English Language Learners

Anonymous

22:00

@DamkerngT. A thousand years ago, we had another dozen or so forms... :-)

Anonymous

→ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_grammar#Anomalous_verbs

Anonymous

English used to have separate subjunctive verb forms

Damkerng T.

Oh! I guessed only a few, not a dozen!

Anonymous

They're all gone now, though

Damkerng T.

Found it!

3

Q: What purpose does third-person verb conjugation serve or used to serve?

There is one thing in English that doesn't make sense to me: adding 's' (or 'es') to verbs when the subject is a third person. It seems redundant and adds no extra information to the sentence. "I like cakes", but "he likes cakes" --> 's' serves no purpose here. In other European languages, there...

Anonymous

22:05

Language has lots of redundancy

Anonymous

I'm guessing from your name that you're Japanese, in which case, I might ask: what's the point of different stems that serve no real function in Japanese—why not just say 持ちない instead of 持たない? — Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 8 at 22:06

Anonymous

That seems like the wrong question to me

Anonymous

The multiple stems analysis results from linguists in previous centuries not being able to divide below the kana level, so mot-anai was broken down into mota-nai

Anonymous

But of course every language does have redundancy

Damkerng T.

nods -- And it would sound odd even when we mutated a familiar expression only just a bit.

Anonymous

22:11

Like for example, the negative polite form in Japanese eventually settled on ありませんでした

Damkerng T.

I remember this in Thai: ใจกลางเมือง vs. กลางใจเมือง

Anonymous

That contains the polite ～ます and the polite ～です, for no apparent reason

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Uh-huh?

Damkerng T.

ใจ ~ heart, กลาง ~ middle, เมือง ~ city. ใจกลางเมือง ~ heart of the city

Anonymous

Hehe!

Damkerng T.

22:13

Somehow I made an error (yes, in my own language!) saying กลางใจเมือง and my aunt was frowny. :-)

Anonymous

By the way, if you say stuff like "gets all frowny", you're going to end up sounding like me, which some people might say is undesirable :-)

Damkerng T.

I guess most people wouldn't noticed it.

Anonymous

Though, feel free!

Anonymous

I just feel it's my duty to warn you when I say funny stuff.

Anonymous

Or stuff funny. Some sort of funny-stuff combination.

Damkerng T.

22:15

I think I'll be okay frowny-ish. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. What error did you make?

Damkerng T.

I swapped [heart] and [middle].

Anonymous

Oh!

Damkerng T.

Instead of saying ใจกลางเมือง [heart-middle-city], I said กลางใจเมือง [middle-heart-city].

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I make errors in English. Everyone makes errors, thankfully, so I can fall back on that as an excuse, but it can still be embarrassing from time to time :-)

Anonymous

22:16

But I don't mind much unless I manage to somehow say something horribly embarrassing by accident

Anonymous

Which happens, I suppose.

Damkerng T.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the first who says กลางใจเมือง. :-)

user116848

When you write frowny, do you frown for real, or is it just a remark here?

user116848

I mean snail :-)

Anonymous

Um, sometimes I'm actually frowning. It's usually not a very serious frown, though

user116848

22:18

Oh

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Say, did I tell you about the word 御御御付 (o-mi-o-tsuke)?

Anonymous

It's a word for miso soup (not the usual word, which would just be miso shiru 'miso soup')

Damkerng T.

Maybe not, or else I just simply can't remember.

Anonymous

A polite word

Anonymous

Well, in Japanese, there are a few honorific prefixes

Anonymous

22:19

o- and go- are the most common.

Damkerng T.

(The Kanji looks pretty dense!)

Anonymous

There's also mi- and on-

Anonymous

Usually you only put one honorific prefix on a given word.

Anonymous

There are rare spots where you find two of them together

Anonymous

But in that word, you have three in a row!

Anonymous

22:21

o-, mi-, and o- are all honorific prefixes!

Anonymous

That's why the first kanji is repeated three times... :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

Is it redundant? Well, yeah, probably. But it's a word.

Damkerng T.

nods -- [heart] and [middle] are sort of like that.

And it's usually [heart-middle-city], but [middle-heart-someone]. :-)

Anonymous

Oh! :-)

Damkerng T.

22:23

See, it's easy to get confused!

Anonymous

I bet.

Anonymous

I get confused pretty easily, you know.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

Here's something that confused me today, years after I first learned it:

Anonymous

挟 and 狭

Anonymous

22:24

They look pretty similar, right?

Damkerng T.

nods -- Indeed!

Anonymous

Well, 挟 is used to write 挟む, the verb hasamu

Anonymous

And 狭 is used to write 狭間, the word hazama

Damkerng T.

Oh, they almost sound the same.

Anonymous

And the characters look very similar.

Anonymous

22:25

It's confusing! :-)

Damkerng T.

Google Translate: 挟む狭間 ~ Hazama sandwiching!

Anonymous

I don't see any reason why they couldn't just simplify those into a single character.

Anonymous

Haha.

Anonymous

But the Japanese government is no longer doing much in the way of simplifications

Anonymous

Actually, in 2010, they added about 200 more characters to the official list.

