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You know you’re a language nerd when...

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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
3737 messages over 468 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 246 ... 467 468 Next >>
QiuJP
Triglot
Senior Member
Singapore
Joined 5605 days ago

428 posts - 597 votes 
Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French
Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 1961 of 3737
26 September 2011 at 9:34am | IP Logged 
QiuJP wrote:
   

When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.


When you insert commas that look unnatural in English (or Chinese), because in other languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Jinx
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
reverbnation.co
Joined 5443 days ago

1085 posts - 1879 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French
Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish

 
 Message 1962 of 3737
26 September 2011 at 11:03am | IP Logged 
QiuJP wrote:
QiuJP wrote:
   

When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.


When you insert commas that look unnatural in English (or Chinese), because in other languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.


I've totally started doing that. Now when I write a sentence like this one in English, every part of my brain is screaming "RUN-ON SENTENCE!" (I originally wrote that previous sentence without any commas, but I couldn't bear it and had to go back and add the comma after "English".)
2 persons have voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4806 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 1963 of 3737
26 September 2011 at 11:32am | IP Logged 
Jinx wrote:
QiuJP wrote:
QiuJP wrote:
   

When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on
that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.


When you insert commas that look unnatural in English (or Chinese), because in other
languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you
are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.


I've totally started doing that. Now when I write a sentence like this one in English,
every part of my brain is screaming "RUN-ON SENTENCE!" (I originally wrote that
previous sentence without any commas, but I couldn't bear it and had to go back and add
the comma after "English".)

Isn't the comma before "when" necessary. Why do we have to put a comma after "English",
but do not have to put a comma after "now"?

Edited by Марк on 26 September 2011 at 11:32am

1 person has voted this message useful



Jinx
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
reverbnation.co
Joined 5443 days ago

1085 posts - 1879 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French
Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish

 
 Message 1964 of 3737
26 September 2011 at 3:03pm | IP Logged 
Марк wrote:
Jinx wrote:
QiuJP wrote:
QiuJP wrote:
   

When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on
that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.


When you insert commas that look unnatural in English (or Chinese), because in other
languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you
are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.


I've totally started doing that. Now when I write a sentence like this one in English,
every part of my brain is screaming "RUN-ON SENTENCE!" (I originally wrote that
previous sentence without any commas, but I couldn't bear it and had to go back and add
the comma after "English".)

Isn't the comma before "when" necessary. Why do we have to put a comma after "English",
but do not have to put a comma after "now"?


No, Mark, you're absolutely right, one should indeed theoretically have two commas in my example sentence! The reason I wrote it like that was to purposefully show how I need to consciously REMOVE commas now, even if I have to halfway-give-in by including one after all. ;)
1 person has voted this message useful



montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4578 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 1965 of 3737
26 September 2011 at 4:46pm | IP Logged 
Jinx wrote:


No, Mark, you're absolutely right, one should indeed theoretically have two commas in
my example sentence! The reason I wrote it like that was to purposefully show how I
need to consciously REMOVE commas now, even if I have to halfway-give-in by including
one after all. ;)


This is interesting:

http://grammar.wikia.com/wiki/Oxford_english_prepositions

Quote:

And, outside of North America, which is very conservative with its language, there is a
strong tendency towards minimising punctuation.


i.e. so long as the meaning is clear, we can remove as much punctuation as we want in
modern British English. This is certainly the message that has been both implicit and
explicit, in developments in English during my adult life. So I used to minimise them.
I think, like Jinx, I now tend to put more in again, owing to the influence of German,
which has some strict rules, but even then, in some cases, allows you to put extra ones
in if they make the meaning clearer. You can't leave out the compulsory ones though.




Edited by montmorency on 26 September 2011 at 4:48pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4806 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 1966 of 3737
26 September 2011 at 6:25pm | IP Logged 
montmorency wrote:


i.e. so long as the meaning is clear, we can remove as much punctuation as we want in
modern British English. This is certainly the message that has been both implicit and
explicit, in developments in English during my adult life. So I used to minimise them.

Then full stops and especially question marks must be omitted. Questions have special
constructions and new sentences start with a capital letter.
2 persons have voted this message useful



LebensForm
Senior Member
Austria
Joined 4800 days ago

212 posts - 264 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 1967 of 3737
27 September 2011 at 4:01pm | IP Logged 
When your local German channel is still out, beem almost 2 weeks and you've had enough so you are going to go over there and talk to the man in charge of cable stuff. I wonder if anyone else even knows that it's not working, eh they just don't care like I do :(

When you look forward to your language labs.
1 person has voted this message useful





meramarina
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5717 days ago

1341 posts - 2303 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: German, Italian, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 1968 of 3737
29 September 2011 at 4:30am | IP Logged 
You know you are a language nerd when you want to practice your languages, but that's simply impossible because you've just had emergency dental surgery. So to console yourself as you recover, you try to invent a language program for the half-numb, half-agonized, swollen and somewhat drugged language learner:

Wanna lern ta ffffpeeek a lankfish like Ffpaniff ur Ruffiin wiff da befft meffet? (spit blood) Fell dats too bat, gonna hafta wait. Dammit hurt. Fut up and go ta fweep till dwugs go way



Edited by meramarina on 29 September 2011 at 4:31am



2 persons have voted this message useful



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