Info-exchange]Discuss EnglishJapanese learning

This thread is for learners of English and Japanese to ask questions
and share information in English. Advanced learners of English can
ask native speakers questions about difficult grammar and expressions
and help them learn Japanese in exchange. Posting in Japanese is
allowed but English is preferred.

英語を学ぶ日本人と、日本語を学ぶ外国人がお互いに情報を交換し合うスレッドです。
英語の難解な文法や表現などについてネイティヴスピーカーに質問させてもらうかわりに
彼らの日本語学習の手助けをしていきましょう。日本語での書き込みも不可ではありませんが
ネイティヴスピーカーの方に理解し易いよう、出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。

let's talk about idols!

>>1
乙！

I want to thank everyone who made all the efforts to make this thread.
I want to apologize everyone who felt annoyed in the Mother thread.

皆様ご協力ありがとうございました。うｐスレの皆様本当に申し訳ありませんでした。
子スレということで宜しくお願いいたします。

つまるところ、Language Exchange がいいたいの？

>>3
thank you!
I'm not a good English speaker.
But I wanted to see how it's going to be to do new project.
I wish I could learn a lot from this new thread.

外国人で２ちゃんやってる人いるんかいな。
つか、２ちゃんで意味がわかるレベルってことは
その外人さんはもう日本語ぺらっぺらの人だろうが。

>>5
Neither am I, as you can tell from my English in >>3.
I hope a lot people will find this place useful.

>>6
２ちゃんを読む外国人もいる。たとえば、俺がここにいるさ。

Tell me the difference.

#1 I'm addicted to 2ch.
#2 I'm obsessed with 2ch.
#3 I'm hooked on 2ch.

>>8
I have couple questions for you. You dont have answer them if you mind.
Do you browse 2ch to get know Japanese culture or something?
Your Japanese skills seems great. Most of my collegue (I'm working at
AEON, you know, famous private English school) have trouble speak or
write in Japanese even after their years in Japan.
How did you study Japanese? Is there any tips for successful Language study?

>>6 >>10
こちらのスレでのここ何日かのやりとりから、詳しいことが判ると思います。
You can find out the answer in recent posts of this thread.
↓
自分の英語の発音をうｐしてみるスレ＜７＞
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1143295508/

>>8
Thanks for coming!
You use very fluent Japanese.

>>11
Thanks!!

たしか>>8は大体のときが日本人が代打してるらしいよ。英語が固いしねそのヤシ。

>>9
As with most expressions, the meaning can always vary depending on
context, but here are some general tips:

Being "addicted" is often considered a medical problem,
whereas being obsessed with something is usually
considered a personal problem.

A person can't be "obsessed" with drugs, but he can be
addicted to drugs or hooked on drugs.

Saying you are "hooked" on 2ch usually indicates you
simply like it a lot, whereas saying you are addicted
means you think you might spend too much time
on it.

I hope you find this helpful.

>>10
Thank you for the compliment, but my Japanese really isn't that good.
I'm learning the grammar without too much difficulty, but I still need to
learn more vocabulary and kanji and develop listening and speaking skills.
Having an electronic dictionary and kana->kanji conversion software
makes using Japanese on the Internet much easier than normal.

I've been studying on my own for about a year now using the Internet.
I took a 10 week class at my college, but they mostly made us
memorize phrases like こんにちは and so forth. I think what has
helped me the most is studying linguistics and syntax. It helps
me understand the basic differences in structure between English
and Japanese instead of just memorizing translations.

I read 2ch because it helps me learn expressions and kanji, and
also because I am interested in Japanese culture, which I think
a lot of people in the west misunderstand. So far almost
everyone has been very kind and helpful. Thank you all
very much!

>>15
Thanks.
I got it!

You meant that "hooked" has no negative implication?

>>17
It tends to have a softer meaning. For instance, saying
"I'm hooked on you" is kind of a sappy way of saying
"I'm in love with you." You might hear it in song lyrics.
There was also an English learning system for young children
that was advertised in the US called "Hooked on Phonics."
Obviously if there was a negative implication it would not
have sold many copies. Usually the only time you will
see "hooked on" used negatively is when talking about
drugs.

>>18
多謝
Thanks a lot.

This thread is superb. Do you think we should advertise in the chatting threads
where there must be not a few native speakers? Anonymous American san helps us a lot
but he is not always here on call.

>>20

Go for it.

/also an American, but can only check at intervals when at work

When I surfed the Net, I found this phrase: English takes a lot of
getting used to. Can you explain whether the expression is gramatically correct,
and if it is, why so? Although I can understand/guess the meaning of it,
I can't aplly the same grammar to my English. In Japanese compulsory
education, "it takes a lot of efforts to get used to English" would
be taught. "To" is a preposition and you can't forget to add a noun
after it. That's why.
Please shed any light on this.

Another question is also related to English grammar..
When someone says something and you want to express your
agreement or to say you don't remember, you sometimes say "
That I can understand" or "Not that I can remember".
What I want to know is, what is these "that"s?
You can't say "I can understand that" or "I can't understand that"
instead. What are the differences all there is to know?
Can you please help me out?

>>22
Everyday spoken English is filled with all sorts of grammatical errors,
and a number of them have worked their way into written language, especially
on the net. Your class's "It takes a lot of effort to get used to English"
is grammatically correct, but is not colloquial.

If you were to look for an actual meaning of "English takes a
lot of getting used to", it would be something like "It takes a lot of
exposure to English in order to get used to it." This is similar to
a foreigner learning kana/kanji or somebody learning about racecars -
they all look the same and get confusing at first, but once you spend
enough time looking at them, you notice how they work and get used to
the rules, exceptions, quirks, etc.

lm feel very tired. but is a solo.

>>23

"That" is a reflexive pronoun, and using it to start a sentence
is very bad grammar, although it is commonly used in colloquial
speech.

In the case of "That I can understand", the proper phrasing is
"I can understand that", and the "that" is referring to what the
prior statement was referring to. For example:

Person 1: "My girlfriend is so unpredictable, I never know if what
I'm doing makes her happy or not."
Person 2: "I can understand that (the unpredictableness of Person
1's girlfriend), mine's the same way."

(I almost said "mine's like that too", which would have had
the same meaning, but would not have been good to clarify.)

For "Not that I can remember", it's a polite way of saying "I
don't think so" that invites the other person to expand on the
subject. For example:

>>23 (Part 2)


Person 3: "I told you about the bus accident near the Koushien on
Sunday, right?"
Person 4: "Not that I can remember." (I don't remember you telling
me about the accient.)
Person 3: "Oh, it was horrible. A young baseball player saved
an old lady from being run over, and ended up getting hit instead."

(Forgive the morbid reference/injoke.)

"I don't understand that" / "I can't understand that" is
more referring to a lack of clarity in the dialogue. If a
math professor explains a complicated proof, you would say "I don't
understand that", which would ask for a clarification.

If something is quite bizarre or fails to be logical, then
"I can't understand that" would be more appropriate.

In all of these cases, "that" refers to the concept expressed
by the prior speaker in the conversation.

>>24,>>26-27
Thanks a million!
I'll read you carefully now.

>>23 >>26-27
I think the explanation >>26-27 gave should help
you understand what the expression means, but
from a technical standpoint "that" is not a reflexive
pronoun. In this case it is actually used as a "complementizer,"
which is a word used to introduce a clause. For example:

I think *that* my English is improving.
There is the cat *that* I saw yesterday

In the case of "not that I can remember," it could be
short for "There is not anything that I can remember" or
a similar expression. The first part of the sentence
tends to get shortened to just "not." Another example:

Person 1: Are there any Japanese people at our school?
Person 2: Not that I know of (There are not any that I know of)

For the record, reflexive pronouns are words like "himself"
and "myself." In Japanese, 自分 is generally considered
a reflexive pronoun.

If you're feeling brave, you can get more information on
both types of words at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_pronoun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementizer

>>20
Darn! What have you done!
This is superb! But you did a fairly bad job, dint you?
A/A often tells us that English chat thread is full of trolls talking
about idols. That A/A doesnt like.
You should've been careful enough to choose the right thread.

>>29
I am not the person who asked questions about "Not that I remember."
But I want to ask you a similar question.

I know there's an expression, like "not to the best of my recollection."

My question is if "Not to the best of my recollection" is more formal
than "Not that I remember."

Your explanation where you say something is omitted before "Not
that I remeber" is very easy to understand. Thank you.
My another question is, if something is omitted before
"Not to the best of.......", what would be it?
Would you give me a full sentence including omitted part?

>>31
"Not to the best of my recollection" is definitely more formal.
Here is an example:

Person 1: Have you ever heard anything so absurd?
Person 2: Not to the best of my recollection.

In this case, the full sentence might be something like
"I have not heard anything so absurd to the best of my recollection."

In many cases you can find a full sentence version of
a short phrase, but sometimes the short phrase is
learned by itself. For instance, "thank you" probably
comes from "I thank you," but most English speakers
hear "thank you" when they grow up and just copy it.

Thank you for taking the lead to start the new initiative like this.
I'm glad that we get to brainstorm to get the questions answered.

I have a question. It is about the nuances.
Here are the sentenses.

(a)Ramadan is a month of fast.
(b)Ramadan is a month of fasting.
My feeling is that both sentenses might work since the word "fast"
can be both noun and verb.
In (a) fast is an abstract noun.
In (b) fast is a verbal noun.
My quetion has to do with the nuances between the two.
(a) seems to me to be rather static, while (b) seems to
involve dynamism. It's hard to say.

Can you please help?

>>29, >>32

AA,

Thanks for the correction (I posted 23, 26, 27). Despite working next
to the office where they write "Hooked on Phonics", I still get
certain things like that mixed up.

As far as "Thank You" being shortened from "I thank you", I have
*never* heard the latter being used outside of archaic presentations.
My guess is more that the abridgement/abbreviation actually comes out
of English's Germanic language past a couple hundred years ago, and
the conjugation:

"Ich danke dir". Now, in daily use it would just be "Danke", or
"I thank".

English conjugates differently ("I thank" is literal but noncolloquial),
so it would just be "Thanks", or with the object "Thank you".

/Never thought he would use anything from his linguistics class in real life

>>33

It's an issue of tense.

"to fast" is the infinitive.
"fasting" is the present participle.

Infinitive: "Are you going to fast during Ramadan?"
Present Participle: "Yes, I will be fasting."

A PP is conjugated with the -ing ending with an associated verb
such as "I am", "She is", "You are", "He will be", "It was",
"They were", etc. Basically any form of the "To be" verb.

Does this help?

It certainly helps.
Let me take my time to read your post.

>>34
"I thank you" is indeed archaic. I think "thanks" is just a plural noun.
I have no idea whether the noun came from the verb or vice versa.
Phrases like "good day" are still very similar in all Germanic languages
and have been as far back as when Old English was still spoken, so I
think you're right. It's very likely that English inherited the abbreviated
version. I tend to gravitate to the syntax/morphology side of things so
I'm not really sure.

It's nice to have another linguistically-minded person on board.
Thanks for helping out!

>>35
Quite frankly, I didnt get the gist perhaps due to my lack of under
-standing and sleep deprivation.
Can anyone help me out on this?

>>38
I think both versions are correct. My gut feeling is that
"month of fast" is more of a set phrase, or more likely
to be used in religious writing. Otherwise, the only
difference between them is that "fast" is a noun by
itself, whereas "fasting" is a noun derived from the verb
"to fast" using the -ing ending, which is what
>>35 pointed out. To draw an analogy, I think it's
sort of like the difference between 食べ物 and
食べる物. 食べ物 is a noun by itself, while 食べる物
is the complete verb 食べる with 物 put on the end,
making it a noun. Otherwise, the meanings are nearly
the same. Does this help?

>>32
Thank you, AA. Giving me a sample dialogue like that really helps me.
and >>34, thank you for your post, too.

Do you know why you say ありがとう in Japanese when someone gives you
something or someone helps you and all? If you write ありがとう in Kanji,
it's 有り難う。有 means being or exsisting and 難 means difficult, so
If you put 有 and 難　together, it literally means " hard for something to exsist" or
"it's rare."

Let's say A gives you something. You say 有り難う because A gives you
something that's rare, something that has scaricity value. Even though
something rare is expensive, A gives it to you without ownig it himself.
What a nice man A is! If A lends you lots of money, you say 有り難う
because the deed itself is rare. He was not obligated to lend it to
you in the first place, but in fact, he lent it to you. What a nice man A is!

In reality, If "something" is very cheap such as a ball point pen,
you say 有り難う　to him.^^ But I've heard that's the origin of
ありがとう。It's hard to explain something in English but I hope
what I wrote makes sense and you enjoyed.

I'm a bit confused.

How about "Not that you don't need it"?
Contrary to "Not that I can remember", you can't change the word order,
can you? What's the that in this case?
Anyexplanation will be appreciated.

English grammar is tough to understand.

>>40
Yes, that does make a lot of sense. Thank you for the explanation!
The English word "thank" originally derives from the
Proto Indo-European root "tong," which means to think or
feel. Eventually, it came to mean "thought" or "gratitude".
In fact, "think" is also derived from this root, which is
why it looks similar to "thank."

>>41
Some phrases such as this tend to be memorized directly
by English speakers, without ever knowing how the phrase
developed. Consider the sentence:
"I won't help you, not that you don't need it."
This could have developed from more complex sentences such as:
"I won't help you, which is not to say that you don't need it."
However, most speakers probably just use the short form instinctively
without thinking about what it was originally. These types of
expressions are called "set phrases" and don't always make
sense unless you look at history and figure out how they were
made. In other words, "not that you don't need it" is kind of
one big chunk that just gets added to a sentence. There are
many chunks like this, and if you try to figure out the long
way of saying them it will usually help you understand how
they work.

>>44
Thank you very much! Now I think I'm clear.
"Not that I can remember"→a complementizer
"Not that you don't need it"→a ser phrase
So either of them has different roots. That's very educational.
Thanks again, Anonymous American san.

>>44
Actually, the word "that" is a complementizer, not the entire phrase.
Perhaps "set phrase" isn't the best term to use. What I mean is,
all of these phrases are shortened from longer sentences, but
they tend to get used as a single chunk by native speakers.
Let me try to use an example from Japanese to show you what
I mean. Please correct me if I get something wrong.

Consider the sentence "I have to eat" in Japanese:
食べなくてはいけません。

This is kind of long to say, so in causal speech people will shorten it to:
食べなくちゃ。

In this case, -なくてはいけません is the original long form. However,
Japanese speakers will also memorize -なくちゃ and use it without
thinking about the longer form:

行かなくちゃ
勉強しなくちゃ

...and so forth. An English speaker might not understand なくちゃ
when trying to learn Japanese and get confused. After learning
that it's just a longer form that got shortened over time, he can
just start using it without thinking. Stuff like "not that I can
remember" or "not that you don't need it" is the same. It might
look weird at first, but it makes sense once you understand what
it comes from. Does that help?

>>39
Thanks for the input.
I appreciate it.

>>43
There are a lot of phrases that people use without understanding, but I do not think "not that you don't need it" is a good example.
You can figure out what it means literally, it is just a form that is used sometimes.
"I will not help you, but you (do) need it." or ".. but you sure could use it."
Contrast this with a common idiom or figure of speech, such as "Don't have a cow." (It basically means don't be so upset.)
That makes absolutely no sense if taken literally. Also, if you change it slightly the meaning is completely lost.
If you said to me, "Don't have a chicken.", I would not know what you meant.

That isn't to say that people do not build sentences out of preset phrases at times, as we obviously do.
It is a pretty universal part of language... maybe it is easy for our brains to do it that way.

/random insomniac American
//who likes slashies

>>47
Yeah, I think "set phrase" was the wrong term to use. What I meant
was, the shortened version of the phrase gets memorized and pulled
out without really thinking much about the "long" version, so
to a non-native speaker it looks like there's just stuff missing.

It's difficult to understand "For what it's worth."

I encountered this sentence. "For what it's worth, I've heard that
regular exercise can alleviate depression."

Probably, it's better to remember the meaning of it as a set phrase,
but could someone bother explaing this phrase?

>>49
Something like "this may or may not be useful" or "this may or may not matter".
A similar case to your mention of it would be someone asking if they should order a certain food.
You might respond "Well I enjoy it, for what it's worth." meaning that you enjoy it, but that doesn't mean that they will.

I wonder if we'd best keep this thread a secret to the limited number of people,
because I have never seen so useful a thread as this one. Maybe it might be an idea
to let it known to more of us and get it more vigorous.

>>51
This thread is definitely kind of quiet, but I'm worried about what would
happen if it became more popular. There are at least 2 or so other
native English speakers besides me who have been posting here, so we
could probably handle more people asking questions. The problem is
that it might also attract trolls and people that just want to post
insults or otherwise be annoying. I'm not sure what would be best
to do.

It's 51

>>52
You're right. As a matter of fact, I also have a feeling that there are chances we might
take risk of attracting trolls as well, if we want this thread to get popular..
This thread might as well be left as it is, at least for a while.

By the way, can I ask you something?(>to all)
I've read harry potter volume 1 and in it come across this sentence:
"So all I’ve got to wait for now is Snape to steal the stone"
What I want to know is "Snape to steal the stone" is gramatically correct or not.
Don't you need "for" to add a subject to "to infinitive"?
Does it sound ok to you if I say,"It's good someone to do something."
instead of "it's good for someone to do something"?
Could you make an explanation?

*I read the British version of the book.

"Will you stop that!" and "Don't you do that!"
How does the sentence sound compared to "Stop that!" and "Don't do that" respectively?
These kinds of usages aren't taught in Japan. But when I read, I sometimes see them.
I'd appreciate it if you tell me the differences.

>>53

There's a short answer to this and a long answer to this.
The short answer is that this is technically a grammar error,
but it doesn't sound nearly as bad as "It's good someone to
do something," so native speakers can get away with it.
The basic problem is that the "for" wants to be with
"Snape to steal the stone," since it is the start of that
clause, but it also wants to be with "wait," since it is
part of "wait for." No matter what you do, adding
the "now is" is going to separate it from one or the
other, so native speakers just do it even though it
is technically incorrect.

There is a longer version of this answer which explains
why "for" seems to be part of two different phrases
at once. Let me know if you want me to post it.

>>54
I think both phrases are a bit stronger than the ones they teach in
Japan. I often use "will you stop that!" when someone is really
annoying me, but just "stop that" in a more neutral voice when
I'm not really that annoyed. I think "don't you do that!" is the
same way. Of course, tone of voice is very important for these
kinds of expressions. Any of them can express varying levels of
annoyance or disappointment, and sometimes even playfulness,
depending on how they are spoken.

>>55
Thank you very much!
So "verb + for someone to do something" can change into "all・・・for is someone to do something", right?
I instinctively understood the meaning of the sentence but couldn't know why.
And I guess 'all I have to wait for is "for" someone to do something' may sound awkward to native speakers.
Am I right? Can I say "all I can hope for is someone to do something" as well?

>Let me know if you want me to post it.
I'd love to know more about the reason, if it wouldn't trouble you very much.
Thanks for your kindness.

>>56
Thanks again!
That's great information.
My grammar books don't mention the subtle differences of those expressions.
I'm happy to get new knowledge!

>>57
In general, try to avoid separating "for" from its clause when
you can. "All I have to wait for is for someone to do
something" sounds perfectly fine to me. A quick search on
Google shows that this kind of sentence is very common, so
you are safe using it. It could be that it doesn't sound as good
in British English, so maybe that's why Harry Potter doesn't say
this. If there are any native Britons here, please let us know how
it sounds to you!

The "all ... is" form is very useful. You can use it in many
situations. Here are some examples:

I need money -> All I need is money.
I want to see a movie -> All I want is to see a movie.
OR All I want to see is a movie.
I need to sleep -> All I need is to sleep.

In some cases, you might need to change things a bit. This
tends to happen when the only verb before the first "to"
is an auxiliary verb.

I have to go to school -> All I have to do is go to school.
I am going to swim -> All I am going to do is swim.

The explanation about "for" being part of two phrases
is a little long, so I'll make it a separate post.

>>57
(PART 1)
So, here is why "for" is part of two phrases at once. You are probably
familiar with "phrasal verbs," such as "get up" and "calm down."
These phrases develop over time through a natural process.
In a sentence with a prepositional phrase, you often see a structure
like:
subject verb [preposition ...]

For example:
He cut [up the salmon]

When a certain verb and preposition are used together frequently, the
structure of phrases like "cut up the salmon" can be reinterpreted
as:
He [cut up] [the salmon]

Which has the form:
Subject [verb + preposition] [direct object]

This means you can now do stuff like:
He cut up the salmon -> The salmon was cut up

This is because "cut up" is now sort of a verb by itself.
Note that you cannot do:
He ate inside the house -> The house was eaten inside (WRONG)

This is because "eat" and "inside" are not used together enough for
"eat inside" to become a verb by itself. "The house" needs to
be a direct object to make the sentence passive, but it is
still part of a prepositional phrase.

>>57
(PART 2)
Now, it happens to be the case that the preposition "for"
can be used not only as a preposition, but to introduce
a non-finite clause, like "for Snape to steal it." Although
this isn't a prepositional phrase, there is still a tendency
to treat it as such because "for" is used as a preposition
so often. Consider a sentence like:
I've got to wait for Snape to steal it.

There is a tendency to treat "wait for" as a single verb because
"wait" and "for" are used together so often. Thus, when you
change the sentence around, you try to keep the two together:
All I've got to wait for now is Snape to steal it.

