Me not speak good

[Enzo]

I was listening to someone on PBS on my car radio, and he repeatedly said "eck-cetera" or possible "exetera." This was rather glaring to me. And around this area, I often hear what I call the them-are people: People who say things like "Cashews? Oh them are good." And I hear such things as "dittin" instead of didn't.

I find language interesting. I listen to our speech patterns. I took a couple years of LAtin, a couple of Russian, and Spanish too. None of those courses really involved day to day conversations with native speakers.

SO I cannot imagine we have the monopoly on poor speech. I wonder how prevalent is bad grammar and mispronunciation in other languages? I wouldn't recognize it if I heard it, but those with a command of a foreign tongue would.

I mean do Chinese folks have a "them are" equivalent? IN SPanish can you even say "He don't wear warm enough clothes?" DO the French... oh never mind. DO Arabic speakers change vowels or consonants or letter orders? (ENglish examples Wesconsin and melk instead of Wisconsin and milk, aks me a question, supposively instead of supposedly.)

ANy world leaders say something along the lines of nucular?

[Мастер]

DO Arabic speakers change vowels or consonants or letter orders?

They leave out half the vowels in writing :P There are strong regional dialects, for example the "g" letter is as in "bridge" in the gulf, but as in "gulf" in Egypt. They even spell "America" differently in Egypt than everywhere else. One letter (it is often transliterated as "q", as in the first letter in the name of the Lybian leader) is often dropped in some dialects.

[troubleagain]

I have it on good authority from a bilingual Spanish/English friend, that many, many of the Spanish-speakers you will encounter have *terrible* grammar and very sloppy pronunciation. Of course, many of the Spanish speakers I'm likely to encounter in my day-to-day (non-work) life are fairly uneducated. My work-related Spanish-speaker encounters, I'm assuming are with people who are educated enough to speak with proper grammar, as they are customer service representatives, and you'd not want them to make a poor impression on our (mostly wealthier, better educated) Spanish-speaking customers.

My own Spanish isn't good enough for me to tell the difference.

[The Beer Slayer]

I've had the same experience; they don't speak Spanish, they speak Spanglish. For example, they won't say "almozar" (lunch) they'll say "el lunche" or some such.

There's a book out there called "Going Nucular" about how the English language is changing, it's kind of interesting.

[MM_Dandy]

All I can say is, learnin English ain't no picnic, and I've spoke it almost all my life.

[Dragon Star]

In our construction safety meeting last Tuesday, Albino ( Mexican guy I work with) was sitting in the corner. Jamie (head superintendent of our job and my Cousin) finishes a lecture on harnesses up with "Any questions?" Albino says:" Si, me English no good, want more money."

The whole room fell out.

[Arneb]

In Germany, you can (and some do) make a comfortable living from writing books criticizing how many linguistical mistakes (other, always other) people make.

Something you rarely hear spoken or even written correctly is indircet speech and consecutio temporum, which admittedly are quite abstract and difficult.

Can I become a beer now?

[Мастер]

Something you rarely hear spoken or even written correctly is indircet speech and consecutio temporum, which admittedly are quite abstract and difficult.

And the rules for consecutio temporum are different than in English :(

[troubleagain]

consecutio temporum

And what is that when it's at home?

[Мастер]

And the rules for consecutio temporum are different than in English :(

Eine falsche Errinerung

I think it is the rule for tense in the indirect speech that is different. How would you say in German, "Arneb told me he was at home"? (That is, you told me in the past, but you informed me that you were at home at that precise time.)

[hippietrekx]

consecutio temporum

And what is that when it's at home?

Sounds like a Harry Potter spell to me...

[umop ap!sdn]

In the song Cursum Perficio by Enya, she uses the word "iternum" which doesn't actually exist. It's either a misspelling of eternum, or else a variation on iterum formed by lengthening the R and adding another. Apparently the latter error is known from ancient times. (She also completely slaughters the pronunciation but that's another matter.)

In ancient Greece, people were often typoing their words - writing eta instead of epsilon-iota, things like that. It's one of the ways in which classicists have figured out how the language was *probably* pronounced; similar sounds were sometimes substituted.

I've heard it said that the Romans in everyday speech used only two noun cases: nominative and accusative, but I don't know if that's accurate since one would expect sentences to be pretty unintelligible without genitives. (It is plausible however that they might have avoided the ablative case.)

[Enzo]

Oh, I don't know. "I left me book to the train station," comes through pretty clear. In conversation, the recipient wouldn't assume your book was about routes to the station. Especially so when the same form was used daily in many other cases. And the me/my thing wouldn't confuse anyone. I left me coat to the train station. There, better example. I bet those ROmans could pull it off if anyone could.



consecutio temporum at home?

