Search results for 'tag:Vocabulary tag:Present perfect' matching tags 'Vocabulary' and 'Present perfect'

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Tanit — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:03:57 GMT

Forbes

I remember listening to a radio programme about the varieties of forms of speech in Italy ... They simply change language like they change clothes without worrying about the status of their "home" speech.

There's some truth in that article. My parents, for instance, used to speak in Sardinian (not a dialect, but recognised as an endangered language by the UNESCO) when talking to each other or to their relatives, but they would only speak Italian with my brother and me. I grew up monolingual, and although I can understand Sardinian, I am unable to articulate a sentence that contains more than a few words!

Many people who speak both Italian and their dialect, although able to switch from the first to the second depending on the context, speak a form of Italian that I would classify as regional and sub-standard. I noticed that people from Southern Italy (I have little experience of Northern Italy) who speak also a dialect usually don't speak standard Italian, but a form of language deeply affected by their dialect. Accent is not an issue. I find some grammatical structures odd, as well as the choice of some verb modes, tenses and aspects (ex. past simple versus present perfect, indicative versus subjunctive), and have problems with some vocabulary (let alone idioms, of course). I am usually able to understand the general meaning, though.

Re: Could anonimity be useful?

Anonymous — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:45:34 GMT

Hi, everybody!

Maybe I should have started with "well," but I can ensure you that I'm the original poster, while this guy

Anonymous wrote:

Well, I have a half-finished game of noughts and crosses tattooed on my forehead. If you do too, then I guess...

is not (but I found his/her post amusing! )

First, I'd like to thank those who have really answered my question. The topic was not "Guess who I am" but to what extent anomimity in answering questions can be useful both to the questioner (will s/he tend to rely less on the answer?) and to the community (could it avoid useless quarrels?).

Pucca wrote:

And going back to the topic..an anonimous post would be helpful if you want to ask something but you don't want others to see who is asking so.

Let me disagree with you. If the community can se who is asking a certain question, the answer will probably be better tailored to specific needs and interests. For instance, if Kooyeen (by the way, sorry for misspelling your nick! ) posts a question about present perfect, he will probably receive more answers related to AmE than I would, because everybody knows that "he's learning American English"!

My point was exactly the opposite: while anonimity is NEVER useful in asking, it could be in answering.

Kooyeen wrote:
Ok, point no.1: my English is not good at all, I'm learning and I ask questions, but I also try to answer to other posts. I do it mainly because I think it helps me try to express myself. Plus, answering questions, I can share what I know, and in that way if I have learned something wrong, I can easily get corrected. And trying to answer questions I often end up asking, instead.

This is a very good point.

Kooyeen wrote:
Point no.3: as I already said in some thread, I always and only rely on native speakers. I don't even trust proficient members or advanced learners. Only natives. This doesn't mean I don't want their opinions or that I think their English is not good. I just think that in every thread, in order to be considered "resolved", there have to be some native's replies. This comes from the way I see grammar, that in my opinion should only be "descriptive".

I completely agree. I've studied English grammar extensively, and although I still make too many mistakes, I'm not concerned about them. Whenever I have a doubt on grammar and vocabulary, I always search by myself.

What I really, really lack is the feeling for what would be the natural way to express a complex idea, and this is whay I prefer receiving answers from natives. I don't want to resemble one of those dusty, ancient grammar books you can find in a library!

Pucca wrote:
I have another suggestion about that person! I clicked on "not readed", and saw a name which was pretty similar, I started to read his posts and..Bingo! I thnk it's him! He posted a paragraph and Philip didn't find any mistakes..so, in conclusion, that Anon wasn't you either MrP!

Sorry, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree!

Re: Present Perfect vs Present Perfect Progressive

milky — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:30:46 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
1) I see no significant difference between your two sentences whether with live, work, or study. I would not assume anything with regard to English vocabulary and grammar!

CJ

Still, there could be a difference in the way the each speaker perceives each time period. The progressive often indicates a completable period, perceptively.

Re: Present Perfect vs Present Perfect Progressive

CalifJim — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:06:12 GMT

1) I see no significant difference between your two sentences whether with live, work, or study. I would not assume anything with regard to English vocabulary and grammar!

2) To start with, I would say ... during the past ten years. The second version (with the progressive tense) mixes two incompatible ideas. has been flying indicates an activity (no specific time limits). over 300,000 miles indicates an accomplishment (with time limits). The phrase during ten years doesn't come into it. The sentence seems wrong even without it.

3) I'm not sure what the question is. ... have been watching ... is progressive (but not present progressive as you claim) because it has an -ing form. ... watched ... is not progressive (although it is past as you claim) because it does not have an -ing form.

CJ

Re: do / have

pieanne — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:59:55 GMT

Hello, Crocodoc, welcome to the English Forums!

