Search results for 'tag:Numbers tag:Dialects' matching tags 'Numbers' and 'Dialects'

Re: Contraction & "I have to".

Kooyeen — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:56:31 GMT

On second thought, I think I once read somewhere that "I've" is used that way in the UK sometimes, maybe for possession. But since I am not sure, it might be very rare,I have never actually "heard" it, and I have probably just "read" about it... I have no way to tell whether that "I've" should be considered as a monosyllabic contraction or a bisyllabic one in the examples you are giving.

In the US, monosyllabic "I've" in sentences like "I've to go there" is just not used, in my opinion. As for other dialects... in the UK, Australia, etc... I don't know. I remember reading that unless "have" is used as an auxiliary verb, it is not reduced in British English, but then I realized they were probably just talking about some variety to teach and not in general, probably some kind of RP. I am always amazed at the number of regional differences in the UK. I believe the only way a student would be able to have a good understanding of BrE is just by listening to lots of English from the major dialects, because if you just rely on teaching materials you are only going to learn about ONE dialect, and maybe not even a common one. I once took a quick look at a book about BrE pronunciation (English Pronunciation in Use, I guess... ) and of course they didn't mention glottal stops, as far as I can remember. So, yeah, you get the idea. What a pity... I love glottal stops! LOL

Re: One of many problems faced by English learners is their own misconceptions.

Avangi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:27:00 GMT

Jackson6612

Avangi
either "learners of the English language," or "English language learners."
Why is article the essential here? There is only one English language. e.g. I'm learning Chinese language these days. Is there any need to specify Chinese language using the? The use of the is justified in sentences as in ''I'm learning the Southern American English dialect nowadays. The article is required in all of these. I honestly have no idea why. My guess is that "language" is the object of the verb "to learn," and would require an article if it were used without "English" as a modifier. To qualify for standing without the article, a "subject of study" must be one of a few very well-established courses. "I'm majoring in Romance Languages at university." Here, Romance Languages is the recognized name of a well-established course of study, as is Chinese. In the case of a dialect, the indefinite article would be used if there were more than one. Avangi
<<One - - is their own misconceptions.>> IMO there should be number agreement here. Possibly, "One - - - is dealing with their own misconceptions."
Yes, there should be number agreement between verb and object. If I followed your suggestion then the sentence would read: One of many problems faced by learners of the English language is that they are dealing with their own misconceptions. Is that what you suggested? That would be fine. I was considering "that they are" to be optional, as the gerund "dealing" may serve by itself as predicate nominative following the being verb "is." Avangi
This is about "learners." You refer back five times with "they." At some point you might remind the reader who "they" are. Eg, "these learners," "the students," something else of your choosing.
Is choosing'' used as a present participle in the above context? I'd say functionally it's a gerund, serving as object of the preposition "of." The other option, "choice," would of course be a noun.
Avangi
<<During the learning process, they should stop taking the machinery of their native tongue for granted.>> As the final sentence of the first paragraph, this seems enigmatic. It's very well phrased, but the meaning is less than obvious (to me.) I feel like I want an additional sentence by way of (=as means of, as a type of) explanation, or clarification. Optionally, you could make your "machinery" image a little easier to connect up.
How can I make the machinery image a little easier to connect up? How did I know you were going to ask me that danged question?? During the learning process they should remind themselves that the machinery of their native tongue was a long time in [the] building and fine-tuning, and they must be willing to devote an equal effort to the new language. (I'm not sure I have your intention right.)
Avangi
In the second paragraph, at first blush (=when first thought of or considered) the antecedent (=a word or phrase which a pronoun refers back to) of "They" would seem to be "English speakers."
Yes, you are right. I will be more careful about such constructions in future.
Avangi
Have you verified that "idiomaticness" is a word? Or is it a "nonce (=occurring, used, or made only once or for a special occasion) word"?
It is a proper word according to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

Congratulations on your hard work. - A.

Edit. "Why is the article "the" essential here?"

Re: One of many problems faced by English learners is their own misconceptions.

Jackson6612 — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:13:32 GMT

Hi Avangi,

Avangi
either "learners of the English language," or "English language learners."

Why is article the essential here? There is only one English language. e.g. I'm learning Chinese language these days. Is there any need to specify Chinese language using the? The use of the is justified in sentences as in ''I'm learning the Southern American English dialect nowadays.

Avangi
<<One - - is their own misconceptions.>> IMO there should be number agreement here. Possibly, "One - - - is dealing with their own misconceptions."

Yes, there should be number agreement between verb and object. If I followed your suggestion then the sentence would read: One of many problems faced by learners of the English language is that they are dealing with their own misconceptions. Is that what you suggested?

Avangi
This is about "learners." You refer back five times with "they." At some point you might remind the reader who "they" are. Eg, "these learners," "the students," something else of your choosing.

Is choosing'' used as a present participle in the above context?

Avangi
<<During the learning process, they should stop taking the machinery of their native tongue for granted.>> As the final sentence of the first paragraph, this seems enigmatic. It's very well phrased, but the meaning is less than obvious (to me.) I feel like I want an additional sentence by way of (=as means of, as a type of) explanation, or clarification. Optionally, you could make your "machinery" image a little easier to connect up.

How can I make the machinery image a little easier to connect up?

Avangi
In the second paragraph, at first blush (=when first thought of or considered) the antecedent (=a word or phrase which a pronoun refers back to) of "They" would seem to be "English speakers."

