Language Overflow

Anonymous

12:32 AM

@DamkerngT. In Japan, I think it's common for actors to use varieties of Japanese they don't speak natively (e.g. someone born in Tōkyō playing a character from Ōsaka)

Anonymous

But I can't tell if they're getting it wrong or a little off myself

Damkerng T.

Ah, I can't tell anything at all when it's about Japanese!

Anonymous

My ear for accents in Japanese isn't good enough

Damkerng T.

But I can say that it does usually sound funny (just my subjective feeling, though) when Thai actors do that. :D

Anonymous

1:03 AM

@DamkerngT. Searching online, apparently there's lots of criticism of actors attempting other sorts of Japanese accents :-) Well, I guess that'll happen pretty much anywhere . . .

Anonymous

It's striking, though, how often British actors manage spot-on American accents.

Anonymous

It seems to happen less often in the other direction.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Hah! I guess only some've managed to do so, and it's the same in the other direction.

That Kick-Ass girl sounded great in her British accent, but she was still young.

A-ha! That movie, the one she used a British accent, is Hugo.

Anonymous

I was 12 when I started to learn French and Spanish pronunciation. Well, I was exposed to Spanish before that point.

Anonymous

That's after the age where most people end up having noticeable accents, but I don't think it was too hard for me to get the basic sounds, even if I didn't get them quite perfect.

Damkerng T.

1:07 AM

> youtube.com/watch?v=rt91KOyjyck

Apparently, she was able to pull it off fooling the director. :P

Anonymous

Still, I'm always jealous of people who have a knack for that sort of thing.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Some people are very natural at this!

Anonymous

It's true! I've mentioned my housemate, who is a natural mimic :-)

Anonymous

She can make the sounds of Japanese even though she's never studied Japanese phonetics.

Damkerng T.

Hah! That's really good!

Anonymous

1:11 AM

She just has to hear someone speak, and then she repeats it.

Anonymous

She always notices differences in our American English accents, too.

Anonymous

It's funny that I never notice until she repeats what I say back to me :-)

Damkerng T.

I can tell somewhat and only sometimes, but I can't pinpoint who's from where.

LOL

BTW, an outstander Republican candidate sounds about 90% like Matt Damon to my ear. :-)

Anonymous

Haha.

Damkerng T.

I guess you know who I'm talking about. :-)

So, it's quite interesting that someone from Miami sounds like an actor from Massachusetts to me.

(I also heard that The Martian is a big hit over there right now.)

Anonymous

1:19 AM

I haven't seen that yet, but wasn't the book great? :-)

Damkerng T.

Very! Imagine you've just finished reading a novel, and suddenly your favorite actor is going to play the protagonist in the novel! Wait, that's already happened!

Anonymous

Oh, it was that good, huh? :-) He's your favorite actor?

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes. I think he seems to share some characters with me, at least in his acting.

LOL -- He voiced Koichi in Ponyo, too!

Anonymous

1:51 AM

Oh, I haven't seen the English dub of Ponyo

Anonymous

You know what, though? The dubs of Ghibli films that I've seen have all been really good.

Anonymous

They usually get A-list actors to do the voices.

Anonymous

Really good translations, too. After they translated Princess Mononoke to English, they had Neil Gaiman rewrite it.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat A-ha! Stardust and Coraline. I was sure I'd heard his name before. :-)

(I had to make sure that I spelled his Coraline correctly about three times! What a name!)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Coraline was good! You might like Good Omens, American Gods, or Neverwhere

2

Damkerng T.

2:02 AM

Neverwhere sounds intriguing!

StoneyB

@snailboat British technical training tends to emphasize dialect study far more than American, possibly because British actors are typically called upon to use a much wider range of dialects. And American actors--particularly the actors you see most, TV and film actors--are more likely to be locked young into typecast roles.

Damkerng T.

3:19 AM

0

Q: 'To' or 'For' usage in this context

Which is correct, Obesity can occur whether to male or female, to all ages, race and to the whole ethnic group. or Obesity can occur whether to male or female, for all ages, race and to the whole ethnic group. I personally prefer 'to'. It's kind of 'addressed to'

word-choice

But I like neither!

> Obesity can occur in whether male or female, in all ages, races, and ethnic groups.

Even with that, I think I still like Obesity can be found in ... better.

Anonymous

4:04 AM

@DamkerngT. In whether male or female seems ungrammatical to me.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... that's interesting...

