I'll chat with you in English.
s/he is asking about your origin like chinese-american.
I am white. I didn't know what -kei meant, oops!
Oh, I figured out how to reply. I am white American.
I like House of Cards and Game of Thrones. What are your favorite American TV shows?
a dead body might be buried in the wall.
So that's what that smell is.
i like suits n i watch under the dome these days
I haven't seen those, but I hear Suits is good. What is it about?
How long is your dick? I heard white people have longer penises.
0 inches. I'm a woman. How big is your dick?
Oh that's unexpected and disappointing because I have big cocks.
There are many other places to find big cocks!
What do you think of this person's English?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31594488/sakuraikeizo.mp3
I don't like the passage. It looks like it's from a racist poem. Is it copypasta?
If not, the pronunciation is pretty good, except "warlord" and "geography."
Thanks.
I think it's his own opinion.
I'm surprised to hear that his pronunciation is pretty good.
I thought it's very bad.
6 inches is average.
I don't wanna be debbie downer but his english is horrid.
It's slurred and lispy- grammar and vocabulary are at least decent but he sounds
as if he's chewing food while talking.
Thanks for your opinion.
I'm almost certain that you're a native speaker of American English.
The phrase "I don't wanna be debbie downer" is very American.
I actually had to google about it.
Debbie Downer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Downer
no, he is korean.
Yup, I am. I try to help with English on
This board. That phrase was probably a
Dead giveaway :/
If you have other questions I can help.
Hi, Jesse. Welcome aboard! So you're a Caucasian American nicknamed
"Jesse." I had thought it was a male-only name. But you said you're
a woman. I said to myself, "What?!" So I googled the name and found
that it was a name for men and women as well.
The poster at >>2 was actually asking you what kind of hyphenated American you are.
I mean, are you Italian-American, Swedish-American, German-American,
or what? If you prefer not to specify, then you have the right
to remain silent. Anything you say here on 2-channel may be
used against you in court or in front of Darth Vader.
As a nonnative English speaker, I welcome you warmly because
we learners of English are in dire need of instructive inputs
on the English language and the cultures of the English-speaking
world from native speakers like you.
Anything you may say here will be very useful to us. I hope
you'll enjoy being with us, as much as we enjoy being with you.
"If you have other questions I can help."
Which sentence do you think is more natural,
"Today, I performed *in* the TV show 'Music Station Ultra FES'"
or
"Today, I performed *on* the TV show 'Music Station Ultra FES'"?
Thanks.
これはスレタイとしておかしいだろ
or is temporarily busy elsewhere.
If you guys are interested, I would like the rest of us
to talk to one another until Jesse makes her glorious comeback.
I hope this thread will become a platform somewhat different
from "Chat in English," where people talk mainly about sex
(especially gay sex), food, and politics (especially atomic bombs,
xenophobic ideas, and anti-Korean sentiments).
The problem is, what do we have in common? What are some of the
things that interest all of us? Are you, for example, interested
in novels and movies?
ふ〜あ〜ゆ〜？
ほわいとがーるいずべりーベリーライクあるよ
ほわいとがーるいずアンダーヘアーもじゃもじゃニダ、えんゆー？ｗ
あいしんくほわいとがーるずはぶびっぐばーぎーなとうブラックホールｗ
イゲモエヨ？ブラックホールニダｗ
まいがーるふれんどえぶりでいはっぴいニダｗ
Maybe this thread is to be exclusively chatting with us foreigners?
I feel like that was the OP's original intention.
>>31-35
イイカゲンニシロ！
You just called yourselves "foreigners." I thought the word offended
all non-Japanese. Doesn't it offend you? In any case, some people from
abroad do seem to dislike the word anyway. To avoid hurting anybody's
feelings, I usually use either of the following, depending on the case:
(1) a non-Japanese, two non-Japanese
(2) a person or people from abroad (OR from outside Japan)
(3) international students (if they are students)
(4) tourists from abroad (OR from outside Japan)
What words or phrases would you suggest we should use? Thanks.
It depends on the person, but from how I feel I'll leave you with this:
If you know the person's nationality, you can usually say it.
"Foreigner" isn't offensive if it's said in English.
If it's said in Japanese, then it feels somewhat offensive to use to a stranger.
-HTH (Hope this helps)
Thanks for your input. I know that if I know a specific person's nationality,
naturally I'll call them with an adjective denoting their nationality.
The problem is, what is the safest way to call a person or a group of
persons from abroad whose nationality or nationalities you don't know?
Do the phrases in (1) through (4) at >>37 work? Are they idiomatic?
I often have to translate official documents and translate what
Japanese people refer to as "外国人" into English. And they never let
me know what their nationalities are. I don't want to use the
word "foreigner(s)" for fear that the word may offend some, if not all.
those of 臭い米国人.
Okay, then, let me write a bit if nobody has time to pitch in.
Even if no one reads what I have to say, I will talk to myself anyway.
About six months ago or so, I read "Romeo and Juliet" in the original.
As just another Japanese, I naturally found it hard. But I tackled it
anyway. I'd always thought it totally indispensable for serious
learners of English to try Shakespeare in the original. Everybody
knows why. Shakespeare, together with the King James Version of the
Bible, constitutes a vital part of the English-speaking culture.
Okay, then, why R&J, why not "Hamlet" or "The Merchant of Venice"
or "Macbeth"? Well, I think I'll tackle all other works of Shakespeare
in the end, but I thought that it was a good idea for an almost
absolute beginner of Shakespeare to begin with R&J. Why? I found that
it had a plot most accessible to beginners. It's simple: it's well
understandable even to junior high students. The plot basically
revolves around Romeo and Juliet, falling in love despite the
outrageous rivalry between their respective families. Desperate,
they kill themselves in the end. That's about it. It's not as
complex as "Hamlet," "Macbeth," or other works, most of which
center around adult themes. (to be continued)
When reading literature, I don't care too much about its plot.
If I did take any interest in plot, then I would start reading
detective novels, sci-fi, or other best-selling novels.
Instead, what I care more about is the rhythm and the beauty
of the language used in the literature. I love language because
of its musicality. I personally believe that there is nothing new
under the sun. No novel can present anything new. Nothing a human
can ever conceive is new enough. Even if any story really is
complex and interest, so what? That's what I say. Instead, it's
the melody of the language that matters -- well, at least to me.
Before tackling R&J, I had read "Hamlet" in the original. But I read
it through only in a casual way, I mean, without consulting commentary
books or dictionaries or grammar books designed for readers of
documents dating back to the Elizabethan era. Ah yes, I did consult
the OED and a few notes on the play but only quickly, not very
carefully. So I only got a rough idea of the play.
But this time, with R&J, it was different. I read it rather seriously.
I don't know how long I spent reading it, perhaps one or two months.
For about two to three hours each day, maybe. I constantly consulted
elaborate dictionaries and a grammar book designed for readers
of documents dating back to ancient times. I had close at hand
the famous Alexander Schmidt Shakespeare Lexicon, the well-known Abbot
grammar book for Shakespeare readers, the Onions Shakespeare glossary,
David Crystal's Shakespeare dictionary ("Shakespeare's Words"),
Gordon Williams' Shakespeare's Sexual Language, the Arden Shakespeare
R&J (an annotated R&J), and the Cambridge annotated R&J.
Besides all those, I also had at hand the whole series of the
Arden Shakespeare books. (to be continued on Part 3)
Why did I need all that? Well, when reading even a single play,
I thought it was vital for me to read the very long notes of
the Arden Shakespeare R&J. And, while reading it, I found lots of
cross references to many other plays of the Bard of Avon. Naturally
I was tempted to follow all those cross references, which guided me
to most of the other plays by the Poet. And of course, I had to
consult the Elizabethan English grammar (at least a few pages of it,
if not all) and naturally I also had to consult the Alexander Schmidt
dictionary, the OED, and other dictionaries as well.
So I was terribly busy. I thought that R&J was the most accessible
to beginners like me of all the Bard's works. But still, it was
hard enough for me. Despite all my pains, however, my study of the play
was quite rewarding. R&J reportedly contains the most sexual allusions
of all his works. That aspect attracted me a lot too. R&J is beautiful,
full of both high-brow poetry and rather vulgar sexual and toilet
allusions, and very funny too. I wish I could recite the whole play.
I won't stop at R&J either. I will read many other plays by the Poet
too, if possible, all of them. I wish that, in reading and appreciating
the Bard, I would some day in the distant future be able to emulate
some of his brilliant musicality in language and start writing
some poetry myself -- in English too. I suspect that before I can attain
that level, the time will come for me to pass away, though.
The path is way too long.
>>43
>>44
Okay, now read either the Canterbury Tales or Beowulf in the original.
true beauty.
Yes, I'd like to try them both some day. But there's a long way
for me go to before I can arrive there. Naturally I've once tried
reading some passages of The Canterbury Tales in the original
and read Beowulf through in its modern English translation.
I'm afraid that at that time at least, twenty years ago or so, I was
not yet ready to appreciate them. I'll try them again one day, at least
Chaucer in the original. But Beowulf? I've once tried studying it,
but Old English grammar is too complicated to master. Yes, it may
not be much more complicated than modern French, but still it's hard
enough, especially because Old English doesn't attract me as much as
modern French. Modern French is used everywhere in the world,
while Old English is rarely found anywhere. It's almost useless, so
that it's rather hard for me to keep motivating myself enough to
keep studying it until I master at least its basic grammar. If I were
still young and at school, I'd find a lot easier to spur myself
on to do all that. But now, it's really hard.
But then again, I also know that Old English, as well as modern German
and Old High German, as well as all the other Germanic languages,
especially ancient ones, proves very important when you want to have
a profound understanding of English. I love the comparative linguistics
of Indo-European languages, although I've never got formal education
in the field. All I've ever done in that field is reading this book
and that and reading the etymological descriptions of this word and
that. In any case, I wish I knew more of ancient languages, including
Latin, Greek, and Old English.
I've just hand-copied the following passage, together with some of the
notes given in my annotated version of "The Canterbury Tales."
Middle English is much more removed from modern English than Shakespeare
but it's still not completely unintelligible. It looks a lot easier
than Old English. But still, I'm positive that it will take me a long,
long time to learn to appreciate Chaucer. But so far, so good.
Although I don't understand it very well, I find his rhythm beautiful.
GENERAL PROLOGUE
Here begynneth the book of the Tales of Canterbury
WHAN that Aprill with his shoures soote --- soote = sweet
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth -- eek = also?
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
--- inspired = quickened? holt = wood? (cf. German Holz = wood)
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne --- croppes = shoots?
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye, --- foweles = birds
10 That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So slepeth hem nature in hir corages); --- priketh = incites? corages = hearts?
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15 And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende, --- wende = go
The hooly blisful martir for to seke, --- blisful = blessed? seke = visit?
That hem hath holpen whan that they were --- holpen = helped
seeke. --- seeke = sick
Bilful that in that seson on a day,
20 In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay --- lay = stayed?
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Canterbury with ful devout corage,
("The Canterbury Tales," Everyman's Library, p.1)
lines 3-4
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
[Translation of the above by Everyman's Library]
And bathed every sap-vessel in moisture,
by virtue of which the flower is produced.
lines 7-8
the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
[Translation by Everyman's Library]
The young sun (i.e. the sun at the beginning of its annual journey)
has completed the second half of its course in the Ram.
lines 13-14
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
[Modern English translation by Everyman's Library]
And palmers to visit foreign shores.
To distant shrines, well known in different lands.
line 14 --- ★kowthe★
This word "kowthe" should mean "well known." This is interesting.
Here's what I've just found out in the OED:
★couth (adjective)
Pronunciation: /kʊːθ/
Forms:
Old English: cuth
Middle English 14th century: couthe, kouth
Middle English 15th century: kowth, ●kowthe●
★couth
†1. pa. pple. passing into adj. ●Known●.
Obs. (See also namecouth adj.)
†2. adj. As a quality of things: ●Known; well-known, familiar●.
Obs. Cf. the negative ●uncouth● adj.
(Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition)
おおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおお 👀
Rock54: Caution(BBR-MD5:558464d2692f088d1d43d68e7664e878)
These 22 lines from The Prologue of "The Canterbury Tales" is
read aloud in its original pronunciation on YouTube:
(1) How to Pronounce the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
in Middle English Slow to Fast! (about 7 minutes)
--- This video demonstrates very slowly how to pronounce each word
in its original pronunciation. Very helpful to those who
want to actually practice the pronunciation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXMypzdWxsc
(2) Chaucer, The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,
read aloud in Middle English. (about 1 minute)
-- This is a very beautiful recitation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lGJntNFFqo
line 5
Whan Zephirus ●eek● with his sweete breeth
eek = also
★Eek, conj. also,
C2, C3; æc, S; ec, S; ek, S, S2, P; eik,
S3; eke, S, S2, S3, P; eeke, G.—AS. éac: ●Goth. auk●.
(Middle English Dictionary)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10625/10625-h/dict1.html#letter_E
The above dictionary entry says that this word "eek" means "also."
It also indicates that the word resembles the Gothic word "●auk."
It is also quite similar to the Modern German word "auch" (also).
This is very interesting.
That, is an idiom. Idioms are phrases or
Sentences that crop up in a culture. This
Means that how the phrase is said will
Differ from place to place and there is
No real way of saying what's grammatically
Correct, of at least in this example.
This means we can only answer what is
Correct in street or vernacular English,
And in this example, both are.
So, you could use either one!
Fuck, thus is getting into strange
territory. By all logic it should be fine,
But the world is not a logical place.you
Could skirt around the issue by saying
Something like "people from other
Countries". Adapting that to whatever role
You feel is right.
Shoot me some examples, I'll tell you
What to do.
Anthology of Tales from the Past
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konjaku_Monogatarish%C5%AB
This was probably written in the 12th century, i.e. about 200 years older
than the Canterbury Tales.
The following text is a part of a story in the anthology.
I'm not well versed in classical Japanese literature,
but I understand most of it without annotation.
I think most educated Japanese people understand it as well.
今昔物語集
http://yatanavi.org/text/k_konjaku/k_konjaku26-2
今昔、京より東の方に下る者有けり。
何れの国郡とは知らで、一の郷を通ける程に、俄に婬欲盛に発て、女の事の物に狂(くるふ)が如に
思ければ、心を静め難くて、思ひ繚(わずらひ)ける程に、大路の辺に有ける垣の内に、
青菜と云ふ物、糸高く盛に生滋(おひしげり)たり。十月許の事なれば、蕪の根大きにして有けり。
此の男、忽に馬より下て、其の垣の内に入て、蕪の根の大なるを一つ引て取て、
其れを彫(ほり)て、其の穴を娶(とつぎ)て婬を成してけり。然て垣の内に投入て過にけり。
其の後、其の畠の主、青菜を引取らむが為に、下女共数(あまた)具し、亦幼き女子共など具して、
其の畠に行て青菜を引取る程に、年十四五許なる女子の、未だ男には触れざりける有て、
其の青菜を引取る程に、垣の廻を行(あるき)て遊けるに、彼の男の投入たる蕪を見付て、
「此に穴を彫たる蕪の有ぞ。此れは何ぞ」など云て、暫く翫ける程に、皺干(しわび)たりけるを
掻削(かいさい)て食てけり。然て、皆従者共具して家に返りぬ。
Thank you, again.
You are remarkably well read. Are you the guy I called highbrow-kun
Before?
I study language, text, history and physics.
In my spare time I play games and do aircrew stuff.
What do you do?
We have a saying in English:
"You can please some of the people some of the time;
but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
The only one I find a bit odd is (4), I'd honestly just say tourist.
If my previous post didn't make sense, calling somebody a foreigner in English is pretty much okay.
But if you say ガイジン、 then it feels a bit wrong.
It's the pronunciation, not the meaning.
>>42
I usually only read the threads in the mornings here, which is around 10-11 pm there.
As >>59 commented, you're quite well read.
I studied Middle-English for a bit for fun, the only thing I read was The Greene Knight though.
For the Canterbury Tales, I found an interactive annotated version online if you'd like to take a look:
http://genius.com/Geoffrey-chaucer-the-canterbury-tales-general-prologue-annotated
>>56
Was this meant for >>39, because as my name says I'm American, bro :)
>>The only one I find a bit odd is (4), I'd honestly just say tourist.
Thank you for your input. The reason I wrote
"tourists from abroad (OR from outside Japan)"
as an option is that there are Japanese people living
in Japan who are on a trip inside Japan.
