English Language Learners

Anonymous

8:15 AM

@DamkerngT Does this ping work? :-)

Anonymous

I'm not sure if DamkerngT has been in the ELL chat before.

Anonymous

Let's see...

Ice Girl

11:04 AM

@snailboat What?

Anonymous

11:28 AM

Hello!

Damkerng T.

4:09 PM

@snailboat Hello.

The ping didn't work. I haven't got any notification. Just took a peek here and saw that you pinged me.

I don't know if you are still hanging around. Anyway, you can leave a message. I will come back and take look every once in a while. ;)

Anonymous

5:35 PM

Oh, hello!

Anonymous

I was just curious about your technique for learning the sounds of other languages.

Damkerng T.

Hi

@snailboat In what way that you was curious?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, when I first messaged you, all you had written was "It breaks the ice!"

Damkerng T.

What I meant was that it breaks all my prior beliefs.

Anonymous

You're trying to get out of recognizing the phonemes of your native tongue, and instead get to recognizing individual phones in a language-neutral sense, is what you're saying?

Damkerng T.

5:44 PM

Exactly! Before my real breakthrough, just like everybody else, I really believed that it's impossible to attain a near native listening skill.

Not to mention that I've never lived or studied in native English speaking before.

(I mean any English speaking country.)

Anonymous

Ah, I had figured you left the word "countries" out of the sentence :-)

Damkerng T.

My fingers fumble quite often enough. :)

Anonymous

Well, if you consider yourself a student of English, you're certainly a very advanced one

Anonymous

Mine, too.

Anonymous

I wish you could edit comments for longer than five minutes.

Anonymous

5:46 PM

I often emit sequences of ungrammatical English ;-)

Damkerng T.

Didto!

See. I meant ditto!

Anonymous

I can at least fix it when I do it in answers.

Anonymous

Hee.

Damkerng T.

Actually, I totally changed all my listening and speaking within only three weeks, about a year and a half ago.

Anonymous

Oh, yeah?

Damkerng T.

5:48 PM

Yes, but I imagine that not many people will be willing to push themselves through the process I did.

Anonymous

(Another bad habit of mine: I've never been able to train myself out of inserting too many commas into my sentences.)

Anonymous

What process is that?

Damkerng T.

I tried many things, experimenting with myself, and I got something which is actually quite easy. Just imitate someone as close as you can.

Anonymous

Ahh

Anonymous

Are you familiar with the concept of "shadowing"?

Damkerng T.

5:50 PM

No, never heard of it.

What is it?

Anonymous

It's supposed to be a similar technique, where you listen to audio in your L2 language and try to repeat it back as you're listening, exactly as you hear it

Damkerng T.

Oh! That's really close.

Anonymous

And you can repeat it once you know what it's saying, so you can say it literally at the same time

Anonymous

That's the language learning technique known as shadowing.

Damkerng T.

I still remember I said "I sleep upside down suspended in a bat-like harness." about several hundred times...

I copied that line from Tom Cruise.

Anonymous

5:51 PM

Oh yeah? What movie is that from?

Damkerng T.

Just something from YouTube.

Anonymous

Oh, I see!

Damkerng T.

Perhaps the top 10 weirdest things you say about Tom Cruise.

Anonymous

Well, it's certainly pretty weird.

Damkerng T.

I didn't remember the exact title, but it was on a talk show.

Which is exactly why I can still remember it.

It's kind of time-tables for me. (I don't know you have to rote 2x2 = 4, 2x3 = 6, 2x4 = 8, ... in US?)

Anonymous

5:54 PM

I do recall reading that according to certain theories, being able to produce sounds is closely related to your ability to understand them

Anonymous

We do have to memorize times tables, yes.

Damkerng T.

I think it's really close. Because if someone asked me what's 8 times 9, I could tell the answer immediately, without having to give a real thought on it.

Anonymous

You've practiced it to the point of automaticity, in other words.

Damkerng T.

That three weeks (and several weird phrases) gave me that.

Yes

Anonymous

We overpractice the heck out of a lot of aspects of our native languages

Anonymous

5:55 PM

Until they're entirely or almost entirely automatic

Damkerng T.

All I can say that that three weeks is worth about two decades of my earlier English learning.

Anonymous

How long have you been studying (or otherwise learning) English, then?

Damkerng T.