Unfortunately, this splits "for" away from its clause, and you
end up with a grammar error. Basically, both "wait" and
"Snape to steal it" want control of "for."

There is a reason that "for" is needed to use a non-finite
clause with a subject, but it requires even more syntax
theory to explain.

>>50
Thank you for your answer. I think I got better understanding of
"For what it's worth." Another expample you showed to me helps, too.
Thank you.

>>56
>Any of them can express varying levels of
annoyance or disappointment, and sometimes even playfulness,
depending on how they are spoken.

I have to keep this in mind especially when I caress a girl.
If you take it mistakingly that she wants more against her words and
keep petting, you end up being in jail.

Tone of voice is the key. Got it.haha

In such a situation I would probably just use for twice if I were writing informally, but I would rewrite it in a formal setting.
"Now all I need to do is to wait for Snape to steal the stone." is less clumsy.

On the subject of keeping the thread quiet I am not sure.
The other threads such as "Hey Natives! Come help us out!" are nowhere near the quality of this one.

>>63
Agreed. There are at least 1 or 2 good questions here every day, and
there are at least 2 of us that answer them, so things balance out.
Maybe if we got some more native speakers posting here we could
handle more traffic?

I felt the same way in that there are probaly two separate posters
in this thread who are at the near native level.
No matter how fluent they are in writing, I sense that they are Japanese.

Again,it is worth noting that one of them seems like a native speaker.
He/She appears to be so. I have been quite impressed by his/her posts
so far and am curious to find out about how they were brought up.

>>65
Would you tell me what numbers of English posts seems so good as native English
speakers'? I'm just curious.

I think it's the bignning of this thread, so a few questions are
asked every day, but as the time goes on, I think less questions are asked.

In fact I asked a few questions so far, but they are like to keep
you guys native English speakers stay here, to keep this thread
active.

Of course, your answers are really helpful but, to think the time
I have to spare to post a question "IN ENGLISH", it's kind of tough
to keep posting almost every day.

I mean, if I weigh the difficulty in posting "IN ENGLISH" and keeping
a question unanswered, in my case, leave it unanswered can be easier
choice. Sorry for this negative post.

My point is, this is a very rare thread where native English speakers
share their views on questions by Japanese English learners.
No matter how one japanese advanced English learner has a good command
of English, chances are he can't answer the way you guys have so far
as long as its his second language.

So, I want you native English speakers come and check this thread once
in a while to see if a questions are asked, even if this thread's traffic
turns small.

I rambled on and on but seems like I ended up repeating the aims of
thread. ^^ Thank you for reading.

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コピペの人形も英語を勉強したいのか？

>>66

I'm willing to try to answer questions in Japanese, but as you can
see I'm not that good at it...

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My Ingrishu is berry bad.

Well, it was nice while it lasted...

>>71

Hopefully the trolls will go away, this is a lovely thread otherwise.

>>66
Let me get this straight. I am one of those Japanese English Learners
out there.　

As for the number of the native-like speakers that I feel there are,
I would say one or two, like I've mentioned above.

What I meant by my previous post, was that I sense they are Japanese,
since I am Japanese myself.

the number of native like-speakers ○

Well, the trolls have learned a rope of attracting our attention by
taking advantage of attention-grabbing visuals.
If they were able to post a message in Eglish together with visuals,
that would have been great.
Hope the aboe line will shed some light on 仮定法。
Sorry if I fed the trolls.

>>73
日本人ですかい。俺の英語が悪かったけど、具体的に何番のpostがネイティブっぽいか
聞きたかったんだよ。

俺から見たら、君の英語はネイティブに見えたから、あなたをネイティブと思って
あんな質問してしまったよ。>>66を書くのに一時間弱かかったから、英語を書くのは
俺にはまだまだ大変だ。てへへ。

明らかに違うというのはあったよ。正直、ここまでできる人たちがいたの
なら発音スレでトリップつけてくれればよかったのにと思う。
1人から２人。そのうちで同一人物だと思うけどものすごく上手い人がいた。
AA氏にどれがそう感じたのか指摘してもらえればと思う。帰国子女の人
とは別にもう一人かなぁ特別うまい人がいた。たぶんこの二人をさして
AA氏はネイティブと言っていたのだと思う。

>>77
>ここまでできる人たちがいたのなら発音スレでトリップつけてくれればよかったのにと思う

発音がいいかどうかはまた別の話だからね。発音スレで、つるし上げられてた
英検1級合格者のhttp://www.eiken.or.jp/news/backno25_03.html この人の
音声がリンクで聞けるけど、上手いとは言えないでしょ。

この人、ただ1級合格しただけじゃなくて、文部科学大臣奨励賞受賞もらってるから、
合格者の中でも上位数人に入ってるわけだ。それでもあの発音だから、英語力と
発音の良さは、必ずしも比例するわけじゃない。

>>73

I would agree that there are a couple of near-native English speaking
Japanese people on this topic, including the person who started it.

I *can* say that there is at least one native speaker here besides
AA-san, because he's the one typing this message.

>>79
Would you tell me which posts look native-like in this thread, if you don't mind?
If one of my posts is picked up, which isn't impossible, I am happy.

>>79
What made you come to this discussion board and find yourself being part of it?
Are you learning Japanese also? These sorts of things don't really matter to anyone, but
I was just curious.

the cat's out of the bag. haha.
Agreed on the following line "the person who started it".
This gentleman's posts have intrigued me as well.
Which led me to find more about his linguistic background etc.

>>79
in発音うｐスレ, there' s a couple or more replies that I think that near
native level Japanese resident posted in.
The guy who got AA-san to come on board here.

>>80,81,82

Using the 50 most recent posts, >>33 and >>38 show a good grasp of
colloquial English. >>41 and >>49 asked very good questions.

In my opinion, anybody who is capable of asking serious grammar/
usage questions in their second/third/etc. language and understanding
the response is well on their way to mastery - I have trouble doing
so in my second language (German), and I spent three and a half years
studying it in University and a year living in a German speaking country.

>>81
I had heard about 2ch as a phenomenon, and started checking it occasionally
after seeing the Densha Otoko drama (which I'm sure that 2ch has a love/
hate relationship with). I'd like to learn Japanese, but I have trouble
memorizing vocabulary, which makes the prospect of learning Kanji quite
frightening. I do want to get off my bum and learn Hiragana/Katakana
at some point, though...my friends all give me shopping requests when
I go to the Japanese bookstores in New York and finding things without
understanding how things are ordered is difficult at best.

As far as participating in this thread, I want to be a teacher and
this is good practice.

>>66 >>73
>>26-27,34 I'm not sure about. >>26,34 I would call fluent
but >>27 would make me say they are not a native speaker
>>35,40 are almost there
>>24 I think is a native

However, there are a great number of posts that are quite good.
Some examples would be >>10,20,31,33,62,65 (this is a non-exhaustive list)

Sadly, I cannot read Japanese at all so I have to settle for babelfish,
which isn't very helpful for specific questions.

>>85

Looks like there's three of us, then (you, me, and AA).

>>84
Wie geht es? Ich habe drei jahr Deustch gelernen, aber jezt schlecht sprechen.
I used to be able to get by with a dictionary, but now I cannot even conjugate things properly anymore.
My sentence structure and grammar is also quite poor as I'm sure you can tell.
I only took it in high school and I never really had a chance to use it.
I wish I had learned another language early on.
On the bright side, I can still read German and derivatives decently enough.

>>33 and >>38 plus 82,83 are my posts.
Thank you for the compliment. I am flattered. But I am not the one
who started it.
My year of experience abroad is only limited to less than a
year. I am not a returnee, either.
I have a hard time getting myself across in English.

Not change the subject, Ive been to the Kinokuniya book store in NYC.
It was in Setember that I visited.
All the hotels were booked up due to the yearly UN convention.
So I was forced out of the city and took the bus all the way up to
Fort Lee in NJ.

>>87

Es geht mir gut, aber meine Arbeit ist mir sehr langweilig und
ich kann keine Umlaeute an dieser beschissenen amerikanischen
Notebooktastatur.

I still get lots of the genders wrong and forget accusative/dative
with some prepositions. I can still follow movies and plays, though.

>>88
I feel very sorry that you had to stay in New Jersey.
The area around the UN is very pretty, though, and I've seen
an art exhibit at the Japan Society, which is a couple streets
away (as is my mother's office).

Kinokuniya in NYC is very nice, but expensive. I prefer going
to Book-Off and gambling on the discount sections.

I am >>66.

Thank you very much for taking your time to pick up posts that looks fluent.
I posted >>31, >>40,>>49,>>62,>>66 and >>80. I'm happy to hear
that some of them are quite good. It's still a long way to go but
I think I'll go on my own pace.

>>89
Work always sucks, that is to be expected
You can get umlauts from character map if you don't have a numpad, but I normally just do -e anyways
it is too much of a pain in the ass.

>>91

I could, but that's annoying. I have an Austrian notebook at home,
so it has all of the extended characters on it. At work is
another matter, of course. =)

We should probably get this back on topic. Does anybody
have questions today?

>>59-61 >Anonymous American san
Thanks for taking your time to explain it.
You're of great help.

I've got to wait for/ Snape to steal it
→I've got to wait for ←+All…is
→All I've got to wait for is←＋Snape to steal it
→All I've got to wait for is Snape to steal it

I think I got it.

I was always wondering. This is not a grammar question but a
cultural question.

If someone sneeze, people of English-speaking country always say,
"Bless you." to him/her without exceptions? Even to total strangers?
Even to someone like scary-looking guy? Or do you sometimes ignore them
even if you hear someone sneeze?

Is it considered to be rude if you don't say, "bless you" when you
hear, "Achooooo?"

Is there any interesting episode where you said, "Bless you" or a total
stranger said to you, "Bless you", and then strike up conversation?
Say, it ended up a beginning of relationship or something?

Hello there.

I have another question. If you don't mind, I'd like you to help me out.
I don't know what differs between "that's fine BY me", "that's fine WITH me,
and "that's fine TO me." When I use so-called the set phrases and phrasal verbs
I know by heart, such as "the mountain is covered WITH snow", I think I don't have
so much trouble. But when it comes to what proposition fits in, it's a different story.
And this time I do want to know the differences of the usages of the three sentences above.

By the way, we have some people here with eagerness to learn some Japanese, don't we?
So let me introduce a web site.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/
Just a click away, then you can enjoy 日本語講座.

>>94
You don't have to say bless you and I wouldn't say it is rude not to.
If there are multiple people around only one person needs to say it, too.
Many people will say it, even to scary looking guys and total strangers.
There have been times where someone has started a conversation with me
because I said bless you to them. Most of the time though, it would be rather short.
A sneezes.
B: "Bless you."
A: "Thank you, people don't put effort into being polite these days."
yadda yadda

I wouldn't be surprised if someone at some time ended up starting a relationship
after such an exchange, but it certainly is not common.

"that's fine by me", "that's fine with me", and "that sounds fine (to/by) me" have the same basic meaning.
"that looks fine to me" is slightly different though. It would is used in response to a question about something else,
rather than the first set of phrases generally referring to yourself.
The first group would be used in reply to "Do you want to go shopping?" whereas
the second would be used for "Does this look right?" or "Is this correct?".

The analogy you applied makes a lot of sense to me. This gave me an
oppotunity to take a close look at some aspect I usually pay no attention to.
As the phrase gets shorter and changes its form, casualness of speech
goes up accordingly, as you said.

食べなくてはいけない　→　食べなくては　→　食べなくちゃ
食べなければいけない　→　食べなければ　→　食べなきゃ
whereas I cannot come up with any short version of 食べないと, which has the
same meaning though this still sounds verbal by itself to me.
The change of form might has somthing similar to the following in English;
have got to　→　 gotta
be going to　→　 be gonna
It would be nice if someone could back me up with specific terms or correct me on this.

Nice to see you all.

Japanese who showed up fashionably late

>>97 is for >>45
...orz

I wanna ask about FUCK.
What's so fucking wrong with fuck that makes parents cringe when their children are there when fuck is uttered?
Why do TV stations ban fuck from there broadcast?
What the fuck is fucking going on in the fucking brain of yours when you fucking hear fuck?
Is it like まんこ?

and one more question. I want to know about dick.
Dick Cheny is vice president of the U.S.
If his dick is small, Dick's dick is small.
The point is when you hear Dick Cheny, do you think about dicks?
Is dick not penis when used in a tottally non-associative context?
Is it like 紀藤 and 亀頭？

>>96
Thank you very much for your answer and sharing your own experience.
So, most people will say, "bless you."

I have never been abroad and had no chance to say the pharse to
someone. Plus I think I am kind of shy to say that.
I wonder how the situation is like in Europe. Maybe in case of Germany,
there is a phrase that's equivalent to "Bless you."

By the way, I am not >>95

>>100
"Gesundheit" (ɡəˈzuntˈhait) would be the German equivilant which sometimes even English people use instead.

Probably you know a band called nickelback.

I thought it was spelled nickelbuck, meaning five cents, but today
I get to know it's spelled nickelback by chance and was surprised.

Do you native English speakers think the band's name nickelback
was named after nickelbuck?
I mean, do you think did the band's member give nickelbuck a twist
and decided to spell their band nickelback?

Do you have any ideas?

I'm not familar with nickelbuck, sorry.
Wikipedia says "The name derived from the nickel in change Mike Kroeger frequently had to give customers back in his job at a Starbucks coffee shop."
It seems to make sense to me and that is what I thought, but it isn't cited.
A nickel is worth 5 cents.

>>102
Keep in mind that "buck" and "back" are pronounced
differently in English, even though both might be written
バック in katakana. Maybe this is the source of the
confusion?

>>103
The story of his giving back 5 cents as a change do makes sense.
Thanks for your taking trouble of checking Wikipedia.
He gave costomers a nickel back....... That's make sense!

>>104
Right you are. I just imagined it must be spelled "nickelbuck"
because I know buck is another way of sayin dollar. But my guess
was wrong.

It's 95

>>96
Thanks for your explanation.
I didn't know the differences of the two groups.
I'll try to remember what you said.

By the way, can I pick your brain again?
This time, I'd like to know about several English words.
Brain, head, mind, sense, feeling, to be more specific.
All those words can be used to mean "idea", "thinking", or something like that, can't they?
I've looked them up in my dictionary, but I felt I was stuck.
What do they differ in?

The recent reduction in the number of questions has also decreased the
number of answers from native speakers. I guess they got bored or dispirited.

>>106
I'm not >>96, but I'll try to answer your question.
"Brain" and "head" refer to physical parts of the body,
but they can be used in some figurative expressions.
For example, "Use your head!" and "Use your brain!"
are ways to tell someone to think more carefully.
If you say that "John has a good head on his shoulders,"
you mean that John is smart. "Mind" generally refers to
a person's total consciousness: their thoughts, emotions, and
so forth. I think a similar Japanese word is 心.

Sense and feeling have a lot of overlap in meaning. I
think the most significant difference is that "feeling"
is used more often to describe emotions. A sense is
usually a physical or mental perception, such as sense
of sight or smell, sense of balance, sense of danger,
and so forth. It implies awareness of some situation
or concept. A feeling is more often an emotional
reaction to a situation, such as feeling happy or sad.
Unfortunately, there are many other meanings of both
words, some of which are the same. You might want to
try reading an English-English dictionary (if you can)
to see all the different uses of both words. Try
www.m-w.com for a free one you can use online.

I was on vacation for Easter. orz

I have a question.

The job is too ( ) to learn in an afternoon.

You have to fill in the blank. The word that should be in the blank
is equivalant to 複雑な.
I thought the answer was "complicated" but sample answer was "compex."
Which do you think is natural, complex or complicated?
Is there any differences between them?

Another question is about the expression "out and about."
In my textbook, A says to B over the phone, "I haven't seen you out and about
lately." B lost his pet and is depressed and A knows he lost his pet
and is worried about him and called him on the phone to know how he is doing after his pet loss.

In this context the expression "out and about" is for a person who
is in a bad situation, to be exact, facing pet loss.
My question is if this expression can be used to a person who is not
in a particularly bad situation.

>>110
"Complex" and "complicated" are very similar in meaning. I think
"The job is too complex to learn in an afternoon" and "The job
is too complicated to learn in an afternoon" are both fine. The
only real difference between them is that "complicated" tends
to have a slightly negative connotation. It often indicates that a
situation or problem is difficult to understand. It can also
indicate unwanted factors interfering with a situation, such as
having a "complicated" relationship with a girlfriend. I think
"complex" has a more neutral meaning.

"Out and about" means being active outside of one's home.
In this example, person B is probably depressed and has been
staying at home instead of going outside. Person A hasn't
seen person B "out and about," so he is naturally worried
that something is wrong. The phrase does not have to be
used in reference to a person who is in a bad situation, it
simply refers to activity level. I hope this helps.

ageとく。

>>Anonymous American

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cwy1ntKLAU
このmovieに出てくる外国人がAmericanであるか、Aussieであるのか判断してください。

>>111
Thank you very much, AA.
I think for Japanese English learners, to know differences of nuance
between the two words is tough.
Your answers really help.

>The phrase does not have to be used in reference to a person
who is in a bad situation, it simply refers to activity level.

This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you, AA.

>>113
I'm not AA but it is a group of Aussies, probably drunk.
They have Austarlian accents and one of them even says "Do it for Australia!"

>>113
赤いシャツの人はオーストラリア人だが、アメリか人の音声も聞こえる。

>>116
Jesus thanks
>>115
who are you

【ou】の発音は、

普通にオゥ、
アゥ派
オィ派がいるよな？
あるサイトによると
アゥ派が上流階級らしいけど。
ロンドンはオィだな
ロンドン帰国子女の友達はハローィって言うぞ

で、あとwhereとかのeがエとアの間。

In my English textbok, there's this sentense.

"Going to bed early is for the birds."

Is this "for the birds" used because in reality, birds sleeps early
right after sunset? Or if the subject of a sentense doesn't have anything
to do with a bird, you can say, "somthing is for the birds?"

Another question...
"They had tanks of fish at Pete's pet shop."

Does a "tank of fish" always mean a tank in which there's fish?
If you want to say a tank in which there's no fish in there, you say
"a tank for fish?"

"Women-Only conveniences Store Opens in Tokyo."

When you read this headline, do you assume men can't even enter the
convenience store like a train's carrage only for women?
Let me type the rest of the article following the headline.

A convenience store targeted at female customers in their 20's and
30's opened in down town Tokyo on Monday.
The new outlet, opened in Toranomon, Tokyo, by a midsize convenience chain
store, offers more then ten times the variety of its usual stock of daily
products used by women including cosmetics and shampoo. Soups and
fruits jusice made fresh at the store are also available.
The shop does not handle any products catering to men such as men's
magazines or men's underwear. Its ladies-only restroom is furnished with
dressing tables that provide free cosmetic samples. The ladies's
room also offers a dressing area where customers can slip into pantyhose
they have perchased at the store.
A femle customer said she was pleased to have a shop that offers a wide
range of goods just for women because she can now buy all her daily
necessities at one shop.

>>120

This is a colloquialism. Saying that something is "for the birds"
is to say that it's ridiculous. For example, "Suggesting that everybody
on 2ch speak Swahili is for the birds."

There is also an American proverb: "The Early Bird gets the worm."

A "tank of fish" means that there are fish in a tank. A "fish tank"
is the tank itself, regardless of whether or not there are fish in it.
"This is a tank for fish" is also corrrect (as you may have a tank
for a lizard or turtle or something reptilian and nasty), but is
not common usage.

>>121

The article doesn't explicitly state that men can't enter the store,
but rather that the store is targeted exclusively towards women.

It's like a ladies' shoe store. Unless I'm with one of my
female friends, there's no way I'm going to one, even though
I doubt they'd turn me away or refuse to sell me a pair of shoes.

Which expression do you usually use when you ask what time it is,
A: What time is it now? or B: Do you have the time?

>>124

Either are correct, although most people just say "What time is it?" or
"What's the time?". "Do you have the time?" is more formal.

>>125

Either *is* correct. Time for more coffee.

>>122
Thanks for giving me the sample sentense with the expression.
I think I can use "for the birds" in the right way now that you taught me.
I know the proverb you introduced me. Anoher expression I know using bird
is "bird's brain."

Thank you for the explanation of tank of fish and related words, too.
I think I have to be careful not to mix up fish of tank with fish tank.

>>123
Then they wouldn't call the police, if I bought a pantyhose there.
I like to do moonwalk with my face in a pantyhose. hehe....

Thank you.

"I never hit the sack before midnight if I can help it."

I am not familiar with "if I can help it."
What does the expression mean? And what is "it" mean?
Does "it" mean "I never hit the sack before midnight?"

"if I can help it" means "if I can avoid it"
They do not want to go to bed (hit the sack) before midnight unless there is a specific need for them to.
It does refer to the other part of the sentence, specifically the verbal phrase.

>>127

A "Bird Brain" is a moron/idiot. Think of it as yet another English
equivalent of "baka".

Noisy lady Miyoco ..!!
but 自称被害者は悪意があって陰湿！！

>>129
Thank you very much for easy to understand explanation.

>>130
Maybe because the brain of a bird is too small. Thank you.

hiya , ppl . how's it goin?
i jus posted here , cuz wen i was at skwl , sth popped up in me mind nd jus wanted to take notes of it .