If you call anybody a "tourist," doesn't that
concept include "a Japanese on a trip inside Japan"?
That's the problem. Of course, when you're just
having a casual conversation, you don't have to
worry about that kind of thing. The problem arises
when you have to translate official and business
documents, where they often mention 外国人 as
a group of non-Japanese residents and tourists.
Dreas let me know in one of his posts that
it's a good idea to call them "people from
other countries." Yes, I consider that as an
option. But in a long document, people would
wish to use a variety of synonyms to avoid
being monotonous. I'd like to know as many
different words or strings of words to mean
"foreigners" as possible.
In any case, you told me that it's quite all
right to call them "foreigners." That's reassuring
to know. Thanks for your valuable input again.
lines 7-8
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours ★yronne★,
The word "yronne" looks interesting. If I understand
correctly, the prefix "y-" is a corrupt form of "ge-",
which is the prefix often used in modern and ancient
German to form the past participle of a verb. Whenever
I see this "y-" prefix used in any text, I say to myself,
"Oh, this is beautiful. So the passage must be from a Chaucer
or other Middle English text."
Since I don't have a Middle English Dictionary at hand,
I've just searched the OED for "yronne". The quintessential
dictionary says that it is the past participle of the verb
which means "run."
The word "run" comes from Old English "rinnan."
And this "rinnan" (the infinitive form) changed to "ronne" in Middle
English (there is a document that uses the form in the 16th century
at least). This infinitive also changed to "run", just like in modern
English, in the 16th century.
Then the past participle of the verb "rinnan" changed to "yronne"
in Middle English. This kind of information never tires me. The OED
is my beloved. I wish I could ever get to know her through and
through. But I know it's completely impossible. The world of
knowledge is just vast -- vast.
line 5
And smale foweles ●maken● melodye,
And look at this verb "maken". Don't you guys think this verb looks
beautiful? This is exactly like the modern German verb "machen".
The OED says the verb "to make" took the forms of macan, macian,
and makian in Old English. The etymology section of the OED goes on
to say that the verb is cognate to the following:
Old Frisian makia, Middle Dutch ★maken★ (Dutch ★maken★),
Old Saxon makon (Middle Low German maken), Old High German mahhon
(Middle High German ●machen●, German ●machen●);
(Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, June 2000)
line 16
Of Engelond to Canterbury they ●wende●,
The verb "wende" here is also interesting. Contemporary English does
have the word "wend." The OED says the verb "wend" comes from the
Old English "wendan". Its past tense and past participle forms were
"went" in Middle English. And these forms "went" were then used as
the past and the past participle forms of the verb "go."
That's why modern English has this inflection pattern: "go - went - went."
This is another thing I've learned today. On the other hand, the
original word inflection pattern "wend - went - went" then had to
change itself to: "wend - wended - wended" to avoid conflicting
with the pattern "go - went - went."
I'm not that well-read.
Most high-school students learn about the anthology.
My point was that the language is not so much different from modern Japanese.
1 ●WHAN that● Aprill with his shoures soote
5 ●Whan● Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
10 ●Thanne● longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
"Whan" and "whan that" mean "when." "Thanne" means "then" according
to the Middle English Dictionary available here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10625/10625-h/dict3.html#letter_Th
The dictionary also says that one Saxon form of "whan" was "whanne."
So "whanne" and "thanne" rhyme. That's good. It's just like in
their modern English counterparts (when and then), which rhyme.
Anyway, as indicated at the beginning of this post, lines 1 and 5
begin with "Whan", which is responded to by "thanne" in line 10.
Here, the basic plot is along these lines:
WHEN such and such a season comes,
THEN lots of people feel tempted to go to pilgrimages.
Talking about the slight differences between the ancient and
the modern forms of a language, I once read through a modern (ancient)
Icelandic grammar very quickly. I read it through but it was rather like
scanning it, without trying to memorize the grammatical rules or words
taught in it. Still it was quite clear to me that modern and ancient
Icelandic are almost identical (Old Icelandic dates back to a
millennium ago, if I remember correctly). The grammatical rules are almost
the same, for one thing. For another, the forms of the words are also
almost identical.
For example, suppose the Old Icelandic word
meaning "word" is "woooorrrddde" (I'm just making it up). Modern Icelandic
is something like "woooorrrddd". The only difference between them is
the absence of the "e" in the modern Icelandic equivalent. Every word
and every grammatical rule were the same way. There's not a single
major difference in any element of the language. It's really amazing
how conservative Icelandic people have been all these years (maybe
for more than a millennium), consciously or unconsciously refusing to
let their language change as did the English and the Japanese.
うおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおお 👀
Rock54: Caution(BBR-MD5:558464d2692f088d1d43d68e7664e878)
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土地+現金（株、地金）等の資産5000万以上保持者は税金を
取られる可能性あり
今から対策しておく必要性あり
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全てバレる
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金持ほど脱税するがあほや
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そんでもええんか〜
はよ税金だけは納めとき〜
11 (So slepeth hem nature in hir ●corages●);
22 To Canterbury with ful devout ●corage●,
In the above lines, the word "corage(s)" is used twice. It is used to
mean "spirit(s)" or "heart(s)" unlike in modern English. Etymological
dictionaries say that the use of this word in the sense of "heart" and
"spirit" comes from Old French usage. This Francophonic usage of
the word "corage" is just one of numerous cases where Norman French-derived
words are widely used in the English of old times, more widely than
in today's English. When reading Shakespeare and other old literature,
I very frequently find the prevalent usage of French-derived words.
Old literature also seems to contain more Germanic-derived words
than today's English. Shown below are some examples:
6 Inspired hath in every ●holt and heeth
9 And smale foweles ●maken● melodye,
18 That hem hath ★holpen★ whan that they were
(to be continued)
Note, in particular, the word "holpen." It is the past participle of
the verb "helpen" (or "help" in modern English). The infinitive form
"helpen" is similar to modern German "helfen", while the p.p. form
"holpen" is similar to German "geholfen". I'm not familiar with
Dutch, but I think their Dutch equivalents are even more similar,
or in some cases, completely identical.
In this way, English in the old days (say, during the days of
Shakespeare or Chaucer) contained more Germanic-derived words and
Norman French-derived words than today's English. If that is so,
I feel more tempted to study a little more (if not much more) of
Old English, German, and other Germanic languages, especially
ancient ones.
For the word "holpen," let me say a few more words. The Old English
(or Anglo-Saxon) equivalent of "to help" was "helpan." Here's a list
of the inflected forms of the verb in OE and its relatives.
(1) OE: helpan (infinitive) - healp (past) - holpen
(2) Middle English: helpen - halp - holpen
(3) Modern German: helfen - half - geholfen
(3) Dutch, Low German: helpen - hielp (past singular) - geholpen
There seems to have been many variations of each of the above OE forms
but let me just leave it at that to simplify the discussion.
As for the Dutch equivalent of the verb "help", I consulted the
following webpage:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/helpen
line 12 --- Thanne longen folk to ●goon● on pilgrimages,
(I guess this means "Then people long to go on pilgrimages.")
line 78 --- And [he] wente for to ●doon● his pilgrymage.
(I guess this means "And he went to do his pilgrimage.")
The word "goon" in line 12 should mean "to go." It is similar in form
to German "gehen."
German: gehen - ging - gegangen
OE: gan - ??? - ??? (I don't know.)
ME: gon - ??? - ???
The word "doon" in line 78 should mean "to do." It is similar in form
to German "tun."
German: tun - tat - getat
OE: don - dyde - gedon
ME: don - ???
What a blunder!
WRONG: German: tun - tat - getat
CORRECT: German: tun - tat - ★getan★
By the way, the more I work on the English in the old days, the more
keenly I feel the importance of a knowledge of German (and other
Germanic languages) and Russian (and other Slavic languages).
I'm rather familiar with Romance languages (especially French) but
that's definitely not enough when trying to explore the historical
development of the English language.
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I'm sorry. Even though you said it was for documents I still didn't process it.
Reevaluating your question, there's no harm in saying "tourists from abroad" when it is in writing.
(1) non-native(s)
(2) foreign visitor(s); overseas visitor(s)
(3) exchange student(s)
(4) foreign tourist(s); overseas tourist(s)
Thinking about it as I write this, overseas is used as a synonym for foreign.
め
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about English, America or myself, this is the time.
any other person feels discouraged to read it, please just ignore
my post. No one is obliged to read or respond to it. Thank you.
>>89
>>(1) non-native(s)
>>(2) foreign visitor(s); overseas visitor(s)
>>(3) exchange student(s)
>>(4) foreign tourist(s); overseas tourist(s)
Good. Those sound idiomatic. Thanks for your input. The problem
(people may say, "Not again!") is that in some contexts, I have to
specify those non-natives are people not native to Japan, rather than
to any other country. If you are writing a document as a Japanese
governmental agency, and if you say "nonnatives," then of course
it means "people who are not Japanese."
But in some cases, we may see a document that doesn't specify
who is writing it. But still the document says something along
the lines of "★外国人★の方は〜してください" (which literally means
"Foreigners are requested to do such and such a thing." Since
the document is written in Japanese, readers assume that this
word "外国人" (foreigners) means "people who are not Japanese."
(to be continued on Part 2)
But what if we translate it into English? Can we leave it at
something like "★Foreigners★ are requested to do such and such a thing"?
Remember that the document does not specify who is writing it.
In that case, readers will wonder, "Who are they referring to
as 'foreigners' here?" If the document happens to be in Japan,
then the document is most probably understood to refer to
"people who are not Japanese." But what if the document is
distributed among many different countries -- and by the management
of a company run by Japanese? The author of the document, who
is probably writing under the name of the company's president,
probably assumes that what they mean by 外国人 (foreigners) here
is "people who are not Japanese."
So, when the document happens to be read in, for example, Tanzania,
and if it has been authored by a company run by a Japanese, then
the original phrase "外国人" (foreigners) should (if I understand
it correctly) be translated as "non-Japanese." That's why I am
obliged to translate "外国人" which Japanese people often use
for business purposes (especially for purposes of circulation
outside Japan) into "non-Japanese." The phrase "non-Japanese"
may sound clumsy to native English speakers. I know that in many
contexts, options (1) through (4) that you (臭い米国人) listed above
sound much better and idiomatic . But the problem is that
these contexts may change. You never know in which countries and
in which contexts the document you are translating now may be
used in the future.
(Continued on Part 3)
Now, in conclusion, my question is, does "non-Japanese" in such
contexts still sound un-idiomatic? What about "non-Japanese students,
non-Japanese tourists, non-Japanese visitors, non-Japanese workers,"
and so on?
And what about "workers, products, etc. from outside Japan"?
This phrase "outside Japan" cannot be rejected altogether because
some Japanese companies do request us translators to use although
it may sound a bit funny. If you're in Japan, then the phrase
"overseas" naturally refers to "somewhere outside Japan." But what if
it happens to be in Tanzania or the Netherlands? In that case,
the phrase "overseas" is understood to mean "outside Tanzania or
the Netherlands." But the author of the document in Japanese assumes
that the phrase "海外" is understood as "outside Japan." In that case,
I am obliged to use the phrase "outside Japan" even though it may
sound a bit un-idiomatic in many contexts.
(End of my three-part post)
ぼ
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だ
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ね
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で
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お
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に
っ
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バ
ン
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！
I realize your question took a lot of effort, so sorry for the curt reply.
But yes in that case you are right to use "non-Japanese" and "outside Japan" and so forth.
I gave you the generality and you were looking for the specifics.
If you have to be specific, then yes it will sound different than the general terms, but it's no less valid.
"All non-Japanese working for 〇〇 Corporation are not required to observe Japanese holidays."
Sounds just as natural as,
"All foreigners working for 〇〇 Corporation are not required to observe Japanese holidays."
With the first one being correct when it's information that doesn't stay in Japan, like you described.
っ
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Are you some sort ofnteacher? You're like
A literature professor.
っ
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！
！
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れ
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ナ
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1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
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ああああああああ
いいいいいいいい
いいいいいいいい
うううううううう
うううううううう
ええええええええ
ええええええええ
おおおおおおおお
おおおおおおおお
かかかかかかかか
かかかかかかかか
きききききききき
きききききききき
くくくくくくくく
くくくくくくくく
けけけけけけけけ
けけけけけけけけ
ここここここここ
ここここここここ
カトちゃんペッｗ
うおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおお
ぎゃあああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ
You're so kind, 臭い米国人, thank you very much for reading my lengthy
post and answering it.
>Are you some sort of a teacher? You're like
>A literature professor.
Not at all.
Why do you think so?
っ
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of something lightweight, hence moving, floating, etc.]
As a lover of language, I sometimes come up with a random idea about
the English language. One such idea that has visited me one of these
days is that the prefix (or rather, the initial word-beginning sound
"fl-") might signify something lightweight, hence moving, floating,
or otherwise.
Let me explain. Look at the words listed below. The list of words and
definitions is from the Pocket Oxford English Dictionary (POD), 11th,
2013.
flaccid --- soft and limp
flag
flagellate -- to whip someone
flagellum -- a long, thin projection which enables many single-
celled organisms to swim
flail -- to swing the arms or legs wildly
flake -- a small, flat, very thin piece of something
flame -- a hot glowing body of ignited gas produced by
something on fire
flannel -- a kind of softly woven woollen fabric
flap -- to move up and down or from side to side
flare -- a sudden brief burst of flame or light
flash -- to shine with a bright but brief or irregular light
flat -- habing a level and even surface
flavour -- the distinctive taaste of a food or drink
flea -- a small wingless jumping insect
fledge -- (of a young bird) to develop wing feathers that are
large enough for flight
うああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ
ぎゃあああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ
おおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおお
ぬわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわ
flee -- to run away
fleece -- the wool coat of a sheep; a soft, warm fabric with
a pile, or a garment made from this
fleet -- fast and nimble
flex -- to bend a limb or joint
flick -- to make a sudden sharp movement
flicker -- to shine or burn unsteadily
flight (fly)
flimsy -- weak and fragile
flinch -- to make a quick, nervous movement as a reaction
to fear or pain
fling -- to throw or move forcefully
flint -- [My note: Note that when you hit flint stone with
with something hard, it produces a sound that might
sound like "flint." The word "flint" (and its etymological
cognates( might have originated as an onomatopoeia.
flip -- to turn over with a quick, smooth movement.
flirt -- to behave as if to trying to attract someone sexually
but without serious intentions
flit -- to move quickly and lightly
flitter -- to move quickly here and there
float
flocculent -- resembling tufts of wool
flock -- a soft material for stuffing cushions and quilts,
made of torn-up cloth or waste wool
floe -- a sheet of floating ice
ぬわおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおおお
けけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけけ
も
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カ
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flue -- a passage in a chimney for smoke and waste gases
fluent -- from Latin "fluere" (to flow)
fluff -- soft fibres gathered in small light clumps (--> fluffy)
fluid -- from Latin "fluere" (to flow)
flummery -- empty talk or compliments (My note: It must
be something light, not heavy.)
flutter -- to fly unsteadily by flapping the wings quickly and lightly
flux -- continuous change [from Latin "fluere" (to flow)]
fly -- to move through the air
fly -- a flying insect
く
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I said that to me, the suffix "fl-" evokes the concept of lightness,
hence the concept of moving, floating, and quick change.
Let me again pick up some of the examples I gave above. Look at the words
"flow" and "float." These words signify something light. Nothing heavy
can "flow" or "float." It must always be light. The concept of "fly,"
too, signifies something light. Nothing heavy can fly. Only light
things fly. Flies that bother you by attacking your favorite food
fly in the air and they are also lightweight. They seem as if
floating in the air. They also seem as if to flow through the air.
How about this?
flagellum -- a long, thin projection which enables many single-
celled organisms to swim
Flagella, too, must be lightweight. Otherwise, they can't enable
small creatures to swim. Flakes are also light. That's why they
can fly, float, and fly in the air. Flames of fire also evoke
a sense of lightness. Otherwise they can't go this way and that
so quickly. The same goes to the concepts of flares and flaring.
Flannel is also lightweight. That's why they are soft. Flavor, too,
must evoke a sense of lightness. Otherwise no flavor can "flow through
the air" to get into your nostrils to make you smell. Flashing also
evokes a sense of lightness. Otherwise no flashlight can emit beams
that quickly. Fleas are also light. So are the feathers of a
full-fledged young bird. To be able to flee, you should not be heavy.
