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The Random Topic; Come... be Random!
Topic Started: Dec 5 2007, 06:29 PM (35,876 Views)
Elystriana
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Guardian and Healer of the Silyena Woods
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Some wonderful quotes I found on the English language....

English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

One of the best parts of English is how acceptable it is among English speakers to just invent new words at will. We verbize nouns, we nounize verbs, we pillage everything we can find in other languages, and word order is more of a suggestion than an absolute requirement.
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TheDeepDark
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Where light goes to die
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Also noticeable to me now in particular is the welding together of words.
That makes me wish I knew where this paper my brother got from his English teacher years ago ended up. Two pages of gems on the English language, including such as:

In English, a house can burn both down and up at the same time.

In America we'll drive our car on a parkway, and then park it on a driveway.
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Snofox Kari
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Protector of the Winter Forest
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well...language is more of an art form than a science :rolleyes: (especially english)
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Elystriana
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That's what makes it fun! :lol:
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TheDeepDark
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Indeed
:D
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Elystriana
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TheDeepDark
Mar 4 2013, 03:43 AM
It makes me glad that I'm a native English speaker- best language ever to play with.
...though, it's amazing how much you learn about your own language from learning other languages.
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TheDeepDark
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I certainly gained a new appreciation for, and frustration with, English as I started really learning Mandarin.
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Snofox Kari
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i've heard non-native speakers both love it and hate it....i guess it's an acquired taste :lol:

then again...according to a family member of a teacher, i'm not a native speaker and yet speak better than one... (all because of a phrase i used in a paper, "four years or younger" ...is there any doubt we are speaking age? kinda seemed a bit oxymoronic to say "old or younger" and i had already said "old" too many times...gosh do i despise repetition like that lol)
Edited by Snofox Kari, Mar 9 2013, 02:44 PM.
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Elystriana
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You're not a native speaker??
Though I guess it is harder to tell in writing than in speaking, if the person in question is at least decently proficient. *ponders*
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TheDeepDark
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I actually know a number of non-native speakers who are the best English users I've ever known.
Which makes sense actually. Where they learn the ins and outs of the language that I just take for granted, and actually study the language it's not all that surprising.
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towr
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If I understand Kari correctly she's saying she learned English after the age of four, and therefore wouldn't be considered a native speaker. (I don't really know what the considerations for the label are, wikipedia for example doesn't give a clean cut-off age, and I always thought the critical language-learning period was longer than that).
Note that this doesn't mean she had to study the ins and outs of English to pick up the language, even after the age of four a child will pick up a language without conscious effort. I got my most valuable English skills from watching English cartoons starting around age 6 or so; most certainly not from English lessons 6 years and on later.

I'm also not so sure a conscious study of a language will actually give you a great command of it. For example the grammar you'll find in study-books is not actually what (native) speakers use. It's merely the best approximation you can put to words. To really learn a language you need to hear it and use it and develop an intuition for it.
Also, when you look at it very closely, every speaker uses his/her own very slightly different grammar and word-meanings. And it's naive to say they're all very slightly wrong, because this is just how language is. e.g. certain peculiarities in American-English and British-English will both seem correct to someone sensitive to both, but to someone only sensitive to one variant the other seems wrong. And were you fall on that spectrum changes with exposure.
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Snofox Kari
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XD no, i most certainly am a native english speaker...first language i ever learned, only language i'm truly proficient in

it's just, in a paper i wrote, i used that phrase with that wording and a third party interpreted it to mean i wasn't a native speaker

but, yes, towr...it is hard to classify when those circumstances are reviewed...in many of those cases, we'd say they're early bilinguals (which doesn't mean they cannot be "native speakers" of one language simply for knowing another, but i guess they could be considered native speakers of both simultaneously, depending on where they live and how much they use each language)
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TheDeepDark
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I apologize, I realize I didn't speak as specifically as I intended.
I didn't mean to say a study of the language will lead to any greater proficiency. Rather that those individuals I know who I consider as having the 'best' English (which also includes the extent of their vocabulary and understanding of idiomatic phrases and other things) were all non-native speakers who Had made a study of the language.
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Elystriana
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Snofox Kari
Mar 9 2013, 02:42 PM
XD no, i most certainly am a native english speaker...first language i ever learned, only language i'm truly proficient in

it's just, in a paper i wrote, i used that phrase with that wording and a third party interpreted it to mean i wasn't a native speaker
Oh, I see. I misinterpreted what you said slightly.


Most of the non-native English speakers I know that speak well still have problems with idioms and less-used vocabulary.
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towr
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Defender of the pie
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Heh, well, interesting misunderstanding, that was.. :lol:
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