★☆life is shorter than u think it is , thts y u gotta live it to the full .
jus accept wht u can get, u never noe hoe wkd it rly is as long as sth important to u is close nuff to reach. there wont be a second chance , well there must be , but i doubt if tht is as gd as the first one ,
though i don mind takin a risk fo someone i luv .
Not until u lose wht u got, will u realize how much important it is to u.
so try look on the bright side in life , nd neva complain about the loss u made.
all u gotta do is to make th best ov wht opp u have now . think about now, think about wht u can do to make ur life better nd meaningfull.
jus hope fo the best nd wait fo the oppotune moment . wen tht tym comes u cud go fo nethink.

>>133
You are copy and pasting this in several threads.
What do you want from this, anyway.

マルチ禁止よん。

>
U CANT GET WA IM ON ABOUT CAN YA ?LUV YA DARING !!! LOL
WELL IM LEAVIN JAPAN IN 2 YEARS YER? LOL SO IM GONNA DO STH SP IN TOKYO TO MAKE THE BEST OV ME REST OV STAYN HERE.. I THINK IM TOO DRUNK AMNT I ?
HAVE I BIN DRINKIN FO LONG ? NO I DON THINK SO , I M TOO DRUCK AYE > SO I CANT THINK ANYTHINK ?/ PROLLY YEH LOL, SHOLD I STOP HERE ? OR KEEP GOIN ?
KK LETS HAVE A VOTE ? WID WHOM? LOL
AWW IM MENTAL ! LOL WHO IM TALKIN TO ????????? AH ME KEITAI 'S BATTERY IS DEAD NOW LOL SIGH.......... GOTTA GET IT CHARGED ............................
IT'S 6 METERS AWAY FRM ME ! ( I MEAN THT BATTERY CHARGER LOL , SO I CANT BOTHERED TO STREACH ME BODI TO REACH IT LOL IM TOO LAZY AYE / LOL WELL I CUD DO THT ! LOL.
ILL STOP STOP

>>133/135

I'm a native English speaker and I can not decipher what you
are saying.

Alcohol + 2ch = Bad idea.

cuz I am londonner.

>>136
Sadly, I can understand her.
>>133,135,137
I suggest you walk around Shibuya naked; I'm sure it will give you great memories.
Can you even get a proper pint in Tokyo?

スカイプで、英語を勉強したいというと喜んでいつでもかけてこいというイングランドの６０歳のおっさんに出会いました。
とてもありがたいことです。が、非常に聞き取りずらいですね
マンチェスターイングリッシュは。studyをストゥディと発音してました。古典的ってことなんでしょうか。。？
で、その人は６０歳にもかかわらず１０歳の息子Danielとなんとさらに１０ヶ月の赤ちゃんRobertがいるそうな。
Danは結構一緒にしゃべってくれて、声変わりしてない外人の子とかちょっとショタコンな俺から」すると萌えました。
今度ウェブカムをつけてくれるそうで、楽しみにしてます。Danを。
萌え。

I must say it's interesting that for an english board, there is a severe lack of actual english being spoken xP

What do you mean by actual English?

What we are up against are not only English grammar and vocabulary, but also
pronunciation (including accents) and collocations. There are a lot to learn about.
I often feel overwhelmed. To make matters worse, new words and expressions I pick up
easily slip my mind. People say English is just a tool by which you can communicate
but I find it really touch to use the tool. It's completely different from riding a bicycle.
They tend to underestimate the value of learning secondary langueages.
And a disgusting matter is, those Japanese who insist that English language is just a tool and so it's
not worth learning or spending lots of time with, sometimes couldn't say that in English.
They have to know how much efforts one has to make to learn languages.

>>142
I agree totally. I'm currently trying to learn how to speak Japanese.

To me, learning a language is kind of like trying to memorize an entire book and repeat it from memory.
It is a very long, very arduous task. I have total respect for anyone who commits to learning a second language.

Also, I really like this thread. I'm an American and a native speaker, but I'm still learning stuff about English that I was unclear about. XD
I'll try to help out in answering questions, but I'm not sure I'll be as good as the rest of the native speakers here. XD

Yo motherfuckin' bitch
yas
yo motherfuckin' bitch
yas

その60歳のイングランド人ですが、前に書いたように、studyはストゥディ、comeはたぶんコム、
と言った感じで綴りに忠実な発音をしてますが、これは昔の英語っぽいですね
でも僕はその１０歳の男の子としゃべりたいです

Please do me a favor and teach me some English.

In my textbook, I came across this expression "You got me there" and
checked out the translation (like this:一本とられた), but I couldn't make out where the meaning
comes from. Is that an idiomtic expression, which even native speakers don't
know about its origin?
And if you are not bothered, could you give me the same kind of expressions?

I have a question.
When you say "the century before 1914," what does it mean?
Does it mean the 20th century before 1914, i.e. 1901-1913?

>>147

It means the 100 years preceeding that. So literally it would mean
1814-1914. However, if it's in context (such as the first World War),
it would more practically mean "The end of the Napoleonic era through the
beginning of the war, which was approximately 100 years."

Hey all, I have a rather casual question:

Actor Alec Baldwin recently lashed out against Paris Hilton as saying,
"She puts the 'd' in 'dumb'." I've never heard such an expression or the like.
What does this phrase mean?

>>148
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

>>149

The expression "(This) puts the (something) in (something)" is fairly common.
You use it when you want to emphasize that the subject is exceptionally smart, stupid, etc.
However, Alec Baldwin didn't use this expression very well. It's usually supposed to be witty.
For example:
Let's say you want to describe a very religious clown.
You could say "He puts the 'fun' in 'fundamentalism'."

Does this explanation make sense?

I appreciate it if you guys help me.

In a dialogue of my text book, a person who is resposible for a
project said this.

"Proceed and keep me posted as usual on the whole ball of wax."
I know the meaning of the "whole ball of wax" because in my text book
there's a translation. But do you native speakers tell me what whole of
wax means and where does this expression come from? Is it better
to remember the meaning of it without thinking about its origin?

There's another question.
"Credit cards are convenient, but what if one gets lost or stolen?"
Does this "one" mean credit cards, which is a subject of this sentense?
If so does it have to be plural form because the subject is plural?

>>152
I have no clue where "the whole ball of wax" comes from and google along with my dictionaries basically says no one knows.
Probably just best to remember that it means something close to "everything" or "all of a group".

One is referring to a credit card, but the sentence makes sense with either plural or singular.

>>146 is yet to be answered.

>>146 >>154

I'll take a crack at it.

"You got me there." This is a concession statement. If it was used in an
argument or debate, a more formal way of saying this would be "I concede." or "I concede your point."

This is sort of idiomatic, but it's complicated. I think it implies ownership. As in,
"Since you have defeated me, I am yours to do with whatever you wish." Maybe it comes
from medieval times?

You see this in alot of English movies. After a cowboy gets shot, he says "He got me!"
Darth Vader uses it in Star Wars, saying "I have you now" as he bears down on Luke Skywalker.

I hope this makes sense!

Hello, guys.
I have a question.
Could you tell me whether the expression "someone has been cutting another one"
sounds usual or not. A book I have in hand says "cut someone" means something like "ignore him", but
as far as I'm concerned, I haven't met the expression before.
Of course, I don't mean what the book says is wrong, but I do wonder if I say she cut me, it means she phisically
cut my body.

Thank you for reading me.

>>153
Thank you very much for your answer.
I'll follow your advice as to "whole ball of wax."

Thank you for your explanation about "one", too.

>>156
What is the context? The slang definition you have listed above is
accurate in situations such as:

A-san: *says something incredibly stupid*
B-san: Dude, you're cut.

hi folks, I'm hong kong people.
I want to learns something english-japanese words,
anyone can give me some website to visit?
thanks.

>>155
Thank you very much, Nick. You helped me a lot.

>>159
Hello.
So you mean a list of expressions, such as colums of English expressions
and opposite each item are listed the translations of Japanese ones?
If so, there are tens of thousands of websites on the Net I can provide with you,
and 4,860,000 sites were hit, to be exact, when I tried searching them by 英語表現.

http://www.alc.co.jp/eng/kaiwa/hyogen/
This one is the first to be listed.

I hope this helps you out.

I have another question. This time about English grammar.
I wonder why this sentence "easy does it" is used as a sentence.
"Easy" is an adjective, then comes verb "does", and pronoun
"it" is used to finish the sentence... I can't find out this grammar item.
Could you please shed any light on this?

>>161
It doesn't make sense. Just another one of many idioms.
http://esl.about.com/library/glossary/bldef_393.htm

This is a cultural question.

Have you native speakers played with knock-knock joke when you were a kid?
Is it a common type of joke? Is it for a kindergarten kids?
Until when did you say knock-knock joke?

What would you think if a total stranger said "knock. knock." to you?
Do you ignore them thiking he/she is a wierd person?

>>163

Yeah, Knock Knock jokes are pretty common. Since they're all basically puns,
they're usually regarded as kids jokes, and you won't see any adults saying them.

One joke I have heard:
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Tinkerbell.
Tinkerbell who?
Tinkerbell (Think your bell) is broken, that's why I knocked!

And yes, I would think it pretty weird if someone came up to me and said "Knock Knock".
I'd probably run in the other direction!

ってか、リバプール英語やばいｗｗ
マンチェスター以上にやばい件
coventryの英語は結構わかるのに、リバプールの13歳女がしゃべる英語は英語に聞こえなかった件

I can't understand liverpool English.I thought it was another language.

>>165

The northern British accents and dialects(Yorkshire/Liverpool/Leeds/
some Scottish varieties) can be quite difficult to understand, even
for native English speakers.

>>164
Thank you for your answer.
The joke you've heard is funny!

Seems like it's better to avoid stirking a conversation with someone
with Knock Knock joke.

I haven't tried it but I want to try to make sure if native
speakers reply, saying " Who's there?" if I say to them, "Knock, Knock."
But chances are they all run away. I'd better not. haha
Thank you, Dr, Nick.

I have two questions.
I read an essay where a writer touched on differences between dramas
now and ones back in 60s

Sit-coms in '60s describes perfect family. A wise and loving father,
a stay-at-home mother who made lots of cookies and other good things
to eat, and two or three kids who got into all kinds of innocent troubles
but never did anything really bad. Nobody got fat, or seriously
depressed. Nobody has a gay brother. This American dream was really
a mainstream American fantasy. "Leave it to Beaver and Father
knows best" represents sit-coms back then.

She worte "Six Feet Under" represents sit-coms now. This show deals with
every possible family issue, thigs like addiction, infidelity, even incest,
and it includes a biracial gay couple, all struggling with life in some way.

She ends the essay with a following paragraph.
"I certainly prefer that vision to an impossible bubble-gum view of
a happy families living in suburbia. It may not be the American Dream,
but it's a lot closer to American reality."

My question is, what does bubble-gum view mean?
According to my dictionary, the word, suburbia has a nuance of insulting.
In what way, "suburbia" sounds a little bit insulting?
How does it sound compared to "suburb."

Bubble-gum view means unrealistic and "sugar coated" (only the good things, none of the bad), idealistic, saccharine.
Suburbia does have a negative connotation. It is almost exclusively used mockingly or in criticism.
Suburbia makes one think of white picket fences, a mother staying at home, a white collar working dad, two kids, and a dog.
The mother probably drives a minivan and takes the kids to soccer practice.
Whereas just referring to the suburbs does not necessarily mean you are referring to the "utopian" version.

>>169
Thank you for your answer!
Now I understand what bubble-gum view means and the differece between
suburb and suburbian.

>The mother probably drives a minivan and takes the kids to soccer
practice.

Yeah! I've heard of the term, "Soccer mom."

Hello,

There were a question and a little discussion about the following sentences
in a different thread recently.

I am sorry I have kept you waited so long.
I am sorry to have kept you waiting for a long time.

The original question was about the difference between them, but it went on further like;
whether or not "keep you waited" is grammartically correct.
whether or not "keep you waited" is common, even if its so.

I'd like to know what would be a right, ok or wrong expression, and the nuances of meaning
each could give off, if any. I would appreciate it if you could answer this.

keep you waited自体がおかしいよ。

You are waited×

I would also appreciate it if you could explain it.
Thanks.

>>171

"keep you waited" is incorrect. The correct sentence would be:

I am sorry I have kept you waiting so long.

These sentences are nearly identical except for minor grammatical
differences. As for nuance, "a long time" simply means a long period
of time, while "so long" implies that the period of time was excessively
long. Since these sentences express apology, it's natural to use
"so long". I also think "I am sorry to have" sounds more natural
than "I am sorry I have." You can also add "for" in front of
"so long," but this is not required. This would give you:

I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long.

This sounds quite formal. If you were talking to a friend, you might say:

Sorry I made you wait.

I hope this helps.

>>175
ありがとう AA。

There were some confusion and sepeculation for the possiblity since "have kept you waited"
was posted as if it was a de facto standard. And I got a good amount of google hits for it,
though most of them seem written by non-native speakers, so I wanted to confirm that it was
grammartically incorrect and unnatural in expression. Your explanation on the nuance and the
alternative expressions is also appreciated.

Thanks for your help.

waitが自動詞だということすら分からんレベルかよ。

wait your turn
wait my chance
例外はいろいろ出てくるんだよ、辞書ひけば。

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■■□■■■■■□■■■■■□■■■■■■■■□□■■■■■■■

>>178
You are waitedを正しいと思うかどうかが問題だろ、例外なんか
あげる前に基礎をやり直したほうがいいよ。

You are waitedという表現は問題になってないんだが・・・
waitが自動詞だから、では説得力が低い反例だよ。とりあえずレスサンクス。
スレ違いになるので以上。

>>181
Keep you waiting
のもとはYou waiteにあるだろう？
You are waitedが文法的におかしいと分かれば、
keep you waitedなんて初歩的な間違いはしないわけ。

>>182
Ok. If we keep going only in Japanese, it would be completely against the general
description of this thread, and I assume you're a very advanced learner so we'd better
discuss this in English so that native English speakers can join it if they want.
I think your syntax analysis totally makes sense to me because that is what I thought
first; "wait" would not become present-perfect because "you" could be neither the direct
object of the verb "wait", nor the subject in a passive voice, as you mentioned.
But since the sentence had been discussed without the correction in the original
thread where it was first posted, even with a bilingual native speaker, some started to
point out the error and others even stated it was grammartically correct but seldom used.
Therefore, I posted the question here just to make sure its incorrect for the safe side
since here are a couple of native speakers with a strong linguistic background.
I do understand your explanation, but I wanted to see if there was any exceptional expression
like that.

>>24

You're an idiot. Everyday spoken English is not "full of grammatical errors".
The language that native speakers of language use is by definition correct.
Otherwise, who sets the standards? What gives some prescriptive grammarian
in an ivory tower the right to decide what is correct?

>>183
＞日本語での書き込みも不可ではありません

>>184
*native speakers of a language

I have a question about Japanese.

Why is it that "である" becomes "ではない" when it's negative instead
of "でない"? What's the reason that the "は" is added?

>>187
I am a native speaker of Japanese but have never thought about
why ”は”should be added when である becomes negative.
It's very hard to explain that why grammtically for me.

But one thing is for sure.
In colloquial way, we sometimes say "でない" instead of "ではない."

i-podはSonyの製品でない。
アメリカはアジアの国でない。

I tried making two sample sentences above. I don't know if you can say
these two sentences are completely grammatically wrong. I have to admit
that i-podはSonyの製品ではない。and　アメリカはアジアの国ではない。sounds
(a little bit) more natural, though. But saying that でない is wrong is going
too far in my opinion.

I am sorry, but this all I can say. I hope someone who can teach
Japanese grammer better will show up.

>>187
I'm quite sure that "でない" and "ではない" can be used interchangeably nowadays.
"ではない" is probably more proper Japanese, but "でない" or "じゃない" can be used
in the same manner as "ではない." "ではない" IMHO, has slightly different
connotations, however.

When you say "でない," it is a simple denial of the statement in the sentence. If you say,
"わたしは　犯人（はんにん）　でない," that literally means "I'm not the perpetrator."
"でない" denies the statement it follows; in this case, "わたしは　犯人." "じゃない" can
be also used in this sentence.

If you choose to say "わたしは（or わたしが）　犯人　ではない," that has a connotation
that the statement being more established as a fact. In this instance, "わたしは 犯人"
or "わたしが 犯人" is rather a known fact or established notion, if not a random speculation.
"It is not the case that I am the perpetrator" is probably a good translation to show
the difference between the two.

If you are talking with someone who thinks that you were born in Japan, then you want to
say, "わたしは 日本生まれ ではない" instead of "...でない" because of the above reasons.

Likewise, there are some differences between "である" and "ではある", "であるが" and
"ではあるが" and so on. I'm not a specialist in Japanese, so I can't explain all these,
but I hope my explanation will give you some clue.

>>188

Thanks for your help. I didn't know that "でない" was also used.

Here are some corrections if you don't mind.

It's very hard to explain that why grammtically for me.
→It's very hard for me to explain why grammatically.

In colloquial way
→Colloquially

but this all I can say
→but this is all I can say

grammer
→grammar (Native speakers make this mistake all the time.)

>>189

Thanks for your help, too. It seems to me that "でない" is almost like a weaker version of "ではない".
Is that wrong?

"that has a connotation"
For some reason, "the connotation" sounds better. I think this is because
people usually speak of "the" connotation of a word. I suppose "a connotation"
is also correct, though, if you want to imply that the word doesn't always
carry that connonation.

that has a connotation that the statement being more established as a fact
→that has a connotation of the statement being more established as a fact
OR that has a connotation that the statement is more established as a fact

>>190
Thank you for the correction.

>>188->>190
I agree on most part.
The reason for the connotation might be due to the tendency that "でない"
sounds slightly less formal than "ではない" whereas "じゃない" is 100% colloquial.
So, it might be a good idea to avoid "でない" especially at the end of a sentence
in thesis papers, exams, speeches and anything official.

>>189
As for the nuance in "である" and "ではある", it feels to me "である" carries
a definite assertion while "ではある" implies a subtle concession as it's more
likely to be followed by "が", or "しかし"　at the begining of the next sentence
that would stress the main point.

I have questions to ask you.
There was a question where I had to fill in a blank.

Remeber the book you ( ) me?
I put "borrow" in the blank but the answer was "lent."
Is my answer wrong?
--------
"I know we've supplied free milk to hospitals in major Chinese cities
for clinical trials."

"we" here in this sentense is a food company.
I had to replace one word of the sentence above with "pipe."
The answer is "I know we've piped free milk to hospitals........"
My question is if this "pipe" means exactly the same as "supply."
I looked up dictionary and it seems like when you pipe something,
it has to be delivered through a pipe. I can't imagine milk is
actually delivered through pipe to a hospital. What do you think?
------------
In my English textbook, there is this three liner.

I hate driving in these narrow streets. There's no margine for error.
That's why I'm going so slowly.

"error" can be a countable noun and here, only one error can cause
an accident so I think "an error" is more natural here. If you said
"there's no margine for an error," it would sound odd?

There's another question to ask you.
I'll write down the whole dialog of my text book below.

Mike: This plastic food reminds me of an April Fool's Day gag a friend
played on me once.
Olivia: I know what he must have done. I've seen rubber fakes made to
look like melting ice cream, spilled milk, and worse things.
M: My friend bought some rubber fakes at a novelty shop that looked
just like broken eggs, with yolk and egg white oozing out.
O: Where did he put them?
M: All over my car. It looked like the egg was getting all sticky and
hard in the hot sun.

My question is if "egg" in the last Mike's line is right. His friend
put some fake rubber broken eggs on his car so "egg" has to be plural.
So I think egg in Mike's line have to be "eggs."
What do you think? Am I wrong?

>>193
lent is correct. Borrow is present tense (not past) and the opposite of lent.
If A lets B have something, A has lent it to B and B has borrowed it from A.

If it was "Remember the book you ( ) from me?" borrowed would be the correct answer.

---
Piped normally applies to things that goes through pipes, but it can also be used for siginals on wires.
I have never heard of milk being delivered through pipes and I have no idea how you would make a sentence that made since by only replacing one word with piped.
If the question just meant to write a sentence of the same general meaning, but using piped I would put something like
"Our company pipes 1000 gallons of oil a day from the Middle East to China." (i.e. just use the verb pipe in a sentence).
---
"margin for error" sounds better to me and "margin for an error" does not google well.
Is it weird that I had to look up "noncountable noun" the other day? I knew what they were, but I had never heard the term.
It is amazing how little of the rules I actually remember, and how much I go on what "sounds correct" or "looks right" per a manual of style that I remember.
---
>>194
Egg sounds fine to me. Egg can refer to the stuff inside eggs as well as eggs. If I make a mess in the kitchen I would say,
"There is egg all over the place!" or "Clean the egg off of the stove."
When you are refering to the substance it does not need to be plural.

"There's no margin for error." is a set phrase.

>>195
Thank you for writing long and easy-to-understand explanation.

What a shame! Borrow is a basic word and one of the words we learn in junior high.
I wonder why I made a misitake.

As for the question about "pipe", I had to put "pipe" into somewhere
in the sentense replacing a word without changing the structure of the
sentense. I thought piped should be put in where "supplied" is but
felt strange about milk piped to a hospital. I understand it doesn't
sound strange to pipe oil or natural gas somewhere.

> "noncountable noun"
Isn't it correct to say "uncountable noun?"

I undersrand your explanation about egg, too. Thank you.

>>196
Thank you! Maybe it's good to remember the expression as a set phrase.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5394830

There's an article about Barry Bonds on the URL above.

