Language learning! – Part II

[color=#cc3333]This is part two of the topic.[/color]

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Besides polish i know english, and im learning (with bad results) german. In polish schools we learn german or english, sometimes spanish or french. I never learned english, i just watched cartoons in english when i was very young…and it stayed with me. I don’t know any grammar tho, never learned it. I just talk/spell how i feel, if it looks good, its probably good. English is easy :wink: German on the other hand…its so hard for me, the grammar is too complicated…today i grabbed a bad note from german in school, but well…that test wasn’t suspected, i never learn for tests like that, only if they tell us that there will be a test.

PS. How’s my english grammar? :wink:

[color=darkblue]Your English grammar is perfect. Probably better than mine! :wink:

Yes- a lot of people say English is the easiest language to learn. Maybe it is because there are so many people on the planet speaking english, that kids in other countries are introduced to it from an early age or maybe it simply IS easier. There must be some reason why it’s the most widely spoken language?

As for most spoken- maybe it would pay to speak chinese nowadays…[/color]

Subtitles in Japanese movies or anime are never a direct translation. I guess that’s because so many nuances can’t be translated directly into English from Japanese, so they have to change the words to fit, or to eliminate cultural differences. Me, I don’t recall ever seeing doumo used as a greeting even in subtitles, but it could be a regional dialect or slang, I suppose. Or it could be one of those things that only boys are allowed to say (as a girl, I’m quite limited in what Japanese I can learn… girls aren’t supposed to know the rough language that boys speak, so we don’t get taught it! It’s unusual)!

Infinitycascade - English is the international business language, which is why it’s become the second language of choice for most people. There’s a possibility Mandarin Chinese might overtake it in a couple of decades, though.

Not great (don’t listen to infinitycascade, he’s wrong). Using… lots of… these… ellipses… in a sentence… is really bad practice especially, not to mention annoying. (However, I’ve come across native English speakers who do this too, who should really know better!) Also, it’s pretty bad to not use capitals in your sentences, as it tends to make you sound like you’re a little kid. Generally, most people aren’t too concerned about bad grammar as long as you are obviously making an effort to TRY (spell-checking, using punctuation and so on, etc). Aside from the ellipses, I think you’re doing a pretty good job, actually!

Well, i never learned it, i just started the basics this year in school, now we are working with “to be”…

lol, i don’t even know whats an ellipse :smile:

An ellipsis (shame on both of you for mispelling that! :tongue:) is a figure of speech in which part of what’s being said is omitted. Graphically, this is often represented by three consecutive dots, which are thus also called ellipsis: “…” :smile:

Of course, the graphical sign ellipsis has more uses than just omitting speech, but you get the point. ST thinks you shouldn’t use it, and I agree with her: most of the time, it makes your speech less cohese, which ultimately impairs its coherence.

In simple words: if you just glue ideas with ellipsis, at some point your text won’t make as much sense as it could if you used other punctuation and joined your ideas with connectives like “and,” “thus,” “because,” “but,” “however” etc.

I don’t think your grammar is bad or horrible, Worm, in fact I think you could get your point through in every post of yours I’ve read. I do think, however, that perhaps you could try to add a bit of complexity to your constructions, rather than sticking a batch of simple sentences toghether; that takes only a bit of practise if you’re not a native speaker, and adds a lot to your text. Another thing, try to pay closer attention to your spelling, there’s an odd mistake here and there (truth be told, I do misspell a lot of stuff myself, but you asked for feedback and that’s feedback too :smile:).

Unlike ST, I don’t really mind if people write lowercase or with proper initial caps—as long as you don’t SHOUT THINGS OUT, I won’t say you sound like a little kid.

[color=darkblue]Stormthunder- yes but you have to ask “why” it is the international business language, how did it get that way?

As for worms grammar- I am not wrong, it is a matter of opinion and discretion. Don’t be so quick to criticise. I think his grammar is very good for a second language and someone who has never been taught properly. It’s all relative stormthunder.[/color] flame removed :bruno:

I didn’t misspell it - ellipses is plural. And you misspelt misspelling, Bruno. :tongue:

Thankfully I have’nt been taught Keigo yet breathes sigh of relief I guess I have that to look foward to. I’m only learning it as an extra module to my degree, so I only get taught so much, but I have the option of evening classes doh!

Also Infinitycascade, English probably got that way through the histories of England/America combined and the fact that that they have both such a powerful economy (which is also why Stormthunder said that Mandarin will likely be the next business language in a few decades, as the Asian economies are growing very radipidly and are set to take over the Western ecnomies)

Exactly. Here’s an excerpt from good old Wikipedia to back it up (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca):

sigh This is why I hate getting involved in arguments. Look, infinity, I’m entitled to give my opinion (especially since worm actually asked for it), so if you don’t like it, tough. I don’t say these things to be mean, you know, I have a reason for it.

You were wrong, anyway. You called his grammar “perfect”, and it wasn’t. Of course I agree that his English is not at all bad for a non-native speaker - I even said that in my post, if you want to go back and check! However, I don’t believe in being nice at the expense of honesty. If people want opinions, they’re going to get a real opinion, based on constructive criticism. This is why I point out specific details like the ellipses and how to rectify the problems - in the hope that people will learn from it and do better.

I also want to point out that at no time did I ever claim my own grammar was perfect. I did, however, stress (or at least tried to - obviously it didn’t get through as clearly as I’d have liked) that grammar isn’t so important at any rate, as long as you’re understandable.

[color=#cc3333]paragraph removed :bruno:[/color]

Also, if somebody goes to the trouble of asking for feedback on a skill or talent, I feel completely justified in giving them a complete and honest opinion - otherwise, how will they learn how to improve?

