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Tricky situation: "is" vs "are" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ocean Newbie United States Joined 5370 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 29 21 March 2010 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Saying "Languages are my hobby" would be understood. When talking with native English speakers, you are more than likely not going to be using formal English. If you were to say something like "Coins are my hobby" you would be more easily understood than if you were to say "I'm a numismatist."
Sometimes it is better to be colloquial than to be correct. Just my two cents. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 26 of 29 21 March 2010 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
"Coins are my hobby" strikes me as both colloquial and correct - they're not always opposed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 27 of 29 21 March 2010 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As a descriptivist, I say that colloquial is always correct, but when it comes to learning, sometimes we've got to simplify to control the variables. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ocean Newbie United States Joined 5370 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 29 21 March 2010 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Some other people felt that "Languages are my hobby" was incorrect. I agree with you, but my reply was directed at people who felt that that phrasing was incorrect. Although colloquial and correct are not mutually exclusive, sometimes there is a distinction between the two. For instance people could be criticized for using who when whom is appropriate because it is not proper English, but the overwhelming majority of native speakers don't use whom or even know how to use it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 29 of 29 22 March 2010 at 5:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
'Who' vs 'whom' actually illustrates several possibilities quite well (leaving aside that quite a lot of constructs can be in the grey area between correct and incorrect). Aside from the possibilities you mentioned, it's also quite possible to be wrong and not colloquial, by overcorrecting and using 'whom' when 'who' is correct instead. "Whom are you?" is certainly not colloquial, and certainly quite wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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