Anonymous

The original doesn't work either.

Damkerng T.

I guess that's why some people choose to write whether in X or Y instead.

Anonymous

"It occurs to me that [clause representing an idea that has popped into my head]"

Anonymous

Occur to is used like that. It isn't used like happen to.

Damkerng T.

4:06 AM

nods

Anonymous

(Although Obesity happens to X and Y might be a little strange, too!)

Anonymous

Also, it's unlikely that an entire ethnic group will become obese, so I don't think that part is what they meant to say, either.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I think they meant any ethnic group.

Anonymous

Flonne is cute, by the way! The character.

Anonymous

She's from a video game.

Anonymous

4:08 AM

Damkerng T.

Cute indeed!

Hmm... that costume looks quite like Miku Hatsune's.

Anonymous

The OP is Flonne :-) I always thought that was an interesting spelling, 'cause in Japanese her name is フロン, but in English it suggests the pronunciation /flɑn/

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see! I was wondering where Flonne was from. :D

Anonymous

She's from 魔界戦記ディスガイア

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You can see her doing her best to assassinate on YouTube! youtube.com/watch?v=UrypLyOnxUY

Damkerng T.

4:14 AM

Oh, another Femme Fatale?

Anonymous

She's really very bad at it.

Anonymous

にんにんにん！　←　The sound a ninja makes :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, I remember that sound! (from Ninja Hattori)

Anonymous

It's a very amusing game :-) The dialogue is, anyway.

Anonymous

I don't really have the patience to play that sort of video game anymore, though.

Damkerng T.

4:23 AM

Does the dialogue come in English too?

Anonymous

I think there's an English version

Anonymous

Oh, here we go!

Anonymous

Disgaea AoD - Episode 2, Enter Flonne

►

Damkerng T.

A-ha! Thanks!

Anonymous

The system I have that game on is Japanese and can't play European or American versions of games

Anonymous

4:26 AM

Her English voice is cute! :-)

Damkerng T.

Those hollow-circle eyes are kinda funny. :P

5:29 "Ohhh, did you have a nightmew?" -- Hee

Nihilist_Frost

4:41 AM

I'm being grounded for not focusing time well on homework

I have so many problems with weekend management,

Damkerng T.

@Nihilist_Frost It sounds more like a good thing. :-)

Anonymous

4:57 AM

Ever heard of timeboxing?

Anonymous

5:54 AM

@DamkerngT. /r/ vocalization in baby talk!

Damkerng T.

7:23 AM

@snailboat That's how many people over here pronounce our funny "email", which would sound like "e-maew", and could be understood as "e-cat". :D

Anonymous

e-meow〜♪

Damkerng T.

:-)

Damkerng T.

7:39 AM

1

Q: How to understand an idiomatic expression?

I am unable to find the difference between the normal sentences and idiomatic expressions.How to understand the idiomatic expressions.

difference idioms idiom-meaning

If I mention "metalinguistic awareness", will I scare them off?

Damkerng T.

8:24 AM

> the basis in personal taste of some prescriptivist writers' judgements

What a noun phrase!

It's hard to get the (rough) meaning wrong, but which word modifies which?

> a) the basis in [ [ personal taste ] of [ some prescriptivist writers' judgements ] ]

> b) the basis in [ [ personal taste of some prescriptivist writers' ] judgements ]

> c) the basis in [ [ personal taste ] of some [ prescriptivist writers' judgements ] ]

> d) [ the basis in [ personal taste ] ] of [ some prescriptivist writers' judgements ]

> e) [ the basis in [ personal taste ] ] of [ some [ prescriptivist writers' judgements ] ]

Any other possible parse left?

Anonymous

Learning an idiom is just like learning that a greenhouse is something other than a green house

Damkerng T.

nods -- So how can someone know that a greenhouse means a greenhouse the first time they run into it?

I don't think our answer is the answer, but it looks like something people want to hear.

I think this Manet could be Édouard Manet. It sounds to me like the second character compare the first character to a seed. It's no use to imitate Manet. Doing that would be like feeding on what someone else had already done. They already swept the ground dry, metaphorically speaking. And a young seed can't grow from such swept dry ground. — Damkerng T. 26 mins ago

It's interesting that changing my mind too many times ended up with the second character compare. :-)

I think this is related to the idiom question.

