221–230 of 258 posts
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I find it weird that many English natives try to claim that English grammar is in fact complex (you are by far not the first). I think it might be because in general many don't speak another language and the most common second language is Spanish which has also a very "simple" grammar. Regarding your example with the gerund, yes it is subtle, but similar subtleties exist in German, e.g. The difference between perfect…
English grammar is heavily taught in elementary school (K-5, ~age 5 to 11) and middle school (6-8, ~age 11-14) curriculum in the US. You're pretty much expected to have the grammar down by high school, where the focus shifts to composition (essay courses, etc.) This was my experience growing up here anyways. The last time I had a test question ask me to circle the past participle was middle school (and the SAT).
I didn't know terms like that in England in the 2000s, though I picked them up from learning other foreign languages later.
I have heard university professors complain that they can say, simply, "rephrase the paper into the active voice" to a student from , but many British students don't know what that means.
England now teaches more grammar, but it is not much use generalizing from individual experiences of a particular state/country in a particular decade.
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> One of the Twain's famous examples that language is full of exceptions and hard to learn is that the word for girl is neuter. This is logical: "Mädchen" is a diminutive (as the prefix -chen shows). Diminutives are always neuter. "Mäd[g]dchen" thus simply means "little maid [Magd: maid]".
Sorry for the typo: correct is of course "Mä[g]dchen".
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> She would have had to have been being watched. Well, now I want to see how this sentence would be translated into all the other major languages! I immediately understand the meaning, but can see why it might be hard for a non native speaker to understand. Are their other languages that can say the same thing as concisely? Google Translate must absolutely butcher this sentence. I just tried Spanish. “Habría tenido q…
Google's translation is not wrong, but the original phrase is too convoluted... I would translate it as "debería haber estado vigilada". DeepL translate it as "tendría que haber sido vigilada". Both are much easier to understand.
It's a sentence that would typically be spoken rather than written, but it's only a step beyond "you would have had to have been there", which has genuine occurrences in Google Search.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22You+would+have+had+to+hav...
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If you look at an eggplant in its early stages, you will understand the name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v9hvK3rdxA So nope, not "an" eggplant, some eggplants, and those only may look like eggs in their early stages. They may also look like plums. Do we call the purple eggplants plumplants because they resemble plums at some indeterminate stage in their growth?
As someone who's had to (or maybe wanted to) learn both english and german, I'd say german has a steeper initial learning curve, but it becomes easier later, whereas english can be easy to get going, but it's difficult to master (obviously the spelling, but also the more advanced use of tenses etc). Regarding Twain's complaints, the biggest lesson I learned from learning german at an older age was: languages are nons…
The difficulty of mastering the tenses is something that I think a lot of English speakers overlook. There's a lot of really precise and difficult-to-explain subtleties in English. (Of course, English isn't unique in this regard -- but I feel like certain things are taken for granted). Something that catches a lot of English as second language people out is the correct time to use the gerund form (i.e., the '-ing' fo…
Unsurprisingly, there are many articles published about "The Awful English Language" , such as: [1], [2], [3] Some examples from [2]: Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. Besides the above, there is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet,…
I have to admit still being confused about sweetmeats. If a Brit uses the word, are they talking about a specific type of candy, made in a specific way, from a specific type of shop? Does it need to be baked? Or have flour? Or does a Snickers bar count as a sweetmeat? Or a gumdrop? Hard candy? Or is it more like something from a bakery? Indian sweetmeats also seems to be a thing (from an image search right now). What…
I couldn't give a good definition without referring to a dictionary.
Indian English retains several archaic terms, little used since the early 20th century. An Indian probably can give a good definition.
[1] https://theoriginalmaidsofhonour.co.uk/collections/types?q=S...
English pronunciation only vaguely follows word spelling and must be memorized in many cases. The classic phrase: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed." shows how the "-ough" has no reasonable rule that can be used to determine word pronunciation, despite similar spelling. By comparison, spelling and word p…
You should have used Loughborough instead of Scarborough :) Low-barrow? Luf-baruff? I certainly had to look it up.
It is about 20km north of Leicester, which I think is the largest city with a -cester ending, commonly mispronounced by foreigners.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v9hvK3rdxA So nope, not "an" eggplant, some eggplants, and those only may look like eggs in their early stages. They may also look like plums. Do we call the purple eggplants plumplants because they resemble plums at some indeterminate stage in their growth?
In Britain (and most Western European languages), we call them aubergines. The origin is the "Sanskrit word vātin-gāna denoted 'the class (that removes) the wind-disorder (windy humour)': that is, vātin-gāna came to be the name for eggplants because they were thought to cure flatulence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant#Aubergine-type_names