English as a second language

[Plymouthy Adams]

the guy walk into the hospital..said his arm was broken in seven places...Doctor looks him in the eye and says..stay out them places...!

[Eneto-55]

One time, we had to communicate with a new member from Uraguay. I tried to do it using an online translator. Then, I sent copies to Orly, to ask if I did it right. He contacted the new member and straightened things out. He suggested that in the future, I ask him for help instead of trying to do it myself. My attempt at translating failed, but at least I didn't create an international incident.

I get a kick out of typing something in Portuguese into one of those on-line translators, and then seeing how it translates it into English.  Some things get really turned around.  Some expressions mean more or less the opposite, like "Tudo azul." means (literally) Everything is blue.  But that means it's all good, like "Blue skys from here on out.", but not like "I'm feeling blue."  An American I met once who had spent a few weeks in Brazil like to say to me "Fique frio.", having literally translated the American phrase "Stay cool."  It just doesn't mean the same thing.  And in Portuguese (Brazilian Portugese, at least, I'm not sure about Iberian Portuguese), people often refer to themselves in the third person, like "A person is leaving now."  Those on-line translators don't do well with things like that.

[DonaldSmith]

Ya know, in contemporary "Amerenglish", you refer to the second person plural a lot when you mean people in general.  My mother, from the Niagara peninsula, would more properly say "One does this or that.",or "One daresn't..."   Daresn't for dares not.  Is that Canadobritish?

 

By the way, anyone hear what Mrs. .Doojohnny (sp?) has been up to lately?  My mother would say that she met Mrs. Doojohnny last night, or "Mrs. Doojohnny has (whispering voice:) cancer."  I used to think that Mrs. Doojohnny really got around, until I realized that it was my mother's version of "What's-her-Name".     

[Ulu]

Now I seen many a DooHickey in my day, but I never once met any DooJhonnies.

 

OK, I have this silly habit of slipping into what I call the Hillbilly Airforce dialect. (To hear it spoken, go watch No Time For Sergeants.)

 

I never recognized it as anything special when I was growing up with the Air Force. It was spoken by quite a few as native tongue, and by many others for amusement. I often do it just to amuse others.

 

The thing is, language with ulterior motives can be more than mere communication. It can be fun.  Some very bright fellows have made a good living slaughtering our language. Me? I'm not gonna quit my day job.

 

BTW, Daresn't = Da'sn't where I was born.

[DonaldSmith]

Back in the 60's, my wife and I went across the border to the Top Hat in Windsor, to catch Norm Crosby's act.  His schtick (Borsch Belt expression?) was to mispronounce words, like "beertender", and "in the sperm of the moment".  I looked him up on the internet.  He's still alive.  I don't know if he still mispronounces words.  Maybe it was all an act.  

[Don Coatney]

Back in the 60's, my wife and I went across the border to the Top Hat in Windsor, to catch Norm Crosby's act.  His schtick (Borsch Belt expression?) was to mispronounce words, like "beertender", and "in the sperm of the moment".  I looked him up on the internet.  He's still alive.  I don't know if he still mispronounces words.  Maybe it was all an act.  

Sounds like Archie Bunker

 

Archie Bunker: I got bigger fish to fly.

 

Archie: Your honor, may I encroach the bench?

 

Archie Bunker: You gotta grab the bull by the corns.

 

Archie Bunker: [commenting on a woman's perfume] It infiltrates the nosetrils.

 

Archie Bunker: We was like two ships that clashed in the night.

 

Archie Bunker: She ain't gonna saying nothing more because the smoke has given her an attack of, what do you call, laryngosis.

[bluefoxamazone]

hi there,

interesting and funny conversations on knowing several languages. Of course it all depends on where you live... If you live on a large handkerchief like Belgium is, you would have to learn another language .... or two .... or three or you would never get anywhere...

Belgium has 10 million inhabitants and has 3 different language zones. My native language is flemish (resembles to dutch), my second language is french (as they speak in the southern part of Belgium anf France). Then we have a rather small population that speaks german. Because I work for a german company, I have to talk and write some german once in a while too. Then of course English- or american... Forums like this is, is a great way to train the language skills. I know I make a lot of mistakes but to be honest, I couldn't care less. That is one of the biggest problems in using another language, People are simply affraid to make mistakes. I will never make fun of someone who tries to do his best to speak your language. In our country, nobody will laugh at you because you have a strange pronounciation or dialect.

When I was in the US some 30 yrs ago and my "school english" was a little rusty, a no brainer started making fun of me because I pronounced some kind of word wrongly. It became awfull quiet when I asked him how many languages he could handle... so the moral... please learn a different language if you feel to. BUT be aware that to keep your skills, you have to keep using it.

So if someone wants to excercise his dutch with me, I am free... just shout... (loud)

take care and keep up the good work with the forum,

Franky

Edited May 24, 2015 by bluefoxamazone

[DonaldSmith]

Good job, bluefoxamazone.  You said that you couldn't care less.  Correct!  Many people say that they could care less, which is the opposite of what they mean. 

 

Some people also belittle our ancestors from long ago, who couldn't read, but had their own smarts.  Our ancestors could recall many things from memory and they knew how to do stuff.  They knew all the parts of speech and had different noun endings for subjects, direct objects, dative, etc., like people today with other languages.   These days st seems that people in this country can't even handle the pronouns.  Jill and her went to the game.  Give it to Ralph and I.  

 

And there is the object of a preposition, instead of the subject, influencing the verb ending.  A list of shows are available.