It's the same problem. The learner knows all the words, but can't understand the meaning of the sentence.

Damkerng T.

11:07 AM

> Broca's area or the Broca area /broʊˈkɑː/ or /ˈbroʊkə/ is a region in the frontal lobe of one hemisphere (usually the left) of the hominid brain with functions linked to speech production.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca's_area

> Wernicke's area - A region of the brain concerned with the comprehension of language, lo. ... of language, located in the cortex of the dominant temporal lobe. Damage in this area causes Wernicke's aphasia, characterized by superficially fluent, grammatical speech but an inability to use or understand more than the most basic nouns and ...
> http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wernicke's-area

It seems like for an average adult, acquiring parts in a second language that seem to be responsible by Wernicke's area is easier than those are handled by Broca's area.

> But people who learn a second language in high school have to acquire new skills for generating the complex speech sounds of the new tongue, which may explain why a second language is harder to learn. Broca's area is already dedicated to the native tongue and so an ancillary Broca's region is created. But Wernicke's area, which handles the simpler semantic aspects of language, can overlap.

> nytimes.com/1997/07/15/science/…

(In other words, it's easy to learn words and phrases and understand everyday speech in a second language than to produce natural and grammatical speech appropriately (or perhaps "skillfully", which could be a better word) in a second language.)

The concept of "an ancillary Broca's region" is interesting. It could be another key to language learning.

Damkerng T.

11:29 AM

0

Q: functions that are great for timing code to run after a delay -- is "timing" an adjective or gerund?

Source: JavaScript for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming by Nick Morgan Example: In this chapter, you learned how to write JavaScript that runs only when you want it to. The setTimeout and setInterval functions are great for timing code to run after a delay or at certain intervals....

comprehension

> The setTimeout and setInterval functions are great for timing code to run after a delay or at certain intervals.

The sentence makes me think, is it really grammatical?

A similar phrase which is perfectly natural to me would be something like: scheduling a process to run on ___

> Schedule a flow to run once or on a recurring basis using predefined frequencies or formulas you create, such as scheduling a process to run on weekdays but ...

> Android provides an API for scheduling a process to run at a later time.

Maybe time and schedule aren't quite the same to me, and it's perhaps just me.

In any case, I wouldn't've felt anything strange if it wasn't pointed out in the question.

Anonymous

12:24 PM

@DamkerngT. I always said /ˈbroʊkə/

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It seems okay to me, although if you pointed it out I might wonder if it was really the normal way to say that

Anonymous

I think setTimeout and setInterval schedule functions rather than processes

Anonymous

12:38 PM

@DamkerngT. See Native Listening, starting on page 372, section 10.11

Anonymous

The study in the NYT is the one referred to as Kim et al 1997

Damkerng T.

1:08 PM

@snailboat Thanks!

Damkerng T.

1:23 PM

@snailboat Ah, I think I get you point now. I think I conflated the term grammatical with felicitous.

I think time is more like "measure", so its normal usage would be something like: The XYZ function is great for timing code to see how fast it can run.

Nihilist_Frost

2:19 PM

I saw on Wikipedia claiming that "night train" and "night rain" are minimal pairs based on gemination. Complete BS

Deleted that

Anonymous

2:42 PM

Well, it's a minimal pair.

Anonymous

But the /t/ in night might be [ʔ], and the /t/ in train might be affricated

Anonymous

And night rain and night train might have the same rhythm.

Anonymous

I don't know about BrE

Nihilist_Frost

4:24 PM

Certainly not by gemination though.

same rhythm, I agree.

CopperKettle

6:22 PM

Word of the Day: "Job of work"

job of work

Noun: job of work ‎(plural jobs of work)

A required job or task; a job that requires a substantial amount of effort.

Just heard it in "Went the day well?"

Never ever heard it before, thought it was a strange combination, "a buttered butter".

StoneyB

7:43 PM

@CopperKettle This is the oldest use: a job of work was a piece of work, a task, as opposed to permanent employment. We still speak of 'jobbing printers' and 'job lots' and 'jobbers'. But once job was colloquially detached from of work and had all by itself the sense "employment" it was free to evolve into the usual modern sense.

CopperKettle

7:56 PM

@StoneyB - very interesting, thank you!