Fleece is naturally lightweight and soft. Fleet means "fast and nimble"
and should therefore evoke a sense of something lightweight.
On and on and on my explanations may go. I think that what I meant to
say is now clear.
うおわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわわ
おんぎゃあああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ
あああああああああああああ
いいいいいいいいいいいいい
いいいいいいいいいいいいい
ううううううううううううう
ううううううううううううう
えええええええええええええ
えええええええええええええ
おおおおおおおおおおおおお
おおおおおおおおおおおおお
おおおおおおおおおおおおお
かとちゃんぺッ！
ｗ
の
ぱ
く
り
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ん
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ち
の
ご
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と
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は
な
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は
や
く
し
ん
そ
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を
So much for the possible significance of the suffix "fl-". Now let's
move on to what the prefix "gl-" might signify in word formation.
I don't know what professional linguists say, but to me at least,
the prefix (or rather the initial sounds) "gl-" evokes a sense of
light or brilliance.
Look at the words listed below:
(1) glacial (= relating to ice, especially in the form of glaciers)
(2) glacier
(3) glad (Being glad evokes a facial expression that shines.)
(4) glamour (Glamor -- or an attractive and exciting quality -- is
naturally brilliant.)
(5) glance (When you glance at something, your eyes shine.)
(6) glare
(7) glass (Glass naturally shines.)
(8) glaze (to fit panes of glass into a window frame)
(to be continued)
(9) gleam
(10) glee
(11) glide (Gliding signifies an act of sliding on a slippery surface,
which might reminds you of a shining surface, like ice, which shines.)
(12) glimmer
(13) glimpse
(14) glisten
(15) glitter
(16) glitz
(17) glory (glorify, glorious)
(18) gloss (glossy)
(19) glow
(20) glower (to have an angry or sullen expression -- Note that an angry
expression emits some kind of light. Every impressive or strong
facial expression "shines" in some way.)
ー
す
と
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ー
を
つ
か
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わをんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんんん
むむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむむ
ほ
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！
っ
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No problem, it's nice to answer something that's not in the 英語で雑談 thread.
>>117
He asks because you're well read, even among English natives.
A lot of English natives don't care to read, which is why a lot of the "news" stories are so full of pictures.
>>147
Those are some interesting theories, have you looked at etymologies for all of those words?
I am not a scholar but from my understanding, in order for a set of letters to be an affix, it has to have been
defined as such in ancient writings, not in contemporary usage. By which I mean Latin, Greek, et cetera.
About etymology, I know what you mean. Yes, of course, we must not
forget how each of those words must have looked and meant in the old
days, not only in Greek and Latin but Old Icelandic, Gothic, Old High
German, and so on. I have two important etymological sources at hand
(one of which is the 20-volume OED) and have tried, whenever possible,
to look into the older senses and forms of the words too. The senses
of the words I cited above are from the POD, a modern English dictionary,
but I put them there just for reference.
Now, even if the modern senses of words may be quite different from
their ancient ones, I believe that it is still instructive to examine
the words in terms of their modern senses as well. In doing so, I
always try to grasp the most prevalent, the most dominant concept
that each word seems to have, not a very specific, special, slang-like,
or eccentric senses.
Take the example of the suffix "sl-". Suppose there is a word "sloxapp",
which I don't think exists. But just suppose it exists. And suppose
again that it is cognate with the Greek word "loxab", which I don't
think exists either. Now, if the Greek word has no "s-" at the beginning,
is it meaningless to talk about the suffix "sl-" at the beginning of
the (imaginary) English word "sloxapp"? I don't think so.
(continued on Part 2)
How can it be meaningful? The point is that Greeks may have tended to
drop the "s-" sound at the top because they were incapable of
pronouncing "s" and "l" together (which may not be the case, but
I am making this imaginary argument just to illustrate my point).
Now, while the Greeks may have been uncomfortable with pronouncing "sl-",
so that they may have developed a new form "lox-", the English may
have liked the form "sl-". It may be because the sound "sl-" (this
sequence of "s" followed by "l") may have evoked in their minds
a sense of lightweight-ness, hence motion and quick movement and
floating, and so on.
That's what I wanted to emphasize. Each people (each nation or each
dialectal group of people) has their own linguistic tastes. One
ethnic group likes a particular group of sounds or strings of sounds,
which another people may hate. What do they like and hate particular
sounds or strings of sounds? For one thing, that may be because of
the anatomy of their tongue, jaw bones, and so on. For another thing,
partly due to their local climactic, geographic, and other conditions,
they may have developed a particular system of tastes and worldviews.
And it is these tastes and worldviews that may have affected their
choice of sounds and strings of sounds, hence words.
(Continued on Part 3)
In the course of our history, which may have lasted two million years,
we must have used language. Just as modern people do, every ancient
person must have accidentally or deliberately developed thousands of
words in the course of their life. I myself have coined some words
that I thought are appropriate. Some of them were accepted by some
others around me. Many other words I coined were rejected by other
people. In this way, through the two million years, we must have
produced, chosen, and rejected sounds, strings of sounds, and words.
It is in this way that I imagine that the ancient English would have
developed some notion of the suffix "sl-" somehow related to the
concept of lightweight-ness, hence motion, quick movement, or floating.
I apologize for my awkward writing. I know my theory is not quite
well organized and, besides, I am just a native speaker of Japanese,
still struggling in my study of English. I hope that, even though I
may be just babbling here, I may some day -- through all these humble
and seemingly haphazard attempts -- manage to develop a beautifully
organized set of theories.
>>the sound "sl-" (this sequence of "s" followed by "l") may have
>>evoked in their minds a sense of lightweight-ness, hence motion
>>and quick movement and floating, and so on.
=====
Oops! What a blunder again! This argument was NOT about my argument
on the "sl-", BUT on the "fl-". I mixed them up. I had developed
another argument on the suffix "sl-", which I believe must have
evoked in the minds of the English a sense of sliding or slipping.
Last night I wanted to talk about this "sl-" suffix too. This "sl-",
just like the suffixes "fl-" and "gl-" that I discussed yesterday,
seems as if it had originated as an onomatopoeia. Just pronounce "slide"
or "slip." Don't their sounds evoke in you a sense of slipperiness
or sliding motion? The sounds themselves seem as if they had meaning.
This "S" sound, as you can see, can be made to last forever, like
ssssssssssssss, just as the sound produced by snakes. This sound is,
in this sense, quite different from, for example, G, which occurs
abruptly like an eruption and doesn't last for more than a second.
The sound L, too, lasts forever. Just pronounce LLLLLLLLL. It does
last forever. Sadly this sound is hard for Japanese to pronounce.
Anyway, the sounds S and L are both long-lasting. And I suspect that
this long-lasting nature of the sounds S and L is one factor that
contributes to the evocation by the suffix "sl-" of a sense of sliding
or slipperiness.
of words containing a particular affix may be instructive. But I think
I failed. I'm sorry.
What I really wanted to say was that, even when we confine our studies
to modern times, say, only a period of three to four hundred years,
we may argue that the English may have rejected or selected particular
groups of sounds and strings of sounds, hence affixes, according to
their tastes and characteristics derived from their particular
anatomical, climactic, geographical, cultural, psychological,
and/or other circumstances.
Taking again the example of "slaxxap". Suppose that word has existed
from the 17th century having a particular sense that has persisted
up until today. And suppose that the word is cognate with (ie sharing
the same etymological origin as) the Greek word "laxabb".
Why did the English put the S sound at the beginning, while the Greeks
did not? It may be because the English liked the string of sounds "sl-"
for the reasons I described above. And the psychological and other
characteristics of the English may have developed the supposedly
original form "laxxabb" into "slaxxap" to suit their tastes.
And why did they like that particular string of sounds (sl-)?
It may be because the English language already had many other words
starting with "sl-" meaning something related to the concept of sliding.
With analogy, the English would have, a little before the 17th century,
added the sound S at the beginning to harmonize the word with the
others.
>He asks because you're well read, even among English natives.
I have no idea why you think I'm well read.
Maybe you mistook me for someone else(for example, >>42).
Well, now, then, I guess all my lengthy, pseudo-academic talk about
affixes and other etymological stuff has bored you. (Or rather,
there may be nobody left here.) So I'll resume my etymological
discussions later on and get back to "Romeo and Juliet."
At first, R&J bored me. Or rather, all Shakespeare bored me. As a
serious student of the English language, I've always thought that
I should some day tackle Shakespeare in earnest. Whether I come to
love him or not in the end, I thought I just had to study him if
I really wanted to become a reasonably good speaker/writer of English.
But sadly, Shakespeare bored me. I tried reading "Hamlet" it in
Japanese when I was a high school student. After only dozens of
pages, I got so bored I just couldn't go on. I tried several other
plays in Japanese. They again bored me. I tried Charles Lamb's
"Tales from Shakespeare" in the original when I was, say, 30 or so.
It didn't interest me much either. I then tried two dozens of pages
or so of "Hamlet" in the original with some notes in its Arden
Shakespeare edition when I was 40 or so. This time I realized the
profound effect of Shakespearean language on modern English, but
my reading of it, or rather my attempt at it, was not enough to
incite me to go on studying it for more than ten hours.
(continued on Part 2)
When 777, another poster in this thread as well as elsewhere on
this BBS for English learners, set up his own thread designed
specifically for his commentary on "Hamlet." He did a good job
for a month or two despite the malicious jealousy-filled attacks
against him from morons. I was delighted to see him courageously
tackle this world of Shakespeare, which seems almost esoteric to us
ordinary learners of English. Shakespeare is tough enough even for
students currently majoring in English literature and studying full time
under the supervision of college professors. So much the harder
for us, literature major or not, who graduated a long time ago
from college.
Ah, yes, I remember, two years before that, I had heard two
recordings of "Hamlet" and one recording of "Romeo and Juliet"
on YouTube. These recordings are by volunteers and accessible to
the public free of charge, but they are really well-made.
The Shakespeare recording I liked best was that of "Romeo and Juliet"
at the following link:
(continued on Part 3)
Act 2 - Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRe1XlIxeaM&t=3m00s
The above link directs you to the part of Romeo performed by my
favorite actor. His voice is just beautiful and acts magnificently.
How he voices his admiration for Juliet, who is standing on the
elevated platform high above him!
This Romeo actor, together with the actor playing "Juliet," attracted
me so much that I heard the entire performance of the play. I had
never read R&J either in Japanese or in English. I had heard the
performance in the original right away, while following the text
displayed synchronously with the performance. Although I don't
think I understood the language well enough, I think I grasped
the essence, or rather, the heart of the language and performance.
I fell in love with the performance and Shakespeare at that time.
That is my first serious encounter with Shakespeare. That happened
about three years ago.
There are several movie versions of "Romeo and Juliet" available on
YouTube. The movie featuring Olivia Hussey and that featuring
Leonardo DiCaprio are very famous but I don't like them.
They just bore me. Here is one of the R&J movie renderings that I like:
R&J 1976 (The heroine is a magnificent actor.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=079_iKX9VVI
I saw several other renderings on YouTube, but I can't seem to
find them now. They must still be there. When I find them, I'll
show you where they are.
Perhaps so. But the general consensus seems that the posters in this thread are either English natives, like myself, or are well read, such as >>157+ is.
>>166
I get what you're going at with your explanation, but you've obviously devoted more time to it than I have. So I don't really have a rebuttal for you.
However about the Romeo and Juliet thing, I don't think you, or anyone else for that matter, really needs to understand the particular works of
older authors -- like Shakespeare for English or 夏目漱石 for Japanese -- in order to use the language well.
This is coming from a person who did a thesis on 日本語の書き言葉の歴史、but at the same time has never bothered to read any of Shakespeare's works.
This is definitely a rant, but it's not direct toward you - sorry. I think it's great that you enjoy etymology, as I enjoy it as well, just that the general consensus for English is that
one needs to study The Great Bard in order to really master the modern language. When in fact I feel that knowing the influence he had on the language itself is more than
anyone needs, it is especially not more important than the modern grammar and usage of words. Just like I won't expect a native to know 契沖's criticism of 行阿's 仮名遣い
in order to know if 多い is おおい or おうい。
Thanks for your response. You're right about our not having to have
a deep knowledge of The Bard in order to use modern English well.
My reasoning was not exact. As you say, it's important to know how and
where Shakespearean language has influenced the subsequent development
of English, hence the birth of modern English.
Actually I confess that whatever arguments I may have been making
about my having to study Shakespeare and other classics in order to
become a good English speaker is just a pack of excuses on my part. I need all
these excuses to keep motivating myself. I desperately need them in
order not to lead a lazy life. In fact I hate the modern world. Or
rather, I hate whatever I see before my eyes. I hate people as I see
them today. I hate them because of their laziness. I hate myself because
I tend to be lazy and I'm not as motivated as I think I should.
(continued)
What has essentially spurred me on to study English all these decades?
I've always convinced myself that a good knowledge was a must for me
to survive, to earn my living. Yes, my knowledge of English has fed me.
But that's not all. Just to feed yourself in Japan doesn't take all the
desperate, painful, clumsy, half-maddening, bull-like efforts that
I have been making all these decades. What, then, has motivated me? It's
because English, which is essentially *not* necessary in Japan to survive,
at least not when I was young, keeps me feel as if I were not in this
world that I hate. If I have to speak, write, hear, and read Japanese
all the time, I quickly begin to feel that I am part of this maddeningly boring world.
And why the classics, which are excruciatingly difficult for me? Why Shakespeare? It is
because when reading Shakespeare I can savor the luxury of forgetting
all about this ugly, idiotic modern world as I live today.
Of course I know the world must have been full of crap throughout the
history, including the Japan in the days of The Tales of Genji and
the England in the days of Shakespeare. I know that. But still I enjoy
this forgetfulness I have when reading something remote from whatever
I see and touch today.
can strangely let myself do so very freely, more freely than when
doing so in my mother tongue. That seems to be something that happens all the time
to people in general. That happened to Samuel Beckett too, who was an almost
complete bilingual: English and French. He wrote his works in both of
the languages. He said he could express himself much better and more
freely in French, his second language that he began to learn after
the age of 10 or so. He said that when writing in English, he
felt dragged along by the long history and conventions, whether good
or bad, of his Irish traditions and things like that. When writing in
French, he was free from all such nasty conventions.
I love "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevksy tremendously. I
first read it in Japanese -- once. Then, several years later, I read
it in English. I loved the English version so much that I read several
other English versions by various translators. I even read it in a
French version too. Altogether, I have read it 12 times maybe. And I
have listened to two recordings of the novel on YouTube -- many times.
As for the Blackstone Audio recording by professional actor Anthony
Heald (which is now available on YouTube), I think I've listened to it
dozens of times -- or even a hundred times maybe. But I don't listen
to it very carefully. I always listen to it while walking, putting out
my laundry, doing other household chores, or for some time in bed
before going to sleep. So, of course, my listening to the recording is
not enough to appreciate the whole of the novel.
But still, there are times when I think I do get to appreciate the
profoundest meaning of what is written there. I can't help emphasizing
that I love the novel itself as written by Dostoevsky, the recording
as performed by Anthony Heald, and the English translation produced by
Constance Garnett (a famous Russian-English translator about a
century ago). These three elements have combined almost divinely to
have produced this splendid masterpiece performance that I have been
listening to with so much joy.
This is not nessesarily a bad thing but... Have you ever considered writing a book?
But how about American people?
Do most native speakers of American English have no problem in understanding spoken British English?
The UK is a fraction of its size, but is also diverse with a... Messy history.
The vernacular for the two languages can be quite different but the accent is usually easy enough to understand;
But some accents from america and Britain are considered crude or unpleasant, such as cockney or the southern American accent.
I think the reason people can express themselves more freely in their non-Native tongues is because when learning the non-Native language,
they will learn it in isolation. That is they aren't influenced by the societal norms of that language like when learning their Native tongues.
For example: a Spanish native learning English wants to talk about his black friend. Now in Spanish, black is "Negro" and is an everyday word.
So when he looks up Negro online for an English equivalent, he might find that it is used to describe black people. However he does not learn
that the word used like this has a sense of endearment if he is black as well, but otherwise it is seen as hate speech when used by non-blacks.
Thus even if this speaker is corrected, because he grew up in an area where English was not used by his community, he never got the imprint
of "correctness" that society teaches children in using the language.
I wrote this part last before leaving, if it's confusing please let me know and I'll try to explain better in my next post.
