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Can we ever fill in all the gaps? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 33 of 39 31 October 2013 at 10:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Yep, I missed that one. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 34 of 39 31 October 2013 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's pretty safe to say I will never fill in all the gaps in my first language. There's always something I didn't know, some new or old expression I never heard, and when I venture into other regional or national varieties, there are more gaps than could ever be filled. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 35 of 39 31 October 2013 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course, clé anglaise is still in use, however, neutral alternative translations, e.g. clé à crémaillère exist.
Actually, they spelled it wrong in the pirate movies. What they meant was parley = to talk with an enemy or someone you disagree with especially in order to end a conflict (Meriam Webster). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Einarr Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom einarrslanguagelog.w Joined 4611 days ago 118 posts - 269 votes Speaks: English, Bulgarian*, French, Russian Studies: Swedish | Message 36 of 39 31 October 2013 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is indeed a consolation and I firmly agree with what you said. Now that I've tuned in, it's been much much better. That being said, it staggers me how local employers who outsource their call centers abroad hire people who speak gibberish, instead of proper English I mean, now THAT's a gap. Yesterday I needed some random info from a bank and called their call center. The only things I got to understand out of the 5 minute conversation were: "sorry, sorry", "Let me check" and "I don't know". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 37 of 39 31 October 2013 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually, they spelled it wrong in the pirate movies. What they meant was parley = to talk with an enemy or someone you disagree with especially in order to end a conflict (Meriam Webster).[/QUOTE] Yes sorry, I goofed. (I've no idea whether they spelled it out in the film or not ... I just remember hearing it). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 38 of 39 31 October 2013 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When you are referring to common terms, there is a time period when a term comes into existence. Even in my
first language, there are terms that comes up in the technology age that didn't exist even 10 years ago like cellphone /mobile phone. Facebook. Some people assume common items are the same in all places. The word "timetable" is very common since everybody from different countries would take a bus, subway / underground or train. However, the same term may be written in another way. If we break the 1 word into 2 separate words someone may be thinking of the word "time" as hours, minutes & seconds and "table" as a place to put your books. When you put the 2 together in that context they don't fit. Unless you know the other meaning of table as a display of some sort on paper with boxes around. Take the Chinese version: 時間表 for instance the first 2 characters: 時間 means time. 表 as Simplified Chinese can mean a wristwatch. Put the 2 together time-watch doesn't give you the correct meaning. Take the other meaning for 表 which is a chart or a list you put the 2 together will give you the correct version time-list or time-chart. The word "spirit" is a bit harder to understand. If your profession is a bartender, you would know something this common. If you take the other meanings including 1 referring to a ghost of a dead person or being lively, you wouldn't arrive at a type of drink. To make things clear, sometimes you have to indicate the type of object you are referring to like Spirit is a type of alcoholic beverage. And in some cases you have to use another term if 1 is not understood like a "train schedule", "listing of train arrival & departure times" sort of thing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cpnlsn Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6171 days ago 22 posts - 29 votes Speaks: English*, French, German | Message 39 of 39 31 October 2013 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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On whether we can fill in all the gaps I think the answer is probably No. Then again
there are some domain specific vocabularies that I think a native speaker can absorb much more easily and a language learner can do their best to find a way to cover as many domains as possible. It is impossible to know all words in a language but many of these are rare and not important to meaning and in many cases will be unknown to native speakers. As well as covering as many domains as possible (food, health computers, religion, philosophy, politics, education, war and so on....) one would, I think, wish to favour language sources which emphasised daily speech in different domains (films, soaps, young people's TV programmes....). Whether you get to a point there will be no gaps is doubtful but the gaps can get smaller and smaller. With effort (admittedly very great effort...) one can acquire an enormous vocabulary (at least passive). We all have different aims in language learning but I would rather impress people with the depth of my vocabulary than by having the so called 'perfect' accent and pass as a native or even perfect grammar. If one wishes, vocab learning can be infinite and unending! I'm guessing this makes language consolidation enjoyable when arriving at an advanced level. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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