English I'm familiar with! Definitely BrE.

Anonymous

"Where were born" is a typo

Anonymous

If you listen to the second conversation, you can hear some examples of pronoun repetition during speech planning that didn't make it into the transcript

Damkerng T.

Ah, I didn't try it yet.

Oh, .ram!

Basically .ram files don't work on my machine.

Anonymous

10:01

> VICKI: So, Callum, your upbringing, the way your parents brought you up, wasn't too strict?
> CALLUM: Well, I was always told to be polite and―and have respect and so on, but they―they tried to let me make my own mistakes, I―I think it was because they wanted me to be able to stand up for myself.
> VICKI: Well, yes, being able to stand up for yourself, being independent and confident, is important!

Anonymous

Yeah, mine either

Anonymous

Grab the file and extract the RTSP URI from it

Anonymous

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/specials/funky/prog1conversa‌tion2.rm?BBC-UID=d5b424092fcd36c6eeaa7757819f7f5a37ad9cc68020e134c49f4416f3ca591a‌_n&SSO2-UID=

Damkerng T.

The RTSP is the real problem. I'm behind a proxy.

Anonymous

Well, chat made no attempt at recognizing that it was RTSP

Damkerng T.

10:02

Hmm... Maybe I can use a SOCKS proxy.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. A proxy shouldn't be a problem for outgoing RTSP

Anonymous

Unless you're having your connectivity unwillingly filtered by a third party

Damkerng T.

It's just an HTTP/S proxy.

Anonymous

Oh, I see

Anonymous

That sort of proxy

Anonymous

10:05

So you'd need to tunnel?

Damkerng T.

I've never tried VLC on a SOCKS proxy before.

Does it work with a SOCKS proxy?

It looks like it doesn't. Never mind that.

Oh, I think I can hear it on my iPad.

Oh, iPad doesn't play either .ram or RTSP.

Anonymous

Hmmph. tsocks doesn't seem to work very well anymore

Anonymous

It's s'posed to transparently SOCKSify network access by replacing some system calls that access the network

Anonymous

I was going to tell you to tsocks mplayer or something :-)

Anonymous

But now I'm not sure what to suggest

Anonymous

10:13

I'll just mirror it :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, I can listen to it now, via a weird detour.

Anonymous

When you first said proxy, I was confused because I mixed up NATs and proxies

Anonymous

Stupid brain.

Damkerng T.

I have MPlayer capturing the stream on another machine, converting it to .WAV.

Anonymous

Yay!

Damkerng T.

10:15

I heard a double-I once, and a double-we!

Anonymous

There was a double and, too! :-)

Damkerng T.

The female voice sounds so familiar!

Anonymous

I listened to the first recording and to the second recording

Anonymous

In the first one, the word you was missing

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

10:18

In the second one I heard that interesting doubling

Damkerng T.

The one I listened to was the second one!

I'm downloading the first one.

Oh, I see there are 4 clips, not just two!

Anonymous

I didn't make it that far! :-)

Anonymous

I'm preoccupied at the moment

Anonymous

Let me know if there's anything else interesting!

Damkerng T.

I think she said, "And do you get on well with them?"

Damkerng T.

10:50

0

Q: appear + noun vs appear as + noun

Are they both right? What are the similarities and differences? Also, what's this phenomenon called? I exemplify with design as the noun, but please feel free to cite better examples. Source: p 116, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey ..., Volume 8, By James Anthony Froude The Que...

difference conjunctions

The problem is relatively easy: the first example reads "It appears (that) [noun predicate]", and this confuses the OP.

But I'm too lazy to write anything, because I don't want to explain more than that (which I think it's likely that they would ask for more explanation if I posted a comment).

Anonymous

11:44

@DamkerngT. Well, that is what is going on. But it's strange.

Anonymous

This isn't the same English we speak today

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

Oh, wait.

Anonymous

I misread what you wrote.

Anonymous

Boy, I really have my brain on backwards tonight, don't I?

Anonymous

11:46

@DamkerngT. It looks like appear is taking a noun as a predicative complement

Anonymous

Not a that-phrase with that elided

Anonymous

Well, noun phrase.

Damkerng T.

Hah! Now I'm confused!

My quick glance at first sight allowed two possibilities: a that-clause, and an invisible comma.

Both require whatever after it appears to be a clause.

The problem is I didn't really read that long clause to make sure that it is really a clause.

