Their getting better....Follow

This.

And I think this is the main reason native speakers (at least native speakers of English in the United States) aren't as good, at times and in some respects, as non-native English speakers.

You don't really *need* the meta-language in order to communicate with the people who matter to you, and the younger you are, the fewer people matter to you. I know I didn't start worrying about what employers might think until I was out of high school (which I realize is kind of late, but my parents always held the belief that school WAS my job up until then). Add to that the fact that, in the United States anyway, being good at English is the opposite of prestigious (compared to other subjects---someone good at math may easily be considered a genius, but if you're good at English, you're what? a grammar ****? Not exactly flattering.) Add to THAT the fact that when people were trying to figure out English, they tried to jam it into Latin and created a meta-language about English that is far more complicated and needlessly obtuse than is useful. People still use this version of English linguistics, and it's about the most convoluted and crazy thing I've ever come across in dealing with linguistics. I could go on a subjunctive rant right now, but I really think you don't want me to go there .

When learning a foreign language, on the other hand, you do need to learn the structures and principles of how languages in general work because that's where a lot of the differences among languages occur, so you end up learning a lot about your native language, too. So, I would expect native speakers who've learned a foreign language to be better in their native language than other native speakers. Of course I have not done a study to substantiate that claim.

Oh, yeah, you're right. You can learn a foreign language through immersion. It's different then, though, because you need the foreign language in the same way you need English as a kid. When they try to do "immersion" in an English high school, though . . . that's not real immersion, and the students don't really need the language.

Subjunctive. No, I wasn't talking about subordinating conjuctions. And main clauses are different (and treated slightly differently) than subordinate clauses. I was talking about the subjunctive mood. And we have it, but we don't . . . but we also call the conditional mood (which we do have) the "subjunctive", which is really confusing to people who know languages with both.

Russian, okay. I can understand why Russians call both the subjunctive and the conditional the same thing. They're formed almost identically. The only difference in Russian between the subjunctive and the conditional is that they use "chtoby" instead of just "by" with the subjunctive. Otherwise, they're the same.

But in English, "I want you to go to the store" looks NOTHING like "I would like to go to the movies tonight." And it's the latter that's called the subjunctive. But that's what's called the conditional in other languages (well, French and Spanish, anyway), while the first is called "subjunctive." Basically, the subjunctive is used when you have TWO subjects/actors, with some form of hierarchy (which varies depending on language---saying "I know that you are going to the store" is not usually in the subjunctive). So if one person wants/doubts that another person do something, that's subjunctive in languages other than English. It could be argued that English does not actually have subjunctive, because we usually do not form it that way (i.e. we rarely say "I want that you go to the store"), and get around it by making the second subject a direct object that is *modified* by the infinitive (I want you to go to the store). But then we call the conditional the subjunctive, which is why things are really confusing, since we DO have the conditional (would, in the vaguely futuristic sense).

Yeah, I really wasn't going to go there, but I guess I did. What can I say---I may not be a computer geek, but I am most definitely a language geek.

Nerd alert!

When it comes to grammar, I'm just lost. Really lost, which is why sometimes I accidentally use Danish grammar in my posts, especially if they're written fast and/or are long.

Most of my understanding of the English language comes from watching TV, playing video games and listening to music. Posting here has also helped, something I noticed when I went through some of my old posts.

I can, often, tell you when there's something wrong about a sentence, but I can rarely tell you why, other than 'it sounds wrong'. Something my English teacher wasn't really all that happy about.

But I was always right.

Aeth, sweety, your commas are all over the place.


And being able to detect what 'sounds wrong' is one of those things that, like generally learning language without meta-language, require a lot of exposure.

See, I'm bad with commas in English. I use them far too often. All I ask is that you use them with some sort of consistency.

Like [main clause start][comma][relative clause][comma][main clause cont.] or something. Leaving one of the commas out means you're not even following your own rules. For the record, the above example works with or without commas, generally. There's a shift in meanings, though.

The main issue with subordinate clauses vs. main clauses is really whether or not the clause makes sense as a complete sentence. So, what makes them different isn't syntax, it's meaning. You're right in that there's no syntactic difference between "The rain fell while I followed you." and "The rain fell, and I followed you" other than that the second one requires a comma. On the other hand, you can say "The rain fell. I followed you." -- and it means pretty much the same thing as #2. It does not mean the same thing as #1, and you can't say "The rain fell. While I followed you." A subordinating conjunction is part of the meaning of the subordinate clause in a way that a coordinating conjunction is not, and that meaning in turn, is dependent on the main clause.

So, syntactically, they do seem the same, but from a meaning standpoint, they aren't.