Felatio enormum?

Consummatio Valorem?

veni, vidi, vomari?

Let's see:
Nominative
Genitive
Dative
Exodus
Leviticus

And not accepted by all:
Mormonitive

[umop ap!sdn]

veni, vidi, vomari?

[Enzo]

Thank you thank you, I'll be here all week.



( I made that line up in Jr High school during Latin class. It finally paid off.)

[Arneb]

O.K., sorry folks, I didn't want to come across as the know-it-all throwing Latin words around. It's just that I learnt most of my grammar during my Latin classes, and I thought it would be easier, not more difficult to understand, to use the Latin expression because I figured they would be used in the grammar terminology of pretty much every European language deriving from Latin. - Easier than if I just made terms up which might be even harder to understand. I didn't study Anglistics, you know.

O.K., so I was wrong. Consecutio temporum is the order of tenses in constructions with main and subordinate clauses. The mistakes in German are like "After he bought his food at the supermarket, he cooked his dinner", instead of "after he had bought his food at the supermarket..." (did I get those prepositions right ? :? They also pertain to indirect speech, as KOS mentioned, but not exclusively so.

To answer KOS's question: "Arneb sagte mir, er sei zu Hause". This is one of the mistakes frequently made even by German speakers: Mixing up or copmpletely leaving out Konjunktiv in indirect speech: "Arneb sagte mir, er war zu Hause". Naja, as I said: Tricky...

[Мастер]

To answer KOS's question: "Arneb sagte mir, er sei zu Hause". This is one of the mistakes frequently made even by German speakers: Mixing up or copmpletely leaving out Konjunktiv in indirect speech: "Arneb sagte mir, er war zu Hause". Naja, as I said: Tricky...

I seem to recall something about the two Konjuntivs, that if I were to say "Arneb sagte mir, er wäre zu Hause," it would mean I didn't believe you. Is that correct?

[Lance]

I came, I saw, I threw up?

[Arneb]

I seem to recall something about the two Konjuntivs, that if I were to say "Arneb sagte mir, er wäre zu Hause," it would mean I didn't believe you. Is that correct?

This implication is correct. "Wäre" is Konjunktiv Imperfekt. In indirect speech, it denominates the "Irrealis" and implies that the things said in indirect speech aren't true.

Adding a new layer of difficulty, Konjunktiv Imperfekt can in some cases substitute for Konjunktiv Präsens, thus making the Realis case indistinguishible from the Irrealis- That is in cases where Konjunktiv Präsens is homophonous with Indikativ.

E. g.
Ich fahre gerne Zug (Indikativ; I like to go by train)
KOS sagt, ich fahre gerne Zug (KOS says I like to go by train) - This is technically not allowed, because the Konjunktiv Präsens here is identical with Indikativ (fahre). So Konjunktiv Imperfekt is invoked to make the Konjunktiv felt (=to mark the indirectness of speech):
KOS sagt, ich führe gerne Zug.
In this formulation, it is impossible to tell if what KOS says is true, because it could either be a "genuine" Konjunktiv Imperfekt = Irrealis or an "accidental" one standing in for a Konjunktiv Präsens = Realis wichg is removed due to it's identitiy with Indikativ.

O.K., anybody still in the mood to learn German?


Small relief: Nobody actually cares. Most Germans live and speak very nicely withoput knowing the difference.

[Мастер]

O.K., anybody still in the mood to learn German?

I thought I understood German reasonably well. Now I'm not so sure :(

[Arneb]

Well, since hardly anybody actually uses these distinctions, you will be fine. And you can always help yourself out with "KOS sagt, ich würde gerne Zug fahren". It's not technically correct, but short of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, hardly anyone will notice.

[Мастер]

Well, since hardly anybody actually uses these distinctions, you will be fine. And you can always help yourself out with "KOS sagt, ich würde gerne Zug fahren". It's not technically correct, but short of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, hardly anyone will notice.

That sounds to me like I am claiming that you would like to travel on a train in a particular instance, not that you have a general liking for train travel.

How about the NZZ?

[Arneb]

That sounds to me like I am claiming that you would like to travel on a train in a particular instance, not that you have a general liking for train travel.

Doesn't it? That's the weakness of the substitution, but there is a price for every simplification...

How about the NZZ?

Well, O.K., you've got me there....

[GrapesOfWrath]

I made that line up in Jr High school during Latin class.

Vidi, crisavit, veni

[Enzo]

Improbus valde