In the picture top left, a row of spectators holds up a banner
that says "Ruth did it on hotdogs." Do you have any ideas what this
expression means? I know who Babe Ruth is.

>>198
It means that Babe Ruth did it by eatting hotdogs, not steroids (like Barry Bonds).
Babe Ruth was fat, but some people speculate he might have used steroids too.. I don't know.
"I'm hopped up on caffiene." means that they are wired, jittery, etc because of caffiene.

... I forgot to sage in >>195, orz.

>>199
Ahaaaaa. Now I understand what it means. Thank you.
The spectator there were being sarcastic...
I guess it's tough for him to see the banner in every inning.
Personally, I think he has used performance enhancing drugs.
The way his muscle has developped doesn't look natural to me.

Thank you for showing me another expression, too.

さっきStand By Meを見ました。俺てきにゴーディが好みですね
ホモじゃないです

I have a question on Japanese.

What's the difference between "〜ている" and "〜てはいる".

For example, I know "彼は走っている。" means "He is running.", but
when would you use "走ってはいる" in a sentence?

>>202

彼は走ってはいる。
でも、とてもゆっくりなので歩いているのと変わらない。

We usually use "〜てはいる" with a negative condition.

Let me give you another example,

彼を知ってはいる。でもあまり親しくはない。

This means "I know him, but not so close."

And I have to say these phrases are very informal.

>>202
That should be the particle "は" used for concession that is similar to
the one in >>192 , "ではある".

"走ってはいる" implies that he is running but not running as he could or he
is supposed to; he might be running too slow, he might not be able to run as
he wants, he might not want to and so forth. Although he is appearently running,
there must be a connotation in addition to the fact. It really depends on the context
to know what it implies. Hopefully, this makes sense.

>>203

Thanks for that explanation.

>彼は走ってはいる。
>でも、とてもゆっくりなので歩いているのと変わらない。

Would this be a good translation?

"He _is_ running, but so slowly that it's the same as walking."

>>204

Thanks for pointing that out to me. The "は" particle seems to be used
for contrast in many cases. It seems to me that the difference between
"彼は走っている。" and "彼は走ってはいる。" is like the difference
between "He's running." and "He _is_ running, but..."

I use underscores to indicate emphasis, BTW, since you can't use italics
here.

>the particle "は" used for concession
This needs to be corrected since it could be mixed up with concessive "が".
Sorry it was confusing. orz I shouldn't mess with jargons..

What I meant is that "は" tends to lead to concessive "が", "しかし", "でも"
like the exmaples >>203 showed because the sentense itself has the implication.

Hope I didn't make more mess.

I'd also like to point something else out.

The kind of emphasis in "He _is_ running!" and "He _is_ running, but..."
are different. In the first case, the emphasis is used to affirm that
he is, in fact, running. It would be used to respond to someone claiming
that he wasn't. In the second case, the emphasis is used to indicate
reluctant admission. In writing, they look the same (italics), but in
real speech, they sound different. It's kind of hard to describe, though.
In the first case, you would use kind of a forceful tone, and in the
second an uncertain-sounding one... I can't really give a better explanation
since I'm not a linguist... Are you guys familiar with this?

BTW, I've read that English speakers frequently use emphasis like this
when speaking Japanese, and that it makes their Japanese sound weird.
Do people not emphasis words by tone changes in Japanese, or do they
just do it differently?

>>206

No, I understood what you meant. You just missed the post I made
right before you.

Just noticed a typo in >>207. I meant to put "The kinds of emphasis",
not "The kind of emphasis".

>>208
I did. And you got me right.
I'm sure you have learned how to make a simple noun sentense and its negative like,

A　は　B　です。
A　は　B　ではありません。

That "は" in question may have something to do with this "は" in "ではありません"
since it is the "は" that automatically comes with the negative, though I'm not 100% sure.
When I find it out, I'll report.

>>207
>reluctant admission
どういう意味なのかな？
ごめんね、ちょっと2行目についての説明がわからなくて。

>>210

Yes, I do know "ではありません", and I think you're probably right about "は".

>どういう意味なのかな？
>ごめんね、ちょっと2行目についての説明がわからなくて。

I don't think I'm quite good enough to respond back in Japanese, but
at least I can understand what you wrote. Anyway, a "reluctant admission"
is when you don't really want to admit something is true, but you do
anyway.

For example: "Bob made the reluctant admission that he was the one who
messed up the computer."

What I was saying in >>207 was that the emphasis on "is" in
"Lisa _is_ running, but..." is used to indicate a similar feeling to what
I described above. The person saying that sentence doesn't really want to admit
that Lisa's running, but since really she is, he does anyway. It's pretty much the exact
same thing you said about the "は" in "走ってはいる". There's something　weird or
wrong about her running, so the person has some reluctance about saying she's
running. See what I mean?

Example: "He _is_ running, but he'll never catch up (because of how slow
he's going)."

BTW, I replaced "he" with "Lisa" in that sentence to make it easier to
understand because before there were too many confusing pronouns in
my explanation.

"but since really she is": "but since she really is"

I added the "really" when I was checking for typos, and inadvertantly added
one...

>>211
サンクス、わかりました。ずっと寝不足だったんで・・・

The emphasis can be placed on the "て" right before the "は", not on the "は",
to enhance the meaning at least in the Tokyo accent, which is what's considered
as the standard (as in the sense that TV news announcers use). Maybe that's one
of the things that make some sound a bit foreign as native English speakers do it
as in English. That would make sense. It's not neccesary, though, unless you want
to add a little more negative implication or subtle sarcasm.

But unfortunately, I have to change the example for this again because "はしって"
has its emphasis on "し" to start with. It would sound a little weird to put
emphases on the two sounds successively.

　　　　　　 ↓
リサは、働い_て_はいます　(でも、・・・）
Lisa_is_working (, but.....)

There are other cases you can emphasize the sound before the "は" in this way.
This is just my observation, so someone else could come up with a better explanation..
I think I know what the first case " _is_" sounds like, but I'm not sure how the second
one dose. This leaves me a little curious but thanks for the explanation.

"↓ " was meant to be put right above the "て".
Got misplaced for some reason...

>>213

Thanks. Anyway, I would say in the first case, "is" would be optionally
louder than normal, and "i" sound would be slightly longer. In the
second case, the "i" sound would be longer than in the first case, but it
wouldn't really be louder. I believe the intonation would change a
little too, but I can't really identify stuff like that... Anyway, you would
have to hear it yourself to know what it really sounds like.

BTW, when I was rereading >>207 I noticed yet another typo. The "emphasis"
in the last paragraph should be "emphasize". I don't know why I would
misspell a word like that...

Anyway, do you use the Tokyo accent yourself in daily speech, or something
else? BTW, I've read there are many intonation differences between different
accents/dialects, so I suppose it can't be that important of an issue in
regard to intelligibility. I guess it would still sound weird for you not
to conform to a specific accent, though. In English, there are some differences
between different accents/dialects regarding where the stress goes in a word.
I don't think I can specifically say it would sound weird to me if people
mixed American and British (generalizing, here) word stress, though,
because even if they used purely British stress, it would still sound
just as weird to me as an American... I'm not saying that I find anything
wrong with English accents in Britain. I just don't think I'm entirely
familiar enough with them to be able to judge if the speech of a particular
person fits one of the accents in Britain... You know what I mean? I'm
sure that someone like Dick Van Dyke (infamous in Britain for his
horrible British accent in Mary Poppins, I believe) could fool me into
thinking they were British.

>>215
Hmm, does the second "is" sound longer to make a difference from "she's"?
And does the intonation gradually goes up until the "but"? I can't describe
it well, but that's what I have in my head now. Maybe just something else..
It's really hard to tell those things but they carry a lot of meanings that
I can't just overlook.

I know what you mean. I speak with the Tokyo accent, so at least I can tell if the
person I'd be talking with is from the West or the East, but can't identify which
exact area his or her dialect belongs to. I sometimes find girls with the Osaka accent
kind of cute because it sounds almost exotic(LoL) to me. There is nothing wrong with it.
I think it just makes a character that the person fits in. It's almost sad that a lot of
people try to hide thier local accents to conform to the standard Japanese when they come
up to Tokyo. That's understandable but sometimes it's good to see what it makes the person
to be who she or he originally is. Tokyo is kinda wierd city. The majority of people
are from outside Tokyo... BTW, one of my friends from Osaka hates it when I try to mock the
Osaka accent because she doesn't like how unreal it sounds..orz

>>216

"She's" is pronounced "sheez" (where "ee" is like the "ee" in "meet") and
"she is" is pronounced "shee iz" (where "i" is like the "i" in "bin"). I
can't really say any more than that because I don't the IPA or X-SAMPA...
So, anyway, the longer vowel would just be for emphasis, not to distinguish
anything. About the intonation, I'm not sure. It's certainly not like how
it goes up in a question. Take this with a grain of salt, though. I think
you really just have to hear these things.

Yes, I can tell what region of the US someone is probably from or what
other English speaking country they're from, but nothing too specific.
I'm from California, BTW.

>I sometimes ... originally is.

I agree with this. People shouldn't have to change their accents, and it
can actually be a bonus to have an accent.

>Tokyo is kinda wierd city.
kind of a weird city OR kinda a weird city

I think that lots of big cities have many people moving to them, though.
I live near Los Angeles, and it's a very diverse city, though it doesn't
have nearly as many people as Tokyo.

>BTW, one of my friends from Osaka hates it when I try to mock the
>Osaka accent because she doesn't like how unreal it sounds..

That's too bad. I don't usually try to imitate other accents because
I'm not so good at it. I guess I just don't like to try to do something
when I can't do it perfectly. It kind of extends to other things I do,
as well. For example, even though I can speak Spanish at a decent level,
I always speak in English even to people who can't speak it very well
because I'm embarrassed that I'll make mistakes in my Spanish.

>>217

"I don't the": "I don't know the"

BTW, here's a mistake of yours I noticed reading through these again.

"which is what's considered as the standard (as in the sense that TV news announcers use)."

What's in the parentheses should be "in the sense of what the TV news announcers use".

Anyway, your English is really good. I think there are some more
minor errors in some of your posts, but they're mostly very good.
I always feel like I shouldn't correct errors when someone writes
English very well, because it's kind of discourageing... What do
you think though? I know that I would want my errors corrected,
but it still seems wrong...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeQSURg8Shc&eurl=
これで流れてるStand by meのカヴァーだけど、なんて言うアーティストが歌ってるか分かる人いる？

>>221
4 The Cause
いいね。コメントも泣けた。

>>218
Yep, it seems like that's the only way. I'll find out.

Then I say, Tokyo is the coolest city because that's where I'm from. I appreciate
your correction, though, seriously. I guess I wanted to say it must be a wierd place
to people from other places, since it's got what it takes to change who you are.
I moved a lot when I was a kid, so I kinda know how it feels. Anyway, LA seems
like a nice city. I've been there twice and I like it alot. I'm sure you have a lot of
chances to talk to Spanish speaking people. I can tell you're a perfectionist.
But I hope you can enjoy speaking to them with no fear. Meanwhile, I'll work on
my homework about contrastive が. Later.

>>220
Oops, I forgot to reload the page. I do appreciate it when you correct mine.
It could be touchy for some, though, as you know. Maybe you can ask
if they want to request before you do?
Post your Japanese. People here will be happy to help you.

>>222
コメント？
この感じが気に入ったから着うた欲しいんだけど、やっぱないわ。

>>210
a "reluctant admission" is something you admit/concede/say but are somewhat embarrassed
to do.

>>223

Yeah, I am kind of a perfectionist, I guess. Anyway. I agree that LA can
be a nice city, sometimes it isn't.

>>224

Yeah. Maybe I'll post in Japanese sometime, but I'm not really good at
making Japanese sentences because the structure of them is so different
from English...

>>226

Embarrassment is a possible reason for the reluctance, but there can be other
reasons. It coudl be fear, as well, or other negative feelings.

>>227
I lived in LA for several years, and I have to agree that that city can be mean sometimes.
When I first got there I found people in LA fake and pretentious, and that bothered me
so much that I wanted to leave as soon as possible. Later on I met a lot of people
with different backgrounds, and after all it wasn't that bad to be there at all. I
loved some part of the city, and now I miss the weather there.

I find it interesting that lots of Japanese people think LA is all nice thanks to
Kodak-moment pictures in travel brochures of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
Few people in Japan knows the other face of LA, IMHO. Despite the negative impressions
I have of LA, though, I still want to go back there and have some fun again.

As for posting in Japanese, it will probably be very challenging for you to do so
for many reasons. The lack of your language skills won't discourage you as much as
obnoxious comments by trolls here. Be wise and let's not wake them up. You shouldn't
be discouraged from raising questions about Japanese grammar, though.

And one more thing in case you don't know: when you post your comments, you might want
to put "sage" in the E-mail box. It will prevent the link from going all the way up
in the list. Popular threads tend to stay up and get more attention from the
viewers. Which is okay in most cases, but this particular thread is somewhat unique
in the respect of setting English as the primary language here, and getting too much
attention may cause some unexpected and unwanted consequences, if you know what I mean...

Cheers,

>>227

"Anyway. I agree that LA can
be a nice city, sometimes it isn't."

was supposed to be

"Anyway. I agree that LA can
be a nice city, BUT sometimes it isn't."

>>228

Yeah, LA has some very bad areas. There is a good side to it, though.
It's nice to hear that you liked it. I think that people often have
many misconceptions about far away cities.

Anyway, I don't think trolls are much of a problem. You can't take
them too seriously. The best way to deal with them is to just ignore
them.

I have a question to ask.
It is kind of like a cultural question. I've been wondering about this.

Hip hop is very popular in the US.
Some of the tunes in that category reach to the top. I know most of all
hip hop tunes are sung (I should say, rapped?) and made by African American
and popular among "both" African American and white American.

But I am under the impression that African American don't listen to music
made by White American, such as Rock, Pops, country music and so on.
Am I right? Do African American tend no to listen to Rock, Pops, Country
music, in other words, music made and sung by white American? If so, why do you
think that's the case?

I haven't been to or lived in US. I know there are other ethnic groups
other than African American and Caucasian, but in this question I want
focus on whether African American listen to music made by White American.

Please rule out Eminem this time, because his producer is African American
and his music is Rap.

>>230
ummm, though I am not "American", I have to make a few comments on this.
The question you raised here is awkward to answer, if not difficult. Simply put,
your assumptions are naive. You are trying to make associations between one's
preference in music and ethnic background, and that is considered generalization.
If you generalize masses (e.g. African American in the U.S.) carelessly and
characterize the subject group to one trait based on what you know and heard, you are
stereotyping the subject with little consideration to the reality.

It is not your fault to make such a simplified assumption that the African American
listen to black music exclusively and wonder if they also listen to non-black music
because you have never been exposed to a multi-racial society that guarantees
individual freedom. When you talk about race, however, you might want to be a little
more careful because if you write aimlessly with little understanding of the
subject matter, you may end up with exposing your lack of awareness of things like
"target audience" and "marketing" of American record companies.

I hope you can understand what I am trying to tell you.

>>231
Thank you for your post.
Let me explain why I asked the question.

First, although I haven't been to US nor lived in US, I have a chance to see
music promotion video. If I remember correctly, when I watch rock bands's
promotion video clips where a band playing in front of audience as
if they were playing in a live concert, all audience were White American.
And I wondered if African Americans aren't intersted in this type of
music.

Second, I live in Japan and in an area where you can listen to AFN, or
American Forces Network. AFN is the radio station for American forces
stationed abroad, including Japan and they air various kinds of program,
rainging from radio shows which is originally aired in US to the one
which focuses on local news, local in this case, is Japan.

Among their programs, there was a R&B and Hip Hop show. (I forgot the
show's name. That was long time ago.) On the show, DJ (judging form the way
he talked, he is African American) not only plays this type of music but
also asks audience to call in and join the show. It seemed like that the
DJ was in charge of deciding what kind of theme he talks about with him/her
who calls him. And when I happened to tune in to AFN and listened to the program,
the theme was "What was White American's CD you feel ashamed of buying."
There was no serious tones in the show. There was just-have-fun atmosphere.
So, no racial things. I wondered if African American don't listen
to Rock or Pops. I had something else to do so I had to turn off the
radio.

Maybe I am naive and look like trying generalising and simplifying
things, but don't make my question complicated one.
My question is simple. If someone lives in US, I think they naturally
know the African American's tastes in music. So I just want to know
if African American tend not to buy CDs of Pops or Rock and if they
feel that it's not kind of cool to buy CDs of these genre.

>>231
By the way, where are you from?

>>233

You are mostly correct. Mainstream African-American culture listens to hip-hop,
and mainstream white culture listens to Rock, Pop, Country, etc.

This is not really a comfortable subject to talk about. Racism is still a problem in the US,
and it's not good to think purely in terms of black and white. You should really
go on an individual by individual basis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-8hcXa8SSs&search=fish%20kid

これはアメリカのどこの英語ですか？
最初アクセントがヨークシャーに似てると思いました

It's just my assumption as well but it depends on social classification or status,
or should I say depends on "their each living standards",isn't it?

>>235
Thank you for your post, Doctor Nick.

I didn't mean to make preferences of mucic serious matter, involving
racism and all, but if you guys feel bad about my posts, I am sorry
about it.

>>233

It's ok. Personally, I wasn't offended, but you should be aware that
discussing race and culture is a delicate matter, and some people offend
easily.

誰か分かる人いたら教えてください。

スカイプで、オーストラリアの１４歳とチャットしてたら、いつも会話の最初に、俺に
sup　
といってくるんですがどういう意味なんでしょうか。どうやら俺のことらしいですが。。
こっちがsupって言い返したら、mm,,u といわれました

□ English板は、英語に関する情報交換と学問的な議論の場所です。
□ 投稿する前によく読みましょう-「２ちゃんねる初心者のためのページ」も参考にしてください。
　▽新規スレッドを立てる前に、重複スレッドがないか、「スレッド一覧」でご確認しましょう。
　　・検索方法は、ブラウザの「Ctrl ＋ F」(Windows)・「コマンドﾞ + F」(Mac)。

□ お約束 (ローカルルール)
　▽書き込む前に「２ちゃんねるガイド」を読み、２ちゃんねるのルールを確認しましょう。
　▽「単発的な質問」や「既存のスレッドと似た内容」で新規スレッドを立てるのはやめよう。
　　・検索や過去ログを活用してね。

Hey Native speakers! Come and help us!
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1089696504/l50
　　　　日本語ペラペラの外国人の勉強方法　　　　
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1108074631/l50
Chat in English (英語で雑談) Part 49
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1147010176/l50
English Monologue(英語で独り言) PART �I
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1119087516/l50
Debate in English (英語で討論)
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1121077647/l50
Dirty Talk in English (英語で猥談)
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1121001818/l50
Verbal Battle in English (英語で口喧嘩)
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1123440264/l50
∵Dear　☆英語で日記を書こう�U☆　Diary∵
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1059537921/l50
英語でレスすると英語力がアップする魔法のスレ
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1029671267/l50
英語で今日の気分を表現するスレ
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1050025795/l50
雑談スレッド Part 16
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1145686643/l50

>>240
What's up? を短くしたのが、supだとおもうよ。
チャットだと、こういう短縮はよくあるからね。

向うはお前に、「よう、調子どうだ？」って聞いたのに、それに返答せずに、
向うに、supと言い返したので、そのオーストラリア人は、俺が先に聞いたんだよ、
みたいに思ったのだろう。

>>242
でも、sup

を実践してみたところ、WazzupっていうよりWhat are you doing?って感じかな？

聞いたら

nothingとかnothing muchとか返ってくる

>>240-243
１を嫁

『日本語での書き込みも不可ではありませんがネイティヴスピーカーの方に理解し易いよう、
出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。』



出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。

出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。

出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。

出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。

出来るだけやろ

ウゼーんだよタコ>>245

黙れモンスター

>>227
>>All
I have to take back my words that made it seem like native English speakers here
had to write back in Japanese when asked a question in Japanese, and to clarify
that it is unnecessary for them to feel pressured to do or not to do something
when they are not ready for any reason. Whenever native English speakers here feel
comfortable enough to post in Japanese, please feel free and encouraged to do so.

I hope this will encourage people to return to this thread.

Hey, with what Japanese I know, I'll try anytime.

Good night.

>>249
thx!

Could you please tell me how to understand these sentences:
I couldn't care less.
It wouldn't be more pleasant.
The phone would be no bigger than a baseball.

I really want to know how I should use subjunctive mood and comparative degree
at the same time in a negative sentence. When I read, I often notice English writers
use the grammar, but I'm not sure how to understand it quite well.
Please help me out..

□ English板は、英語に関する情報交換と学問的な議論の場所です。
□ 投稿する前によく読みましょう-「２ちゃんねる初心者のためのページ」も参考にしてください。
　▽新規スレッドを立てる前に、重複スレッドがないか、「スレッド一覧」でご確認しましょう。
　　・検索方法は、ブラウザの「Ctrl ＋ F」(Windows)・「コマンドﾞ + F」(Mac)。

□ お約束 (ローカルルール)
　▽書き込む前に「２ちゃんねるガイド」を読み、２ちゃんねるのルールを確認しましょう。
　▽「単発的な質問」や「既存のスレッドと似た内容」で新規スレッドを立てるのはやめよう。
　　・検索や過去ログを活用してね。

Hey Native speakers! Come and help us!
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1089696504/l50
　　　　日本語ペラペラの外国人の勉強方法　　　　
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1108074631/l50
ドキュンにもできるお勧め英語学習法9
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1147619121/l50
中学英語ができれば英語はできる【(゜∀゜)ﾋﾞｸｰﾘ】
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中学英語その後
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/984922538/l50
■２Ch的英語学習法、人体実験■
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1039419513/l50
これを「やめたら」英語力がついた！
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1043638155/l50
【最強】英語を極めるにはこの道しかない【究極】
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1021932842/l50
英語の脳のつくりかた（ネイティブレベル）
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1070256791/l50
Chat in English (英語で雑談) Part 50
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1148197038/l50
雑談スレッド Part 16
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1145686643/l50

WTF this thread is KSK

Since my boss hasn't finished getting my project together...