With "because", it's the same thing. You can have "I said I was sorry because I was wrong." And a lot of times you'll have questions like "Why? Because I was wrong." But even in those times, that "because" does two things: 1) it is part of the meaning of the rest of that clause -- "I said I was sorry. I was wrong" means something different than "I said I was sorry because I was wrong", and 2)it doesn't make any sense without the *something* that was done *because* of something else (i.e. the main clause). Admittedly, it can be fun to play "Why?" "Because." games, but for actual communication, there has to be more than that: "Why did you say you were sorry?" "(I said I was sorry) Because I was wrong." So, even when it looks like a main clause, it's still a subordinate clause. I don't really know how other languages define subordinate and main clauses, though, so I'm not sure if this is helpful.


So, now I'm curious:

How do you render the expression "I want you to go to the store" in your language?

Oh. I thought you were asking a question. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

"I speak two languages, English and Bad English"

While I am not a savant by any means, I did score in the top 1% in the military language school testing and I learn other languages VERY quickly. (Maybe to make up for my ****** math?) One thing that I have noticed about the American English language (not to be mistaken for true English.) is that we, as a whole are lazy as hell when it comes to speaking. We take shortcuts, make up crap as we go along and bastardize the language ourselves 943 ways to Sunday. How in the HELL can we expect others to speak/read/write/comprehend our language when the majority of our own citizens either do not understand or care enough to make an effort to sound like they have an eddymuhkashun level higher than that of a sea slug? It's not even so much a matter of dialect as it is a matter of bastardization. I am not even talking about speaking with perfect diction and grammar. As background, I live in the heart of Alabama, so far out in the sticks our sunlight gets here 3 days late, so believe me when I tell you I have heard some of the most absurd things coming from people here. Imagine you are new to the US with just the slightest of grasps on the language and you wander into a small redneck town where you hear things like:

"Ya'll mind carryin' me to the store?"
or
"Ya'll ain't got no cookin' lard do yas?"
or
"I am fixin ta go do xxxx"


Sheesh. No wonder I had less trouble learning Pashtu, at least as a whole the language stays the same.

Should be no need to apologize!



Thanks for derailing it again, I almost forgot what the subject of this thread was when I got into the language bit because I got lost in the fascination of it all and I was trying to keep up. I hope it stays derailed now, quite honestly.



I grew up mostly in South Carolina, but I did a lot of travel growing up since one parent was in the military and I traveled a lot between divorced parents.

I lived in AL for a couple of years after I got out of the military myself, and admittedly, in speech, I use Ya'll a decent amount, even before living in AL, though I don't think I really use it in text too much. I don't have the accent that goes along with the kind of people you'd expect to speak that way, so I think it tends to get an obvious reaction from anyone first hearing me say the word. I think most people would tend to think that I'm fairly accent neutral. Most people would find it nearly impossible to place me based on stereotypes or the likes listening to words I choose to use or my accent.

I also use "fixin" in speech a fair amount and currently I have one individual that confuses me to no end almost every time because he says something like, "After you fix it, let me know." It's almost always a deer in headlights moment for me: "What?!" *forehead wrinkles*

Outside of those two words, ya'll and fixin, I wouldn't speak anything like the above quoted text haha. "carryin' me to the store" sounds almost alien to me even having lived in AL for two years... "do yas" too!

I think for me, as far as commas go, I tend to do something similar to Mazra as far as putting them where a seeming natural pause would be. I generally did well in English classes when it came time to choosing a, b, c, or d that was written incorrectly, or adding commas to a paragraph that had none, or identifying to, two, and too or their, there, and they're that were used incorrectly. Even though I managed to, for the most part, use commas correctly, or write sentences correctly, I couldn't really begin to tell you why the comma goes here or there, or cite some rule or name of a specific section of a sentence outside of the noun, the verb, the adjectives haha.

Subordinate clauses, subjunctive, infinitive...

Some of this stuff looks pretty familiar to me. I know it was taught in high school, the words have a place in the back of my head, but there's just no way I could begin to try to teach someone what these things are without looking at some kind of reference.

Having read through this thread thus far, I would guess that the way I learned the English language growing up was largely an immersion process? Interesting derail.

That's because they drive on the right there isn't it?

Got another new one today written well but doesnt actually explain anything about why my account is being banned.




Edited, Jun 25th 2010 7:13am by Gutler

I'm completely guilty of run-on sentences peppered by commas where natural pauses would go as if I were speaking. It feels far too robotic to simply limit myself to a statement per period, so I simply just go with the flow to create a grammatical structure that is both easy to understand and uniquely 'me'. With no trans fat. (Or death crystals.)