Everybody in Thailand has to learn English since first grade.

Anonymous

Oh, I see!

Damkerng T.

But I would say that it's a wrong kind of English.

Anonymous

5:58 PM

It sounds like how English is taught in Japanese schools then, perhaps

Damkerng T.

Even in my senior year at university, I couldn't speak well in a meeting.

Perhaps.

Anonymous

Let me characterize it briefly, and you can tell me if it's similar or different:

Anonymous

In Japanese schools, English is taught, but using the Japanese writing system and using the sounds of Japanese

Damkerng T.

Yes, it's the same

Anonymous

And although students all "speak" to some extent in school, it's primarily . . .

Anonymous

5:59 PM

Well, I would say it's focused on reading comprehension

Anonymous

But to a certain extent, it's more like "decoding" the language

Damkerng T.

Exactly, we were taught to try to understand the text before we can pronounce them right.

Most Thais will pronounce "table" as taBLE. Think about it.

Anonymous

So even though English education is required for all students in Japan, few learn to speak the language

Damkerng T.

It's the same here too.

Anonymous

Some linguists who write about language pedagogy insist that students should begin with the spoken language first, before anything else

Anonymous

6:01 PM

With learning to speak properly and to listen to people speaking naturally

Damkerng T.

Well, that's quite right. But I will insist that students should being with listening first, before anything else.

Anonymous

One of the theories put forth is that you use the same part of your brain for production as you do for listening, so being able to produce the sounds of the language properly will help you with understanding as well

Anonymous

I think I just simplified that beyond correctness, though :-)

Damkerng T.

Through my work, I had to speak. And after two decades past, before that three weeks, I have to confess that I can't catch everything the anchors in the news said.

I think it's a kind of positive feedback.

Anonymous

Yeah, I can see that

Damkerng T.

6:03 PM

Speaking (well pronouncing) correctly will help listening, and vice versa.

Anonymous

Just as an aside, as a native speaker, I can't catch 100% of what everyone says either.

Damkerng T.

I aimed at a realistic goal, about 95%.

Anonymous

Enough that you can fill in the blanks when you miss something, generally speaking

Damkerng T.

(I tested myself with my own first language, and that's about the fair amount to say.)

Anonymous

Another language pedagogy idea is cloze deletion--are you familiar with that?

Anonymous

6:05 PM

It's something I've always been too lazy to do, and I always wonder if it's effective

Damkerng T.

Nope. Is that the correct spelling "cloze"?

Anonymous

It is. I don't know why it's spelled that way.

Anonymous

It's basically just a fancy name for a fill-in-the-blank test. You're given some context, and some words are blanked out, and you're expected to know what goes in those blanks

Damkerng T.

Just glance over Google.

Anonymous

The same way native speakers can nearly all come up with the same words to fill in a blank in many contexts

Damkerng T.

6:06 PM

Oh! Thank you. It's different from what I've thought.

Perhaps the technique emphasizes on collocates.

Anonymous

Some students (probably better students than me!) devise their own cloze tests to practice calling forth certain things from memory, so they can produce phrases more reliably--I think

Anonymous

To be honest, my own language learning is pretty haphazard.

Damkerng T.

Quite interesting. I believe it's useful too.

What language are you learning?

Anonymous

Mainly Japanese.

Anonymous

I also spent some years studying French, and I learned the basics of half a dozen other languages over the years

Damkerng T.

6:09 PM

Wow! Half a dozen is impressive!

Anonymous

I've been learning Japanese for about sixteen years, although I wouldn't claim to be particularly good at it :-)

Damkerng T.

Perhaps you might want to go back to listening/speaking once again. ;)

Anonymous

Oh, well, that's my focus!

Anonymous

I can handle reading pretty well :-)

Anonymous

But in my mind, when I read, it all turns into sound.

Damkerng T.

6:12 PM

Back to my "Ulili E" for breaking the ice. I used it without knowing if it would do anything good. But as it turned out, it's kind of adding another whole new dimension in my hearing.

Anonymous

Have you studied phonology, formally or otherwise? I saw your answer about the schwa.

Damkerng T.

I tried to counteract my two-decade habits of reading English from books in a wrong way. It keeps getting better everyday, even though I didn't push it too much.

Anonymous

How did you read them?

Damkerng T.

