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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6229 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 17 of 162
07 November 2008 at 6:47pm | IP Logged 
Chung wrote:
Volte wrote:
A few things:

3)
BGreco wrote:
I would change "I'm well" to "I'm good." Nobody says "I'm well," and unless you are actually talking about being ill, "I'm good" is more correct.


Simply untrue. "I'm well" vs "I'm good" varies regionally; "I'm good" is colloquial American English. Prescriptivists tend to say "I'm well" is correct and "I'm good" isn't. In all honesty, while I'm not a prescriptivist, I am a native English speaker, and "I'm good" makes me wince. "I'm fine" or "I'm ok" is what I usually say.

To Sprachprofi: please, please, please don't change it to "I'm good".



Another possibility could be "I'm doing well" (it gets around the fuzziness whether one should or should not use a "true" adverb (i.e. "well") or let the adjective "good" do double duty as an unadulterated adverb as in "I feel good").


"I'm doing good" has about 3/4 of a million hits on google; I've heard it said.

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BGreco
Senior Member
Joined 6183 days ago

211 posts - 222 votes 
3 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Spanish

 
 Message 18 of 162
07 November 2008 at 6:56pm | IP Logged 
Jeeze, take a chill pill guys. 99% of people don't know what a copula is, and I'm just pointing that out.

And I don't know where you're from, but "(I'm) good" is pretty much to basic response to "How are you?" "I'm fine" and "I'm ok" don't mean the same thing as it, and "I'm well" is simply never said. And if it is said, the person is being pretentious as hell.
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J-Learner
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5820 days ago

556 posts - 636 votes 
Studies: Yiddish, English*
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 19 of 162
07 November 2008 at 6:58pm | IP Logged 
I am working on a draft for a Hebrew version. I will give some basic explanations of gender and other issues but they can be given a more in depth treatment later on just like Assimil does.

Another thing about interesting English dialects/styles of expression is that I never ask someone how they are "doing" but how they are "going". It was something I had never encountered until the internet. I feel all the richer for it. By the way to be doing good seem more like a financial thing.

Shalom,
Yehoshua.
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6229 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 20 of 162
07 November 2008 at 7:01pm | IP Logged 
BGreco wrote:
Jeeze, take a chill pill guys. 99% of people don't know what a copula is, and I'm just pointing that out.

And I don't know where you're from, but "(I'm) good" is pretty much to basic response to "How are you?" "I'm fine" and "I'm ok" don't mean the same thing as it, and "I'm well" is simply never said. And if it is said, the person is being pretentious as hell.


Nothing I said was meant to be heated or critical; I apologize if it came across that way.

Most native English speakers don't know what a copula is; a fair number of non-native speakers do. I do agree with your point that something should be done about this - I think a one or two sentence explanation of the concept would suffice (and would be easy to copy into the first lesson's footnotes for each language), but there are other alternatives.

I'm from Western Canada. The nuances of greetings, and which are used, vary regionally. I seriously doubt you'd ever use "good, mate" as the response to "how are you", as an Australian posted earlier in this thread. There's nothing wrong with it, but it'd be odd to say as someone from the United States, to someone in the United States. I'd feel very artificial saying it, or saying "I'm good".

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J-Learner
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5820 days ago

556 posts - 636 votes 
Studies: Yiddish, English*
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 21 of 162
07 November 2008 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
Is using another usage from another dialect of your own language more or less artificial than using a term from a different language?

Luckily in Hebrew "tov" means well and good :D
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6229 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 22 of 162
07 November 2008 at 7:11pm | IP Logged 
J-Learner wrote:
Is using another usage from another dialect of your own language more or less artificial than using a term from a different language?


In your own language, or in the other one? In the former case, similar (unless it's entered your language as a loan word); in the latter case, the use probably isn't artificial.

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J-Learner
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5820 days ago

556 posts - 636 votes 
Studies: Yiddish, English*
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 23 of 162
07 November 2008 at 7:21pm | IP Logged 
I think that it is great to have a large range of words that one uses and can understand. :)

But anyway, let's stop hijacking this thread!

Perhaps it is best to acknowledge that most people using this will likely speak American English and I, as an Australian, do not have a problem with that. We should not be literally translating anyway but using the common terms for the particular language.

Hopefully I will post a Hebrew version of those 2 dialogues tonight or tomorrow morning.

Shalom,
Yehoshua.
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Emerald
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
languagedabbler.blog
Joined 6035 days ago

316 posts - 340 votes 
Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 24 of 162
07 November 2008 at 7:55pm | IP Logged 
I have translated the lessons in Gujarati, but the font comes out as Gibbrish when I preview the post. Any suggestions?


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