Yes, you are right. I will be more careful about such constructions in future.

Avangi
Have you verified that "idiomaticness" is a word? Or is it a "nonce (=occurring, used, or made only once or for a special occasion) word"?

It is a proper word according to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

Re: TEFLese

MrPedantic — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:15:04 GMT

TEFLese is a dialect. It is a product.

Suppose we accept that statement. Why does it matter? Non-native speakers outnumber native speakers, after all; if they and their teachers create TEFL-ese, and begin to use it between themselves, that's their affair.

(And imagine what our common friend M. would say, if he heard you, Anon. "The sentences don't get any more authentic"? Mere prescriptive sniping. In fact, I suspect that M. would advise disgruntled natives to pursue an entirely different course of action: to attend classes in TEFL-ese themselves, so that they could learn to communicate with the global majority.)

MrP

Re: where

Marius Hancu — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:45:22 GMT

I read it as:

In the last decades of the eighteenth century, and in the first half of the nineteenth century, a large number of words, which are now of capital importance, came for the first time into common English use, or in case they that/in the situation that they had already been generally used in the language, acquired new and important meanings.

where seems old and dialect here, IMO.

Re: Plural of s = s'es?

Pter — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:24:01 GMT

The Chinese language has many dialects. We all share the same set of characters but these characters are pronounced differently in different dialects. Same characters different pronunciations. We don't say the characters belong to any one particular dialect. They are just Chinese characters. You can't say Mandarin characters or Cantonese characters because these terms do not make sense. For example, the numbers one, two, three are written as one, two, and three horizontal strokes respectively in Chinese "ä¸ äº ä¸" (can you see these characters?) They are pronounced as yi1 er4 san1 in Mandarin and jat7 ji6 sam1 in Cantonese. These are not exact transliteration though. Chinese is a tonal language and the numbers are used to indicate the tone. Mandarin has four tones while Cantonese has nine (some say six depending on which method you use to indicate the tones). So, everyone can read the same Chinese book but they read them differently.

Re: have sb. to do

Yankee — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:21:53 GMT

Apparently, the book A hand-book of present-day English (by E. Kruisinga) was written in 1914, so today -- nearly a hundred years later!-- there are bound to be a few things in that book that are no longer widely used. I've never heard anyone use "to" in the phrase "I'll have you know" when the meaning is basically "I'd like to point this out in order to be sure you know it". However, if I were to hear "I'll have you to know" with the same meaning as "I'll have you know", I'd expect it to be either a poetic/archaic usage or part of a regional dialect (as Marius has suggested). You need to analyze what Google is giving you -- just looking at the number of Google hits alone is frequently not a reliable indicator of usage.

In addition, I'd also like to point out that "I'll have him visit" and "I'll have him to visit" (for example) have different meanings:

I'll have him visit = I will cause him to visit me or someone else (i.e. he will visit me)
I'll have him to visit = It is possible for me to visit him (i.e. I will visit him!)

Re: Curious about Comtemporary RP Accent**

Tam Sadek — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:50:13 GMT

According to John Wells at University College London:

"I do not understand the proposed distinction between Mainstream RP and Contemporary RP (unless the writer thinks, wrongly, that âcontemporaryâ means âyoungâ)."

You can read more of what he says about it at: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0707a.htm

Whereas according to the British Library's Accents and Dialects of the UK website in their section on London RP, the commentary says:

"Michelle speaks with an accent most of us would immediately associate with a middle-class background. Many of the vowel sounds she uses have a traditional RP ring, but she also uses a number of pronunciations characteristic of contemporary RP. In other words she uses certain features we only encounter among younger speakers."

You can read more about this as well as hear a sample of this accent at: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/received-pronunciation/london/

Make of this juxtaposition what you will...

Hope that helps

Re: correct sentence??

Ruslana — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:29:06 GMT

From answers.com:

Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive form hisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone). These forms reflect the tendency of speakers of vernacular dialects to regularize irregular patterns found in the corresponding standard variety. In Standard English, the pattern of reflexive pronoun forms shows slightly irregular patterning; all forms but two are composed of the possessive form of the pronoun and âself or âselves, as in myself or ourselves. The exceptions are himself and themselves, which are formed by attaching the suffix âself/âselves to the object forms of he and they rather than their possessive forms. Speakers who use hisself and theirselves are smoothing out the pattern's inconsistencies by applying the same rule to all forms in the set. â¢ A further regularization is the use of âself regardless of number, yielding the forms ourself and theirself. Using a singular form in a plural context may seem imprecise, but the plural meaning of ourself and theirself is made clear by the presence of the plural forms ourâ and theirâ. Hisself and theirselves have origins in British English and are still prevalent today in vernacular speech in England.

I'm for the Standard English.

dialect continuum

Zerox — Sat, 12 May 2007 16:21:13 GMT

This is an interesting topic in my opinion but I haven't found a clear, if there is even one, answer to the problem that arises in dialect continuum, for example. Mutual intelligibility is the criterion of defining a language. So, let's say that we have numbers from 1 to 10, each number represents a dialect, and mutual intteligibility is greater with numbers close to each other, that is 1 and 2 are mutually intelligible; 1 and 3 are also mutually intelligible, though not so much as 1 and 2. When we get to number 10, mutual intelligibility is lost with 1 and 10. That's fine: we have two different languages. But how about number 5 which is mutually intelligible with both 1 and 10? With how many languages are we dealing here actually?