>>173
Accents aren't really that bad for different versions of English. The one most natives struggle with however, is Indians speaking English.
Indian English is vastly different in that it changes the grammar dramatically in addition to the accent people have. While going from British
English to American English or its "derivatives" (Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English), there is almost no grammatical change
only an accent on the words.
Most natives struggle with Indian English?! No wonder we nonnatives
have to struggle with it. I'm a lot relieved!
And thanks for responding to my statement to the effect that I strangely
feel freer in reading materials and expressing myself in a foreign language.
As for me, I only knew the meaning of bloke.
a bit of how's your father
bloke
brolly
chuffed to be bits
the dreaded lurgy
gobsmacked
grub's up
kerfuffle
knackered
know your onions
More tea vicar?
skivvy
sod off
Sod's law
takes the biscuit
the bee's knee
20 Essential British English Expressions - Volume 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inaCwEg5Ndg
No problem.
>>177
I've heard several of these before, but for some I can't quite explain their meaning, so it's been a while.
However these ones I remember well:
bloke = fellow, person
gobsmacked = surprised
knackered = tired
sod off = piss off/ fuck off
the bee's knees = this is actually used in American English a lot too, it means something that's wonderful or excellent or the best of something.
>>179
I try to read it every morning. Dreas seems to reply a lot too, so at least two.
>However about the Romeo and Juliet thing, I don't think you, or anyone else
>for that matter, really needs to understand the particular works of older authors
>-- like Shakespeare for English or 夏目漱石 for Japanese -- in order to use the language well.
Maybe so.
However, some knowledge about his works seems to be common one among educated native English speakers.
For example, the following phrases are frequently quoted in novels, movies, TV shows, etc.
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Get thee to a nunnery.
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
What's in a name? A rose by any name would smell as sweet.
If music be the food of love, play on.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
I just wanted to produce a parody of the Shakespearean phrases
presented by 777. No offense to anybody. Just an innocent joke.
(1) To be, or not to be: that is the question.
---> 渡米 oder not 渡米: das ist ein Problem.
["渡米" (tobei) means "go to America."]
(2) There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
---> There is more money to be hidden in a tax haven on the earth, Whore-ration,
Than are dreamt of in your economics.
(3) Get thee to a nunnery.
---> Forget it with Sean Connery.
(4) All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
---> All the world's a cage, and all the men and women merely prisoners.
(5) Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
---> Row me there, row me there! Wherefore dost thou not row me there?
(6) What's in a name? A rose by any name would smell as sweet.
---> What's in a game? A rise in scores in any game
doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
(7) If music be the food of love, play on.
---> If a Muse be a fool for love-making, play around.
(8) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
---> Shall I condemn thee to summon the Devil?
DREAS REPRESENT, WHOOP WHOOP
>>177
When I said that there was a difference in vernacular, this is what I meant. Those would all be understood, but would also seem bizzare or out of place.
This was supposed to respond to 180, but the reply system is screwing me over a little
SECTION XI THE PROPHECIES
692
When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard
the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself,
and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing
who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of
him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified,
like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert
island, and should awake without knowing where he is, and without
means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so
wretched do not fall into despair. I see other persons around me of
a like nature. I ask them if they are better informed than I am. They
tell me that they are not. And thereupon these wretched and lost
beings, having looked around them, and seen some pleasing objects,
have given and attached themselves to them. For my own part, I have
not been able to attach myself to them, and, considering how strongly
it appears that there is something else than what I see, I have
examined whether this God has not left some sign of Himself.
I see many contradictory religions, and consequently all false save
one. Each wants to be believed on its own authority, and threatens
unbelievers. I do not therefore believe them. Every one can say this;
every one can call himself a prophet. But I see that Christian
religion wherein prophecies are fulfilled; and that is what every
one cannot do.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm#SECTION_XI
a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back,
a dangerous trembling and halting.
"Thus Spake Zarathustra" (Also Sprach Zarathustra)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm
Speaking of 夏目漱石, I recently read most(perhaps 80%) of his novels.
To be honest, I was not impressed.
The only novel I found mildly interesting is "坊ちゃん".
I guess either I'm blind or he is overrated.
Yes, maybe he's overrated. Perhaps many people think Soseki Natsume
must be a great writer because he's frequently quoted and that all
school textbooks quote him.
As for me, I don't care what textbooks or the rest of the public
say about Soseki Natsume. I don't know whether he is one of the most
artistically talented writers or not. But I still like him because of
the gentleness and love that his style evokes. He is gentle and loving
to his readers. That's what matters. And I think that's why he's
loved by his readers. He soothes the injured feelings of people.
And I don't think many of his readers even care whether he's actually
talented or not.
Probably you don't feel impressed by Soseki Natsume because you don't
find his plots intriguing enough. Well, Soseki's novels are not the
kind of works in which to seek plot. Soseki is interesting to read
in terms of style. That's what matters, I think.
Basically, when I read literature, including Soseki, Shakespeare, and
E. Bronte, I don't care about the plots they offer. All I care about
is their styles: the beauty, rhythm, and musicality of their language.
If you are seeking plot, then I suggest you stick to John Grisham
and other contemporary best-selling novelists instead of reading
Soseki or other classics. Classics are in general boring in plot,
I guess.
Like I was saying before, I don't think natives need to know the particular works of the authors academia consider "greats".
But like you pointed out in >>181 there are expressions from these "greats" that are used in common parlance.
I suspect that 夏目漱石 has influenced Japanese in the same way with several expressions,
but I can't really remember any at this moment.
Also, I rather like 芥川龍之介 better.
In this world there are just you and me
In the after-life we will just play Frisbee
Because everybody there is very, very wealthy
We won't have to suffer any more beggary
You won't have to bring any dowry
Occasionally we'll be able to afford some foolery
Who is watching us from beyond the sky?
God? Buddha? A huge scientist looking into his telescope?
Is the scientist sending us a gift of lullaby?
Or is he trying to deprive us of our hope?
Who in the world is that woman standing by?
Is she by any chance also a misanthrope?
Why do the two of them never cease to sigh?
Do they not at all know how to cope?
Why do they refuse to say to us "Hi"?
They are considering destroying us
They have been bringing about a variety of ills
About which we humans have to make much fuss
Such as many an economic crisis that disables us from paying our bills
And politicians have to be preoccupied with numerous problems to discuss
With shadows of despair over people whom such a crisis kills
Once came a blonde nymph came dancing from Heaven
Sitting down beside me, she smiled a mischievous smile
Eternally captivating me as if with something finely woven
Never did I dream this was the beginning of something vile
Twinkling eyes had she, with their magnetic allure
Maddeningly soft and gentle was her voice
Singing like a sensitive canary, offering me a powerful cure
For my stubborn numerous diseases that had left me no choice
A picture beyond description was the slender fairy
So heavenly splendid and brilliant was her beauty
It even gave me a constant feeling of misery
For I knew that divine appearances never last and were a rarity
Never could I believe or dream the goddess was real
So ephemeral and unrealistic did she seem
Nor did her glorious looks manage to heal
My morbidly low and destructive self-esteem
Always did I believe her to be nothing but a hologram
Never did I turn my eyes away from her features so fair
Had I look away even for a second to talk with my neighbor Sam
Sure was I to lose my eternal idol, who would vanish into thin air
So desperately profound and pathological was my passion
Could I not help weeping and sobbing, missing her
Five minutes after having to leave her at the end of the day's session
I just had to, had to, and had to see her, never able to get sober
>This is coming from a person who did a thesis on 日本語の書き言葉の歴史、
As you know the Japanese writing system greatly changed just after the World War 2.
They not only simplified Kanji（新字体）and reduced the number of Kanji（当用漢字）,
but also changed the use of hiragana(新かな使い).
I think the main motivation of this "reform" is a desire to abolish Kanji and make the Japanese writing system into phonogramatic one.
The idea was not new. Since the Meiji Restoration, some(or many) people began to think that Japanese language is inferior to Western ones, which I think is bovine feces.
The idea was reinforced by the complete defeat of Japan by the US in WW2.
[Context: After hearing from Svidrigailov how her brother Raskolnikov confessed
to Sonya the prostitute that he was the murderer, Dunya wants to leave
but Svidrigailov refuses to let her go. Desperate, Dunya pulls out
a revolver.]
Dunya raised the revolver and, deathly pale, her white lower lip
trembling, her large black eyes flashing like fire, looked at him (Svidrigailov), having
made up her mind, calculating, and waiting for the first movement
from his side. He had never yet seen her so beautiful. The fire that
flashed from her eyes as she raised the revolver seemed to burn him,
and his heart was wrung with pain. He took a step, and a shot rang
out. The bullet grazed his hair and struck the wall behind him, He
stopped and laughed softly:
"The wasp has stung! She aims straight at the head.... What's this?
Blood?" He took out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood that was
flowing in a thin trickle from his right temple;
(Fyodor Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment," pp.495-496,
translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky,
1992, Everyman's Library)
Sonya following Ralsolnikov even to the ends of the earth
As he [= Raskolnikov] bowed down the second time in the Haymarket,
turning to the left, he had seen Sonya [= the prostitute: standing
about fifty steps away. She was hiding from him behind one of the
wooden stalls in the square, with meant that she had accompanied him
throughout his sorrowful procession! Raskolnikov felt and understood
in that moment, once and for all, that ★Sonya was now with him forever
and would follow him even to the ends of the earth★, wherever his fate
took him. His whole hearth turned over inside him... but -- here he
was at the fatal place....
Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment," Part 6, Chapter 8;
translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky,
Everyman's Library, p.526
Near the end of the novel, Raskolnikov the prisoner sees nomadic yurts
on the steppe. Then Sonya comes.
*******************
There, on the boundless, sun-bathed steppe, ●nomadic yurts● could be
seen, like barely visible black specks. There was freedom, there a
different people lived, quite unlike those here, there ★time itself
seemed to stop★, as if the centuries of Abraham and his flocks had not
passed. Raskolnikov sat and stared fixedly, not tearing his eyes
away; his thought turned to reverie, to contemplation; he was not
thinking of anything, but some anguish troubled and tormented him.
Suddenly ★Sonya★ was beside him. She came up almost inaudibly and
sat down next to him. It was still very early; the morning chill had
not softened yet. She was wearing her poor old wrap and the green shawl.
Her face still bore signs of illness; it had become thinner, paler,
more pinched. She smiled to him amiably and joyfully, but gave him
her hand as timidly as ever.
"Crime and Punishment," Epilogue, translated by Pevear and
Volokhonsky; Everyman's Library, p.549
Yes I know. I think that the only way Japanese could ever hope to leave 漢字 would be to use old 仮名.
Since the language has a very restricted range of sounds, there's no way it can possibly use modern kana or latin letters beyond very specific cases.
The question is about this expression, "well received."
If something is well received, I guess this usually means it has received a favorable reception.
But if the subject of the sentence is "the attached quote," then could it mean it was received
safe and sound via Internet as an attached file? I actually see this sentence somewhere on the net
and wasn't sure what it meant. Could it be used to notify the sender of the quote
that the recipient of the quote surely get the quote?
Do you think the person who write "well received" to mean he/she received it safe and sound is a non-native English speaker?
I'm not a native speaker but I just wanted to quote a passage I had
happened to find on the Internet that I thought might be similar
to what you often see.
******** QUOTE ********
Someone suggests that we take turns quoting the best maxims about
love that we know.
One of my girlfriends volunteers to go first: "This is one from
Shakespeare," she says with a touch of pride. "Love all, trust a few."
★The quote is well received.★ Everyone toasts.
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=RXsZxZKPhqMC&pg=PT101&dq=%22quote+is+well+received%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22quote%20is%20well%20received%22&f=false
Thanks for taking your time and reply.
The meaning of "quote" is different from that of in the sentence.
Quote in 199 means the amount of money you have to pay when you buy something.
but what I saw was without a hyphen. And the quote here means an amount of money you
would pay.
Still need this answered?
a native English speaker. I think I know his handle name although for some reason
he's been anonymous recently.
Of course.
Since Kanji has been a vital part of the Japanese language,
I think if it had been abolished, it would have caused a tremendous damage to the language.
Fortunately it is very unlikely that Kanji would be abolished in the foreseeable future.
However, I think the aforementioned "reform" of the writing system inflicted,
metaphorically speaking, scars on the face of an exquisite Japanese lady.
Yeah it sounds like he isn't a native if "well received" is used that way.
>>206
How do you feel about kanji that was falling out of favor because of its perceived difficulty being used again
because of IMEs? For example 鬱。
I'd like to state here that I've always loved kanji but I've also
been keenly aware of its great disadvantages as well.
At the age of seven, in the first days at elementary school, when
I learned the very first kanji characters, I was thrilled. I fell
so much in love with kanji that I just couldn't help practicing
how to write each kanji until I learned it completely. Not only
would I practice pronouncing each kanji, realizing its meaning,
but also I would keep writing it in my notebook and on any scrap of
paper that I happened to find at hand. While walking or in bed,
I was still thinking of all the kanji characters that I had learned
at school on the day and practicing writing them in space by using
my finger as a pencil and using space as a piece of paper. It was
about this way that I spent many more years after that. I could not
help studying closely and memorizing every single kanji that I
happened to meet. By the time I reached 18 or 20, as I recall, I am
sure that I was one of the students who had learned the most
kanji characters. I was that much in love with kanji.
But then again, I've also been keenly aware of the disadvantages
of kanji -- at least for Japanese people. Why? For Chinese, kanji
may be all right. Because the Chinese language has what they call
四声 (shisei), or the four word intonations, so to speak. For example,
the pronunciation "ma" has, in Mandarin Chinese, four word intonations:
ma1 (a high pitch maintained), ma2 (from low to high), ma3 (very low,
with its pitch slightly rising), ma4 (from high to low). Here, I'm
using these strange marks (ma1, ma2, etc.) because the standard
notation of the four word intonations in its special codes may get
garbled here. (to be continued)
Anyway, what I wanted to say was that in Chinese, because of its
four different intonations for each kanji of Mandarin Chinese (and as
many as six intonations for each kanji of Cantonese), they can easily
tell each word (or kanji) from another by merely hearing it pronounced.
The ancient Chinese which we Japanese imported in the sixth or seventh
century should have been that way too.
The Japanese language, on the other hand, would have had no such
word intonation system. With a very few exceptions, none of the
Japanese words is distinguishable from another if their phonemes
(or the word forms, so to speak) are the same. For example, in
Japanese, 詩, 死, 師, 誌, 氏, 市, 士, 四, and so on are pronounced
basically in exactly the same way. But in Chinese, they are pronounced
at least in four different ways thanks to the four different word
intonations (or tones). Chinese, therefore, should be well off in using
kanji (or Chinese characters), while Japanese have a hard time at least
when they have to understand each word simply by hearing it pronounced.
(to be continued)
You might say, "But can't you tell which kanji another person is referring to
by considering the context?" Oh, yes, of course, we can -- in some contexts
anyway. But there are surely many situations where we can't. Take this example:
"しについてのこうさつ" (shi ni tsuiteno kosatsu). When it is pronounced by a
professional Japanese announcer, you can easily understand that they mean,
"shi についての考察" (a study on "shi"). But even that professional announcer,
who is a professional at pronouncing Japanese, can't make you understand
whether they are referring to "死" or "詩." In that context, we have to
consider these two possible phrases: 詩についての考察 (a study on poetry) and
死についての考察 (a study on death). Therefore, when we try to make
the listener understand what specifically referring to, they are
compelled to show a panel on which that particular phrase is written
or saying "shi についての考察、つまり死ぬことについての考察" or
"shi についての考察、つまり詩歌（しいか）についての考察."
This is a great disadvantage that the culture of kanji has
for us Japanese.
CORRIGENDA:
they are
compelled to show a panel on which that particular phrase is written
or 【to say】 "shi についての考察、つまり死ぬことについての考察" or
"shi についての考察、つまり詩歌（しいか）についての考察."
>>208 (where I forgot to mention the meaning of each of these
words: ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4)
(1) ma1 (or the word "ma" with its tone maintained at a high pitch)
This word is written this way: 媽 (which means "mother")
(2) ma2 (or the word "ma" with its tone rising quickly)
This word is written this way: 麻 (which means "to be numb")
(3) ma3 (or the word "ma" with its tone at a very low pitch,
slightly going down and then slowly going up)
This word is written this way: 馬 (which means "horse")
(4) ma4 (or the word "ma" with its tone going down quickly)
This word is written this way: 罵 (to scold)
This way, even though these four words or Chinese characters are
pronounced in exactly the same way if we don't consider their
respective word intonations (or tones), they mean four distinct
different things. These four words were introduced into Japanese
with their tones not considered. It is there that a linguistic
catastrophe, so to speak, occurred.