> I couldn't care less.

This means "I care so little that I couldn't care less." As in
"I don't care about this at all". It's slightly less rude than
saying "I don't care."

> It wouldn't be more pleasant.

This would be the oppposite of the statement above. The current
situation is so pleasant that adding something would not make it
better. *note: context sensitive

> The phone would be no bigger than a baseball.

This is the second part of an if->then statement. IF they
did something to the phone technology, THEN it would be no
bigger than a baseball.

Does this make sense?

>>225

I'd like to note that on it's own "The phone would be no bigger than a baseball" sounds incredibly awkward, and a phone usually wouldn't be compared to a baseball anyways.
Something like a credit card or something rectangular is much more fitting for that sort of thing.

>>256
GIve me SKype name!

>>255
Re: "I couldn't care less"

can you say I "can't" care less, instead of I "couldn't" care less?
what's the standard way of saying it?

>>256
I see what you mean, but that's not the point here, is it?

Anyway, I'd like to know the differences between the sentences below:
Seen from the planet,
1)the moon might be no bigger than a baseball.
2)the moon might not be bigger than a baseball.
3)the moon is no bigger than a baseball.
4)the moon is not bigger than a baseball.

Could you explain?

Not >>256 but...

>>258
You could say that, but it wouldn't be right.

>>259
1) and 2) are the same sentence just with a negative in the second.
Neither are practical or particularly good English.

3) is a bad example, but it's a metaphor. It's like saying that your
new KDDI phone is no bigger than your train pass (really you'd say that
it's smaller than your train pass).

4) is something that you'd use when playing a game like 20 questions.
"Is it bigger than a loaf of bread?" "No, it's not."

The moon is a bad example to use, as it has both literal (it's obviously
bigger than a baseball) and figurative (it looks smaller) connotations.

I hope this helps. I'm going to be around for another 3 hours or so
if people have questions.

>>256 or anyone
Could "The phone would be no bigger than a baseball" be a quote from the 50's
or 60's when the regular phone was as big as a basketball? I'm not the one who
asked the question, but sort of curious...
Thanks for your comment.

http://ameblo.jp/user_images/c2/e5/10006592851.jpg

What do you think about this?

this is a picture of Taizor Giin.and his wife.

His wife is .....

... stoned.

>>261

I don't think so. I think that it's just a random example with words
that don't quite work right. It's a standard mistake when learning
a second language.

>>257
Skype: inertiaticesp

>>258
The standard way of saying it is simply, "I don't care". Say you are talking about school. "I don't care about school."
I don't care about (noun) makes sense. Though when talking to someone, this often comes off as rude.
This is why you can say "I couldn't care less". "I couldn't care less about school" is the same as "I don't care about school."
It is a common misconception that "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" is the same thing. It's too confusing even for me to explain, so I won't try.

>>261
It could be, but it just sounds odd to say.
There are better things to compare a phone that size to, like a book.
I think the reason is because when you think of a phone you think of a rectangle, but with a ball, you think of the sphere.
In your mind, the two things don't relate to each other.

I hope I helped :/

>>260
The point is, what do you feel are different when you use in a sentence
1)A would be "no" bigger than B and 2)C would "not" be bigger than D?
Which is biggest?

>>264
>>265
Thanks for your help.

Is "I could care less" an expression with the sarcastic inversion of meaning to
stress the same meaning as "I couldn't care less"? Or do they have nuances?
Sorry for keep asking.

>>266
1) A would be no bigger than B - That means that A is the same size or smaller than B. Usually when you say something is "no bigger than", it means that it's about the same size.
2) C wouldn't be be bigger than D - You would use this if you are making a factual statement about the size of something. Like, "The sun wouldn't be bigger than the moon." You would usually say this when responding to a question.
I do not hear "Wouldn't be bigger than" often.

>>267
No, there is nothing sarcastic about either of the phrases.
I think that with sarcasm, it's more about the way you say it and emphasize words than the actual words themselves.
Something like, "Did you read Romeo & Juliet?" "Yeah, because I REALLY care about that." Is a sarcastic way of saying "I don't care about Romeo & Juliet".It is rude and sarcastic.
It's the same as saying "I could/n't care less about Romeo and Juliet", just ruder.
And keep asking questions, I'm glad to help :)

>>268
Thanks for showing me another example.

So, as for "I could care less", basicaly it would be sort of odd to say
"I COULD care less~" or "I could REALLY care less~" to be sarcastic.
There is not really a specific way of saying it because it is not
something sarcastic to begin with. Is this correct?

立てたスレが重複スレだと気付いたら、既存のスレに移動して、
重複分は削除依頼を出すのがマナー。スレッドを1つでも減らして鯖の負担を
軽くするのが目的。過去鯖がパンクしそうになったことがある。
「これ1つぐらいいいだろう。」「自分達だけならばいいだろう。」
というのはゴミのポイ捨てと一緒で厳禁。

Hey Native speakers! Come and help us!
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1089696504/l50
　　　　日本語ペラペラの外国人の勉強方法　　　　
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1108074631/l50
ドキュンにもできるお勧め英語学習法9
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1147619121/l50
中学英語ができれば英語はできる【(゜∀゜)ﾋﾞｸｰﾘ】
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1029510571/l50
中学英語その後
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/984922538/l50
■２Ch的英語学習法、人体実験■
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1039419513/l50
これを「やめたら」英語力がついた！
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1043638155/l50
【最強】英語を極めるにはこの道しかない【究極】
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1021932842/l50
英語の脳のつくりかた（ネイティブレベル）
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1070256791/l50
Chat in English (英語で雑談) Part 50
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1148197038/l50
雑談スレッド Part 16
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1145686643/l50

■■■■■■■■■■　重複スレにつき終了　■■■■■■■■■■

>>Native Speaker

hey, thanks for the clarification. your explanation in >>265 helped me understand
the expression a lot. I originally thought "couldn't care less" has a stronger and
ruder meaning than "don't care." from what I read in your comment, these two
expressions are equal, with one being less impolite --right?

as for the argument with "could care less" and "couldn't care less," I read
the same argument somewhere else, stating that "I could care less" is simply
a wrong expression, mistaking it with "I couldn't ..." I don't remember where
I found it, but there is another page that covers the same subject.

ttp://www.incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html

I raised my original question wondering why the tense cannot be the present tense.
results of google search suggest "I can't care less" is obviously a wrong phrase, though.

just for the note, >>267 and >>269 are not by me. someone else wrote them.
I don't mean to say they are pretending, but I'm writing just to clarify who's who, and
avoid any confusion.

ネイティヴスピーカーくんがこんなに若かったとは思いもしなかった
俺より若い

>>Native Speaker

YOu are Very High Quality.
terra waros
and I am a Japanese
not aussie or something.

I have a question about vowls without accent in a word.

It's hard for me to pronounce and listen to English, especially
distinguishing vowels without accent is almost impossible for me.

There's a word, "osteoporosis."
Accroding to my dictionary, the pronunciation of the first o of "o"steoporosis
and the third o of osteop"o"rosis is different, which I can't tell
the difference when native speakers speak at a natural speed.

Can you native speakers tell the differences between these two "o"s
in osteoporosis and do you pronounce them differently without any
efforts and without any troubles, I mean, naturally?

Chat in English (英語で雑談) Part 51
http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1148990412/l50

>>274
Usually on words like this, even we have to listen to it a few times, and there are times that even us native English speakers disagree on it's pronunciation.
Oh-stee-oh-per-oh-sis is just as correct as ah-stee-oh-per-oh-sis. Mostly people in the medical and scientific field fall back on the Latin pronunciation over anything.
Heck, native English speakers argue over the pronunciation of the word Manga. Some will correct you and say Mayn-guh and some will correct you with the correct way and say Mahn-gah.
Even anime is always pronounced wrong as aan-ee-may and not ahn-ee-meh. ( >.>)

↑黙ってろグリーンピクルス

Hey!!Kyle!!!!!!!
I beggining to think you realy dead..
Come up!!

>>276
Thank you for answering my question, GreenPickle.
So, even in case of native English speakers, for some people, the same words
sound different and they pronounce it differently.

As for borrowed words from foreign countries, I think pronouncing
them correctly might be a rare case. I wonder why? Maybe they pronounce
them in the easiest way, influenced by their mother toungue.

What does "見たとこの　ない　コイン" mean?
Does it mean "coin(s) that (I) haven't seen before" or something like that?

Thats correct

見たことのない外国人
The foreigner that I havent seen before

>>280
>"見たとこの　ない　コイン"

I think 見たとこのない　is a typo. The correct way of saying it is ”見たことのない”
And your translation into English is right.

Thanks for your help.

By the way, how come you use "の" after "見たこと"? Isn't "見たことがない。"
the correct way to use it in a complete sentence? Or can you use "の" there,
too?

>>284
You are right about "見たことがない。" That is the correct way.
When you make a sentence with the meaning of "have done~" or "have had
the experience~", you definitely cannot use "の" there. This is a negative
sentence but the same applies:.

このコインは見たことがない。
I haven't seen this coin before.

You could also use "の" as well, however, when you put a noun after "ない" or "ある"
to compose a sentence such as:

"見たことの　ない　コイン" を　買いました。
I bought a coin that I haven't seen before.

This might make the sentence slightly less formal than "が",
but it sounds proper enough to me. I hope this helps.

>>284
Japanese allows something called "nominative-genitive conversion" in
relative clauses. This involves some funky transformational syntax that
only a linguist would care about, but the end result is that が can become
の in a phrase that modifies another noun, such as 見たことのない when
it preceeds a noun such as コイン. I'm not sure if there is any change
in meaning other than sounding slightly less formal as >>285 mentioned.

Thanks for all the help.

Here's another question...

What is the meaning of "掛ける" as an auxiliary verb? For example, what's
the difference between "話す" and "話し掛ける"?

>>284
AA is write, but there's a little more too it as well. Historically,
in Japanese the subject of a clause could be marked by either の or
が, and this was not limited to relative clauses.

That's why おまえのバカ！means "you're an idiot" not "your idiot."

>>287
As an aux it indicates initiation, so 話し掛ける means to strike up
a conversation.

re: 288, me and my stupid homophonic mistakes; read "right" for
"write."

>>287
To my mind, "掛ける" in "話し掛ける" put an emphasis on the moment
when you talk "to" someone. So it's still not clear whether or not the person you
talk to will respond to you. You just try to do so, but you are not sure
he/she will talk with you.

>>286
Thanks for your help lol.

I found an error on my example: should be "I bought a coin that I hadn't seen before."orz
I don't see any noticable change in meaning, especially with this example, because
either が or の is usually omitted in colloquial speech without a loss of meaning
anyway.

"見たこと　ない"　コイン　(ですね/だね/だな/だ etc.）。
(This/That/It is) a coin I haven't seen before.

Some nuances occur when は or も is used for it.

>>288
Who are you?

Speck Keybonne

おまえのバカ！なんて普通言わない。

いわんのばか

ワラディック

日本語の発音について質問が有ります。「ず」と「づ」の発音の差が有りますか？
この書き込みの中に誤りが有れば訂正して下さい。御願い為ます。

>>296

They do not have any difference in pronunciation.
Neither do 「じ」 and　「ぢ」.

It is said that they there had been different pronunciations until the 17th
century or so, but now most of them are spelled 「じ」 「ず」 for the
contemporary Japanese, except for such surviving spellings as 「つづく」、
「つづり」、「ちぢむ」、etc. and the words resulting from "sequential voicing",
which is the alternation of sound in some compound words, such as:

「き　（気）　＋　つく　（付く）」　→　きづく　（気付く）
This is pronounced the same as 「きずく　（築く）」.

I hope this helps. 　書き込みの日本語に、誤りはありません。

>>297

Thanks. I didn't think there was a difference, but I wondered why different
characters were used if there wasn't one.

I am not 297 but I'd like to post something related to
this topic.

Many Japanese learners of English can't pronounce distingtively,
the defference between dge as in bridge and ge as in geography.

I have a few questions to ask you guys.

Q1
There's this sentense in my textbook.
"See you in a half-hour or so."

I wonder if "See you in half an hour so." is correct, too?
----
Q2
Let me explain a context first.
It's raining and a man gets splashed with dirty water. He said there's
a bright side of it. When he said so, another person asked him, "The
bright side of getting splashed with dirty water while getting rained
on?

My question is if it's OK to omit this "on." And what nuance does this "on"
give to this sentence? Is this "on" the same as "on" as in "keep on"
or "go on"? Would you give me sample sentence that includes this "on"?

>>300

Q1: No, it's not also correct. "or so" means "approximately".

Q2: The "on" cannot be omitted. It is not the same "on" as in "keep on" or
"go on". It is the same "on" as in "the plate fell on(to) the floor".
You must use "on" because the rain is falling ON him.

>>296
今の日本人は分けませんが。

ずはzoo づは　du みたいなもの

>>302

有難う御座いました。

>>301
Thank you for your answer.
It's just I typed wrong. I meant to type "See you in half an hour or so."
Again, is "See you in half an hour or so." the same as "See you in a half-hour or so."

As for "on" I asked about, I understand your explanation.
Thank you very much!

>>304

Oh, I thought you were asking if "so" was okay instead of "or so". Anyway,
both of those sentences are fine. "in half an hour" and "in a half-hour"
are both correct.

First of all, since you asked only two questions, you asked "a couple" questions, not "a few". Generally four or more would be "several" questions. Not trying to be mean, just letting you know. (^_^)

Q1: It would sound more natural to say "See you in about half-hour/half an hour/30 minutes." All can be used and sound natural.

Q2: I think you're referring to the idiom: "Look on the bright side." In this case, the "on" cannot be omitted.

A more natural question from the splashed-on man would be, "WHAT bright side?!"

Please let me know if that helps! (^_^)

Q1: "See you in about half-hour" is not correct or natural.
Q2: He was not referring to "look on the bright side", as far as I
can tell. I have no idea where you got that idea...

how many native english speakers here ?

I'm not native, though I've been told that my English is rather good. My
English is only relatively good, though. I'm better than some native speakers,
and worse than some native speakers. The same applies to how good I am
in comparison to non-native speakers. Being native is not a guarantee
for actually being good at a language. It merely implies that you
know enough of the language to get by decently.

>>309

I see you are not native because of the one mistake you made.

"guarantee for" should be "guarantee of" in that situation.

What do Japanese do with an erection?

...vote...

>>305
Thank you very much. I don't know why, but personally, "in half an hour"
is easier for me to say.

>>306
Thank you for your post.
I thought "a few" is two or three. Maybe I should have written, "I have
a couple of questions to ask."
As for "on", as >>307 says, my question was about "on" as in "get rained on."

Do you think "different than" is incorrect?

>>313
Context?

>>308
At least one.

Are there any Americans in this thread? Anontmous American is
still peeping this thread once in a while?

World Cup Soccer has just started. American national squad is qualified
to the event. They lost to Chek republic, tough.
I heard that NBA's final is in full swing and people in US doesn't pay much
attention to World Cup. Is that the case there?

>>315
Football (soccer) is not a popular as other sports here, and yet people are watching the NBA mostly.

>>316
Thank you.
I guess it's not popular as a spectator sports but for kids, it must
be a popular sports to play themselves.

Kyle who has posted here as a "Native Speaker"is

>>315

At work, there's always a crowd watching the World Cup, although I don't care for it myself.

>>319
Where do you live?

>>320

the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA.

>>299

are you talking about the difference in the 'e' sounds?

どこで生れたかとんと見当がつかぬ。

What is the "とんと" in this sentence?

>>322
It could be a dialect expression or archaic phrase, but is the same as "全く" in a
negative sentence; it means "not at all".

>>323

有難う御座いました。

ナルトは海外で人気がある

>>321
♪　I left my heart in San Francisicoooooooo. ♪

Well, as I wrote, "defference between dge as in bridge and ge
as in geography."

ブリッ「ジ」　bri"dge"
「ジ」オグラフィー　"ge"ography

When you write these two words in カタカナ, both "dge" and "ge" are　ジ
and pronounced the same way.

Did I make myself understood?

no>>327

bridgeの dge=ヂ

bonjour=ジュ

>>328
If you think you aren't good enough at English to post in English,
please post in Japanese.

I don't understand what you are getting at in >>328.

　

Hello.

For the sentence "猫が好きです。", the meaning is always "(someone) likes cats."
rather than "cats like (something).", right? Or is that second meaning
possible?

pussyって何ですか?

最近店名にして開店したところ、行政処分されたレストランのことです。

>>332

猫の事もまんこの事もです。

>>334
ありがとです

>>331
That's a tough question.. It's a matter of whether you read the "が" as
objective "が" for stative transitive verbs, or exhaustive "が"for subjects.
It is very rare but technically possible to read it as "cats like (something)"
depending on the context, although the correct sentence should be:

猫は　(something)が　好きです。

But it could be the answer responding to a specific question such as:

どの動物が、寝ることが好きですか？
What animals like sleeping a lot?

猫が好きです。
Cats like it.

These are not considered as good sentences since they're wordy and
confusing. But it's quite common in colloquial speech. For instance,
two people are talking about some food that neither of them seem to like,
but one person is about to buy it and the other asks him "who" he is buying
it for.

A: 誰が好きなの？
Who likes it?

B: カノジョが好きなんだ。
My girlfriend likes it.

So, it's possible but not really so in itself.. I hope this makes sense somehow.

>>336

Thanks for your explanation．It made a lot of sense.

Anyway, here's another question.

泳いでたら魚を見た。

I just made this sentence myself, but it's similar to other sentences
I've seen. Would it be correct to say that it means "When swimming, I
saw a fish."? What about "泳いだ時は魚を見た"? Would that also be correct,
or wrong?

>>337
"泳いでたら魚を見た。 " sounds perfect to me, since this has a more
descriptive feel to it, while "泳いだ時は魚を見た。" is not necessarily
incorrect. This would suggest another occation when you did something
else because of the constrastive 「は」; or maybe you didn't see any fish
when you were not in the water.

"泳いだ時「に」魚を見た。" might be more appropriate just to state the fact.
It can also do without any particle there.

I hope this helps.

>>338

Thanks. I think I need to be more careful about "は" in the future.

>>315
I still check this thread once in a while, but school and work have kept me
quite busy in recent months.

>>340
Keep coming when you have time.

I want you guys to see if this sentense is right. I've heard someone say it before.

"Can you fill me up the bucket, please?"

This guy was a native speaker.
Asfar as I know fill up can only take one object in a sentence at a time,
while some other words can take two objects,as in "pass me the lighter".
Is that right?

I've heard sentenses like this said by other native speakers,like,
"Grab me the cigarretts."
"Turn me off the TV."
It's happend enough number of times to make me want to ask, not only few times, i mean.
Said sentenses are all similar to each other in structur. Dont you guys think they are wrong?
They should be
"Fill the bucket up for me."
"Grab the cigarrettes for me."
"Turn off the light for me."
in more correct fomrs, I think.

I thought structures like these only occured in pretty casuall situations such as everyday conversations.
Because They dont look very formal to me.
What I want to know is how common it is for native speakers to speak like that,
I mean,I want to know if it's quite normal, if only poor-educated people use this kind of grammer,
or if noone finds it appropriate,but some of them intentionally use them to put special effect on what they say, or else.

I don't see any explanations on this matter in any of my grammar books even with rather informal expressions in them.
So I need a help, plz. Thanks.

I have a few small questions to ask.

<No.1>
Where did you get this stereo system?
It doesn't have any brand name on it.
Was it <custom-made>?

I had to fill in the blank bracketed by < > and the answer of
my textbook is "custom-made" like shown above. But my answer was "customised."
Does my answer sound odd or can my answer be correct in this context?

<No.2>
I don't think you should park here.
Airport security is very <strict> these days.
And this is just a loading <zone>.

I put in "tight" instead of "strict." Tight can be OK, right?
I put in "area" instead of "zone." Does loading "area" sound odd?

<No.3>
What's a cineplex?
Is it a building where several movie screens are installed in each
space?

>>342

I'm a native speaker of English, and I sometimes say "Grab me that ...",
but none of the others. I don't think I've even heard anyone use the
others, except maybe for "Fill me up the bucket." Otherwise, people usually
say "for me", at least where I live.

>>343

1. "Customized" does sound odd... "Customized" frequently means that
you took an existing object and altered it rather than built it custom
from the start, so it doesn't sound very good.

2. "Tight" is less formal than "strict", but it's okay. "Loading area"
sounds fine to me.

3. As far as I know, "cineplex" is just a portmanteau of "cinema"
and "multiplex". It isn't really part of anyone's vocabulary. That is,
no one ever calls anything a "cineplex". It's just used in theater names
and such.

>>344
Thank you very much for your explanations.
They are really easy to understand.
I thought cineplex was a common noun everybody uses, but
it seems I was worng.

