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Can we ever fill in all the gaps?

  Tags: Advanced Level
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
39 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4
beano
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian

 
 Message 33 of 39
31 October 2013 at 10:45am | IP Logged 
dampingwire wrote:

You must have come across "parlay" ... think of that recent Pirate film (you know,
"disinclined to acquiesce ...").


Yep, I missed that one.
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Arekkusu
Hexaglot
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Canada
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 Message 34 of 39
31 October 2013 at 2:42pm | IP Logged 
beano wrote:
Can we ever fill in all the gaps?

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.
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Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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1256 posts - 2363 votes 
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 35 of 39
31 October 2013 at 2:53pm | IP Logged 
sillygoose1 wrote:
Are you sure? I just heard "clé anglaise" recently from a show made in 2004. Unless the change came after that?

Of course, clé anglaise is still in use, however, neutral alternative translations, e.g. clé à crémaillère exist.

dampingwire wrote:
You must have come across "parlay" ... think of that recent Pirate film (you know, "disinclined to acquiesce ...").

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).
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Einarr
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
einarrslanguagelog.w
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 Message 36 of 39
31 October 2013 at 7:47pm | IP Logged 
montmorency wrote:
Einarr wrote:



Speaking of English, I still get puzzled by the Doric sometimes. The most staggering
occasion was when I was at a store, buying a jacket. The girl behind the till first
asked me: "U ne a ba fo da" which after several repetitions came out as "Do you need a
bag for that". I didn't get any luckier than this with her second question, which was:
"Du u ne d haar" which turned out to be "Do you need the hanger". And this wasn't an
isolated case, just the other way around.



If it's any consolation, plenty of English people might have been puzzled as well.

It's often just a question of "getting your ear in", and knowing in advance what to
expect, but if your concentration goes, or you forget where you are for a moment, you
can be lost momentarily.


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".
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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 37 of 39
31 October 2013 at 8:35pm | IP Logged 

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 4204 days ago

747 posts - 1123 votes 
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin
Studies: French

 
 Message 38 of 39
31 October 2013 at 10:17pm | IP Logged 
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.
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cpnlsn
Triglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5933 days ago

22 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English*, French, German

 
 Message 39 of 39
31 October 2013 at 10:33pm | IP Logged 
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.




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