> ; so as while in the outward face it appears [ a design to conciliate these two Queens and countries by a per-petual amity, in the unwrapping thereof there be not found any other intention but to compass at my Sove-reign's hands a kingdom and a crown, which if sought for may be sooner lost than gotten, and not being craved ] may be as soon offered as reason can require.

Anonymous

The noun phrase is [a design to conciliate these two Queens and countries by a perpetual amity]

Anonymous

If you inserted to be, it wouldn't change anything

Damkerng T.

11:54

> ; so as while in the outward face it appears [ a design to conciliate these two Queens and countries by a perpetual amity ] , in the unwrapping thereof there be not found any other intention but to compass at my Sovereign's hands [ a kingdom and a crown, which if sought for may be sooner lost than gotten, and not being craved may be as soon offered as reason can require ].

Hmm...

That's possible, if "it appears" accepted a noun complement back then.

Anonymous

This is archaic.

Anonymous

A lot about it is archaic.

Anonymous

It's 450 years old.

Anonymous

The sentence wouldn't be remotely grammatical in the English we speak today

Anonymous

Not to mention the archaic vocabulary

Damkerng T.

12:00

Quite possibly. I believe that people in the old days (in general, not only English) used nested constructions less than we do nowadays.

So even though it's a really long sentence, it should be easier to be chopped up into smaller pieces.

Anonymous

The long-term trend in English is toward shorter sentences.

Anonymous

A few hundred years ago, written sentences tended to be about twice as long

Damkerng T.

Yes, but less nested, I believe.

Anonymous

I haven't read any studies about that

Damkerng T.

It's just my speculation. :-)

@snailboat Oh, that was in Shakespeare's period!

Anonymous

12:06

Yes, Early Modern English

Anonymous

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (sometimes spelt Burleigh), KG (13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598) was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–1553 and 1558–1572) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. He was the founder of the Cecil dynasty which has produced many politicians including two Prime Ministers. == Early life == Cecil was born in Bourne, Lincolnshire, in 1520, the son of Richard Cecil, owner of the Burghley estate (near Stamford, Lincolnshire), and his wife, Jane Heckington. Pedigrees, elaborated by Cecil himself...

Damkerng T.

> Trash generated by units should be taken directly to and placed in the trash chutes or physically brought to the basement trash compacting area.
How can I understand above relative clauses as beginner at #2 ?
http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/37795/how-can-i-understand-above-relative-clauses-2

It sounds like they are asking how to parse the sentence.

Anonymous

> On one level it appears [a simple matter].

Anonymous

There's an example from Biber et al. (the corpus-based grammar)

Anonymous

In Modern English

Anonymous

12:14

However, they note it is quite rare

Anonymous

More common would be:

Damkerng T.

nods -- It will definitely surprise me when I find one.

Anonymous

> On one level it appears to be a simple matter.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Some linguists say that be is the only "copular verb" and that other verbs taking this type of complementation have a deleted to be

Anonymous

12:16

However, CGEL notes that two of the verbs that fit this pattern, look and sound, the meaning changes somewhat if you insert to be

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

For many verbs a like-phrase is more common (looks like X)

Damkerng T.

I think seem is pretty much the same.

Anonymous

I don't think American English generally has looks X anymore

Anonymous

If we use a somewhat more common example:

Anonymous

12:17

> She appeared (to be) anxious.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... That's the evidence of BrE in me, because looks X sounds perfectly fine to me.

Anonymous

It's okay with and without to be

Anonymous

Without a change in meaning

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Seem takes a NP complement more often

Anonymous

12:18

Though it's still not its most common pattern of usage:

Anonymous

> This seems [a good idea].

Anonymous

More often than appear, I mean.

Anonymous

Less often than some other verbs.

Anonymous

Seem and appear are both most common with to be

Anonymous

I left a comment

Damkerng T.

12:23

Yeah!

Damkerng T.

12:35

I just got another power glitch.

Anonymous

14:54

Oh!

Anonymous

I don't like those.

user116848

Do you guys think I am a whiny help vampire?

user116848

:(

Anonymous

Uh, no?

Anonymous

Did someone call you a whiny help vampire?

user116848

14:57

Um....no? :-)

Anonymous

So what makes you ask?

user116848

I got an example sentence I am a whiny help vampire.

user116848

When I was asking about some grammar

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