Thank you!

>>345

You're welcome. As for "cineplex", as I said, no one really uses it.
Most people say "movie theater", where I live (southern california).

To add to that, all the theaters around here (this city) are
mutiplexes, so there's no need to specify that.

Sorry.

*multiplexes

>>346
Thank you again.

Your pleasure is mine.

Um, >>350 wasn't me, but anyway... You're welcome.

BTW, it's "The pleasure is mine."

hahahaha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_types

In Nazi Germany research was done to associate B-type blood type
with inferior personal characteristics. B-type blood was relatively
common among German Jewish populations. This research has since been
discredited.

>>344
Thanks for your response.
And yeah, I heard "grab me that" most often.
But "fill me up the bucket" sound really weird to me, that's why I asked.
"except maybe for" sounds like you don't find it weird, do you?
Whether it's normal or not might depend who speaks and where they live.
Do you mind telling where you live?

>>354

You're welcome.

I do think "Fill me up the bucket." sounds weird. I was just saying that
I think I've heard it before. I wouldn't say it myself. Anyway, I live
in Southern California.

What's different between mental picture and mental image?
Do native speakers distinguish them?

For me, a mental picture is usually deliberate, while a mental image is something triggered or involuntary.

When someone says something and you imagine it immediately, it's usually a mental image.
When someone says something, and you make a conscious effort to imagine it, then it's a mental picture.
Usually, mental images are negative things.

>>357
Your explanation is really clear.
Thanks a lot.

What do you think differ between "suppose", "assume", and "presume"?
When I surfed the net, an author of a book says 99.9& of the japanese people
don't know what's different between those words. This is a sad thing, but
in fact I don't. Can you shed any light on this?

Why don't we use this thread till the next chat thread is built?

>>359

That's OK, it's hard for native Engish speakers to explain, too.
The main difference between the three is the degree of certainty.

I presume this is your kitten? (pretty sure)
I assume this is your kitten? (somewhat sure)
I suppose this is your kitten? (not very sure)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAuDd9Lb5UI&mode=related&search=

He is from kent

why is he cockney??

evenin

why?

ｦ|Eﾄ━━∩ ∩
　　　（ﾟθﾟ）

>>364
was that question for me ? If so, just figured I'd say hello before I'd jump into this thread.

I am foolish and virgin.
Don't you know it?

>>363
I've heard somewhere that Dutch people has the best command of English
as a second language in the world.
Do you think that's the case? Are there much similarity between
Language of Dutch and English?

of course.
cuz its similar/

I do not know if it is true that the Dutch are best non-native english in the world. There is a lot of similarity between our languages however.
Our japanese sucks though :P

>>369
Thanks for your response.
Maybe Northern European countries such as Sweden and Finland follows
Dutch people in terms of fluency of English .

Would you translate this sentence below into Dutch using English alphabert
to see how similar English and Dutch are ?

"I do not like rainy days because my shoes get wet."

Ik hou niet van regenachtige dagen omdat dan mijn schoenen nat worden.

>>371
Thanks.
Seems like orders of each word is very similar, but in Dutch above,
there is one more word than the original English sentence.

because=omdat dan?

By the way, one thing I am surprised most about Dutch people is that
their average height is 180cm.

because=omdat, then/than= dan

I'm considered to be average/short and my length is 180cm :D

>>373
Thanks.

You are tall in Japanese standard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAuDd9Lb5UI&mode=related&search=

is he cockney?

>>374
I can give prolems when in Japan though. Finding shoes my size was really troublesome.

>>375
No idea, according to the definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney) he wouldn't be.

"I can give prolems" -> "It can give problems"

今日は、皆さん。
「そんな」とだけ言われたら、どういう意味なのですか？
所で、訂正して下さい。

お願いします。

>>378
「そんな」は、予想してなかった時に言います。特にネガティヴな反応として。
もう少し状況、文脈をお願いします。

>>378
「所で」とは書かないです。ひらがなで、「ところで」と書くのが普通。

あと、「ところで、訂正してください。」というのは、ちょっと不自然に聞こえる。
>>378が日本語を勉強しているのを知っているし、前に、間違っていたら訂正して
ください、というようなことを書いていたのを見たことがあるから、何が言いたいのか
はわかる。

でも、初めて>>378を見た人は、「ところで、訂正してください。」というのを
見ても、何が言いたいのかわからないだろう。「日本語に間違いがあれば、直して
ください。」と言えばわかりやすい。「ところで」は必要ないと思う。

>>331

A cat is fine too :3

I like corm

Sup?

>>376
who are you?
Declan is lovely cockney

>>379

ありがとうございました。文脈を与えるのは難しい。
あなたの回答はいいです。

>>380

ありがとうございました。
でも、なぜ「訂正」は正しくない？
「日本語に間違いがあれば、訂正してください」はよくありませんか？

すみません。
「正しくない」の代わりに「正しくありません」と言いたかったです。
時々、丁寧語を使い忘れてしまう。

>>385
訂正してくださいでも大丈夫。

>>386
「正しくないんですか？」のほうが疑問文としては
自然です。

「正しくありません？」は、自分の考えが正しいと思っている場合に
相手に同意を求める、あるいはそれを確認するといった場合に
使うのが自然です。

>>387

ありがとうございました。

>>388

ありがとうございました。

そして、英語で「正しくありませんか？」は「Isn't it correct?]で、
「ただしくないのですか？」は「Is it incorrect?]なのですか？

sure

>>385
訂正してください、でもいいかもしれない。

でも、俺がなんとなく思ったのは、訂正するっていうのは、自分で自分の書いた文章を
直すときに使うんじゃないかな。自分以外の人に直してもらうときは、「訂正してもらう」
とは言わない気がするんだけど。なんとなくそう思うだけだから、俺の意見が正しいかは
わからない。

>>384

According to the definition he isn't

>>391

「訂正」はおかしいと思いますか？それでは、いつ使うのですか？
それとも、いつも使いませんか？

>>380
＞それでは、いつ使うのですか？
I don't know if my explanation was good enough, but I explained that in >>391 in Japanese.

As I wrote in >>391, I am not sure my opinion is right or not.
So, I think in the meantime, it's better to forget what
wrote in >>391.

Keep up the good work. :)

>>394

Oh, I saw that, but I thought you meant you only weren't sure if you
would use it in this particular situation, and might use it in others.

By the way, thanks.

>>395
Well, anyway forget what I wrote in >>391.

One thing is for sure. You don't write ところで, which is used
when you change topics, in　kanji character.

And your welcome. Anytime.

>>393
使えるって言ってるでしょ。

"誤りがあれば*直して" の検索結果 約 36 件中 1 - 4 件目 (0.34 秒)
"誤りがあれば*訂正して" の検索結果 約 63 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.02 秒)

（間違いがあるかどうか）「添削してください」と言うのも
ok.

>>392
why

>>380
>>395
According to 「大辞林 第二版」,

ていせい 0 【訂正】
（名）スル
言葉や文章の誤っている部分を正しく直すこと。
「誤りを―する」

訂正する would be appropriate in this situation, whether it is for one's
own or someone else's sentences, whereas 直す would also be good
because it is a versatile verb. It is quite understandable though that
直す sounds more familiar to some people, since it is very frequently
used in that way.

>>duch81

what are you?

>>397
>>399
>>402

ありがとうございました。

>>400
ありがとうございました。
それは本当に普通な文章なのですか？

>>404
思いっきり普通。
添削というのは、特に文章の、校正・チェックをして直すことを意味する。
つまり、自分の書いた日本語におかしい点があれば直してください、と
いうのと同じ意味。ただし、「直してください」よりは少しフォーマルな
印象を与える。熟語表現は一般的に当てはまることだけどもね。

>>405

ありがとうございました。
でも、少し珍しそうですね。校正の分野でよく使うでしょうか？

添削してください の検索結果 約 814 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.14 秒)
訂正してください の検索結果 約 93,700 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.21 秒)
直してください の検索結果 約 391,000 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.17 秒)

bloody hell

>>403
a visitor , and you are ?

>>408
Do you think those who post messages in a message system quite often is also called
a visitor in English?
People in here call themselves a resident if they come here often, though.

>>406
まぁ難しい話になるけど、

・添削は、チェックを入れて直してもらい、
さらにアドバイスをしてもらうようなときに使うという感じかな。
だからインターネット上で、そこまでお願いするケースが少ないのが
検索結果に出ているんではないか。

・訂正は間違った部分を直すだけ。しかも内容が間違っているかどうか
を確認してもらう場合も含むと考えてよいと思う。

・直すは、文章に限らず使えるため結果が多いのは当然と言えば
当然かな。

・校正は原稿の誤字脱字をチェックする場合に使うのが一般的。

これで大丈夫かな？

>>409
yes, and I'm very new to this board, thus I refer to myself as a visitor.

I do find this board to lack a good overview of the active threads... or maybe I just didn't look hard enough.


Have to say, I find this whole 訂正 debate quite interesting

>>411
I know you are new here. As a matter of fact, I lnked you here.
By the way, I'm sorry I don't understand your reply well.
What does it mean, yes? Does it mean those who even post often are vistors,
not residents?

And if you want to have a chat in English, there is an active thread for you.
Search for "chat in English".

>>412
I did not come to a japanese board to have chats in english ;)

What I meant was that I refer to those who are new or post very little as visitors.

You are the one who linked me here? ah, thanks... it is just hard to make a distinction between
posters when they are all 名無しさん＠英語勉強中.

>>413
Oh, I see. Can you tell me how to express those who post quite often
in a word? Frequent poster or something? Not residents?

Um, don't take this the wrong way, but I said I was the one
just to tell you I knew you were new here, so take it easy.

What kind of thread do you prefer, by the way?
I think I can be of help.

>>414
I have no idea, since that differs from board to board.However, resident sounds good.

I'm taking it easy, don't worry. How come hardly anyone uses a nick around here ?

I do not know yet what thread I would prefer, I'm still orienting myself here... so many threads and no clear overview :D

>>415
Thanks a lot.

To answer your question, though, many people use the defalt name
because anonymity is the point here. The system makes this board
more energetic. As far as I know, there aren't other message systems
like this except for 4ch, which is simillar to 2ch.

In the English board of 2ch, people in threads are supposed to
talk mainly about how to study English, though discussions are conducted
mostly in Japanese. (In my opinion, it is a bit silly to talk about
it in Japanese!)
Anyway, people in here are interested in English.

And if I remember right, this thread is the first one where
learners of both English and Japanese teach each other.

duch81


where r u from?

>>416
Allright then, although it makes it harder to 'recognize' the people you were having a discussion with in another thread :D

It sounds like I'm in the right thread allready :P It is interesting to see how the explanations are formulated in Japanese.

Is there a way to get a good overview of the available threads on the english board ?

>>417
You and your obvious question.
I'd be surprised if he/she were posting from the antarctic.

>>417
I believe I've answered that question already. On top of that is my nick a dead give away.

オランダ人は英語で「Dutch」と言います。

>>418
By the available threads, do you mean people speak both in English
and Japanese?

I guess you are not interested in the discussion on English learning
materials, nor in the TOEFL/TOEIC exam, right? There are many active threads
for the topics, though..

Are you using Internet Explore, right? Then active threads are often
raised to the board, I mean, at the top of the list.

>>418
The TOEFL/TOEIC tests have always fascinated me, since in the Netherlands hardly
anyone takes those tests (or has even heard of them) while the Japanese these tests are really significant.
However, I'm not too interested in having discussions about them :P

I use firefox, but I assume you are referring to the list of 100 threads at the top of http://academy4.2ch.net/english/ ?
A jumble of links, packed in a small space :P

I've been looking around a bit and found several interesting threads, but currently I think I'll try to stick to language/grammar threads.

ネイィヴじゃねーじゃん

>>422
Hmm, do you mean Japanese language, grammar, I take it?
I'm afraid we don't have such a thread here...
This thread might meet your demand, though.

Or if we exchange e-mail adresses, we can talk about grammar stuff..
What do you think?

uhh, can you guys do that kind of stuff at the chat thread?
the discussion is still going on, i suppose.

>>421
疑問文のあとに right?

ネイティブのふりして何が面白い

>>423
そうですね。オランダは日本から飛行機で12時間掛かる。

>>424
Sure, but I do not know if posting my email address on a big bulletin board as this
as this would be such a good idea.

>>426
ネイティブのふりをいつした？
勘違いもいい加減にしろよ。
>>1を読め、馬鹿。

>>427
Don't you have a hotmail address?

>>425
おk。

>>427
ひとまず、こちらで続きを話しませんか？

http://academy4.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1141457259/l50

>>429
I do not have any hotmail address, however, this will do:
joop.meiers at gmail.com. Replace the 'at' with '@'

>>430
いいよ

>>410
ありがとうございました。
よく分かったと思います。「添削」はいいようです。でも、「直す」も。

「辞書」と「辞典」の違いを教えてください。お願いします。

>432
lekker weekend gehad?

>>435
heb betere gehad. Je bent Nederlands?

>>434
漢字が違う以外ほぼ同じ意味だが、辞書がさまざまな辞典類の総称なのに対して、
辞典は個別の専門的な書物を指すようだ。

「本屋へ行って、辞書のコーナーで英和辞典を探した。」

という感じらしい。一般的には「辞書」がよく使われる。

>>436
Ik ben niet Nederlands, eerder een Amerikaan.

>>437
ありがおうございました。

>>438
Waar heb je dan Nederlands geleerd ?

>>437
すみません。あなたの説明で「英和辞書」を使わない？それは「英和辞典」？
それで今まで僕の「辞書」の使い方はいつも間違かった。

>>440
「英和辞書」でも大丈夫だと思うよ。正確には、「〜辞典」と言うらしいけど。
日本人でも混用するから、必ずしも間違いとは言えないと思う。僕も使うし。
ちなみに、「百科事典」は漢字が違う。これは「百科辞書」とは言わないけど。

>>441
ありがとうございます

>>442
Je bent welkom. Is that how you say it?

>>444
Nee, je bedoelt: 'Geen probleem' (no problem, どういたしまして）
of
'graag gedaan'.

I think you meant the latter...

>>444
Thanks. I meant どういたしまして.

>>445
K then ,
'graag gedaan' would be, `you're welcome' in english by the way.

This thread is awfully quiet, isn't it ?

>>447
That's because there is not so many people who can write and ask questions
"in English" in the first place.

But sometimes it gets busy here. There's not any other thread where
we, English learners ask questions about subtle differences between
expressions and nuances and all, so I definately want native speakers or
people who have extremely good command of English like you keep coming
to see if any questions are posted here.

>>448
Thanks, I feel flattered :D

こんにちは、皆さん。
「高くたって構わない」の意味は「I don't care if (it) is expensive.」なんですか？
また、「高いたって構わない」もいいんじゃありませんか？
お願いします。

>>448
If people have difficulty with asking questions in English, I suggest that they try to say it in English first - but then put the same question in Japanese right afterwards.

>>450
高い＋名詞
高く＋動詞/形容詞/副詞etc

>>450
板違い

高かっ（形容詞「高い」の連用形）＋　たって（接続助詞）

>>453
何が違う？

wow, this thread is full of mature persons!

>>450
>「高くたって構わない」の意味は「I don't care if (it) is expensive.」
なんですか？
You are right. Since he/she is kind of desperate to get it for a particular
reason, the amount of money they have to shoulder doesn't mean much to them.
The most important thing for them is to get it.

「高いたって構わない」is wrong.
-------
Let's say you are going to start a new life and live apart from your
family, and you need some electric appliances for your new apartment.
One of your friends is kind enough to give you a vaccume cleaner
but it's old. You would say, 「古くたって構わない。」as long as it's not broken.

right: 「古くたって構わない。」
wrong: 「古いたって構わない。」
-------------
Let's say there's a tour to Northern Canada to see Northern lights.
You've wanted to see Northern lights because it's so beautiful.
Your friends would say, "You shouldn't join the tour because you have
to wait for long hours outside at night to see Northern lights.
It must be freezing cold."

You would say, 「寒くたって構わない。」I don't care if I get cold or
not. I just want to see Northern lights with my own eyes!
right：「寒くたって構わない。」
wrong：「寒いたって構わない。」
-----------

I hope you get the picture.

なぜ高いたってはいけない？

>>457
>なぜ高いたってはいけない？
It just doesn't look and sound natural to us, native Japanese speakers.
But I know you need convincing reasonable explanations in terms of
grammatical point of view. but I know I can't live up to your expectation
so instead, I tried to help you have a knack of how to use adjectives
by giving you other examples such as 「古い」「寒い」.
Let's wait for other Japanese who are good at explaining grammatical things
to come up.

I don't know how learners of Japanese language is taught adjective,
but as you might know, adjectives change their form depending on
what follows them. That's all I can say now.

>>457は私ではありません。Just to let you know,,,前文は日本語での
話し方が分かりません。「高く」は連用形と呼ぶと思います。但し、
なぜ「たって」の前に連用形が使われるか分かりません。

I do not have time to read all of this at the moment, but as a native
English speaker interested in learning Japanese I will offer whatever
help I can. ^.^

>>458
I'm was never a good Japanese student myself, and most of what I'd learned
I've forgotten, but let me try to answer your question.

Have you heard about the inflectiton (or declension) of an adjective?
I think it's the issue here. Think about a negative of Japanese adjectives that
end with 「〜い」. For example,「高い」inflects to 「高くない」. lilkewise,
if an adjective is followed by 「ても」, it inflects to 「高く」.

Hope it helps.

Sorry.「ても」should read 「たって」>461

Well, I think I'm satisfied now. I suppose it's just a rule the "-ku" form
(renyoukei) is used before "tatte". Maybe there's no real reason for it,,,

I don't think most Japanese can explain about Japanese grammatically.

>>450
hmm, I cannot give you a grammatical explanation, but let me show you what I found:

「高くたって構わない」 belongs to this:
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6&dtype=0&stype=0&dname=0na&pagenum=1&index=11522700

「高いったって〜」 is part of:
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6&dtype=0&stype=0&dname=0na&pagenum=1&index=11522800

I think it needs to be 連用形 to precede 「 たって」, which is the same as 「 ても」,
while 「ったって」 is something similar but just slightly different in sound and meaning,
which is a shortened version of 「と言っても」.

Since 「ったって〜」 is used to express partial denial, it's usually followed by some
comparison to it, such as:
「高いったってそれほど（orそんなに）高くはない」
「高いったって大した事はない」

I'm a bit confused myself. But hope this could help..

>>465
Thanks! That was quite helpful. I think I understand it better now.
If the first is the same as 「ても」, it's pretty easy... The second
one, though... I'm not sure if I understand it. One example seems to
indicate that it can be used to respond to another person's words.

「来いっ―すぐには行けない」
Literal translation: Even if you tell me to come, I can't go soon.

This one I'm not sure about...

「買うっ―近くに店はないよ」
Literal translation: Even if (?) says they're buying it, there's no store
nearby.

And this one, I'm really unsure about...

「登山―、ハイキング程度さ」
Literal translation: Even if you say "mountain climbing", it's to
the extent of hiking.
So basically, the person who's saying this means that the person they're
talking about says they climb mountains, but really only so far as
hiking up them rather than climbing up the side?

>>466
Basically you are right, I think.
The link says,
ある事柄を認めるにしても、全面的にではないという気持ちを表す

Even though you admit/approve the matter in the relative clause,
you don't totally agree with it. So the main clause contains something
that denies, disapprove or contradict it to some extent.

「買うっ―近くに店はないよ」
This might be also "Even if I say 'I'll buy it', there's no store nearby.";
I/you cannot buy it right away.

「登山―、ハイキング程度さ」
This means "Even if I/you/they say 'mountain climbing', it's just like hiking";
it's not so serious as 'mountain climbing'.

Does this make sense?

>>467
Yeah, it makes sense. Thanks. I think I understand them both now.

>>468
どういたしまして。　Glad to hear that :)
But I need to correct some in my post; "relative clause" should be
"subordinate clause", I think, as well as some typos and grammar mistakes
I didn't even proofread..

Hi, Ihmhi,

>>390,393
If you are interested in how a moneyless society looks, you might
want to take a look at some of Iain M. Banks' "Culture" series novels. It is
about the "Culture," a federation of multi-species about the size of
this galaxy. Its main habitats are "Orbitals," ring-shaped worlds, and
vast spacecrafts. They roam around through the galaxy looking for
new civilizations to recruit, observing, sometimes manipulating their
culture, politics, wars etc. You could call it a kind of weirdo space
opera, and it may not be a good example of moneyless society, but
it sure is a fun read.

But mind you, Banks is a Brit, and has some weird sense of humor.
For example: GSV Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence, GSV Cargo
Cult, GSV Youthful Indiscretion etc. These are the names of ships in
the Culture novels. Weird, huh?

Here's a pointer to a Wiki entry, in case you are interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture

There's the expression, "talk of the town."

Is it used when something is talked about by everybody in more larger
area, not limited only in a town?

I guess the expression is just used figuratively, so it's ok
to use the expression.

What does "I am a friend in me." mean in the rylic below?
Thank you in advance.

---------------
I know that you miss him,
I can tell by the way you kiss him,
Get yourself together (get yourself together)
And you'll be alright.

You say that you love him,
But now he's gone so please forget him,
Get yourself together (get yourself together)
And you'll be alright.

I'm just like you, so take my lead,
You see me as a friend,
But I'm a friend in me.

Get yourself together (get yourself together)
And you'll be alright.

