@MartinAJ I'd pick the second.

Completely.

ah thx

It’s hard for non-native speakers because it requires negative concord.

And either is an NPI.

:-)

ow

Many languages would have neither there, including the Romance ones. Not English.

Other languages like German would have also or too there, but again, not Enlgish.

ah

So that test will ensnare both Romance and Germanic speakers, plus many others, with one of the peculiarities of English.

NPI = negative polarity item

What's your native? @tchrist

My first language is English; I’m also fluent in Spanish. I have some degree of knowledge and/or proficiency at least in reading with all the other Western Romance languages. I disavow any lasting knowledge of German as that is too long ago for me now.

@tchrist oh .. good for you then

where are you living?

Colorado

I studied Spanish, French, and Italian at university, and German and Latin immediately thereafter. I’m a computer programmer.

emm, is that a city? Anyway I didn't hear that already, may you please tell me a bigger scale of your location? for example, US, UK, German or ...

Colorado is a U.S. state in the southern arm of the Rocky Mountains.

ah ..good

how old are you?

Its name is Spanish for “red”, named for the river and rock.

Three and fifty.

@tchrist I see

These things are really all in my profile. :)

@tchrist oh .. you are a middle-man then ..

Oh, I suppose I need to update it.

@tchrist good idea .. I will take a look at your profile :-)

@MartinAJ So they say. I feel late.

:-)

And you?

I think you've told me, but I have the mind of a goldfish, or at least its memory.

well I'm not as old as you are ... I'm just 23 years old

A boy.

And I really don't know English :-(

Presumably.

@tchrist yes

You know it well enough, young enough, that you will do fine by it, I predict.

I hope so

I’m not sure I really learned another language after that. Well, Portuguese perhaps.

actually I can understand lots of English contexts, but I cannot write my point .. I mean I'm weak in writing

@tchrist You know English .. I guess that's enough for everything :-) .. English is the more common language in the world

Really? Writing is the easiest thing in the world. You merely lean over the page...

and wait until blood drips from your forehead.

ok :-)

@MartinAJ In many important senses, yes, it is.

@tchrist isn't "cases" a better alternative for "senses" in here?

So long as I stay in my hemisphere, I will not often find myself somewhere that I cannot understand or make myself understood.

@MartinAJ I meant sense of the word, in this case common.

:-)

@tchrist ah ok

@tchrist Do you have any child ?

I mean "kid"

There are more people who speak Spanish as a first language than who speak English as a first language, but there are more people who speak English as a second language.

or baby

@MartinAJ Not to my knowledge.

@tchrist agreed

And all the Chinese speakers are in Asia.

English is the world language.

@tchrist Ok, what language are you using when you're talking with your parents?

Polite language. :)

@tchrist yes, that's why I'm trying to learn it ... (I cannot though)

@tchrist ha haa

My ancestry is English and Danish, but my father's father was the last to speak Danish as a child. The English side has been on this continent very nearly 400 years now.

@tchrist ah

@WillHunting You know, I never heard "Rubbish" so far

@WillHunting :-) .. where are you living?

The only place in this hemisphere where I’d be clumsy is Suriname, once called Dutch Guiana or the Dutch Guinea. I’m hoping enough of them would speak some sort of pidgin English or pidgin Spanish for me to get a long. It’s not a large place.

@WillHunting really? Rub is a country?

well, your country has a really short name :-) nice

He lives in the Republic of Specific.

Aye there's the Rub.

@tchrist ah

If you search through chat, you will learn where he lives. He’s said it often enough.

@WillHunting Yeah.

Speaking of the Pacific Ocean, have you ever noticed the two ways people syllabify Atlantic?

one of my dreams is talking with a English person .. I never done that before .. but if God willing, I will travel to one of europe countries and find a English person and talk to him :P

Oh, I doubt travel is necessary: there’s always Skype.