 

Even the educated fall into these traps.  I guess they didn't learn English good enough.  I mean well enough.

 

Then there's no concept of the Latin roots for words.  A fifth-year anniversary, with "anniversary" already meaning to turn the year.  I cringe.

[TodFitch]

. . . I guess they didn't learn English good enough.  I mean well enough.

 

Then there's no concept of the Latin roots for words.  A fifth-year anniversary, with "anniversary" already meaning to turn the year.  I cringe.

English is a wonderful language once you get the hung of it.

 

It seems that when a word is imported into English, at least American English, some of its meaning is ignored. I notice this especially with place names in the west and southwest. For example, near Tucson there is El Picacho which is commonly referred to as "Picacho Peak", literally "Peak Peak".

 

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/32.6398/-111.4221

 

Sometimes I hear people mentioning the "Sierra Mountains" which would be "mountain range mountains". If you are going to translate it, Sierra Nevada should be "snowy mountain range" or maybe "snow covered mountains".

[iowa51]

My brother-in-law's brother-in-law is lives in a foreign country (His sister moved there) and was visiting here a few years back. They stopped at my house to look at my cars and then we went out to may dad's and showed him all of his cars. One of my cars (a '66 Marlin) is out at my dad's I mentioned the the engine was "froze". My B-I-L's B-I-L asked how an engine could be frozen when it was quite warm out when we were there.

[T120]

heck I've been sayin' "prolly" for 25 years....what's that make me Dr. Who?

As I recall ,the first time I noticed  "prolly"  used was in the Pogo comic strip.

[RobertKB]

Good job, bluefoxamazone.  You said that you couldn't care less.  Correct!  Many people say that they could care less, which is the opposite of what they mean. 

 

Some people also belittle our ancestors from long ago, who couldn't read, but had their own smarts.  Our ancestors could recall many things from memory and they knew how to do stuff.  They knew all the parts of speech and had different noun endings for subjects, direct objects, dative, etc., like people today with other languages.   These days st seems that people in this country can't even handle the pronouns.  Jill and her went to the game.  Give it to Ralph and I.  

 

And there is the object of a preposition, instead of the subject, influencing the verb ending.  A list of shows are available.

 

Even the educated fall into these traps.  I guess they didn't learn English good enough.  I mean well enough.

 

Then there's no concept of the Latin roots for words.  A fifth-year anniversary, with "anniversary" already meaning to turn the year.  I cringe.

 

I like everything you done said. I like it real good. You and me agree on all the grammer. I cant never understand why people don't speak proper. I guess they werent learned good.

Edited May 25, 2015 by RobertKB

[TodFitch]

As I recall ,the first time I noticed  "prolly"  used was in the Pogo comic strip.

“We have met the enemy and they is us.” Pogo Possum (Variations on that as far back as 1953 in Walt Kelly’s writings.)

 

I’m going to have to find some of those old Pogo comic collections and re-read them. I bet they have aged pretty well compared to most things of that era.

[Ulu]

 . . .when a word is imported into English, at least American English, some of its meaning is ignored . . . 

 

My niece was teaching English in Japan several years ago. She proclaimed that Japan was the land where English means nothing. Food for sale is quite often labeled in Japanese, and English as well. Except the labels make no sense.

 

"Try please this new cookie."

"OK, what flavor is it?"

"Delicious."

 

Sure enough the Kanji label also reads in English, "New Cookie Delicious Flavor".

 

She brought me some kind of hard candy. It had a wonderful Flavor. Literally: "Wonderful Candy Flavor" was the name of the candy.

 

Is it grape? cherry? orange flavor?

 

"No, it's Wonderful flavor."

 

 

As I recall ,the first time I noticed  "prolly"  used was in the Pogo comic strip. 

 

I'm ashamed not to have known this. I own almost all of the Pogo strips, and I make my grandkids read them when they come over.

It's a level of humor you don't see much, and I definitely think it develops the communication skills for them  to decode the local swamp jargon. 

 

After all, the language itself in Pogo is half the fun.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Ulu

[Niel Hoback]

  In the early 80's we were taking one of our German exchange students back to O'Hare. As we neared the terminal he got a rather frightened look on his face.  I thought he was just then realizing that he was going home, but no, he said  "The sign says we are going to Terminal Parking. Can we never leave"?  Still laughing about that one.  

[Ulu]

LOL...yeah different perceptions give us different priorities.

 

In Japan, bread is less a commodity and more a luxury than in the USA. This affects their ideas about marketing, and so they have a brand of bread which is called (on the English label) "The Bread You Care About".

 

If you're spending that many Yen, you probably should care.    A $3 loaf here costs like $7 in Japan. 

 

So many things don't translate well that it's a miracle we can actually communicate with the Japanese.

 

Years ago, Vendo was bought up by the Sanden corp, a Jap firm that makes (among other stuff) refrigeration compressors. All the coke machines we made started sporting Japanese cooling machinery.Somewhere along the way, Sanden bought up Southland, which owned 7-11. I made US drawings from Japanese drawings, & we built the first metric refrigerated display cases for the 7-11's in the USA.

 

I had a lot of fun translating the Japanese drawings to English units and notes, after the Japanese translators did the first translation.  Unfortunately, aside from their versions of common engineering notes like "outside dimension" or "5 equal spaces" or "typical unless noted" I can't read any Japanese, and speak almost nil. We worked it out with drawings and hand gestures and physical aids, and somehow we did build those machines from the Japanese designs.