So if you feel that you need me,
I'll stand beside you, can't you see me?
Get yourself together,
And you'll be al - right.

アゲるぞ

>>474
ゲイ

>>473
The lyrics are wrong; it should be "I'm a friend in need".

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/jam-get-yourself-together-lyrics.html

I'm going to learn hiragana and katakana sometime soon, and I wonder if
anyone here knows of any place online that displays examples of
the characters written in a manner that is aesthetically appealing.
I do have a book to teach me hiragana and katakana, but I figured that
the more examples of good handwriting I got, the better I would be
able to see exactly what style(s) I should aim for.

>>476
Thank you. No wonder it doesn't make sense.

>>477
I searched for some good sites and these three below look good to me.
Check them out and I hope you like them.

http://www.kanjistep.com/en/online/hiraganasteps/index.html
http://www.kanjistep.com/en/online/katakanasteps/index.html
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/index.html

>>478
Thank you! ^_^

Maybe, native speakers here are enjoying summer vacation or doing
summer part-time job or something.

Which is do you guys think more imporatant your business or this thread?

This thread is. :p

I could do with some summer vacation...

Over 20 persons died due to heavy rain here in Japan. Many died in the heat in the Netherlands?
What's the highest temperature these days?

I'm not sure but it is around the 30 degrees... for over a week now. Several folks have died already, I do not know the exact number, but I am quite sure that more than 20 have died thusfar.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/dirkbecker.home/dvzoffspring/info/newlyric.html

This is the lyric of "Can't Repeat" by "The offspring."

There are phrases, "Yesterday laughs. Tomorrow cries" in the lyric.

What do you think this means? Would you please tell me your interpretation?

Thank you in advance.

'Yesterday laughs. Tomorrow cries'
Song lyrics mean different things to different people.
I`ve never heard the song, but I read the lyrics.
I think the lyrics are pretty dark.
It says how we can't go back to the past, the only way is forward.
'Yesterday' is shorthand for the past, and 'tomorrow' means the future, so perhaps the singer is saying that the past was fun and enjoyable, but the future is bleak and frightening.
Maybe? I dunno, what do you think?

>>485
Thank you for your answer.
As I wrote in e-mail to you, your interpretaion helps me to understand
the lyrics.

Hooroo. If I remember correctly, this means good bye in Australian
English. :)

Haha, hooroo! Yes, my mother says that a lot.

Sometimes the sun goes around the moon.

でも、ながいさん、なんだかんだ毎日VAに行っていそうです。（^o^）
よい休暇をお過ごしくださいね。
2. Posted by ながい 2006年08月12日 12:29
一日は絶対行かないって決めたの。後の日は・・・知らない（爆）>>綺羅輪手居るのが分からない。

How many planets are there in our solar system?

http://up1.skr.jp/src/up12712.mp3.html

Does he sound natural?

"Thanks to the map you drew me the other day,"

Do you think the part of a sentence above sounds natural?

I think "Thanks to the map you drew for me the other day," is correct
way of saying but is it OK you add two objects to "draw?"

What do you think?

>>492
"Thanks to the monkey, the map, and the Sailor Moon sketch you drew
for me the other day, I can now conquer the Earth!" does sound natural.
It doesn't clarify that the person actually drew the map, or if they're
independent from the person being addressed, but I doubt that matters
much - it should be understood from context.

>>493
Thanks, but I am too dumb to understand your explanation.

>>494
Let me try another way, then:
Having more than one object for "to draw" sounds fine - but depending
on how the sentence is made, it might be interpreted wrong.
Example:
"I like the cat and the dog you drew." could be heard as
(the cat) and (the dog you drew)
or
(the cat and the dog) you drew

>>495
There seems to be a misunderstanding between you and 492=494.
What 492 means by an 'object' of a verb is a noun phrase that the verb
obligately takes. It's a grammatical notion. By 'two objects', 492 means
the direct and indirect objects.

492 asked you whether "to draw a map for me" and "to draw me a map"
are both grammatical or only the former is right.

It is careless of you having smoked by a baby.

The sentence above is correct?

boylove is a japanese tradition.
稚児

>>495
Thank you for taking the trouble of anwering me again.
After reading >>495, I think I understand what you are trying to
explaining to me in >>493. :)

But my question is, as 496 says, wheather both "to draw a map for me"
and "to draw me a map" sound natural or just the former is right.

Thank you >>496. That's what I meant.

>>497
I'm just new here, but I thought I should help out.
The sentence should actually read, "It was careless of you for smoking by a baby."
It sounds more natural that way.

>>500
How did you get to know this thread?
Did your Japanese friend inform of this thread or something?

>>501
I was just surfing around and found this thread. It interested me, plus I'm starting
my first year of Japanese, and I figured that I could start helping with English conversation.

>>502
Welcome aboard!
I hope you come to this thread regularly, although more often than
not, questions posted here by Japanese is far and few between.

Good luck and get off to a good start with your japanese study.

>>503
Thanks so much! I'll come as much as I can.

>>499
Ah! Thank you for clarifying. I think both of these sound natural:
I'd like you to draw me a map.
I'd like you to draw a map for me.

>>500
I'd go a bit further and say "It was careless of you to smoke by a baby."

>>505
Thank you. My dictionary doesn't have the usage of "draw+IO+DO", so
I asked the question.

>>505
Yeah, I was comtemplating a better wording after I posted.

>>500
>>505
Thanks.

http://up1.skr.jp/src/up12762.wma.html

What do you think about his English?
Any comments?

>>509
Sorry, the link doesn't work for me for some reason...

>>509
Overall, pretty good. He actually sounds a little Norwegian or Swedish
to me, due to the short vowel sounds (such as "a" in "saw his own".)
I don't think anybody would have trouble understanding what was said.

>>509
I got the link to work now. The person's English is pretty good.
>>511
I do have to agree that he does sound a little Norwegian or Swedish
in some parts, but not many.

>>511-512
Thank you for your responses. He is Japanese and uploaded his audio file
to get some feedback in another thread.

Your comments brought me another question that's always in my mind.
I don't understand clearly the differences between "Pretty good",
"very good" and "not bad." Would you explain the differences?

My guess is "pretty good" and "not bad" cover 6-8 on the scale of
1-10. "Very good" covers 8-10.

>>513
You are exactly right in my book.

>>513 >>514
I concur, although personally I'd make "not bad" 5-8.

Hi there!
For fun I subtitle Ayumi Hamasaki converts for my friend's daughter.
I made a video of my subtitle work and had a friend upload it to youtube a few months ago. How's my translation?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovZTs2vHbto

Here's another one I uploaded myself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3lnuD7e990

How are they?

>>514-515
Thank you. I'm pleasantly surprised that my guess is right.
I take it that merkin thinks "not bad" sometimes covers lower level
than "pretty good."

>>517
It's a matter of how you feel really. It could cover many levels depending
on tastes and mood. Sometimes I say "not bad" even though I may not like it at all i.e. 1-3.

>>518
OK. In that case, you are trying to be polite or diplomatic to the
person you are talking to.

>>519
That's right. Usually to relatives that try and feed me weird things.

>>516

Oh!!!!
Are you TV fighter Haruki Kimura!!??

>>520
Be careful not have a stmachace. hehe

>>522
I'll try not to! Heh, they always try to force feed me all the time, but can't really
complain about free food.

>>521

No I'm Hal Nicholas, from Wisconsin.

>>524
Are you American?

>>525
No.

So... Are there any other questions about English?

Explain why English speaking population regard their language as international standard.

>>528
English _is_ the de facto international standard. Two hundred years ago,
French was the standard, and where the origin of "lingua franca" comes
from. It could well be some other language in the future.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BB%E3%83%95%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AB

>>529
That sounds about right. Before French, Latin was the main international
language.

When the English speaking mass consider English the international standard,
there's more arrogance than just sensible reasons.
Just the fact that English is the widest used language of the world makes them
feel it's a-okay to speak it all over the world, not even attemting to learn the
language they are supposed to speak.

>>531
That's how I feel about the issue as well. That is part of the reason that
I'm learning Japanese, the other reason is for enjoyment. By the way, we've
started learning phrases and some vocab!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coFSFjOxuZA&mode=related&search=

In this video clip, Sarah Michelle Gellar tried to translate Japanese into English
on a variety show when the grudge, which she starred, was showing.

It's interesting to me because we have the same kind of showes where
English speakers ask questions in English and Japanese TV personalities try to
answer them. Often they screw up their faces and answer the questions
very funnily.

By the way, thanks to youtube, I've got the idea Sarah talks funny
in American TV showes. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpO0pfFcT2k

>>516
I saw the video.

Your translation is not bad. No offence, but there's a tiny mistake in it.
she said "今日はたこ焼き丼食べれなかったから・・・" that doesn't mean
she's never eaten takoyaki don. It means "she didn't have time to eat takoyaki-
don before the concert began yesterday because it was really hectic. But today I ate
it..." I suppose she'd eaten Takoyakidon many times before.

Note: I've never heard of Takoyakidon before. Maybe such kind of dishes are
only for people in the Kansai(the westan part of honshu: Japan's main island) district.

Sorry, "今日は" is a mistake. "昨日は" is right.

This thread is interesting. I'm surprised to know there are
foreiners who see 2ch. I'll join you after reading through
all your posts.

>>532
Good luck! As a learner of English, I know how painful to learn phrases and vocabrary
by heart and actually use them.
Learning another language takes a lot of getting used to. At the same time, though,
it's interesting, of course.

>>536
Good thinking.

>>537
Thanks so much. I hope to be able to use vocabulary and phrases that I learn
so that I can communicate. I'd like to be fluent by the end of college or possibly
sooner. It's sort of a funny position that I'm in right now. I'm a Chinese American
learning Japanese, but I don't know how to speak my own language. In the future, however,
I do hope to learn Chinese (Cantonese, since that is my family's regional language).

>>538
Oh, I see. The position you're in sounds a bit rare.
Do your parents also speak English, not Chinese?

By the way, can I ask a favor?
In the first video clip I brought up in >>533, Sarah answered
a question like "did your husband get jelous blah-blah-blah,
but I can't understand her. Can you help me see what she said?
I have a hard time listening to English...

>>539
They speak Chinese, but I didn't from birth. It has to do with the assimilation deal in schools.
They don't offer professional Chinese teachers in our schools, so I never had the chance to learn or
retain anything from home to school and back.

As a reference back to >>533, I'll get to it, but I have class soon so I'll do it after class.

Morning/Hello/good evening!

>>540
Thank you in advance.

Not to dwell on the topic all the time, but I wonder how you've
been communicating with your parents if they don't speak English and
you don't do Chinese. O.o;

>>541
Oops, I'm mistaken. They do speak English, too. And, I can understand
Cantonese, I just can't speak it because the words don't connect
in my head properly.

Oh yeah, the clip is this: "Yes, Freddy thinks that I would be a great host at
TRL, too."

||￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣||
||【ルール】　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　 　　 　||
|| This thread is for learners of English and Japanese to ask questions ||
|| and share information in English. Advanced learners of English can ||
|| ask native speakers questions about difficult grammar and expressions ||
|| and help them learn Japanese in exchange. Posting in Japanese is ||
|| allowed but English is preferred. ||
||　　　　　　　　 　 　 　 　　　　 　 　 　 　　　　 　 　 　 　　　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 ||
||　英語を学ぶ日本人と、日本語を学ぶ外国人がお互いに情報を交換　　　 ||
||　し合うスレッドです。英語の難解な文法や表現などについてネイティヴ 　 ||
||　スピーカーに質問させてもらうかわりに彼らの日本語学習の手助けを 　 ||
||　していきましょう。日本語での書き込みも不可ではありませんがネイティ　 ||
||　ヴスピーカーの方に理解し易いよう、出来るだけ英語でお願い致します。 ||
|| ||
||　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　｡　　∧＿∧　 　 　 .||
||　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　＼（´･ω・`）　　　いいかな・・？
||　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ⊂　⊂　）旦~ 　 ||
||＿＿＿∧ ∧＿＿_∧ ∧＿＿_ ∧ ∧＿＿ ∧ ∧＿＿＿|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣|＿||
　　　 　 (　 ∧ ∧__ (　　∧ ∧__(　 　 ∧ ∧__(　　 ∧ ∧　 ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　〜（＿(　∧ ∧（　 (　　∧ ∧＿ (　 ∧ ∧＿ (　　∧ ∧ 　は〜い、先生。
　　　　 〜（＿(　 　,,)〜（＿(　 　,,)〜（＿(　 　,,)〜（＿(　 　,,)
　　　　　　 〜（＿__ﾉ　　〜（＿__ﾉ　　 〜（＿__ﾉ　　 〜（＿__ﾉ

>>542
Thanks a lot for your help.
Now I'm clear what she said. She's a bit humorous.^^

And I see what you mean. Many Japanese people say they manage to
read English, but it's hard to put Japanese into English, and harder
to speak it. As for me, when English speakers emotionally speak at a native rate of speach,
I often fail to follow them... I also have a problem with English expressions,
pronunciation, etc.

Anyway, you can learn Cantonese from your parents. It's a good advantage that you have
native Cantonese speakers as your parents.:)

>>544
Yeah, that's how I am exactly. Hopefully I will retain Japanese inside and out of
class. My personal rate of speech in English is moderate, so I don't imagine that
anyone would have a hard time understanding me, unless I speak too softly.

You used the word "hopefully" in the wrong way.

Such a grate thread is this!!
Why I never see this before!?
I wanna talk to all of you native speaker, but this thread is too difficult for me.

I just wanna to ask you more low level questions.


(Also I need proofread my word)（通じないかもしれないから日本語で――「校正頼む！」）

I wanna take myself a handlename. Eileen.
The name I'v liked since I was child :)

I have a quiestion in Disney animation "Alice in Wonderland".
The white rabbit said "It was an unbirthday present too".
But I heard "It wan't unbirthday present too".

If you say this sentence in negative mean, generaly you say
"It wasn't an unbirthday present too"?

You really understand the sound "n't"???

hope you understand what I'm saying.

>>546
"Hopefully" is one of those adverbs that are constantly used in the wrong way. As a native
speaker, our grammar is not always perfect. People use "well/good" wrong and don't even
notice it at all. Thanks for pointing it out, the sentence should read, "I hope I can retain Japanese
inside and out of class."

>>549
Sorry, it's been so long since I watched that movie. It has probably been a decade.

Using "hopefully" that way is not wrong. Only prescriptivists would say it is, and they lost any credibility they ever had a long time ago.

I guess it could be one of those grammically challenging words that undergo
changes in the rules of usage depending on the era... This issue could be argued
on and on though...

>>551
I think you are a moron hopefully.

You did not use "hopefully" correctly.

Don't be so hopefully boring.

Hi.

I just found these video clips uploaded in youtube:
alice in wonderland part 1~8 of 8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFpNDtvxMgc&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAMecTKT3qA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L-IWYO5jmw&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb1XuhxPqoc&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpzur-bdVpM&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzu9dzIolCE&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JNFYzNNcbo&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-LCFH2i1Eo&mode=related&search=

>>550
Thanks your responce.
I meant my question is Do you really understand the different between
"It was an unbirthday present too."
and
"It wan't an unbirthday present too.".

I can't explain in English. I mean もし、「It was an unbirthday present too.」という文章を
否定文にしようと思ったら、「It wan't an unbirthday present too.」という文章になるの？
もしそうなら、その場合、わずか「n't」の発音がホントに聞き取れるのかな、と思って。。
誰か翻訳頼みます。。m(_ _)m
（だからアリスは質問にあんま関係ないんだよ・・・）

>>556
Thnak you!　I uploaded that part of alice here:
ttp://up1.skr.jp/src/up12997.mp3.html

>>547
Go ahead and ask!

>>550
The prescriptivists seem to get even more irritated at "less" vs "fewer".

>>557
I see it as one of those silly English humour play on words. If I remember correctly
from "Lord of the Flies", they used a double negative in a sentence to say it is a
positive just like in math. It's a sort of testament of the time period that their
language was in. Of course, I could be terribly wrong. Most native speakers here in
the U.S. would get confused be this since the humour is mainly British.

By the way, "Lord of the Flies" is a book and I know that it's supposed to be
underlined, but I can't do that here.

Oops, I didn't proofread my last sentence in >>559! That is terrible.

>>559
Sorry to cut in, but Eileen seemed to want to ask two questions.
You answered the first one.
But the other (which was asked in Japanese) still remains to be answered.
She asked Japanese posters to translate it... So...

What Eileen wanted to know was whether native English speakers
wouldn't fail to listen to the lazily/weakly pronounced "NOT" in
a double negative sentence when it's spoken.

>>561
「It wan't an unbirthday present too.」

how come "too" is used in a negative sentence? shouldn't this be
「It wan't an unbirthday present, either」?

besides this sentence doesn't make much sense to start with. it's
written in a way that will only confuse readers. you'd better come
up with more realistic and practical examples, like "I wasn't
unsatisfied, either."

>>562
You're right. But I don't want to argue with you about the point
now... (I don't mean any harm)

I think Eileen's question doesn't make much sense. Native speakers do not typically confuse sentences like that.

This thread is hot.

It was an unbirthday present too.」という文章を
否定文にしようと思ったら、「It wan't an unbirthday present too.」という文章になるの？

He asks, "If you change the sentence 'It was an unbirthday present too" into a negative sentence,
is it like,'it wasn't an unbirthday present too.'?"

Apart from the problem of "too" and "either",
I think the answer is yes. He points out that the distinction between the affirmative sentence and
the negative sentence might be too subtle to recognize when this sentence is spoken.
But when the negative sentence is pronounced, the word "WASN'T" will probably be stressed so that
the hearer can understand correctly. So you can't avoid misunderstanding.
What do you think?

>>566
A much better explaination of the matter. I think that's right.

Thank you every one for trying understand my question.

So all of you said;

- A double negative sentence becames a positive mean.
- "too" never come in a negative sentence. That should be "either".

Yes, Of course. you're absotively right. I understand it. Thanks for that.
But my question is more lower level like just pronounceation..

>>566
YES!! That's exactry what I meant!! But I'm "she". I am a women.

>>561
Thank you for cutting in and trancelate me.

Now I understand "Every native English speakers don't fail to listen to the lazily/weakly pronounced "NOT" in
a sentence when it's spoken."
And I didn't know that the word "WASN'T" will be stressed when the negative sentence is pronounced.
Thank you Mineko Fuji-san! And I am a women. remember! And you are women too?

>>568
You actually never want to use more than one negative word in a sentence.
It is improper grammar. The author of Alice in Wonderland just used that as a
whimsical part of his story.

せいがでますね！

>So you can't avoid misunderstanding.

Sorry. I should've written "So you CAN avoid misundersanding."

OH MY GOD!!
I was looking for you, 峰子!!

How would you like Potato chips, Mineko?
I'm eating them. Wanna have a bite?

No? I'm almost finished.
You are hungry, aren't you, Mineko?

Have you finished yet? No!!
Give me potato chips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't pronouce a word "months".
"th" and "s" sound combination is really hard to say.
To be more specific, I can't pronounce "th" and "s" continuously.
The sounds of "th" and "s" go separate.
I run out of breath after "th".
If there is any advice, please tell me.

>>576
I'm a native speaker and I normally say "monts" rather than "months".
Maybe if I was speaking very carefully I would say "months" with the "th" sound, though.

>>577
Thank you very much.
Honestly I half expected my question to be ignored or laughed at.
I'm so glad at your quick and sincere help.
Have a nice day!
See you!

Then let's go back to the topic about Meneko!

Who's Meneko?lol

Mineko is really sexy.

Info-exchange]←このカッコが気になって仕方がないがミスタイプ？

I've been curious to know the difference between the to-infinitive and
the gerund (-ing form) put after a formal subject. here are the examples:

It was fun climbing Mt. Fuji.
It was fun to climb Mt. Fuji.

It is no use to just read a book.
It is no use just reading a book.

It is very important for you to follow his advice.
It is very important your following his advice.

Are these sentences all acceptable? And are there any differences
in meaning?
I suppose the last one is rare, or not acceptable.

A grammar book says that the gerund is used like this only in
much more limited cases than the to-infinitive. It is used when the
adjective put before the gerund has some kinds of emotional meanings,
such as useful/useless, fun, nice... I don't remember well, but anyways,
the books says that it depends on what kind of adjective is used together.
Is this explanation correct? Or is there any better explanation?

"It is very important your following his advice." This sentence doesn't really make sense. By adjusting it slightly it would though.

I can't really help you with your questions, because I'm not good at explaining things. Sorry.

"It is fun to play basketball."
"Playing basketball is fun."
"Following his advice is very important for you."
"Your following our rules is greatly appreciated."
"It was fun visiting my old friend last summer and playing chess
with him just like we used to do every weekend."

For some reasons, "It is (adj) + (gerund)" sounds very foreign.
I'm not a native speaker, so I am speaking based only on my experience, though.

They are all correct and may sound odd in certain cases. There are slight differences
in meaning and influences between using the gerund and to-infinitive. To-infinitives often
give a passive voice to a sentence that doesn't have a strong delivery. Many English teachers
here do not want passive voice to appear in paper, so opting for the gerund is better in most
cases on my part.

Hello All,

I have one question to native english spekaer.

When you pronouce the word "alright", your tongue put behind upper front tooth?
―――――
通じないかもしれないから、日本語でも。
“alright”と発音するとき、舌が前歯の裏につきますか？あと“already”とか。
l のあとに r が来る場合、all といったときと発音は変わりませんか？

That is correct. It is there for the "l" and then you release it and
form your mouth for the "r" in "-right."