0

Q: Difference between gerunds and nouns ending in -tion

As we know, gerunds have the same function as nouns and can be substitute in noun phrases. Additionally as far as I know, meaning of them would be the act of doing that verb : (I don't know whether this is correct or not, this is my intuition though.) Creating : An activity in which we are crea...

meaning nouns gerund

An interesting question: we have "creation", but why not "cleanation"?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@Stoney I have a question.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:22 PM

Hmm, I don't have a question

but what is "us" in "us humans deserve to be treated equally"?

I must be missing something easy. .__.

CopperKettle

An appositive?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

?

Could it be?

CopperKettle

Good evening, Muhammad!

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

\o

CopperKettle

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Why not? (0:

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

8:26 PM

@CopperKettle I meant "us", not "humans". And I even doubt "humans" would be an appositive.

CopperKettle

I'm out to lunch on fine points of "us humans" but appositive seems to be close.

StoneyB

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. CGEL calls it a personal determinative. Formally that should be *We humans should be treated ..." and *You should treat us humans ..."

2

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Oh wait. Right.

I should post something on ELL.

StoneyB

@CopperKettle Because -(a)tion is a Latin suffix and is used with Latin-derived stems. Clean is an Englisc stem.

(Those ** should in the determinative piece be closed...too late now)

CopperKettle

@StoneyB I see! Just as the replier said!

StoneyB

8:35 PM

Note that only plural first- and second-person forms (we/us and plural you) can be used this way, none of the other personal pronouns.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@StoneyB Why?

This be interesting.

CopperKettle

Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens

StoneyB

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Because we held an election and voted the other ones off that particular island.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Seems legit.

StoneyB

The English language is a democratic institution.

CopperKettle

8:42 PM

I should think so!

StoneyB

EoDay! I get to go home now ... hittin the road, Jack.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

:o

I somehow have a PDF of CGEL!

CopperKettle

(0:

CopperKettle

9:02 PM

Another new expression:

once bitten, twice shy

== English == === Alternative forms === once burned, twice shy once hurt, twice shy === Proverb === Once bitten, twice shy. One is cautious if he or she has been hurt in the past. ==== Synonyms ==== The burnt child dreads the fire. A beaten dog may cower before a friendly hand. A scalded cat is afraid of cold water. Bitten by a snake on one morning, afraid of the rope by the well for ten years. ==== Translations ==== === References === Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996, ISBN 0-679-44554-4, p. 261....

Only that the movie character said it like "once bit, twice shy"

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

9:47 PM

It makes me sad how much I'm trapped here in a world of prescriptive spuriousity.

This semester the final exam will require me to mark utterances like "I don't know who I had in mind" as ungrammatical. Facepalm

Oh huh, coordination is عطف. I had not known.

CopperKettle

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. The more common form is spuriosity. Otherwise, no objections.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@CopperKettle What I say is unique. :)

CopperKettle

(0:

Damkerng T.

11:14 PM

@snailboat Now the doubling in night rain and night train affecting the meaning in most accents (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemination#English) is filed under my "to be investigated later" pile.

Jasper

@DamkerngT. How rare is the nigh train triplet?

Damkerng T.

@Jasper I wonder if people really pronounce nigh the same way they pronounce the first part of night.

Jasper

@DamkerngT. I do. I also pronounce Bill Nye's last name the same way.

Damkerng T.

That's interesting! I think most nigh's are a little longer that the "nigh" in night.

Jasper

@DamkerngT. Perhaps there is a difference in length, but it is not something most native speakers would notice.

Damkerng T.

11:27 PM

nods -- Speech perception is a very fascinating thing. It often surprises me--I mean, really really surprises me.

Hmm... if nigh is like night (without the /t/), how can speakers tell that it's nigh train not night train when they hear it?

The missing of the glottal stop, perhaps?

Jasper

It was a hot and muggy evening. A storm was brewing. The sun had set a couple hours ago. I was down by the Amtrak station, waiting for a Scadian to show up. Carl liked wearing armor; he fought in pitched "battles" at Renfairs. On this trip, he was travelling with a science guy. The track started rumbling, and a deep horn pierced the air.…

I was waiting for the night rain / night train / knight train / Nye train.

Is there a way to delete chat comments? I meant

I was waiting for the night rain / night train / knight train / Nye train / nigh train.

Damkerng T.

11:49 PM

@Jasper I can't delete it, but I can make it go away to somewhere else, if you'd like.

Oh, right. knight and night are identical.

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