While in Chinese, the four words were used comfortably without
confusion, in Japanese we have a hard time telling one from another.
Hence, the confusion we have in telling "死についての考察" (a study on death)
and "詩についての考察" (a study on death)), which I mentioned at >>210.
And these are just two examples out of the millions of devastating
confusions that we Japanese encounter every single day in our
linguistic activities.
by using the keywords: 同音異義語 (どうおんいぎご) and 混乱 (こんらん).
You will see how Japanese and Koreans are having a hard time
telling one word from another because their languages have no
such tone system as Chinese that identifies each word simply with
the tone (or word intonation) of each word.
Read this article:
http://www.aｓｙura2.com/12/asia14/msg/711.html
(please replace the "ｓｙ" with the half-width "sy".)
This article reports the linguistic confusion experienced by
contemporary Koreans during the 44 years with no use of Chinese
characters. As you may already know, Koreans has officially limited
its use of Chinese characters since 1946, while North Korea and
Vietnam completely abolished their use of Chinese characters.
Anyway, the report says that due to the limited use of Chinese
characters, there is a large gap in communication between the older
generations used to using them and the younger generations who are not.
Just like in Japanese, the Korean language has no such tone system
as Chinese. Therefore, just like Japanese, Koreans can't tell one
word from another if the words are not written in Chinese characters.
There are consequently many cases where, when they are written in
Hangul (or Korean alphabet) or just pronounced without indicating
in which Chinese characters the specific word or words being referred
to are supposed to be written, Koreans can't tell what exactly the
speaker is referring to.
That is a very sad situation. Japanese often can't tell one word from another
just by hearing them pronounced. They need the aid of Chinese characters
actually written and indicated to them if they have to understand
them. Young Koreans, on the other hand, don't know many Chinese
characters, so that they can't tell one word from another either by
hearing them pronounced or by reading the Chinese characters in which
they are supposed to written, because they don't know the characters.
I don't know what is going on in Vietnam or North Korea. But, given
that they totally abolished their use of Chinese characters several decades
ago, they must be having a hard time. Most probably the only way out
for them would have been to give up using words derived from Chinese,
or to accompany each such Chinese-derived word or string of words
with an affix or other additional information to help identify each
such phrase.
Thanks for the reply. Good to know what a native English speaker thinks about it.
That's a good thing.
Those who restricted the number of kanji used in the media, schools, etc. were thoughtless.
Can you imagine the government of the US restricting the number of English words used in the media?
I looked into Vietnamese before several years ago. What they use is a modified version of the Latin Alphabet.
The marks above letters indicate the tone changes, because Vietnamese is tonal just like Chinese.
So it's actually not too bad for them.
But Korean I have no idea about, and I don't care to know. I know that sounds bad, but I don't like the language.
>>216
Well, it was the US who ordered Japan to create a 漢字表 that was less than 2000 characters post WW2.
And honestly the government doesn't restrict it, of course, but each news company does restrict their use of vocabulary.
The American news is written such that people who finished Middle-School can understand it.
It's only select publications that will use vocabulary higher than that, such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic.
>it was the US who ordered Japan to create a 漢字表 that was less than 2000 characters post WW2.
I didn't know this, but I know that they did advocate the romanization of
the Japanese script. It's obvious that they thought, because of kanji, only the elite
could understand written Japanese. However, the lieracy rate of prewar Japan was very high,
much higher than that of the US or the UK.
http://www.nipponnosekaiichi.com/mind_culture/literacy_rate.html
>And honestly the government doesn't restrict it, of course, but each news company
>does restrict their use of vocabulary.
You know that there's a big difference between an authoritarian control over the vocabulary and
individual voluntary ones.
By the way, thanks to the modern technology, you can look up a dictionary by just
clicking or touching the screen of a PC, a tablet, or a smart phone.
A situation somewhat similar to that of IMEs.
>>199
>>205
"But if the subject of the sentence is "the attached quote," then could it mean it was received
safe and sound via Internet as an attached file? I actually see this sentence somewhere on the net
and wasn't sure what it meant. Could it be used to notify the sender of the quote
that the recipient of the quote surely get the quote?
Do you think the person who write "well received" to mean he/she received it safe and sound is a non-native English speaker? "
In American English "well-received" means people like it- so if someone were to say, "the anime was well-received" he means
people enjoyed it, and it got good reviews. In terms of using it for "it was received safe", anyone who uses it in that was is
almost certainly a non-native speaker. I've never heard that used once in my entire life, not from anyone. You could say something like
"I've received the package" but saying "the package was well-received" implies that when the mailman delivered the package to you, you started
cheering and jumping with joy.
I would clarify, but simply put, such a scenario simply does not exist.
Furthermore, English does not typically need a large vocabulary, it's a language of "do you get what I mean?"
..Which is not to say of course the sheer number of English vocabulary isn't huge, and growing every day, but the vernacular is consistent not because people are dumb but because you generally don't need to say something like
"A digression that was ephemeral, unscrupulous and caused all those participant to astringe"
When you could just say "The conversation was tense."
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The real reason the US wanted Japan to start using a romanticized script was that they (correctly) identified that a lack of communication was going to create more wars.
I understand there's a lot of culture behind Kanji, but I do genuinely believe that the world needs a consistent language.
I've seen some users on this website protest and say things like "how come you want to force English on Japan but won't even revise your own language to be more accessive" but that logic isn't true.
If someone were to propose a law that would revise the English alphabet to be more logical I would vote for it every time it appeared.
Romanization of the Japanese language has been advocated since 蘭学者 during 鎖国。
If I remember correctly, one of the MEXT meetings around 1900 for the reform of kana
almost had a passing vote to drop kana entirely for Romanization.
Yes I understand there's a difference, but still if its large enough does it
matter if the restriction is from a government or a corporation?
Anything can be an authority. But I digress.
almost had a passing vote to drop kana entirely for Romanization.
That would have been a good decision. The US really missed out in not modernizing it's language when it declared independence from Britain.
>The real reason the US wanted Japan to start using a romanticized script was that
>they (correctly) identified that a lack of communication was going to create more wars.
I think even if the Japanese writing system was romanized, most Americans wouldn't learn Japanese.
What about Germany? German is romanized of course, but the war occurred
between Germany and the Allies.
In any case, Japan has never fought a war since after the WW2 though it has not abolished Kanji.
>I understand there's a lot of culture behind Kanji, but I do genuinely believe that
>the world needs a consistent language.
So you think the romanization will be an improvement of the Japanese langauage.
I think the opposite is true for several reasons.
Maybe I will explain them later.
For now, it might suffice to make the following observation.
There's a saying in English: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I don't think the Japanese writing system has a serious problem.
It's not perfect, but it works.
So far it has worked pretty good in spite of the bad "reform"
as Japan's track record shows;
Japan's economy is the third largest in the world, though its population is
only 10% of China's and 30% of the US's.
It has top-class science and technology.
It has never fought a war since after the WW2.
On the BBC Country Rating Poll conducted in 2013, Japan's rate of positive influence in the world
was the fourth.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/2013%20Country%20Rating%20Poll.pdf
Are you in favor of abolishing Kanji?
Good heavens no. It's the reason I began studying Japanese in the first place.
I could have went with Chinese of course, but I didn't like the idea of tones.
I know there's debate on whether Japanese is or not, I think there is, but not nearly as many
tones as Chinese.
Of course I'm talking broadly when using Chinese, Mandarin is of course standard.
However all languages in China, that I know of, are tonal.
Also, TIL, hollow points are murderous, holy shit
I think the simplified Chinese characters are awful.
They are so simplified that I cannot recognize the corresponding original characters.
I wonder if most Chinese people understand the original Chinese characters.
Surely the simplified characters are easier to write by hand, but when you use a PC,
writing the original characters is equally easy.
Hong Kong still uses the traditional characters.
But I am pretty sure that the Chinese who are raised using simplified
cannot make heads or tails of traditional.
I had one Chinese friend who said she could not, but that's not indicative
of it being a problem with all Chinese.
As you probably know, not only Hong Kong, but Taiwanese also use the traditional characters.
The simplified characters hinders communication among them.
It also hinders the understanding of the classical Chinese literature.
The following is a passage from The Analects of Confucius which was written about 2,500 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analects
I guess most educated Japanese understand the gist of it with the help of 書き下し.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanbun
【原文】
子貢問政。子曰。足食。足兵。民信之矣。
子貢曰。必不得已而去。於斯三者何先。
曰。去兵。子貢曰。必不得已而去。於斯二者何先。
曰。去食。自古皆有死。民無信不立。
【書き下し】
子貢、政を問う。子曰く、食を足らし、兵を足らし、民之を信ず。
子貢曰く、必ず已むを得ずして去らば、斯の三者に於いて何をか先にせん。
曰く、兵を去らん。子貢曰く、必ず已むを得ずして去らば、斯の二者に於いて何をか先にせん。
曰く、食を去らん。古より皆な死有り、民、信無くんば立たず。
[English translation]
The Analects, Book XII, 7
Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, Sufficient food,
sufficient weapons, and the confidence of the common people.
Tzu-kung said, Suppose you had no choice but to dispense with one
of these three, which would you forgo? The Master said, Weapons.
Tzu-kung said, Suppose you were forced to dispense with one of the
two that were left, which would you forgo? The Master said, Food.
For from of old death has been the lot of all men; but a people
that no longer trusts its rulers is lost indeed.
(Translated by Arthur Waley, Everyman's Library, p.155)
by George Orwell
The whole text is accessible here:
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/
This is an essay published in 1936. It's very short: about seven
pages long in paperback format. Although that short, it seems
to be very well-known. There's even a full-length Wikipedia article
on that single short essay alone too.
I read it twice. Two years ago and last night. I like it. Just like
other writings of his, this essay is written in very concise, plain
English and yet in punchy, emotion-rich style, offering much food for
thought, mainly in political, and maybe in philosophical terms as well.
He is said to have been over-serious and seems to have had a
very hard life. Just reading his very short biography of
one to two pages must be enough to impress you. Here I don't mean
to say I agree totally to whatever he says. Frankly, my dear, I don't
care a d**m whether he was right or wrong in his political thought.
But I do take much interest in the life of anyone who devoted their
entire life to a cause, whatever their beliefs might have been.
Besides, his writing style, his plain English is a good example to
follow for a learner of English like myself.
"I think even if the Japanese writing system was romanized, most Americans wouldn't learn Japanese.
What about Germany? German is romanized of course, but the war occurred
between Germany and the Allies. "
Completely untrue. This is wrong on multiple levels. Time has shown that closely-related languages are always the ones most learned.
Take any statistic you will and you will find that the most common secondary languages are Spanish, german and french- not only
because there are many immigrants from the countries where those languages are spoken
but also because those languages are wonderfully simple. You want to know what major language is the least spoken in america? Japanese.
You want to know why? Because it is the single most difficult language to learn. Chinese then korean are distant seconds.
This is why I say that your second point is also wrong. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
From what have I just told you, is japanese not broken? Is english not broken as well?
This is the dawn of the internet- the single most important invention since the printing press. The internet is a near-permanent,
wealth of infinite information.
Arguably up to 70% is written in english.
If we want the internet to be a permanent, practical resource, languages should be adapted to fit its function.
Standard romaji would make Japanese-english crossover infinitely more easy.
And of course an edited english alphabet is also necessary. English isn't as broken as Japanese- but it is very close.
>You want to know what major language is the least spoken in america? Japanese.
>You want to know why? Because it is the single most difficult language to learn.
>Chinese then korean are distant seconds.
According to the following list of top foreign languages studied in the US schools,
Japanese and Italian are almost of the same rank.
The rank of Chinese is slightly lower than that of Japanese.
The rank of Korean is almost at the bottom even though the Korean writing system
uses the Korean alphabet called Hangul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_learned_foreign_languages_in_the_United_States
For example, Japanese was very popular in the 80s and early 90s because of your booming economy.
As a result there are plenty of Japanese learning materials in English from that time period.
As for now, the Chinese market is booming, so now many High Schools and Colleges are offering Mandarin
learning materials.
German and French are still around simply because of the large number of settlers from countries that speak those languages.
Spanish is considered the easiest, and of course so many Mexicunts come here and refuse to learn English.
So it will not go away any time soon.
At least that's my assumption.
in school use =/= actual use or ease of use.
I can ask various teachers in the high schools that surround me to teach me some Italian and they can because of it's use by immigrants;
if I asked them to teach me Japanese though? Not a chance.
>>237
This is partially correct but there is the impact of difficulty.
I could learn basic german in a week. I could learn Italian from the nice old lady down the street;
I could learn all necessary for those languages free and out of school. If I wanted to learn japanese though?
I would have to spend several years and thousands of dollars in resources and tutoring to be any level of acceptable.
And I would stay away from use of racial slurs, that doesn't exactly help your argument and Mexicans are some of the most rapid learners of english there are,
and also make up a considerable portion of the american military academies. Don't believe the stereotypes!
According to the following site, Chinese, Japanese and Korean seem to be at about
the same level of difficulty for native English speakers in learning these languages.
Note that the Korean writing system does not use Kanji at all.
Which language is easiest to learn: Chinese, Japanese, or Korean?
https://www.quora.com/Which-language-is-easiest-to-learn-Chinese-Japanese-or-Korean
The following site compares Japanese and Korean.
Which is harder? Japanese or Korean?
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2006/08/12/which-is-harder-japanese-or-korean/
A user of the site says the Korean writing system has a problem that
the Japanese writing system does not have.
>Vocabulary wise, I think Korean also presents a problem – Kanji might be more
>difficult to learn, but I’d argue that they also make words easier to distinguish
>from one another after you put in the effort to learn Kanji. With Korean, it seems
>that a lot of the words seem very similar, so it seems almost impossible
>(for me at the very least) to learn vocabulary by reading, because there’s no Kanji,
>Korean words are not easily distinguishable from one another from their shapes.
I think a similar problem would arise if the Japanese writing system was romanized.
Here comes the saying again; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yes I noted that ease of language is another factor. With the advent of the internet it is very cheap to learn foreign languages, even for some esoteric languages.
Look up Moses McCormick for an example of what I mean. Of course I'm not a native of any of the languages he has studied, but there is means to getting
materials that were only two decades ago restricted to the ivory towers of academia.
I hadn't noticed I wrote that insult while proof-reading my post, my bad. Yes there are stereotypes, and yes there are exceptions. However, when personal
experience has involved growing up around groups who fit the stereotype, it's hard to persuade somebody to think differently. In this case, yes I am referring
to myself. But I am not going to get into my personal history over this.
The references that are cited when talking about difficulty are usually from the Foreign Service Institute's rankings.
Here is a PDF, but it's hosted on the NSA website, for those of you who are paranoid about that:
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_spectrum/foreign_language.pdf
You're not refuting my main point- that if it "ain't broke don't fix it"
you've only shown that yes, they all all "broke".
I had already said that Korean, Chinese and Japanese are the hardest, Japanese is the hardest period.
Allow me to make a point of this- these languages are difficult because they
A. Use symbols, and a great deal of them
B. can be interpreted (to a certain extent)
C. Are not closely linked with other languages; this is most pronounced in Japanese and least pronounced in Korean
Chinese, while having the greatest number of characters, is probably the easiest of the trio to learn because it is so structural;
Chinese grammar can be learned in a day.
For this same reason is why Chinese works near perfect in machine translation with other Euro-american languages; plug in a sentence in chinese
and the machine will spit out a near-perfect equal in english or vice versa.
Korean is harder because its grammar is a bit more complicated however korean was modernized (well, as modern as the 15th century can be) and has a comparatively
puny amount of common Hangul symbols. This helps ease of access greatly. Korean can be used in machine translation with some effort.
Japanese is the hardest because it has a high number of Kanji (I would argue 2020 to read a wiki page) and a high number of Hiragana and katakana (adding up to around 100)
Technically you could write everything in Hirigana (which would be a good idea in theory) but good luck reading that. (cont in a bit)
>You're not refuting my main point- that if it "ain't broke don't fix it"
>you've only shown that yes, they all all "broke".
What exactly do you mean by "Japanese is broke"?