I think your problem here is more a matter of tenses than of vocabulary. "I haven't seen him today" is present perfect (have in present tense + V. in the past participle). You say that when it's still "today", that is when it's still possible for you to see Jamie "today".

"I didn't see him today" is past simple. You say this for example in the evening, or before going to bed, that is when you feel you won't have any opportunity of seeing Jamie anymore. If Jamie's a colleague at work, you may say this when you're leaving the office, for example.

Is it what you wanted to know?

Re: I Want To Be Fluent English Speaker How Please?

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:22:20 GMT

Improving your motivation

Before you start reading, you should know this: Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. Therefore our method is not just for reading; it is for reading and doing.

You need two things to learn English well â passion and effective learning methods â and passion is the more important one. Why? Because passion makes you want to learn English; the learning methods only tell you how to do it faster.

If you love learning English:

You will do it regularly and spend more time on it.
Learning English will be easier for you. It will be easy for you to remember new words and grammar structures. It's because the brain easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a "normal person" to memorize all these facts, they would never do it.)
We know you may not love learning English. And even if you love it, you will sometimes not want to do it. This is how human psychology works â sometimes we are so lazy, bored, and tired that we don't want to do even the things that we like.

Here is what you can do when you don't feel like learning English:

Imagine yourself in the future
Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.

You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have done it.

Remember that you are already good
You already know some English (you're reading an article in English right now). That's a big success! Now it's time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.

Remember there is a lot that you don't know
You are good, but your English probably isn't perfect. You probably can't understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.

You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you've learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding "street language". Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and conditional structures.

Use your English whenever you can
This is very, very important. The more you use English, the more you will want to learn it.

Because English is so popular, you can use it everywhere. You can use Yahoo to find English-language websites with interesting information, you can watch American cartoons, you can play adventure games on your computer, you can read interesting books in English, or you can do other things that we write about.

If you do these things, you will not only have fun and learn English. If you see that a new English word lets you understand your favorite TV show (or communicate with people, or beat a computer game), you will want to learn more words. So you will learn English more, use it more, learn it more, use it more... If you also use effective learning methods, your English will grow faster than you can imagine.

Re: I have eaten lunch

paco2004 — Thu, 12 May 2005 02:06:47 GMT

Hello CJ

Thank you for the great answer.

The idea is semantically the present perfect simply refers to some time in the past, but pragmatically the distance in the past is dependent on the specifics of the situation.
[1] Cases where a greater amount of time before the present moment is under consideration are the less common activities.
[2] Cases where a lesser amount of time is considered are the common activities.

I think this explanation of yours is very reasonable. In most Japanese grammar books they categorize meanings of perfect tensed sentences into COMPLETION (Result), CONTINUITY, and EXPERIENCE. But I rather feel such clear-cut distinctions would be impossible without being given a context.

Anyway I think this question somehow symbolizes a problem we have in English education at schools in Japan. Teachers are forced to teach almost every aspect of English grammar despite the fact the vocabulary size allowed in teaching is very limited, say, only about 1200 words in the first two years, during which students are taught "present perfect tense". So the sentences given in grammar drill books tend to be too simple to take their exact meaning, and teachers often get lost about what means what. I really sympathize with them.

paco

Re: English grammAr

henry teach — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:11:00 GMT

Yes. The main difference is in vocabulary but there are a few important grammatical differences:

1. BrE sometimes uses the present perfect while AmE use the past simple.
2. BrE uses have got while AmE tends to use have.
3. There are some differences inirregular verbs between AmE and BrE.

This is discussed at length here:

http://grammar-guide.com/details.asp?fIndex=45

Henry
Free-ESL

Re: A little lost with this?

Mister Micawber — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:16:09 GMT

What is wrong with the following statements?

1. 'Iâd like some information about your courses.' 'Information' is uncountable.

2. 'Yes. I went to the bank yesterday.' The expired timeframe denominator, 'yesterday', precludes the use of present perfect.

3. 'Yes, he is rather thin/skinny these days, isnât he?' Inappropriate vocabulary choice: 'slender' is a pleasant attribute, while 'thin' or 'skinny' suggest illness or being underweight.

4. Because I was having a bath.â Inappropriate tense: the past continuous is used for one past event ongoing while a second event (the phone ringing) occurred.

What are the differences in meaning of the following?

1. A âIf I had the money Iâd buy a new car.â I don't have the money.
B âIf I have the money Iâll buy a new car.â I may have the money (let me check, or in the future)

2. A âTerrorists hi-jacked an aeroplane.â The writer dislikes the hijackers.
B âFreedom fighters hi-jacked an aeroplane.â The writer admires the hijackers.

3. A âGive me a hand with this bag will you?â Informal/casual request for assistance.
B âCould you give me a hand with this bag please?â More formal/polite request for assistance.