I didn't. Mostly self-taught.

Anonymous

Were the sounds in your head wrong?

Damkerng T.

6:14 PM

After I changed the way I speak aloud, I still found myself slipped back to my mother tongue (read "table" as "taBLE") too often.

Anonymous

I had a major problem with my haphazard way of learning Japanese. I didn't learn the proper pitch accent for words as I learned them--I didn't learn to hear them properly in my head or to say them properly, so I had to re-learn words I'd already learned

Damkerng T.

So yes, my inner voice is still not as solid as I want.

Ah, I see. The pitch thing is perhaps something unfamiliar for many Westerners.

Anonymous

Words in Japanese have phonemic pitch drops in specific spots, and besides that they have certain natural pitch contours associated with phrasings, particles, and so on

Anonymous

The pitch contours aren't considered phonemic, but they're still pretty important.

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure, but I think Japanese is not a tonal language.

Anonymous

6:16 PM

It is generally not considered a tonal language

Anonymous

However, it's a sorta tonal language. :-)

Damkerng T.

^^

Anonymous

It's a "pitch accent" language, often described as having high and low pitch

Anonymous

You have to memorize where the pitch falls within each word. (Some words don't have a pitch drop.)

Damkerng T.

Did you try "shadowing" with Japanese?

Anonymous

6:17 PM

So for example, you can distinguish the words haSHI and HAshi

Anonymous

Yeah, a little! :-)

Anonymous

I was thinking I should try it some more.

Anonymous

Anything to force the sounds through my meager little brain.

Damkerng T.

Have you ever studied in Japan? or you learned Japanese in US?

Anonymous

Oh, I've never taken classes anywhere

Anonymous

6:19 PM

But I've mostly lived in the US

Anonymous

I used to work on a project that wasn't very popular in the US, but it took off in Japan, so I ended up working with Japanese coworkers :-)

Damkerng T.

Gaming? or maybe animation?

Anonymous

Oh, that was a programming thing.

Damkerng T.

I see. I've heard that Japanese has a very different style for their software development.

Anonymous

Unfortunately, I used to work a lot of hours each week, enough that I didn't have a lot of free time to study, apart from actually using the language

Damkerng T.

6:23 PM

I think it's quite different, using and learning.

Anonymous

Well, we started the project in the US--we were always more seat-of-our-pants, while the Japanese team was more conservative

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I though Japanese might say the opposite.

Anonymous

To a certain extent, I started "fossilizing"--getting into habits of repeating the same language mistakes I'd learned, instead of correcting them

Anonymous

Sometimes pretty basic mistakes, too.

Damkerng T.

I did that with my English all the time.

But actually, I notice that my English has improved somewhat since I've been here (ELL).

Anonymous

6:26 PM

Oh, really?

Anonymous

How long's that been, anyway?

Damkerng T.

Nearly one month, up to now.

Anonymous

When you type here, when you read, when you chat, do you hear everything in your head? Are you saying it mentally?

Damkerng T.

If I read too fast or type too fast, the sound will be muted. But when I go at my normal rate, I usually read it mentally too.

For example, if I type "Thank you very much," perhaps there is no sound.

Anonymous

Maybe you've practiced that to the point where it's automatic, and you don't really need to think about it.

Damkerng T.

6:29 PM

But when I want to say something, I usually do it exactly the same way I would speak, but just use my fingers instead.

Anonymous

Although to be honest, I don't think I'm that polite very often. How often do I actually say something like "Thank you very much"? Hmm...

Damkerng T.

So mentally, I say it in my head, and type it with my fingers simultaneously.

I do that all the time (thank you very much), unless I'm sure that I and s/he are close enough.

Usually, my inner voice will come first, maybe less than half-a-second, before my fingers actually start typing that words.

Anonymous

I try to type like I'd talk, at least most of the time. Especially in English--sometimes I get confused when I'm typing Japanese

Anonymous

I think the problem is this: if I try to say something more complicated than fits in my head at one time, I get confused.

Damkerng T.

Me too.

Anonymous

6:33 PM

Same thing when I'm reading--if I read a complex sentence slowly and don't get all of it in my head at the same time, sometimes I get lost.

Anonymous

But if I push myself to read through at a decent pace, I often understand better, simply because I have it all in my head at one time.

Anonymous

At least, that's the best explanation I've come up with :-)

Damkerng T.