Are you saying that Japanese is an uncivilized defect-ridden language
(hence it should be reformed) because it is difficult for native English speakers to learn?
Since when did English become the paragon of human languages?
A sad little boy is he,
For he's broken his little sister's neck
And he'll have no jam for tea.
Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes
by Harry Graham (poet, 1874-1936)
To read other poems by him, click here:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Graham_(poet)
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear,
●Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.●
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight,
For ●I ne'er saw true beauty till this night●.
Romeo and Juliet 5.1.43-52
>>Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
Romeo and Juliet, 1.5.46
Notes for this line in Arden Shakespeare Third Series:
This continues the image of Juliet as an ornament too precious to
be worn, of such worth that all earth cannot afford her, reinforcing
the idea of an ethereal presence not best suited to the sublunary
world of *use* and the deterioration of beauty.
Hunger for beauty and nobility unbearably elevated,
maddeningly enhanced for this cesspool of a world
Whenever I feel ready to immerse myself in the world of language and literature
demonic voices of utility terrify me, saying it's all useless
Whenever I am intensely impressed by the heavenly beauty of art
the monotonous, mechanical reality and practicality drags me back into the usual spitoon
Constantly irritated by electronics, television, the Internet, motorization,
and the screeching cries of babies and infants,
together with the insane noises of meaninglessly babbling
middle-aged women and half-illegally reckless motorcycle riders
I am doomed to work, work, and work, enduring all this monotony
in this catastrophic country, in this entirely meaningless universe
When will the Supreme Being pardon me and let me vanish into thin air,
back to my good old quietude where the quintessential beauty
of total, absolute nothingness prevails?
He did nothing else
He was too busy to do anything in the world
He was jobless, staying in his patient's room,
taken care of by his nurses and psychiatrists
He was too noble to do anything in this cesspool of a world
All he did was to watch and listen for the tick-tack of his clock
Every single second was much too dear to him
He was constantly terribly busy
Trying desperately to live with the keenest awareness of the moment
Yes, he was busy
Yes, he was really busy
He didn't even have time for sex, for reading, for listening to music,
for small talk, for anything at all
He was by far the busiest person constantly aware of
the significance of his being at this corner of the universe
Awareness was his profession
Feeling this nothingness was his profession
Just a glance at this thread was enough to make me laugh an awful lot.
ITT: Thou shall'st talk like Shakespeare
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-961693.html
ROMEO [Comes forward]
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious:
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
[JULIET aloft.]
ROMEO:
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
JULIET: Ay me.
She speaks.
O speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
JULIET
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Romeo and Juliet 2.2
JULIET
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm nor face or any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
ROMEO
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love and I'll be new baptized.
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET
What man art thou that thus bescreened in night
So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am.
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
JULIET
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
ROMEO
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
JULIET
How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
ROMEO
With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.
JULIET
If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
ROMEO
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
JULIET
I would not for the world they saw thee here.
ROMEO
I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes,
An but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
JULIET
By whose direction found'st thou out this place?
ROMEO
By love, that first did prompt me to enquire.
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot, yet wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.
I'd sign up with the military as I could, I don't really fear death, but I do think my health issues would keep me out.
What'd you guys do for your college? How do your respective countries handle college and the military?
習主席の屈辱、英議会演説で拍手は一度も起こらず
http://netouyonews.net/archives/9008974.html
http://netouyonews.net/archives/9008974.html
26: 名無しさん＠おーぷん 2015/10/22(木)12:51:26 ID:Cic
さっきデイリーメール見たら
奥さんの化粧がはげはげの写真載ってたｗ
ほんと英国人は悪趣味だよ
http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/netouyonews/imgs/1/6/16061cff.jpg
Uncivilized has no part in this. "Civilized" is such an emotional word, you can brand anything "uncivilized"
Here's the real problem- it's impractical. It's impractical for the people who learn it as a first language because it's so unbelievably complicated.
Not only this but it is also only, and crucially spoken in one country. These flaws brand it unacceptable.
Right now one of the most spoken languages on earth is English- and the one most spoken on the internet (this is very important) is also english, by an incredible majority.
Don't think I am so foolish that I think English is the best because I am american and a patriotic idiot. I am not so foolish.
I said it before, and I will say it again, that English is in desperate need of a revision. It is an an absolute mess. Just an incredibly widespread mess.
It is acceptably logical and perfectly practical, if that makes sense.
If we were to ignore practicality and just go with the most logical, functional language I would choose an artificial language every time, like for example Esperanto.
Though even that could use some editing.
>It's impractical for the people who learn it as a first language
>because it's so unbelievably complicated.
If it's so much complicated, why the literacy rate of Japan is over 99%?
I think you have two misconceptions about the Japanese language.
1) Because of Kanji, Japanese vocabulary is *far* more difficult to learn than
learning English vocabulary.
2) Japanese is more difficult to learn for native English speakers than, say, Spanish
because Japanese is *intrinsically* more complicated than Spanish.
First, I'll explain quickly why I think 1) is wrong.
If you learn the very basics of Kanji(as shown here
http://kanjialive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/intro-to-kanji.pdf
), which can be learned for one day,
I think learning a kanji character, say, 快(which means "comfortable") is not very difficult
compared to learning, say, a German word "Gemütlich" which also means "comfortable".
Many Japanese words are made by combinations of two or three kanji characters.
For example, 難民, which means "refugees", where 難 means "difficulty" and 民 means "people".
It's pretty easy to guess the meaning of 難民 once you know the meanings of 難 and 民.
Just because the English writing system uses only 26 characters does not mean
it's easier to acquire English vocabulary than Japanese one.
Secondly, Spanish is easy to learn for native English speakers because English and Spanish
belong to the same language family called the Indo-European languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages
By Emily Bronte
High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars
All down the mountain sides wild forests lending
One mighty voice to the lift giving wind
Rivers their bands in the jubilee rending
Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending
Wider and deeper their waters extending
Leaving a desolate desert behind
Shining and lowering and swelling and dying
Changing forever from midnight to noon
Roaring like thunder like soft music sighing
Shadows on shadows advancing and flying
Lightning bright flashes the deep gloom defying
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon
For a vigorous, fantastic recitation of this poem, click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdBeYWUDA3Y
Where does Chinese fit into this?
Also, the most logical language would obviously be communicating via propositional logic.
>>258
Because he is an advanced learner of English and posts it for discussion.
Literary critics say that Emily Bronte was a great poet. If I remember
correctly, Virginia Woolf went so far as to say that, even if Bronte's
novel "Wuthering Heights" may fall out of people's mind some day,
her poems will survive.
My English still irritatingly far from perfect, I unfortunately
can't seem to appreciate the beauty of all of her poems. But I do
think I understand the intense vigor of this particular poem
"High Waving Heather." The punchy recitation on YouTube is a great
help in savoring her powerful rhythm.
Note the numerous repetition of the "--ing" verb form (the present
participle), which effectively depicts the velocity and intensity
of the stormy blasts. In moonlit midnight, Emily would have often
gone out of her cozy house, which would have been separated from
any other nearby hamlet or neighbor dwelling in Yorkshire, into
the vast heather-covered field. She never got married, never
left her birthplace except for some very short periods, and
died at 30. Most of her family members died very young, say,
around the age she died herself. Her mother, her sister Charlotte
Bronte the author, and her brother all died young. Her clergyman
father was the only one who survived and lived long. (to be continued)
Emily was mannish. She was really intense, passionate. She loved dogs
much better than she did people. She was so passionate that there was
even a time when she struggled with a fierce dog and got much wounded.
She would have fought the dog with her bare hands.
Her novel and her poems seem to have much in common. Reading her poems
gives me a deeper understanding of her worldview and personality,
which should have given birth to her quintessential novel.
Both her novel and poetry are intense, vigorous, beyond the norms of
ordinary people. (I'm babbling a lot about her literature, but I'm
not yet much versed in her literature. I know my limitations in
my English ability and my understanding of any kind of literature
in English.)
>>Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending
>>Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars
Back to the poem "High Waving Heather." Note the above two lines.
The stormy blasts blow wildly through the heather under the moonlit
sky with the stars shining, with the moonlight, starlight, and the sight
of the heather mysteriously blended together. The storm intensely
blows away the people's spirit from their "dungeon" of little bodies,
breaking their "fetters" and "bars."
This image of man's being imprisoned in a "dungeon," restrained by
the "fetters" and "bars" seem to be repeated many times in much of
her literature. I have noted it in several of her poems. Her soul
would have been so intense and passionate that it would not have
been satisfied with this particular mode of life in this monotonous
universe. That is why she craved eternity, which she believed existed
after her death. Here, she never was weak. She was not the kind of
person who hated life because she was too weak to survive in this
harsh world. On the contrary, she was much too intelligent, strong,
and powerful for this mediocre mode of living. She was quite beyond
all norms of humanity. That is why she could not help longing for
the quietude of the eternal world of death.
Reading some essays by George Orwell, I found him using the word
"good-bad" at least on several occasions. I'd never met the word.
I find it interesting and funny. I don't know how widely it is used.
Let me quote the definition of the word and the quotations containing
it from the OED.
*******************
★good-bad★ adj. designating something which is simultaneously
good and bad, esp. that is generally bad or inferior, but has
redeeming characteristics, or is a particularly good example of
an inferior thing; (also) relating to both good and bad.
(1) 1852 tr. R. de Maistre in Dublin Rev. Dec. 390
There is nothing so dangerous as ●good bad● books, that is to say,
bad books written by excellent men deceived.
(2) 1899 Chambers's Jrnl. 23 Sept. 674/1
Smugglers in the ●good-bad● old times pursued what they euphemistically
called the ‘fair trade’.
(3) 1933 A. Thirkell High Rising ii. 41
‘●Good bad● books?’ ‘Yes. Not very good books,..but good of a
second-rate kind.’
(4) 1949 M. Mead Male & Female xvii. 346
A frequent theme of modern movies is the ‘●good-bad●’ girl.
(5) 2003 R. Feasey in M. Jancovich et al. Defining Cult Movies xi. 173
They do not reject or invert standards of good and bad taste,
but rather distinguish between the ‘●good bad●’ movie and the bad movie
which is simply bad.
========================
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2014).
I'm a native and I don't understand poems, so I'd say it's nothing to worry about. However I feel you won't accept that, since you want to know how to read poems.
Maybe you could find an English board where they discuss poetry?
>>265
We don't really use good-bad as far as I know. Instead what I hear is "X is so bad it's good" which has a meaning most similar to example 5.
Otherwise from what I can recall is just using words like "mediocre" and "okay" to describe something which has a meaning similar to example 3.
1 is fine as it is, because it explains what it means by good-bad, but 2 and 4 would probably be written completely different.
Thanks, 臭い米国人, for both of your valuable inputs.
As for the poem, yes, you're right. If I do want to discuss it seriously
with someone or ask somebody serious questions about it, I know
there are other websites designed for those purposes. I also know
that the best way is to join a course organized by Oxford University
for part-time online students for a fee. Here in this thread, I have
been writing these things without expecting responses from others.
Yes, of course, I'd appreciate some, but I know I can't force them
to respond to me. In the future I may take the university course.
As for the word "good-bad," I had had a vague feeling that it was
no longer used, at least not widely. George Orwell was using the word
in the 1930s and the '40s. I suspect the word was more prevalent
in Britain than today. Or perhaps he was using the word while well
aware that it was rarely used. Despite that, just a look at the word
is, I think, enough to let the readers know what the author means.
I also know that huge numbers of words that the OED picks up are archaic,
rare, total jargon, or otherwise of little importance, at least to
the general public. But I do take interest in the fact that at some
point during the long history of English there have been a period
when a certain word was used widely or at least by one famous author,
although it looks very rare or totally meaningless to us today.
I understand completely what you're saying. There's something very thrilling about learning the etymology of a word, and knowing words that were once used but aren't any more.
It amazes me that sometimes you can use these words in current time, and although it will sound funny to hear, it can be understood what it means by context.
As in your "good-bad" example. I guess the thrill to me in learning about old words and phrases is that even though they're not used today, and the language as a whole could be used completely differently,
the fact that these words can still be understood by advanced speakers means the language hasn't changed as much as we think it has.
In a thread for Japanese learners of English here on 2-channel,
one Japanese asked what this phrase means. I was positive it was
some kind of typo or that some words are missing at the end of
the phrase.
I was wrong. I googled it half unconsciously. Lo and behold, it's
a popular phrase that seems to be widely circulating on social media.
****************
“Said no one ever” is an off-the-rack punchline designed to fall
at the end of a deliberately absurd statement, inverting the meaning
of what came before it and advertising the user as someone who is
both clever and playful, as well as inside the tent with the rest of
the cool kids.
The phrase is used as the punchline in a recent TV commercial for
Carnival Cruise Lines, in an attempt to persuade millennials to
take more sea-based vacations. Cruise ships are awesome
●said no one ever●, anyway my point is it’s time to stop using it.
Before the joke expired, use of “●said no one ever●” was just the
evolution of sticking “not” on the end of a sentence, that childish
craze of the late 1990s which was itself an extension of the
playground game of bending double with laughter whenever someone
said something and yelling “It’s opposites day!” in their face.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/14/no-one-should-ever-say-said-no-one-ever
When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
(King Lear 4.6.177)
GLOUCESTER
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
(King Lear 4.1.38)
133 DIVERSION
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have
decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. (169)
136 The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking
of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind
off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy,
like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is
called diversion. (139)
When I see the blind and wretched state of man, when I survey the
whole universe in its dumbness and man left to himself with no light,
as though lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who put
him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him when he dies,
incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man
transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes
up quite lost and with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so
wretched a state does not drive people to despair. I see other people
around me, made like myself, I ask them if they are any better
informed than I, and they say they are not. Then these lost and
wretched creatures look around and find some attractive objects to
which they become addicted and attached. For my part I have never
been able to form such attachments, and considering how very
likely it is that there exists something besides what I can see,
I have tried to find out whether God has left any traces of himself. (693)
Les Pensees, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, 1966
(Penguin Books, p.59)
>Where does Chinese fit into this?
Chinese is, as I said before, wonderfully simplistic in it's grammar. However the number of characters,
and the inability to interpret foreign words, prevents it from being any degree of practical
>Also, the most logical language would obviously be communicating via propositional logic.
this is true. Maybe someday we'll have that tech. But not today.
This simply isn't true. German is easier to learn because you can import words from other languages, and uses the basic Latin alphabet,
Which somewhere around 3 BILLION people use in their languages, either as first language or second.
Are you seriously arguing that it's easier to learn 10,000+ complicated symbols than 26 letters?
You're simply not being realistic.
>This simply isn't true.
What exactly do you mean by "this"?
>Which somewhere around 3 BILLION people use in their languages,
What is your point in saying that?
>Are you seriously arguing that it's easier to learn 10,000+ complicated symbols than 26 letters?
You don't seem to know what you are talking about.
First, only about 2,000(not 10,000) Kanji characters are taught in schools in Japan.
Newspapers are written using only those characters with a small number of exceptions
like place names.
Secondly, Kanji characters are ideograms, not phonograms like the Latin alphabet.
Each Kanji character has a meaning while a Latin alphabet letter does not.
In other words, a Kanji character can be viewed as a *word*.
So it's absurd to compare the number of Kanji and the number of the Latin alphabet.
Do you think the following phrase is natural?
I guess Leslie Smith did *their* best.
'Yes, of course, if it's fine to-morrow,' said Mrs. Ramsay. 'But you'll
have to be up with the lark,' she added. (snip)
'But,' said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window,
'it won't be fine.'
●Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have
gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then,
James would have seized it.● Such were the extremes of emotion that
Mr. Ramsay excited in his children's breasts by his mere presence;
standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the blade of one,
grinning sarcastically, not only with the pleasure of disillusioning
his son and casting ridicule upon his wife, who was ten thousand times
better in every way than he was (James thought), but also with some
secret conceit at his own accuracy of judgment.
(Everyman's Library, pp.1-2)
James kept dreading the moment when he [= his father] would look up and
speak sharply to him about something or other. Why were they lagging
about here? he would demand, or something quite unreasonable like that.
And if he did, James thought, then ●I shall take a knife and strike
him to the heart.●
He had always kept ★this old symbol of taking a knife and striking
his father to the heart★. Only now, as he grew older, and sat staring
at his father in an impotent rage, 【it was not him, that old man
reading, whom he wanted to kill, but it was the thing that descended
on him - without his knowing it perhaps: that fierce sudden
black-winged harpy, with its talons and its beak all cold and hard,
that struck and struck at you】 (he could feel the beak on his bare
legs, where it had struck when he was a child) and then made off,
and there he was again, an old man, very sad, reading his book. That
he would kill, that he would strike to the heart.
