Cool Breeze  +  489153 Sat, 15 Mar 08 08:35 AM  There are thousands of languages. It would be interesting to see examples of differences between English and your native language. I don't mean you should provide a complete list of them in one post, just some examples at a time. Your examples may be about vocabulary, morphology, grammar, syntax or anything really. I'll begin by giving a couple of examples of how verbose English sometimes is compared with Finnish: Hän maalasi talonsa. = He painted his house.  Hän maalautti talonsa. = He had his house painted.  Hän maalautteli taloaan. = He had his house painted frequently. (Finnish: 3 words, English: 6 words) There is a verb for to paint: maalata; to have [something] painted: maalauttaa and to have [something] painted frequently: maalautella and all of these behave grammatically like any other verb. In English one can manage with just one verb, to paint in all these situations. The same is true about to fix, to have [something] fixed and to have [something] fixed frequently and so on. Cheers CB  Cool Breeze Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006 Senior Member 3,970 "I hope you'll all live to be 150 years old - and the last voice you hear is mine!" Frank Sinatra on stage in Oslo, Norway, 28 September 1991 Verbs, Grammar, Vocabulary, Morphology

	Kooyeen  +  489282 Sat, 15 Mar 08 05:38 PM Hi CB, I wouldn't know where to start! English grammar is pretty different from Italian grammar. However, there are a lot of similar words (one example: government - governo), and several similar structures and idioms. The problem is that there are also several false friends, and lots of features that are very confusing because they wouldn't make sense in Italian. One example is prepositions: on the net, on a pc, in a movie, in a dictionary, in a newspaper... in Italian you could use either "in" or "on" (nel, nella, etc / sul, sulla, etc.), and no one would notice (I hope so, lol). I always have to be careful to use the right prepositions in English, in Italian I pick one at random, lol. Then there are tricky words like "any" and "some", which in Italian are both "del, delle, etc.", so you don't have to choose. The same is true of "few" and "little" (=un po'), and for "already" and "yet" (=già)... and many other things I don't remember right now. And there are a lot more tricky things, like negative questions (we use negative questions to sound "casual" and "polite", but in English they sound completely different), genderless pronouns (in Italian it's so simple, it just depends whether the noun is masculine or feminine, so death is a "she", and hate is a "he"), etc. Anyway, don't think Italian is simple... it's really a mess. And there are a lot of regional differences, REALLY a lot. Just think that I hardly ever speak Italian, so I wouldn't say my Italian is very good at all. Kooyeen Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005 Italy Senior Member 4,969 Parental Advisory / Explicit Posts Nouns, Prepositions, Grammar, Idioms, Negatives, Pronouns, English Grammar

	Cool Breeze  +  490320 Tue, 18 Mar 08 04:27 PM There are no articles in Finnish (a, an, the). However, it is possible to use a word that corresponds to the English indefinite and definite articles in meaning. Sometimes the difference manifests itself in the form of the noun. Here is an example: I bought books. = Ostin kirjoja. I bought the books. = Ostin kirjat. CB  Cool Breeze Nouns, Articles, Definite Articles

	CalifJim  +  490896 Thu, 20 Mar 08 03:58 AM I speak American English, and, in contrast to "English", I never use the words shall, may, ought, or whom.  CJ  CalifJim Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004 California Veteran Member 22,385 "There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche Whom, American English

	Cool Breeze  +  490941 Thu, 20 Mar 08 08:21 AM CalifJim “I speak American English, and, in contrast to "English", I never use the words shall, may, ought, or whom.  ”   Jim, I understand what you mean, of course, but if you had been Elvis Presley, you would have had to use some of those words in the recording studio: "Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight?" - Are You Lonesome Tonight "I am yours and you are mine, come what may." - Come What May CB  Cool Breeze Whom, American English

	CalifJim  +  492561 Mon, 24 Mar 08 11:38 PM Cool Breeze “if you had been Elvis Presley” Big IF!  The challenge is to find, somewhere within the Elvis corpus, whom.  CJ  CalifJim

	Clive  +  492566 Tue, 25 Mar 08 12:14 AM Hi guys, Well, Lisa Marie Presley's 1st CD was called ' To Whom It May Concern' .  The word 'whom' also figures several times in Elvis's will.  Clive Clive Joined on Thu, Oct 28 2004 Canada Veteran Member 29,583 El tango argentino es un pensamiento triste que se puede bailar (The tango argentino is a sad thought which can be danced) Enrique Santos Discépolo

	CalifJim  +  492622 Tue, 25 Mar 08 05:13 AM Lisa Marie doesn't count as Elvis.  (And anyway,  the phrase to whom it may concern is a quote of a dead expression.) The will doesn't count either.  It was written by lawyers.  Anything in the lyrics of songs that Elvis himself ever sang? CJ  CalifJim Whom