I believe that that is a better way to read for adults, but not for learning a second language.

Anonymous

Oh, maybe.

Damkerng T.

When reading papers, I usually found myself not actually read the paper. It's more like glancing through them, and when I spot something I really am interested, I will dig it.

Anonymous

6:35 PM

There are some theories that say you should understand a certain percent of what you're reading without much effort (I've heard 95-98%), so that you can pick up the remaining bits from context, or look up the few things you need to without getting frustrated

Damkerng T.

(I meant "in" not "it".)

Anonymous

You can edit your chat messages

Anonymous

(If you'd like.)

Anonymous

I use a lot of different reading strategies in English, often not reading end-to-end

Damkerng T.

Oh! I see.

Anonymous

6:36 PM

You're probably familiar with some of the common ones--

Anonymous

--like for example, a lot of English is written with the idea that "topic sentences" come first in each paragraph, and when it is, you can read (or partially read) that sentence to get an idea of whether reading the whole paragraph is worth your time

Anonymous

That's one useful form of skimming

Damkerng T.

I guess I can say that I skim a lot. :-)

Anonymous

Sometimes when I'm reading linguistics papers in Japanese, I find myself skimming by looking through the examples for something interesting and relevant, or skipping over whole sections that seem less interesting

Damkerng T.

I do that too. I believe that I skim a lot in both Thai and English.

Anonymous

6:39 PM

I worry sometimes when I'm skimming, because sometimes I do it so much I don't even realize that I'm doing it

Anonymous

Sometimes I answer a question on Stack Exchange, only to realize I didn't actually read enough of the question ;-)

Anonymous

Sometimes I think my reading comprehension skills aren't so great, simply because I'm too impatient.

Damkerng T.

That's exactly what happened to me perhaps at least in five questions already. (Shame on me.) :-)

Anonymous

Aww, this question got closed!

Anonymous

4

Q: as small as a world and as large as alone

From a poem maggie and milly and molly and may written by E.E. Cummings May came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. What do as small as a world and as large as alone mean? Are they phrases? Why is a world small and alone large?

Damkerng T.

6:42 PM

Huh?

Anonymous

I can understand why, but I liked it.

Damkerng T.

The accepted answer has got 6 votes!

Anonymous

Although sometimes I use Stack Exchange as an excuse to talk about topics, chattering in chat or comments, and so forth--ways Stack Exchange is not really designed to be used

Anonymous

In theory, the magic is supposed to happen in questions and answers, not in comments.

Anonymous

And chat is supposed to be distinctly nonmagical.

Damkerng T.

6:44 PM

I usually found reading comments useful.

Anonymous

I think on ELL, there are a lot of opportunities to make helpful comments that aren't necessarily answers.

Damkerng T.

I also commented a lot, especially when I thought I knew something but not the whole answer.

Anonymous

Writing a complete some vs any answer is difficult.

Anonymous

Learner has just taken away my only excuse not to do so. Now I'm left with laziness :-)

Damkerng T.

I understand. I didn't even dare to post an answer to that question. Quite sure I will make too many mistakes.

Anonymous

6:49 PM

Well, I think the basic difference is that some implies an affirmation presumption of some sort that any does not

Anonymous

Both words have multiple uses--in its central use, any is a negative polarity item, so it only appears in non-affirmative contexts like interrogatives and negatives

Anonymous

But some also appears in interrogatives

Anonymous

And they differ in several subtle ways, such as formality

Damkerng T.

Yes, but I think learner wanted something very precise with the response to both questions (asking with some, and asking with any).

He (she?) seems to already know about the basic use of some and any.

Anonymous

Well, you can approach the answer from either side.

Anonymous

6:53 PM

I always like to explain principles behind why something is the way it is, so that the answer can apply more generally

Anonymous

I don't have to.

Anonymous

Sometimes I don't.

Anonymous

Sometimes explaining general principles is hard.

Anonymous

I did look this up in Quirk's grammar as well as in Swan's book, which I think actually bases its explanation on Quirk's

Anonymous

(It acknowledges it in the front cover, along with Huddleston & Pullum)

Damkerng T.

6:54 PM

So for example, It's possible to answer Did you go somewhere interesting at the weekend? (he used at) with No, I didn't go anywhere interesting. Am I right?