Damkerng T.

22:26

Oh, they added more!

Anonymous

Yuh-huh. Used to be 1945 you were s'posed to learn, at least in theory

Anonymous

Now it's 2136!

Anonymous

But no one really learns that exact list :-)

Damkerng T.

I bet someone would!

Anonymous

Everyone can read a lot of kanji that aren't on that list, and there are kanji on the list that you almost never encounter

Anonymous

22:27

@DamkerngT. Well, my point is that you'd have to be very insulated from the language to learn only those characters

Anonymous

You can certainly do it

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Indeed!

Anonymous

But I question the ability of anyone to learn to read fluently without significant language exposure

Damkerng T.

They could read them incorrectly.

Anonymous

A common method for learning Japanese starts by memorizing English names for 2000 kanji

Anonymous

22:29

This always seemed rather strange to me

Damkerng T.

English names?

Anonymous

Yes, they memorize them without learning any Japanese, or rather, before they learn any Japanese

Damkerng T.

Isn't that like more work?

I suppose that some people would think that it works.

Anonymous

So when they see 冷蔵庫, instead of reading it as れいぞうこ and knowing that means 'refrigerator', they see 'cool storehouse warehouse'

Anonymous

And then they can try to guess what it means

Damkerng T.

22:31

Ahh... They remember the glosses.

Anonymous

And when they see 弁護士, instead of reading it as べんごし and knowing that means 'lawyer', they see 'valve safeguard gentleman'

Anonymous

I've never been convinced that this is useful, but lots of people think it is, so they put months into it :-)

Damkerng T.

"valve safeguard gentleman" sounds like a curious gentleman!

Anonymous

I know, right? :-)

Damkerng T.

Yup!

Anonymous

22:32

The English names are amusing.

user116848

When I have to ask a question that might sound a bit direct or abrupt, what's the good way to ask it?

user116848

With "say" etc. ? Or are there other good choices?

Anonymous

"I hope you don't mind my asking, but..." ← Something like that?

Damkerng T.

If you hadn't said laywer, I'd've thought some kind of plumber already!

Anonymous

What sort of question do you mean?

user116848

22:34

Yeah, like I one I asked you above.

user116848

It seemed a bit abrupt, right? Or was it okay?

user116848

I mean without "smiley" it might look odd.

Anonymous

@Farooq This one?

user116848

Yes :-)

Anonymous

I dunno. It seemed fine the way it was

Damkerng T.

22:35

still trying to figure out which one... -- Ahh... nvm

user116848

@DamkerngT. "frowny" one :)

user116848

@snailboat Okay, thanks. I thought I'd confirm it.

Anonymous

Sometimes I throw in transition words more or less at random, like "Hey," or "By the way," or "Say," or "Out of curiosity,", or maybe a combination like "Say, out of curiosity, ..."

user116848

nods

user116848

They look quite helpful. I'll note them down.

user116848

22:38

Usually I have a habit of saying without using these words :)

user116848

So, when the other person ask "Why are you asking?" then it becomes awkward :-)

Anonymous

I use a lot of them, but that's just me. I feel like they help keep things feeling conversational

user116848

nods - True.

Anonymous

Since when you talk to people in person you use discourse markers for all sorts of things, like floor-taking, concession, face-saving, etc.

user116848

Yes, chat is quite different.

user116848

22:41

Many misunderstandings arise in communication.

Anonymous

But if you type in chat as though you're talking out loud, it makes things feel more conversational, even if some of those devices aren't strictly necessary

user116848

nods

Anonymous

It's really difficult for me to effectively describe that sort of thing, so lists like the one I gave you above are about the best I can do :-)

user116848

Sure, thanks. More than enough.

user116848

I usually type like I am talking to someone I know. But it may seem rude.

user116848

22:45

I don't know. Sometimes maybe.

user116848

*it may seem

user215721

23:10

Hi everyone,

I had a question suited for chat.

Is this sentence correct? :
This field is expected to """reach its peak of interest""" among researchers in the future.

It would be a great help if you could answer this, I'm in a horry

Damkerng T.

Sounds okay to me.

user215721

But Google didn't return any results for this, so I doubted

Is there any alternatives to it?

Damkerng T.

Probably, "lose interest".

user116848

@user215721 If you want: "This field will be common among researchers in the future"

user116848

It sounds more concise and simple.

user116848

23:18

Your sentence seems okay too.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Interesting, I don't think of "peak of interest" as a good thing.

user116848

Yeah, it looks odd somehow.

Damkerng T.

Literally, it could be a good thing, though.

user215721

How about asking people on English.SE chat? many are currently there

2

Damkerng T.

shrug

If you take it as a good thing, "become popular" is another phrase you can use.

Meaning first, words later, grammar last.

user215721

23:22

The problem is that, it is popular now, but will reach the peak of its popularity in the future.

Damkerng T.

And once it reached its peak, there would be nothing but the downfall.

user215721

Many thanks for your help, I asked people at English chat too.

user116848

Welcome!

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