(Everyman's Library, p.209)
Yes that's perfectly natural. Just don't buy into the bullshit of new pronouns idiots are trying to use like "xir/xe" and what not.
No matter what you might hear from another English speaker, if you don't know the gender you would use a form of "they".
It's also used when trying to be official on occasion.
>if you don't know the gender you would use a form of "they".
Thanks. I had suspected that a majority of native English speakers might have
the same opinion as yours, If this is true, I guess English grammar has almost
changed about the use of "they".
As you probably know, most people would have said "I guess Leslie Smith did *his* best"
before about 1980. Before the feminism movement started in the 1960s, "he" had been
universally used as a gender-neutral pronoun.
I know that the singular "they" has been used since Chaucer's time.
But as far as I know, it has been used only for a non-specific indefinite person like "nobody",
"everyone", "someone", etc. Since such a pronoun is semantically plural,
I think referring to it as "they" is not unnatural.
However, I think referring to a specific definite person(like Leslie Smith) whose gender is unknown
as "they" is quite a new phenomenon.
his old friend, Mrs. Ramsay, at a dinner party with her big family)
It would have hurt her [= Mrs. Ramsay] if he [= Mr. Bankes] had refused
to come. But it was not worth it for him. Looking at his hand he thought
that if he had been alone dinner would have been almost over now; he
would have been free to work, Yes, he thought, it is ●a terrible waste
of time●. [snip] How trifling it all is, how boring it all is, he
thought, compared with the other thing - work. [snip] What a waste of
time it all was to be sure! Yet, he thought, she is one of my oldest
friends. I am by way of being devoted to her. Yet now, at this moment
her presence meant absolutely nothing to him: her beauty meant nothing
to him; [snip] He wished only to be alone and to take up that book.
[snip] He felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit
by her side and feel nothing for her. ●The truth was that he did not
enjoy family life.● It was in this sort of state that one asked
oneself, ★What does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one
take all these pains for the human race to go on?★ Is it so very
desirable? Are we attractive as a species? [snip] Foolish questions,
vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied, Is
human life this? Is human life that? One never had time to think
about it.
Everyman's Library, pp.101-102
I haven't studied about the history of using pronouns when unsure of gender. That does make sense though,
as anecodotally I have noticed many technical books switching more to defaulting as "her" as it became later in the 90s and now the new millenia.
I'm probably being a curmudgeon, but the choice of "he/her" should be the author's, not society's.
>>281
What is meant by these [snip]s? If it's omission, just end the previous sentence with ellepses (...) after the punctuation mark.
Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time... How trifling it all is...
What does one live for?...Are we attractive as a species?...
Just as long as it's only used sparingly.
Oh, I had seen - if I remember correctly - some people use a [snip] or
a <snip> in the middle of a quoted passage to mean an ellipsis designed
to shorten the quotation. And I had assumed it was standard usage of
English. I was wrong, huh? Thank you for telling me.
>>Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time...
How trifling it all is...
Yes, that notation looks like a good idea, but I fear readers might
then wonder whether the ellipses were made by the original author
of the passage or by me (the quoter).
If I remember correctly again, some quoters use the following notation:
(1) Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time [...]
How trifling it all is [...]
--- Here, the quoter means the ellipses are made by
the quoter, not by the original author.
(2) Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time...
How trifling it all is...
--- Here, the quoter means the ellipses are made by
the original author of the passage.
Am I right about (1) and (2) above, I wonder?
commentaries containing lots of quotations. There I've found that
some authors write as in (1), that is, three periods in brackets,
while others write just three periods, as in (2). In both cases, the
authors are quoting passages of literary works, while omitting some words
in the middle of each quotation. They don't seem to be making
distinctions between omissions made by the original author and
those by the quoter.
In Japan, on the other hand, the general convention seems to be
that they use the word 中略 (churyaku) to mean that the omission or
ellipsis is being made by the quoter, not by the original author of
the passage. Then, when there occurs three dots like this
いや・・・ちょっと待ってくれ
then it means that it is not the quoter but the original author
of the passage that is making the omission.
Therefore, suppose you are reading a literary commentary and you come across
a passage like this:
「いや・・・ちょっと待ってくれ」と恵三は言った。彼の表情は（中略）少し堅かった。
Then, the reader can clearly understand that the three dots (・・・)
mean that the omission or ellipsis is made by the original author
of the novel. Then the subsequent 中略 (churyaku) means that the
quoter is omitting some words that the original author wrote.
I don't recall seeing a <snip> like that before. So if it's used, it must surely be new.
It's always been the way I stated, or the way you pointed out with [...]. Very rarely there will be "TEXT OMITTED" as well.
The last one is a very special case, and it has a sense of being used only in documents where clarity is the utmost importance, such as legal documents.
I can't describe it beyond that , as I don't use it personally.
I did not know about 中略、so thanks for explaining that!
Oh, thank you, 臭い米国人, for the input. Keep in touch.
Here is a passage from a novel called "Rogue in Space" by Fredric Brown.
【CALL HIM by no name, for he had no name. He did not know the meaning of name, or of
any other word. He had no language, for he had never come into contact with any other
living being in the billions of light-years of space that he had traversed from the far
rim of the galaxy, in the billions of years that it had taken him to make that journey.
For all he knew or had ever known he was the only living being in the universe.
He had not been born, for there was no other like him. He was a piece of rock a little
over a mile in diameter, floating free in space. There are myriads of such small worlds
but they are dead rock, inanimate matter. He was aware, and an entity. An accidental
combination of atoms into molecules had made him a living being. To our present knowledge
such an accident has happened only twice in infinity and eternity; the other such event
took place in the primeval ooze of Earth, where carbon atoms formed sentient life that
multiplied and evolved.】
(To be continued)
(Continued)
Since it was written in 1957, the thing is referred to as "he".
In the present【Political Correctness 】world, perhaps it should be written as folows?
【CALL THEM by no name, for they had no name. They did not know the meaning of name, or of
any other word. They had no language, for they had never come into contact with any other
living being in the billions of light-years of space that they had traversed from the far
rim of the galaxy, in the billions of years that it had taken them to make that journey.
For all they knew or had ever known they was the only living being in the universe.
They had not been born, for there was no other like them. They were a piece of rock a little
over a mile in diameter, floating free in space. There are myriads of such small worlds
but they are dead rock, inanimate matter. They were aware, and an entity. An accidental
combination of atoms into molecules had made them a living being. To our present knowledge
such an accident has happened only twice in infinity and eternity; the other such event
took place in the primeval ooze of Earth, where carbon atoms formed sentient life that
multiplied and evolved.】
by William Cowper (1731-1800)
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind. (to be continued)
Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives and hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried -- Adieu!
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank. [to be continued on Part 3]
No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he. [End of poem]
First, it contains a great many words I'm not familiar with and
I had to consult my dictionaries numerous times. Second, many of
those unfamiliar words are archaic. Third, although I already knew poems
put rhythm and stylistic beauty before grammatical correctness
(or idiomatic-ness), this particular poem was one of the hardest
to understand, at least for me anyway, in terms of structure and
grammar. Even after a couple of hours of study of this poem, some
of the phrases still remain a mystery.
That said, I think I've managed to appreciate the approximate gist
of the spirit of the poem anyway. The reason I tackled the poem is
that it appears in my favorite, if very difficult, novel
"To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf. Fragments of the poem are
quoted here and there in 3-5 of the novel. Woolf's novels are ridden
with fragments of famous novels. Not only that, she writes her novels
as if as long poems. "The Waves" is a full-length novel (about 250
pages long) but it reads exactly like a very long novel. It doesn't
feel like an ordinary novel at all.
In any case, her novels are filled with famous novels and they read
like long poems themselves. Whenever I find a fragment of a famous
poem in any of her novels, I try to find the whole poem containing
the fragment and read the whole poem through. Not only that, there
are lots of allusions in her novels, including mythical heroes,
so that it takes a very long time to read a single work of hers.
This passage feels like even today it would still be "he" because I get the
impression that the author intended for the main character to be a man.
>>295
It's great that you enjoy these works, but I'm sorry to say the rhythm to this
poem is one of the most basic that's taught here, at least when I learned
poems. I'm sure you understand its structure now, but just to make it obvious,
the structure is as follows:
1) I therefore purpose not, or dream,
2) Descanting on his fate,
3) To give the melancholy theme
4) A more enduring date:
5) But misery still delights to trace
6) Its semblance in another's case.
1) and 3) rhyme with the last word, and share the same number of syllables.
2) and 4) rhyme with the last word, and share the same number of syllables.
5) and 6) rhyme with the last word, and share the same number of syllables.
So every other line rhymes on the last word, and have the same number of syllables.
Except the last two lines rhyme with each other and have the same syllable count.
Thanks, 臭い米国人, for your explanation of the poem. As a matter of
fact, when I was trying to decipher the poem yesterday before making
my last post here, I was so busy merely trying to decipher the meaning
of each word, consulting my dictionaries literally fifty or even a
hundred times, and trying to grasp the grammatical structure of each
phrase or line, that I failed to notice the rhythm that you beautifully
explained above.
Then, later last night, when I was browsing several
passages of a book on the basics of poetry (entitled "Understanding
Poetry" by Cleanth Brooks), I noticed the rhythm, which was quite
obvious. I think I hadn't noticed the whole forest, busy with
examining the single tree that was right before my eyes.
I also noticed only later last night that the poem dates back to the
18th century. No wonder the language itself felt a bit difficult
to me, at least harder than poems written in the 19th and 20th
centuries anyway. Dryden's poems, however, at least the ones that
I've happened to read, are easier for me to understand even though
they date back to the 17th century, being even older than this
Cowper poem. And oh, John Donne is also rather hard for me because
his language seems very archaic to me.
[Note by the quoter: The following quotation depicts the feelings and
thoughts of Mrs. Ramsay, a middle-aged mother of eight children. She
is staying for a summer vacation in a country cottage on the Isle of
Skye (one of the Habrides, Scotland) rented by the family together
with her children, her husband, and her several guests. She is sitting
in the house, with her young son. She is hearing murmurs from another
room. The murmurs are probably those of her husband and one of her
guests. She also hears the voices of some of her children playing
cricket outdoors. She also hears the soothing sound of the waves.
The following quote consists of one very long sentence. Or could it
be called three sentences? (It looks like a single sentence divided into
three segments by semicolons.) Even if they are three sentences, they
are each very long anyway. Structurally, they are hard for me to
understand. For me at least, to savor the delicate meaning of the
passage, it takes a long, long time. But the effort is quite rewarding.
It is just beautiful. Virginia Woolf is a genius of quietude.]
******** QUOTE ********
But here, as she [= Mrs. Ramsay] turned the page, suddenly her
search for the picture of a rake or a mowing-machine was interrupted.
The gruff murmur, irregularly broken by the taking out of pipes and
the putting in of pipes which had kept on assuring her, though she
could not hear what was said (as she sat in the window), that the men
were happily talking;
(The long sentence is continued on the next post.)
this sound, which had lasted now half an hour
and had taken its place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on
top of her, such as the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden
bark now and then, 'How's that? How's that?' of the children playing
cricket, had ceased; so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the
beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to
her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as
she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured
by nature, 'I am guarding you - I am your support,' but at other times
suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself
slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning,
but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of
life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its
engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in
one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow
- this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other
sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up
with an impulse of terror.
(Virginia Woolf, "To the Lighthouse," 1-3, Everyman's Library p.17-18)
[Structural analysis]
I'm omitting the first sentence beginning with "But here," because
it's short and easy to understand. Here comes the second, long sentence:
***************
The gruff murmur,
irregularly broken by
the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes
which had kept on 【assuring her】,
though she could not hear what was said
(as she sat in the window),
【that】 the men were happily talking;
(Note: In the above phrase, the phrase "assuring her" is followed by
"that + clause." And the above phrase as a whole is a noun phrase,
if I may put it that way (I don't know what it is called exactly in
grammatical or linguistic terminology). What I mean is that the
above string of words as a whole has the main subject ("the gruff murmur")
but it is not followed by a verb. Its verb, if I understand the
whole long paragraph correctly, appears long, long afterwards. 9 lines
later in my paper version of the novel. The verb of "the gruff murmur"
is actually "had ceased."
[Structural analysis of the second segment of the long sentence]
【this sound】,
which (1) had lasted now half an hour
and (2) had taken its place soothingly
in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her,
such as (i) the tap of balls upon bats,
(ii) the sharp, sudden bark now and then,
'How's that? How's that?' of the children playing cricket,
【had ceased】;
****************
If I understand it correctly, in this second segment of the long sentence,
the phrase "this sound," appearing at the top, is the subject, which is
followed by its verb "had ceased," appearing at the end.
Here comes the third and last segment of this long sentence. It's by
far the longest segment and pretty hard to analyze, for me anyway.
Is it easy enough for educated native speakers, I wonder?
*******************
so that
[AAA] ■the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach■,
which ●for the most part●
★(1) BEAT a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts
and
★(2) SEEMED consolingly to repeat over and over again
<< as she sat with the children >>
the words of some old cradle song,
murmured by nature,
'I am guarding you - I am your support,'
[[[ but ●at other times● suddenly and unexpectedly,
especially when her mind raised itself
slightly from the task actually in hand, ]]]
★(3) HAD ◆no◆ such kindly meaning,
◆but◆ << like a ghostly roll of drums >>
★(4) remorselessly BEAT the measure of life,
★(5) MADE one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea,
and
★(6) 【WARNED】 her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another
【that】 it was all ephemeral as a rainbow
- [BBB] ■this sound■ which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds
(i) suddenly THUNDERED hollow in her ears
and
(ii) MADE her look up with an impulse of terror.
If people don't know the gender of a person, like, if I were to say "x person invented the jet engine"
I would say "he invented the jet engine." Keep in mind this would ONLY be used if I knew neither the person or the name,
Or just the last name.
>You don't seem to know what you're talking about.
Oh the irony.
I don't understand why you don't understand what I'm saying. I'll try to make myself as simple as possible:
Japanese, has lots of characters, lots of rules, and cannot properly import foreign words. It is also used by only japan as a primary OR secondary language.
English, while more complicated in it's grammar, can import foreign words with ease; as well as letters, and it's alphabet is a puny 26 characters, or 30 if you use adapted, improper ones.
It is used as a primary language or secondary languages by quite literally billions of people.
More importantly, it's alphabet, the Latin script, is used in other languages WELL over half of the world.
Additionally, well over half of the internet is written in english, and up to about 90% is written in the Latin script.
So, if I speak english, I will not only have a better chance to learn the languages of other places, use the internet, speak with other people,
adopt new words, and educate others. This is why it's preferable.
However, it also needs a revision to be proper.
Do you understand me a little better now? I'm not trying to attack Japan or it's people.
Top expand on this a little, Mr. Or Mrs. Smith would in a casual setting default to he or him.
"They" and it's forms is also used, so you are correct in saying that, and possibly more so in a professional setting
If Leslie Smith was my future employer I would not want to screw up his gender!
I would myself use something along the lines of
"Dear Leslie Smith, I am interesting in applying for work positions in your company."- avoiding the use of any gender indicative words
English is a language of avoidance in many ways.
I can't make heads or tails of this, but it's because of all of these extra symbols that are on the words.
I imagine that you put them there? If so, what do all of them mean? We don't use a lot of symbols in English
when analyzing texts, so to me I have no idea where to begin or end.
We mainly use [ ] or ( ) when adding something the source originally omitted, and the ellepses for our own omission of the original work.
>>305
English is simply the language used by the world powers for this current time period.
As late as the early 20th century, Latin was the dominant language for the sciences, and depending on how far back one goes,
the dominant languages have included Italian, Egyptian, Greek, and Chinese.
Had the interconnectivity started in another nation, the internet, we most likely would be striving to speak that language instead.
The ability to import words "properly", which is a vague term, has no relation to the ease of learning the language. Instead it has to do with
grammatical and lexical similarities.
This last part I'm stating to you directly: please learn the distinctions between graphemes and phonemes, because you project that you don't know the difference.