Anonymous

Sure.

Anonymous

Although it'd be over the weekend in my idiolect.

Anonymous

I think on is strange when referring to an activity that took place over the last weekend. I'm curious whether that's true of at as well

Anonymous

I don't know--I'm not a native speaker of British English, and I haven't quite got the hang of this at business.

Damkerng T.

I usually drop the preposition entirely, e.g. Have you been somewhere interesting last weekend?

Anonymous

6:57 PM

As I said, I think both questions are possible. And I think that answer works for either of them

Anonymous

I think last weekend is subtly different from over the weekend

Damkerng T.

Yes, over the weekend is not something I'm familiar with.

I mean I understand it, but it's unlikely for me to say it first.

Anonymous

The weekend in the past tense is the weekend that took place over the last few days. Last weekend might be the weekend before that--it's ill-defined

Damkerng T.

Ah! I've got that problem too.

Anonymous

Kind of like next weekend could mean this weekend, or it could mean the one after.

Damkerng T.

6:59 PM

My Danish friend corrected me quite too often.

Anonymous

There's also this coming weekend :-)

Damkerng T.

For example, on Friday, I might say We talked about this already this Tuesday. and he said It's not this Tuesday yet. (Friday is better. Wednesday is a bad example.)

Anonymous

Yeah, this Tuesday does feel kind of next week-y. I wouldn't go so far as to call it wrong, though.

Anonymous

I actually think native speakers use these terms differently and confuse each other with them on a regular basis.

Anonymous

That's why we end up adding extra specifiers like this coming weekend, and so on.

Damkerng T.

7:03 PM

That's a good tip. Thanks.

Anonymous

Sometimes it comes down to saying the day of the month or pointing at a calendar, in my experience :-)

Damkerng T.

I guess you're right. It's easier to check with each other in face-to-face communication. But emails is another story.

(Could I say that: emails is another story?)

Anonymous

Well, I'd say emails are.

Anonymous

Or email is. Either one.

Anonymous

Most of the time, as you know, the subject and verb agree in number.

Damkerng T.

7:06 PM

Emails are another story, sounds weird in my first language sense.

But I think that's the way it is.

Anonymous

Notional agreement shows up most commonly with collective nouns (particularly but not exclusively in BrE) and with measure expressions (in both BrE and AmE)

Anonymous

(Notional agreement can be the same as grammatical agreement if, for example, the subject is both grammatically and notionally singular)

Damkerng T.

I mean, it's kind of like you are saying: 1+1 = 1.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hmm?

Damkerng T.

For example, His email and my email are another story.

I've seen many non-native speakers struggle with this (I myself too, sometimes), seeing it at (his email: 1) + (my email: 1) are? (another story: 1). --> 1+1 == 1.

Anonymous

7:10 PM

Ah, because you expect the verb to agree with the predicative complement

Damkerng T.

I know it must be funny for native speakers.

Anonymous

Hmm. Maybe. I mean, it confuses native speakers sometimes too when the things on both sides of the copula don't have the same number

Damkerng T.

I think that famous question: there is/there are an apple and two bananas is a good example of this confusion.

Anonymous

That's different--it's an existential construction and an example of language change

Damkerng T.

I kind of know that, but my old self still scream "that doesn't make any sense" sometimes. (I mean Those emails are another story, which is the correct usage.)

Anonymous

7:14 PM

In [ His email and my email ] are [ another story ], you've got two thingies on either side of the copula, and the one on the left is clearly a subject

Anonymous

In an existential construction, there's the traditional analysis and the modern analysis. (Well, it's not as clear-cut as falling into those two categories, but...)

Damkerng T.

I think there's, it's are kind of tricky. I think of them as exceptions.

Anonymous

They are exceptions.

Anonymous

I typed up Quirk's argument for there as subject in existential constructions the other day: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/12625326#12625326

Damkerng T.

Thanks for the link!

It's kind of late now. I think I need something to drink. :)

Anonymous

7:18 PM

Ah!

Anonymous

Good luck!

Damkerng T.

Thank you. This is a very nice chat! Let's have some more chats again soon. Actually, I will be around here for a couple of hours tonight, I guess.

It seems like someone at EL&U like my "die-hard" answer. ^^

Anonymous

Which answer was that? You mean your most recent?

Transcript for

English Language Learners