@tchrist well I cannot find any English person on Skype .. they won't accept my friend request

@WillHunting why? :-)

Because he does not live in Europe or even England, and there are people all around him who speak English.

Kind of.

@tchrist "him" refers to me?

@MartinAJ No, Jasper.

ah, yes

@tchrist true

@WillHunting I think first of all I need to earn some reputation of SE. In that case, maybe people want to talk with me on Skype

Even the devils of Tasmania speak English, after their own fashion.

Would you look at that? The official coat of arms of Suriname is not in Dutch!

@tchrist It is in Latin

It is.

Juice. Pitas. Fish.

As most of the mottos!

Wait, wrong Latin.

@WillHunting uhum ..!

I thought it was a recipe, silly me.

Justice - Piety - Fidelity

That's one translation, certainly.

Is this sentence correct?

> are you the one who I met her in the first time I was came here?

Fairness, religious duty, faithfulness.

@WillHunting cool!

Nothing, though, about love.

@WillHunting thx

@WillHunting thx

Is there any term to say to a person who is using a glass on his eyes recently?

@MartinAJ I don't know what that means.

@WillHunting Late to the party.

@WillHunting yes yes

@tchrist What are the two ways? I'm only familiar with At-lan-tic, though some merge the second t into the 'n' (flapping?).

ah ok .. thx

@Lawrence Oh well, that isn't flapping when it comes out Atlannic. But I was thinking of how the Spanish say a(t)-lán-ti-co but the Mexicans who speak Nahuatl can say tl- so split it a-tlán-ti-co.

@WillHunting I recommend against that. Spend those pages reading great literature instead, and far more shall you learn.

@WillHunting Unlike say, dictionaries?

Do children’s book contain “very difficult words”?

@WillHunting yay for me then :-)

yay means "huraaa"

@WillHunting abjure, aforetime, agin, askance, assuage, attercop, aumbry, bade, baluster, bebother, belie, besom, byre, cairn, carcanet, champ, chine, clave, coëval, cob, confusticate, coomb, coronal, cozen, cudgel, cumbrous, curdle, damask, dearth, descry, dingle, doggerl, dolven, dromund, urst, ell, etten eyon, fane, fosse, freshet, frith, froward.

@WillHunting gangrel, garn, ghyll, gimlet, glede, guerdon, hallow, hame, hoar, hythe, kine, lappet, lave, lea, louver, mattock, muff, ostler, overweening, parapet, passward, pate, perforce, pinion, postern, provender, puissant, purloin, raiment, recreant, rede, revile, rick, rill, riven, rue, runagate.

@tchrist That's new to me - thanks. I find it interesting that sounds natural in one language can feel near-impossible to pronounce by those used to another. One example I came across recently was that African languages can have consonants pronounced simultaneously.

@WillHunting sallow, salver, scree, shoal, sluggard, sojourn, sooth, spinney, squib, succour, curcoat, sward, swart, swath, tarn, thain, thrawn, throe, throve, thwart, tilth, toothsome, tor, trammels, trapessing, troth, trove, truncheon, turves, tussock, umbel, vambrance, wain, weregild, weskit, wheedle, wile, worrit, writhen.

@WillHunting Do you know all those? They’re from a children’s book.

@tchrist It helps that they provide definitions to go with the difficult words. :)

@Lawrence heh

And the verb wester.

Which is something like the opposite of orient. :)

> confusticate - a nonsense word, probably not intended to have a meaning (though its Latin roots can be interpreted "beat with a cudgel")

Oh, I'm quite certain it was meant to have a meaning.

> Confusticate and bebother these dwarves!

It’s in the OED2.

Even the book that he wrote for his children has plenty of cool words in it.

> Then the elves put thongs on him, and shut him in one of the inmost caves with strong wooden doors, and left him

Oh my. :)

Oxford still have copious notes he made by hand for the OED2, a great many of which were not incorporated for lack of space and cost of printing, but which they are now reviewing for the electronic edition where no such constraints apply.

Which is pretty cool.

Round number.