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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 9 of 23 10 January 2010 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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That sounds like broken English to me. What's a "number president"?
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 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 23 10 January 2010 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree it doesn't sound right grammatically, but it's what I would say to ask that question. I can't think of any better way to phrase it that feels natural!
EDIT: For what it's worth if you google "What number president was" (with quotes) you'll see quite a few hits... Edited by newyorkeric on 10 January 2010 at 2:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6042 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 11 of 23 10 January 2010 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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The fact that almost every single German noun has an irregular plural is another thing I found hard to believe when I first started studying German. I always thought the formation of plurals was mostly regular. I don't understand how a language can not have a regular rule. When a German native speaker finds a new word in a book how do they know what it's plural form is? Do they guess or look it up in the dictionary? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7165 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 12 of 23 10 January 2010 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
I am not a native speaker, but believe it or not, the plurals have different forms, but they aren't that irregular. They are just more complex than English plurals, which are actually much more complicated than they appear at first glance if you read a linguistic description of them. I don't know if you've actually looked at an English rulebook for forming plurals, but keep in mind that English learners have to learn these things explicitly (or get so much input that they learn the plurals naturally): -Nouns that end with -s, -z, -x, -sh, -ch add -es (e.g. glass, glasses) -Nouns that end in -o add -es (e.g. potato/potatoes) with the exceptions of studio/studios, piano/pianos, kangaroo/kangaroos, etc. BUT either buffalos/buffaloes, cargos/cargoes, mottos/mottoes -Nouns ending in y, change y to i and add -es (e.g. baby-babies) -Nouns from other languages: If it ends in -is, change to -es (analysis/analyses), ends in -um, change to -a (datum/data), ends in -ex or -ix, change to -ices (index/indices) -regular pronunciation mappings from -f to -v (e.g. roof--roofs but pronounced "rooves" [and up until the 80s still spelled that way in Australia]) -not to mention the nouns that are plural but don't have an -s, such as people, police, cattle As we see, even in English it's not just a matter of "adding an s." It seems second nature to you as a native speaker, but again, as an English learner, all of those rules have to learned explicitly until you get a feel for them. Believe it or not, it's actually the same way in German--the plurals seem random, but they do follow rules--just a longer list than the one above. As you get deeper, you do develop a "feel" for what the plural should be--and it turns out that you're wrong about as often as an English speaker is for an irregular noun (That is to say, relatively rarely--like the odd time when you learn, "Oh, the plural of attorney general is attorneys general, got it."). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 13 of 23 10 January 2010 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are a number of "flaws" I noticed in English when studying Dutch. I find the use of 'to know' instead of the archaic 'to wit' annoying. There were plenty of others but I can't remember them.
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| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5566 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 14 of 23 10 January 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Ahhh school.. the perpetual wasting of a childs keen imagination, intrinsic learning abilty and inherent exuberence. Reform i say!! Since studying Dutch, i've noticed, or so it appears (still only a beginner in the language), that English has many more words in it's linguistic rucksack in order to form a particular, specific meaning. While with Dutch, instead of having a vast vocabulary, it seems to use fewer words more frequently and in many different positions of placement, in order to achieve a more subtle specific meaning. Has anyone else found this? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 15 of 23 10 January 2010 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | ||
No. In Dutch/Flemish there can be tons of words for everything, concrete or not. There are three Dutch words I know of for a 'sink' for example; gootsteen; wastafel; or afwasbak. However, we use none of those in Flanders and use either; pombak, lavabo, or wasbak! And a lot of words exist with Germanic and French equivalents, both of which are used: aanvallen/attqueren versnellen/accelereren beklemptonen/benadrukken/accentueren aankomen/arriveren etc... These words only have one word in English as far as I know. Other examples: 'to know' in English represents different meanings and can be 'kennen' or 'weten' 'if' in English represents different meanings and can be 'of' or 'als' 'only' in English represents different meanings and can be 'alleen' or '(alleen) maar' in Dutch. I've encountered many others, but that's all I can think of at the moment. I think Dutch and English both have very rich vocabularies as they are both Germanic languages that have heavily borrowed from French. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 16 of 23 11 January 2010 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
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What about whichth? "Whichth president is Obama.
Or whatth. Hard to pronounce perhaps? You could perhaps say "Which president in line is he?" or even "How many presidents preceded him?"! By the way, "what number president", isn't that quite OK when talking about public transportation, like busses, trams, trolleys and trains, as in "What number bus do you take to get to Oxford Street, governor?" Edited by Gusutafu on 11 January 2010 at 3:27am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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