Seriously, you’ve made me FURIOUS now. I’m going to go and have a nice hot shower and calm down, and I don’t want to hear anything about this ever again, or I’ll blow my top, I swear.

By the way, I never once mentioned anything about commas.

[color=darkblue]Ok. I just don’t think it’s fair to shatter someone’s confidence like that and in a way over analyse everything. You may be entitled to your opinion but apparently I am not entitled to mine as things I say are removed. :confused:

Saying his grammar was perfect, was a general term- I’m not “uber” switched on and logical all of the time, I just felt that since he said he had never formally been taught grammar, it was pretty perfect. I equally don’t like it when people just say “you’re wrong” even if I am. Try learning a little bit of tact.

I admit, upon further “analysis” :wink: it had errors but I really think they were quite minor and nothing that a lot of English native speakers wouldn’t have done.

If you analyse anything, you will likely find mistakes, but I find this a fruitless, boring and often insulting exercise whereby everyone is just looking to get one up on everyone else.

As for the anger thing- calm down :grrr: . I know that will probably only make you more mad, but remember it’s only a forum; don’t jump on everything I say like I mean it 110%!

It’s hard to convey emotion over writing on a screen and most of the things I say are tongue in cheek- so whaddy ya say we kiss and make up? Right after you tell me what I spelt wrong… :cry: [/color]

[color=darkblue]I know- that is why I mentioned that learning chinese would be useful in an earlier post of mine. [/color]

What? Tact? Me? Tact? What’s that? :tongue: Seriously, some people are good at being tactful, and some are not. I’m the “not”. I don’t mean to offend anybody by saying what I think, but I do always say what I think. I believe it’s important to be honest.

Yes, sure! :hug: I know I overreacted, but that’s just me when I lose my temper. I had a good hot shower and calmed down again.

[color=darkblue]It is a strange one. Normally, I’m accused of being too blunt and honest myself. I think I must have just been in a different mood that day.

Anyway. Thanks for the “debate”. I do normally enjoy getting a different perspective. I suppose I just had a bad day at work or something that day.

Hugs:content: [/color]

What a pitty there were parts edited out… I feel I can lear a lot from intelligent native speakers getting angry. Oh, should have used a “because” :wink:

For example these:
I’m not “uber” switched on and logical all of the time
and
I´ll blow my top

Ok, second one probably means “to kill yourself”, right?
First one should be something like “I don´t always mind wether my language is totally logical an makes sense on a literal level, but take for granted that people understand me anyways”? The construction of the sentence is pretty starnge to me. “Uber” probably comes from the german “über” and means “overly, more than normal”. But the “on and” doesn´t make sense to me.

And please no offense, it´s not meant to make fun of your discussion, I really just noticed that you use expressions I don´t know which doesn´t happen thaaat often anymore. :shy:

friendly greetings, tapir

btw:
I like elipses, because with these your manner of writing is less “artificial” but more in the way thoughts are working. Of course it depends what kind of text you are writing, in an official letter it doesn´t fit. But when writing to a friend it seems more natural to me.

[color=darkblue]Hi tapir.

Thanks for the compliment. :wink:

I meant uber as in how it is often used in this country- to mean “Super” so it would read that I am not super switched on and logical. When I say I am not “Switched on” I mean that I’m not always concentrating properly on what I type, i.e. my mind switches off! (Making me analyse how I type really makes me think about how other people might read into it!) Anyway: To “Blow your top” generally means to get very angry! :grrr:

You are right, sometimes the anger shows more emotion and is more “real” and hence good to learn from, but flaming is not allowed here and some of the things we said were taken as flame (which is probably accurate!)

I find language an interesting point. Take Japanese for example. There are many words in Japanese that have no direct translation to English (I’m sure many languages have this) so it sometimes makes me think how close are we actually, to the real meaning? They must have many words and phrases that make no sense in our language. Describing feelings perhaps that in our language, we have no words for…[/color]

Oh yes, I can very much relate to this. Or to take it one step further: Perhaps they got feelings that are unknown to us, simply cause we lack the words to express them. :eek:

Like… can a soldier be proud cause he´s dying for his homeland, when he neither knows the word “homeland” nor “pride” nor “glory” nor “honour”?
Perhaps he can, but I imagine that there are concepts too abstract to grasp without language. And therefore, there might be concepts in japanese culture that we´ll never understand cause we can´t think about it in the language we use.

Hmm , I know russian hebrew and english…

I’d really like to learn japaneese I wodner if there are tutorials for the absolute beginner to learn at his leasure time maybe like video tuts online? anyone?

I wouldn’t recommend learning a language via videos. I’ve seen some in several languages and had a very difficult time following them, even the Japanese ones!

There are some great internet quizzes I’ve seen, though, which you can take over and over until your scores are perfect. Of course, nothing’s quite as good as learning straight from a decent teacher, but some of those quizzes weren’t too bad! I’ll have a quick look and see if I can locate one of the links for you.

Edit: https://www.msu.edu/~lakejess/kanjigame.html
Start with hiragana first, then katakana. The kanji test is much harder.

As far as I know, “uber” still isn’t really English - it’s mainly used as internet slang. But yes, it does mean something like very/overly/ultra, etc.

“I’ll blow my top” just means to get extremely angry to the point where you’re liable to start screaming, throw tantrums and smash plates on the walls (though not necessarily).

You’d read “switched on” as the phrase there, which means that one’s brain/body is functioning properly and not asleep! The “and” is just like a normal “and” in any sentence.

Thanks , taking quizes is a good idea anyway I can’t learn it via a teacher for some reasons one is that I want to learn it really slowly at my leasure time and not go to a teacher every fixed day of the week , also there are probably none where I live

Does anyobody know if there’s a kanji that looks like this? -> #

I saw it in a dream, but I’m not sure if it exists. Also, I’m sure it wasn’t the one for warui…