Your attacks on the character count as making the language impractical are baseless. They may -add- to the time to learn the language, but if they wielded
a power over the language as much as you think they do, they would have been abandoned in favor of another way of writing thousands of years ago.
>Or just the last name.
"Leslie" can be use for both male and female names.
If you don't know the gender of a person called Leslie Smith, what pronoun do you use to refer the person?
>Oh the irony.
I meant that you didn't seem to have enough knowledge of the Japanese language to discuss the subject.
Can you read a Japanese newspaper?
Since you asked specifically for pronouns, it would be "they" and its derivatives.
Sorry, thought I had answered it before.
I've just begun reading "The Great Gatsby." People say the author's
language is really beautiful. I don't care about the plot but the
beauty and rhythm of the language in novels. And yes, the reviewers
were right: Fitzgerald is a great stylist.
******** QUOTE ***************
I [= the narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway] began to like New York,
the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that
the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the
restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic
women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to
enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove.
Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the
corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me
before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted
metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and
felt it in others - poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows
waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner - young
clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby," Chapter 3,
Everyman's Library, p.48
Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town
of Mary and her sister Martha. (...)
When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but
for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. (...)
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died. (...)
Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. (...)
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in nme, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest
thou this? (...)
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come
and see.
Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
(to be continued)
And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the
eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It
was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that
was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath
been dead four days.
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth.
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with
graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith
unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things
which Jesus did, believed on him.
New Testament, St. John 11:1-45
Toward the middle of Chapter 4 of "Crime and Punishment," Raskolnikov
the hero/murderer urges Sonya the harlot to read for him the
above-quoted passage about the raising of Lazarus. She then reads it.
I've read the novel at least 12 times, most of the time in English.
I've also listened to the reading of the novel by a professional actor
at least 30 to 50 times.
Although not a Christian, this passage somehow impresses me a lot. God
may be dead, but the beauty and the power of the Bible lives on. I
may not believe in God but I do believe in the mysterious power of
language. This world may be just a cesspool, constantly temping me to
seek the quietude of nothingness, but the beauty of language remains
a great source of solace, keeping me barely able to live on.
May God or the Universe bestow ye my brethren a similar source of solace!
55
Thirty spokes.
Share one hub.
Make the nothing therein appropriate, and you will have the
use of cart. Knead clay in order to make a vessel. Make
the nothing therein appropriate, and you will have the use of
the clay vessel. Cut out doors and windows in order to make
a room. Make the nothing therein appropriate, and you will
have the use of the room.
Thus we gain by making it Something, but we have the use
by making it Nothing.
Translated by D.C. Lau, Everyman's Library, p.59
The book is called
Bowed down then whole;
Warped then true;
Hollow then full;
Worn then new;
A little then benefited;
A lot then perplexed.
Hence the sage grasps the One and is the shepherd of the empire.
He does not display himself, and so is conspicuous;
He does not show himself, and so is manifest;
He does not boast of himself, and so has merit;
He does not brag about it, and so is able to endure.
It is because he does not contend that no one is in a position
to contend with him.
The way the ancients had it, 'Whole through being bowed down',
is as true a saying as can be. Truly, it enables one to hand
it back whole.
Lao-Tzu's "Tao Te Ching," Everyman's Library, p.71
I'll move my bags. を僕が発音した録音サンプル
この下にあるリンクをクリックし、そのあと、
暗証番号として 000 つまり「ゼロ3つ」を入れると、
録音サンプルを聞くことができます。
http://www.dotup.org/uploda/www.dotup.org630553.m4a.html
You have good pronunciation. Especially the L's, which I know is hard for many Japanese.
If you don't mind a nitpick, your W on will is pretty strong. We don't push out a lot of air for the W, it's about as much as あ or い instead of は行。
But honestly I only noticed it because of your microphone clipping from too much air hitting it.
If you, or anyone else, wants a collection of phrases to practice pronunciation, look up
Thanks for the compliment, 臭い米国人.
Here's my recorded response to you:
http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/214/Response+2+Amer.m4a
Here's another recorded response to 臭い米国人.
Oops, I forgot to post the link to that **second** recorded response to
臭い米国人.
http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/215/Sri+America.m4a
and how I fell in love with its musicality: a recorded message
http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/216/11+Yrs+Old.m4a
as my primary driving force in life: a recorded message (about 5 minutes):
http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/217/Joy+Learning.m4a
sssp://o.8ch.net/1dep.png
(my own recorded message on YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JJ8XDoBXrE
(my own recorded message on YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOeZG3erF8Y
(my own recorded message)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mWD7ONiR8o
You haven't proved that I don't, you're just insulting people.
>>309
Just use the name, or perhaps "they, them" ext.
So if I don't know L. Smith, I could just say
"I had invited Leslie Smith to attend the meeting"
You'll figure out his/her/it's gender eventually if you stall enough I figure.
They/them might be awkward but it is gender-neutral
I'm aware it's only around for the time being, but you forget that English has been lent
a permanence because of it's scale, and because of the internet.
"The ability to import words "properly", which is a vague term, has no relation to the ease of learning the language. Instead it has to do with
grammatical and lexical similarities. "
That's not true, It's an important part of being able to adapt one's own language to others and to make it "familiar" so to speak. It also makes it much more flexible.
English evolves by importing other words. If I learn English, and need to describe something from my former language, I am completely able to just copy paste a word
from my previous language into English. Alternatively, if I want to do something as simple as call someone by name, I can call Jason, Jason, not some hideous butchering of the pronunciation.
"But English butchers pronunciations too!" Of course, but whereas there literally isn't an "l" sound in Japanese (not even getting into the fact that most Hiragana characters link two different phoneme) most English origin
goofs come not from a lack of foundation but from a literal lack of ability in the English speaker.
I can't speak Chinese because my vocal cords haven't adapted to the task, not because there is no letter for the "ess" sound or what have you.
Sadly when importing words many people don't bother to change the spelling properly; this is why "a" makes about four different sounds. But this is an issue with the people, not the tool.
and of course “lexical similarities” contribute greatly to ease of use.
If I didn't know what they are (and I do) I could simply search them on the internet. Are you a professor, teacher or so? If not then you have little base to criticize me on this.
I'm writing this all in vernacular English. I could go absurdly "scholarly" with this and use every overly long phrase, clause and word I possess but I won't because I shouldn't and I don't need to.
I'm not hiding anything.
Furthermore, don't insult your own audience, because that's not debate, that's just dumb.
I have not spoken against you in the past, am not doing now, and will continue to not do so in the future. This is because I respect you as an (anonymous) person and will give you your fair time to prove your points.
You should give the same respect to your opponent. At any time I could throw a hissy fit and refuse to talk with you and make a bunch of troll posts, but I'm not going to, because that would be dumb and I don't want to be dumb.
Now it's my turn to talk to you as a person. You can hold whatever opinion you want, so long as you can defend it in an educated way. But please man, don't be pretentious. Our posts are literally a click away
from some dude spamming a thread with pictures of futanari catgirls being reamed senseless by tentacle aliens. This is not exactly the place to try and format a doctorate. I don't know why you still seem to
think that I am somehow attacking you or your country. I am doing neither.
"Your attacks on the character count as making the language impractical are baseless. They may -add- to the time to learn the language, but if they wielded
a power over the language as much as you think they do, they would have been abandoned in favor of another way of writing thousands of years ago. "
You literally just admitted that it makes the language impractical. You just said it adds time to the learning of the language. That's a hindrance. Maybe it's a small one (it isn't) but it is still a hindrance.
We need as few hindrances as possible. And most (not all) "symbol" (logogram, morpheme, pictogram, ect ect) languages have been abandoned, modified, or adapted. The amount of people that use, as I stated before,
just the Latin script completely surpass the languages that use the former. Romaji exists for a reason. It makes things simple, or at the very least, more simple. If you think that having a massive amount of
Kanji somehow makes things easier, alright, can you prove it? But until you do so you can't honestly say that somehow memorizing some thousand plus Kanji in order to read a newspaper is easier than remembering the sounds of
26 characters, 30 in an edited alphabet.
About the only perks I see to Kanji are that you can read without knowing
the sounds, which is a gimmick at best, and the fact that you can't have people insist that "no really, 'c' makes three sounds!"
That's actually a bonus, but it doesn't matter really, because that's a quirk only found in English, not the languages that English stole from.
I also do not understand while you repeatedly criticize me and English's notoriously unreliable alphabet as if I somehow like that mess.
I am criticizing it too. We need a better system.
If you think that English needs a completely new alphabet before it could ever be practical, I could agree with you; but that's not very practical.
Remember, English doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better, which I firmly think it is.
Are you arguing that Japanese is a better language? Why do you think this, if so?
Why do you think otherwise?
I'm going to reply to these posts as they're separated.
>>333
I understand what you mean about needing to describe something and substituting
the English word. But are you saying that Chinese is a bad language to use as a world
language because you as the individual don't have the ability to produce certain sounds?
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say for those last few sentences, if it's not that.
>>334
I'm sorry it comes off as a personal attack, and re-reading it I can easily see why it looks like that.
It's just from how I understood it, what you had stated earlier sounded to me like you didn't know the difference
between the two.
No, I'm not a scholar in Linguistics. The closest I have is my undergraduate essay in the history of Japan's
writing system, which is saying almost nothing. I simply study Linguistics as a hobby, and most of what I've read is
written in the "scholarly" way. So it's just a natural way for me to write. If we were talking about something else,
I would most likely write differently, like I do when I've held conversations in the other English talking thread.
If my writing is what's giving the sense of pretentiousness, I wrote about that in the previous response.
No, I did not say it was impractical. I said it adds time to learning it. With Japanese specifically, prior to widespread
adoption of kanji, and even with it for a while, people would use certain variations of kana depending on the word they wanted to say.
This is because of all of the homophones, and this is, in my opinion, what would happen again if kanji were to be abolished.
>>336
I'm fairly certain that most languages will have several ways to pronounce a letter, it's just English as it is today has
a lot more peculiarities with them compared to most. Even Japanese isn't 100% 1-to-1, look at 新聞 where ん shifts to an "M" sound.
Thank you for clarifying, because up until this point I had thought you were saying English was a
vastly superior language to others. So to me it felt like you were coming to this board to say
"Sure I'll help you with English, because your own is terrible and you should get away from it ASAP."
Lastly, no I don't think Japanese is a better language. I think that there will always be more than one language, and
honestly I feel that's for the best. This is because I'm a firm believer that language ties to culture, and they influence each other.
So although there will be world languages, like how English is right now, as long as people maintain their unique cultures,
there will be a lot of languages to learn.
Haha oh my, thanks for that.
It wasn't meant to cut off at "look up" instead it was supposed to say:
If you, or anyone else, wants a collection of phrases to practice pronunciation, look up "tongue twisters".
Also, クサベ is fine, I know what the name 臭い米国人 means.
I have to go for now, I'll listen to the rest of your recordings later.
>You haven't proved that I don't, you're just insulting people.
I have no intention to insult you.
I'm just saying that you don't seem to have enough knowledge of the language to discuss the matter.
If I'm wrong, I'll apologize.
Would you tell me how much you know about it?
http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/41694/the-thing-that-scares-me-the-most-are-the-little-oranges-in-its-stomach
What do you think the answer is?
I don't find a girl twerking attractive.
I cannot see the video, but based on what the thread says, option three is my choice.
Like what Ben Kovitz said in his answer,
>>343 I cannot see the video, but based on what the thread says, option three is my choice.
Like what Ben Kovitz said in his answer, "is" should match with "thing" not "oranges",
but since this is spoken instead of written, the actor probably forgot this and chose to agree with "oranges".
As a result, they said "are" instead of "is" in the video.
You can watch the video here.
https://vimeo.com/12440709
What do you think of Gary Botnovcan's answer?
Namely he says that the oranges is the subject.
I'll have to go to work tomorrow.
I wonder why holiday always passes early.
Now I'm feeling heavy.
To begin with why this time of holiday are
very short like this!! there're only 5 days
between 30-Dec till 3-Jan. It's too short!!
Thank you for the link. After watching the scene a few times, I think
that Gary Botnovcan is correct. The accepted answers would be right,
and I agreed with them too, when given that sentence in isolation as text.
I think that those answers didn't actually watch the scene, or didn't watch it
carefully enough.
Gary, on the other hand did, and his explanation is very good as to why the
line was that way. It is intended to emphasize. So yes, the subject is
the oranges.
Thank you.
That is interesting.
I have accepted Gary Botnovcan's answer.
The question was posted about a year ago.
At that time, the video was not yet deleted.
I think Ben Kovitz probably saw it.
and please don't tell me about my miss spelling!!
.Writting english is fucking difficult!!
becouse. i'm ディックレス！！（how to spell it?）
I have no japanese frends who speak english
and another Foreign language!!
fuck them!!
and.. how about you guys? (or geys?)
you have any friends speak english ? huu?
(i mean...only japanese)
I like to give cunnilingus.
I... Don't exactly know how to answer this, I obviously can't give you a number out of ten.
And even if, for the sake of the argument, I knew nothing about it at all, how does this make what
I've said about english illegitimate?
>>341
What would you like to talk about?
this is my first writting.
i'm 19 years old. i'm learning english every day.
Cuz i wish go to america next year.
how much i need money(\)for trip to america for 3week?
if i did mistake in grammer in the text,can u tell me
where is.
gn
Are you >>332?
I am neither your brother nor your sister. Please do not presume.
it's slang.lol
日本語でも「お兄ちゃん」とか「お姉ちゃん」とか赤の他人に言うだろ。
Pollen allergy
I have pollen allergy.
I am allergic to pollen
Hey fever
ggrks
＞wass up,ma bro&sis?
＞this is my first (writing).
＞i'm 19 years old. i'm learning english every day.
＞Cuz i wish (to) go to (America) next year.
＞how much (do) i need for (a)trip to america for 3week(s)?
＞if (there are) mistakes in gramm(a)r in the text,can u tell me
＞(what they are?)
＞
＞gn
"I have pollen allergy"じゃなくて、"I have a pollen allergy"です。
母語は英語です。
>>368
Native speaker here. "I am allergic to pollen." is the best way to say it.
I have hey fever.
I'm Japanese.
I'm also a native speaker, and to me "I have a pollen allergy" also makes sense.
"I'm allergic to pollen" sounds good and perhaps better, but for some reason the thought of it never entered my head.
I think it's because I was just trying to correct the original post.
>>370
"Hey"じゃないです、"Hay"です。"I have hay fever."
Cool, I didn't think there were many native speakers on here.
Do you know/are you learning Japanese, too?
What are your hobbies if you don't mind me asking?
Thanks for your correction.
I believe that "I have hay fever" is more natural than "I'm allergic to pollen" when you have actually have hay fever.
Haha,
thinking of someone saying the words "I'm allergic to pollen" in a monotone voice.
You're right, "I have hay fever" is much more natural.
If it were a different context, say, where the topic is pollen, it would be the other way round.
Oops. when you actually have hay fever.
sombody please tell me the detail?
I would appreciate if you point out my English mistakes
Thank you.
http://aoichikyu333.blogspot.jp/
I can't speak English well,OK?
Stay in touch with friends wherever you are.
https://www.camfrog.com/en/
You want to talk about Camfrog on 2ch?
http://potato.2ch.sc/test/read.cgi/21oversea/1467616817/
Here we go!
生活保護を段階的に廃止して、満18歳以上の日本人に、ベーシックインカムの
導入は必須です。月額約60000円位ならば、廃止すれば財源的には可能です。
ベーシックインカム、でぜひググってみてください。お願い致します。☆☆
60000 yen is of no use
A young mother cat came to my garden with her 4 little babys yesterday.
The kittens were playing pleasantly there, the mother was watching over them in peace.
She is a very beautiful cat and kittens are adorable. The scene was good like a picture!
Hours later when I was there, they were moving to the garden of the next house in which
an old cat phobia woman lives. I had a bad feeling seeing it as she is so strange and feared by neighbors
Soon after, I found that they had disappeared completely, couldn't hear them at all.
She might do ill to the cats. I can't sleep for worrying about them.
I have no association with her. I dont know what to do for them.
OKKJN
For your purposes you should probably translate it as "non-japanese citizens" if the precise meaning is important
I'm told "get out, this is native speaker
only" at chat thread.
In which thread?
Don't mind!
its a phrase of a song. I cant see the meaning...
If you ask for explaining it in Japanese, its phrase means "トゥナイトラブは全米で配給されている".
The singer may express that American people know my song through the movie.