>When you pronouce the word "alright", your tongue put behind upper front tooth?

I had the same question when I was a high school student. It should be answered
by a native speaker, but in my observation, the tongue doesn't touch the upper teeth,
when you pronounce those words. This L-sound is called "dark L". This "dark L" usually appears
at the word ending position, like "people", "beautiful", etc...
To Japanese, it sounds like "oh". So the words "people" and "beautiful" sound like,
"peopoh" or"beautifoh".
The L-sound in "Alright" is, strictly speaking, not at the end of the word, but originally
this word comes from "all" and "right". So, the dark-L is to appear in this word.

>>589
I am a native speaker and there are multiple ways that you can pronounce the "l" sound.
I personally just refer to the "l" sound as just curling your tongue so that it may feel like
it's approaching the back of the tooth. It can be done by touching the roof of your mouth
or that back of the tooth. "dark L" does apparently feel like you shouldn't touch the tooth, but
for alright, you can do it anyway because it works.

>>589
dark L: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_L
clear L: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_approximant

I'd say that most Americans pronounce 'alright' with a clear L.
(at least, I do.)

Either you don't understand the difference or you have bad ears.

Mineko, do you teach English?

I carefully listened to "alright" pronounced by a native speaker, and
I found that in a careful speech, the tongue touches the teeth. But
in a casual speech, I don't think it does.

峰藤子萌えｗ

>>594
I honestly think it just depends on how articulate the native speaker is.
It is particularly difficult to know for sure about a word like "all".

To me, "awright" (without the tongue reaching the roof) sounds
more like redneck English.

>>594
Do you teach English?

I have found this expression, "Donate, we'll <3 you for it!"
in a website where you can download files of translated Japanese comic books
free of charge.

My guess is that means "Donate, we'll thank you for it!"
If so, why <3 means "thank?" "Three" in Japanese is pronounced "San".
San and thank sounds a little bit similiar so that's why?
Do you native English speakers have any idea?

Thank you in advance.

>>599
It means that "Donate, we'll LOVE you for it!" The <3 suppose to be a
heart on it's side. Sort of like how :) is a happy face.

>>600
Ohhhhhh! Thank you.

Now I know what it means. Yes, it sure looks like a heart
if you look at it tilting your head to the right. ♥
I thought I was pretty familiar with this type of emoticon and all that,
but this heart shape was new to me. Thank you.

I was surfing the net the other day and found a wabsite that you
learners of Japanese may find useful. It provodes podcast, too.
Seems like to take the most advantages of the website you have to be a member,
which cost you some money, but if you don't become a member, still
I think you can learn a lot from the website. If you're intersted
in it, check it out.

http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php

>>601
You're welcome. Oh, and thanks for the site, I'll take a closer look
when I have time.

Huh... This thread seems to be dead.

>>601
It took me months to figure out wtf <3 was, and I've been on teh
internets for way too long.

Is there anything else in English (or culturally in English) that
confuses you? There's plenty of native speakers lurking about
that'd be happy to help, myself included.

Do you think this question is funny?

why is it that a lot of english-born speakers have problems with spilling?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=At3hRO1XgAewtjjP6MjKcyDzy6IX?qid=20060912164922AAepboD

>>605
Hehe. That is funny. I bet he did that on purpose.

>>603
Actually, as far as I see, it was the norm that there were no posts even
for a week or so before you came, but it's appreciated that you native speakers
come check to see what's going on here.

>>604
Seems like it takes some imagination to grab what these sign mean
even to native English speakers.

As for emoticons, emoticons used by Japanese people are far advanced
in terms of how many there are and how elaborate. They are rich in expression.
Plus you don't have to tilt your head. Although I use :) when
sending a message to English speaking people to show a smile, I use
(^_^) when I write to Japanese.

Japanese-style emoticons are used on English-speaking forums, too. Just without the parentheses.

^_^
>_> <_<
;_;
¬_¬
O_O
-_-

>>608
ahh.. You are right. Come to think of it, I have seen those emoticons.
Still, I can say that Japanese emoticons are more elaborate.
I just searched for a Japanese website featuring emoticons and
found out that there are lots of emoticon just to express smiling faces.
When you count in other emotions such as crying and surprised or confused
or anything I guess total emoticons are 500 or more. I am not so sure though.

In a thread where people ask someone to translate Japanese into English,
one person posted, asking his Japanese to be translated into English.
Two or three people translated it into English. There were an argument
over which one is natural English. These below are the three translated sentences.
Do you have any comments? Would you tell me what you think about
each of them?

1)Would you put the movie files you deleted back on the website again
so that I can watch them again?

2)Would you get your deleted movie files back to your web-site to
enable me to watch ?

3)Would you put the movie files you deleted back on the website
for us to watch?

>>610
1) The most natural and personal of them all.
2) Only a nerd would say that.
3) Another natural way to say it, but that is saying that others than your-
self wants to see it.

>>610
I concur with >>610-san - 1 and 3 are the most natural.
Me, I'd condense it further - e.g.
Would you put the deleted movies back on the website so we can watch them?

>>611-612
Thank you for your answers. I haven't reached the level where I "feel"
the nuances of English and I doubt that I will be able to understand English
the same way I understand Japanese even if I keep studying English.

All I can do is to judge an English sentense from grammatical point of view.
When I read 2), I thought there's no mistakes in grammar, so I asked the question
here.

I thought "to enable me to watch" sounds unnatural in 2). Although I
said I can't feel English, I thought "to enable me to watch" sounds odd
in this sentence.

What about "get your deleted movie files back to?"
1) and 3) uses "put---back on" instead of "get----back to."
Do you think "put---back on" is better than "get----back to?"

What I'd like to know is what makes you think 2) is not natural.

>Would you put the deleted movies back on the website so we can watch them?

Very neat. Thank you.

>>613
2) is not what people would normally say. "Enable" is just one of those words
that is not used in everyday language. I hardly ever say enable.

"back to" and "back on" are two different things. "Back to" is sort of a destination
marker in most cases, as if you were going back to the office. To me, "back on" describes
placing something on an object. Let's say the website was a table, and DVDs are the movies.
Would you place the DVDs back to, or back on the table? I'd place it back on.

>>613
In #2, "To enable me to watch" sounds way too formal; most native
speakers would phrase that as "to let me watch". Also, the use of
"get" is wrong, because the subject of 'get' is the thing that receives
the action or object or whatever. The website would be receiving the
files, the person you're asking would not.

I agree with everyting A Person said, too.

コックニーのイントナイションです
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh9gtCA-Oco
コックニーのイントナイションです。

butの　ボッ　　とかもｗｗ

cockney intonation

>>614-615
Thank you for your help.
The more I read your explanations, the more I'm convinced.
We learn "enable --- to verb" at school but English teachers don't
teach us how formal it is.

>>617
I mostly thought of "enable" as a scientific or engineering term. As in, engineers
and scientists use it more than normal speakers.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

>The more I read your explanations, the more I'm convinced.

Sorry to cut in, but I wonder if this sentence is correct. Gramatically,
it should read "The more times I read your explanations, the more convinced
I was/got." I don't mean to be rude, but I just thought that this was
a typical mistake seen among Japanese people. Many students tend to write, for example,
"The more he read books, the more he got interested in the problem."
Does this sentence make sense to native speakers??

>>620
It makes plenty of sense to me. "Was" and "got" can be used interchangeably
in that sentence. There are certain cases that they wouldn't work either way.

>>618
I see. Thank you.

>>620 >>621
Also, "the more I am convinced" is active; "the more I was convinced" is
passive. Same thing with your example; it makes sense, but it has a slight
difference in meaning.

As far as "more" => "more times", the subject might not be reading the
same explanation over and over; they might be reading new, additional
explanations. It's better to leave it general, and only use "more".

I have a question on Japanese.

I would like to know what あるほと means in this sentence.

前衛芸術に関心のあるほとには向いているかもしれない。

I can't find either あるほと or ほと in the dictionary.

>>624
あるほと　doesn't make sense at all. It's a typo.
It should be あるひと or ある人 if you use a kanji character.
aruh"i"to, aruh"o"to. i and h is side by side on a keyboard.

---に関心のある人 ＝ ---に関心がある人＝ a person/people who are interested in ---.

>>625
Thank you! That makes a lot more sense.

Why do many English speakers spell "alot" instead of "a lot"?
Is it an acceptable spelling?

>>617 >>618

I agree that 'enable' is a formal term.
But I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is mostly used by scientists and engineers.

For example, computer nerds might be heard to say something like 'Why did you enable NETBIOS? Dumbass.' They aren't exactly scientists.
Somehow the word 'enable' always ends up being used in relation to fianance as well. For example 'This new tax will enable us to increase the effectiveness of the public health system.'

I personally use the word 'enable' quite a bit, but my english is relatively formal even during normal conversations. It's because I am a nerd.

>>627
It's not acceptable, but it's very common. (So is confusion between 'lose' and
'loose', 'your' and 'you're', etc.

>620
Thank you for the comment on my question. But what I wanted to ask you
was not the difference between was and got, or passive and active, but
the differences of word order.

The correct word order, I think, is:

"The more books he read, the more interested he got in the problem."

I' like to know whether "the more books" and "the more interested"
must be put together because they are sense groups, or they can be
put separately like the example I memtioned before.
What do you think??

>>630
You wouldn't have the same meaning if you separated them. "The more books he read,
the more interested he got in the problem.", gives me an idea that he was reading
books related to a problem and he was intrigued even further when he kept on reading
more.

To separate them, you'd have to restructure the sentence and basically butcher
the original meaning. "He read more books. He became more interested in the problem."
In that sentence, you'd diminish what you mean. There is not a single trace of
the two things linking together. Even if you reworked them further, you wouldn't
have the same effect.

>631
Thank you again for your detailed reply. But that wouldn't be what
I wanted to know. I have to admit that my explanation was a bit awkward.
I'd like to ask you a much simpler question:

"The more he read books, the more he became interested in the problem."
"The more books he read, the more interested he became in the problem."

Are these two sentences grammatically correct?

In my opinion, "books" should be put directly after "the more", and likewise
"interested" after "the more", because "the more books" forms a sense group and
an object of the verb "read", and likewise "the more interested" is a compliment
of the verb "become". But judging from your post, I guess both two sentences are
acceptable, right?

>>628
Thank you for your response.
I think I get to understand deeper how "enable" is used.

>>632
Both sentences are correct. They have similar meanings so people would get
what you're at either way.

I have a guestion guys.
Can you say "I'll give you a gift when you've come back to Japan."?

I thought "I'll give you a gift when you come back to Japan" would be better.

I have a guestion guys.
Can you say "I'll give you a gift when you've come back to Japan."?

I thought "I'll give you a gift when you come back to Japan" would be better.

>634
Thank you for your prompt reply. This is very interesting to me.
Please compare the following sentences.

The more interested he became in psychology, the more he studied.
The more she became beautiful, the more he loved her.
The more the game became exciting, the more people gathered around.

I think the second sentence is not acceptable. But how about the last one?
If it's ok, we can say that in "the more+adjective structure,"
an adjective deriving from a present/past particle can be put after the verb.

>>636
Both have basically the same meanings. You just pick and choose which one you like.

>>637
The second one sounds okay, however, the last one is a strain to hear. In some cases
you may want to opt for the adjective after "the more" just because it sounds better.
The last one should be reworked to where it can flow. If the sentence doesn't flow when
read aloud, then it won't work.

>>629
thanks

Thank you for your reply.

>If the sentence doesn't flow when
read aloud, then it won't work.

To foreigners, almost all sentences don't seem to flow...
Anyways, thank you again for your detailed explanations!

I wonder which sounds natural between
"Thank you for your reply" and
"Thank you for the reply".

>>640
What's written in a grammar book isn't everything.
Maybe you should read English more.
The more you read, the more you understand what natural English is all about.

>>641
Both work. Except, "Thank you for your reply" indicates that the reply
specifically came from the person you were talking to. "Thank you for the reply"
has no real indication where, or from who, the reply came from. With that, you'd only
have to judge through the context of the conversation.

>>642
Exactly, reading books is a big thing. Contemporary literature captures our native English
well. But, reading newsprint such as the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal
will definitely help you understand the flow of sentences and correct grammar.

>>637
To me, the last sounds awkward because the game isn't what's increasing,
but the excitement. Having 'more' and 'excitement' separated like that is
harder to keep track of.
"The more exciting the game became, the more people gathered around"
sounds a little better.

This makes me think I should try to remember how to diagram sentences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CptiimiA-8

what about Daniel Radcliff's accent?
tell me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92Pi4v91FXg&mode=related&search=

Arent libera kind of cockney?

>>645
Well, he definitely has an English accent; not Cockney, though.

>>646
Libera are from South London, so there are some things in common with
the traditional Cockney accent, but it's not the same. They pronounce
their h's, though, which rules Cockney out.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney#London_speech for more info.

>>647
Tah,
btw where are you from?

一見コックニーアクセントのように聞こえるけど違うのは、大体Estuary EnglishってことでFAでしょうか？

Is this boy cockney http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRZ0gx-oQGc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_5rtJ8JUVs is this cockney?
he says Faver for father

no but strange accent
whast this

俺の当面の目標はこのスレに参加することだな・・・

I really have no idea. I'm not familiar with different British accents.

i have enormous respect for british accent.
sounds very cute.
im sorry that i have american accent, not british one.

I find British accents to be more intelligent and proper.

I find British accents to be nasty.

It depends on the British accent.

>>654
Are u Aussie

"Al Gore is known as the man who used to be vice president to Bill Clinton. But
today, he's travelling around the world as a carbon neutral man."

I have a question. What does this "carbon neutral man" mean?
Is there any differenses between "carbon neutrai man" and just "neutral man?"

"Certainly, there are many superstitions here that seem odd to foreigners,
such as, don’t cut your fingernails at night or you won’t be able to
be with your parents when they die, don’t whistle at night or snakes
will come and get you."

What does this "get you" specificly mean.
Does this mean "attack you?"

>>660
I guess so
"Snakes will come and get you." is just one of the ways of sayings
that parents scare their children and teach them not to stay up till late at night, or not to be noisy at night.

So it doesn't have to be snake. Anything that is scary for children will do.
It can be ghosts, thieves or something evil.
And it actually differs by the place you live.

>>661
Thank you for your answer.

It's interesting to know that "get" can mean "attack" depending on
a context.

its hard to say No and Yes in English for me
if someone say to me " You don't like it?" if I dont like it, I want to say "yes" yes,I dont like it. hai. = you're right.

you should think , はい means, 　you are right, i agree with you
not same to Yes of English

English learning at elementary school is probably going to be compulsory subject from fifth grade and up.

But in recent news, Education ministry, Bunmei Ibuki expressed that this isn't necessary
because there is more important and fundamental subject like Japanese.
Children don't need to learn other language before they learn proper use of their mother language.

What do you think about this?
There are many countries where they teach English or other language (as a second language) in elementary school.
Tell us about your country.

>>659
'carbon neutral' is in reference to global warming and 京都議定書.
It means "asborb as much carbon dioxide as you use".

>>665
Ibuki sounds foolish. It's much easier to learn foreign languages when
you're young than when you're older. Some schools in America teach
foreign languages in grade school; I wish I had that.
Learning other languages (and about other cultures) keeps you from
ignoring the rest of the world.

>>666
Oh. Now I understand carbon as in carbon neutral comes from carbon dioxide.
Thank you, merkin.

666, 666, 666

You got a lucky number. :p

Man, I missed a lot. I think learning another language at a young age not only is easier,
but it also opens children's minds. The more they obtain through language the easier it is
to retain complex subjects later in life. It builds capacity.

I followed a link and ended up being on a site related Mika tan, a porn star.

She says, "I am sending a free non-nude 8x10 to any any military
personnel serving in the Middle East."

What's 8x10? Is it a photo of the size of 8inchesx10inches?

>>666>>669
I agree with you.

Personally, I can't help suspecting that the minister has some connection
with "English learning industry". As you may or may not know, there are
a large number of English learning schools in Japan. It's a big industry.
So if Japanese people can learn a lot of English as a child, then it means
the needs for such schools will go down and those children will end up turning
their backs when they come of age..

Another guess is, "backlash against sweeping globalism". I mean,
as globalization is rapidly spreading, some people have started to think
they should remember what they should be like, how different they are
from others. And mother language is one thing they should put emphasis on..
Moreover, they are likely stick to the notion that learning English at an early age
makes bad influences on Japanese children.
(I wanted to ask them whether Japanese children in English communities
who go to English school on weekdays and Japanese school on weekends, are badly influenced.)

>>670
You are right 8x10 is measurements for the size of picture glossy.

>>671
I understand the notion for tradition, but really, people that learn English
may want to pursue higher levels. The English learning schools can then
up their levels of learning the language and that would save them from
losing customers. Economics is a a tricky game. Personally, tradition should be
kept alive, but if a community wants its schools to offer English or whatever other
language, let it.

>>672
Thank you for your answer.

My mom bought me an Adidas T-shirt.
It's not a fake one but words written on front of it doesn't sound cool
to me. The words written on front is "MADONNA UNIVERSITY."

What do you think? How does it sound to native English speakers.
Tell me your honest opinion.
Maybe I should wear it only at home? lol

>>674
Personally, I wouldn't want to wear that shirt. Madonna just reminds me of the
pop singer.

>>674
I'd wear it, but I love Engrish stuff.

>>676
I think Spanglish stuff is better. It's more amusing.

>>675-676
Thank you for your responses.
What I don't understand is why they put MODONNA and UNIVERSITY together
and What they try to mean by that.

The T-shirt is made in Mexico but I doubt it's Spanglish. That's just
labor cost there is much lower than US.

I think I'll waear it only at home or when I take a walk at night.　:)

http://up1.skr.jp/src/up14066.wma.html

What do you think of her English?
There's a possibility that it will be deleted by the time you click on it.

>>678
I think it might be an actual university then. Madonna is refering to the Christian
Madonna (Mary Mother of Christ). That could be a possibility.

>>680
Ohhh. You are right. I googled and found its website.
http://www.madonna.edu/

It's in Michigan.

Wow, this thread is serious.

Native English speakers....could you kindly answer the following question?
(I appologize if this has already been asked by someone already.)
Q.
What is the difference between:
compensate the loss
and
compensate for the loss?
(Dictionaries haven't been much help.)

>>683
They have the same basic meanings. However, "compensate the loss" takes on
an active voice. "Compensate for the loss" takes a passive voice. You want to
go with the first one most of the time. Dictionaries only help for one word, this
is more of a grammical issue.

>>684
Thank you very much.

Manga claiming holocaust never happened

I don't mean to turn this political but after some research
I stumbled across a manga which I can present the link (I can't read japanese very well)

http://translate.google.com/transla...an2_mokuji.html

or for the raw link http://maa999999.hp.infoseek.co.jp/...an2_mokuji.html

>>686
Your links are working. Plus, what do you mean by "Manga claiming holocaust
never happened..."?

When native english speakers pronounce the word "obvious",
do they pronounce the "b"?

>>688
I don't really. It's more of a soft b sound. I don't emphasize the sound
but more of a really short pause before the "v".

>>689
That's what I thought!
Pronuncing "v" right after "b" is very difficult.
Thank you for your response.

>>690
You're welcome. Just ask anytime.

>>688
As A Person said - it's pronounced (very roughly) like ブヴぃ with the う
being unvoiced. in IPA: /ɒb-viː-əs/
if you go to http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/obvious and click on the red
speaker icon, you can hear a native English speaker say it.

I was reading a paperback and there was a discription like this.
"She had black shiny hair the color of a raven."

Don't you feel uncomfortable discribed like this?
I mean I don't feel nice if my hair was compared to a raven,
because in Japan, raven is a bird that is something ominous.

>>693
Ravens are considered a little spooky, but there's nothing too awful about
them. "Raven-black hair" is a pretty common phrase.

>>694
I see. So there is nothing negative meaning in this expression.
Thank you for your response.

>>693
A raven can mean something ominous is approaching, such like in Edgar Allen Poe's
writing, but in this context it's just as merkin said. The raven is used
as an adjective to describe the woman's hair. (Unless there was more to that.)

P.S. I might do some recordings of pronounciation for special cases and requests.

>>693
Actually we have a very similar expression in Japanese, too.
That is "Your hair is the color of a wet feather of a raven", and
this is used as a compliment.

>>697
I forgot to write that in japanese, "髪はカラスの濡羽色。”
Just FYI.

>>696
As you may already know, Edfar Allen Poe is very famous in Japan for his
novels and his pen-name is 江戸川乱歩(Edogawaranpo).
He invented this Japanese pen-name by applying Kanji characters which has the
closest sound to his English name.
So for a while, I didn't know he was non-Japanese.

>>699
I am sorry if I read your comment wrong but do you mean Edgar Allen Poe
and 江戸川乱歩(Edogawaranpo) is the same writer?

Edgar Allen Poe and 江戸川乱歩(Edogawaranpo) are different persons.
The latter, 江戸川乱歩(Edogawaranpo) is a Japanese mistery writer.
I've heard somewhere that he chose the pen-name because he had admired
Edgar Allen Poe as a mistery writer.

>>700
Thank you soooo very much for correcting my stupid mistake!!!!!!!
I wish I could withdraw what I wrote in >>699.
You are completely correct.
Thank you again for pointing that out.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/江戸川乱歩

>>700
You're a warrior of chaos, that you are.