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 Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:22 am Confrontation as the best learning metod |
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| Jan wrote: | Englishuser I encourage You to stand up,it is surely possible to find some amunition, even in that case.
Don't give up !
At least I would remember something because,believe me
in my age, without some confrontation is hard to find any motivation.
Your Faithfully
Provocator Jan |
Jan, I don't think she's going to be able to find ammunition in this particular case. I searched all over to find evidence that I was wrong about her usage of next to, and I couldn't find any. I did find a few cases where people used "next to" to mean "besides", but they were Russians, not native English speakers.
"Next to" in the sense of "almost" can primarily be used with limited choices but not with wide choices. So, "next to nothing" is possible, "next to nobody" is possible, "next to no time" is possible, and so is "next to last", but "next to all" and "next to everything" are ungrammatical if "next to" is supposed to mean "almost". |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4400
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:26 am What dictionaries you use? |
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Jamie(K), your list of examples is really impressive and useful for the non-native speakers of this forum. Do you(I mean all the members of this thread) know any English-Russian or Russian-English phraseological dictionary online? Perhaps Tamara can give some information for me  |
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 Pamela
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1236
Location: Rf
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 12:34 pm 'Next to all' |
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Hi Jamie,
I don't think that ammunition is needed, either, because we all make mistakes. However, when searching "next to all" on Google I find that 'next to all' gives me 382,000 matches. Some of the pages are certainly written by non-native speakers of English, but not all of them. Of course native speakers make mistakes, too, which makes it all more complicated. I suppose this needs further investigation, and it's also proper to ask ourselves: What is grammatical English? Who decides about when a construction is grammatically correct or simply a dialectal, regional, or other variant of the language? There is no institution with the authority to decide about correct and incorrect English. |
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Englishuser
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 06 Jun 2006
Posts: 806
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 13:12 pm What dictionaries you use? |
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| Pamela wrote: | | ... dictionary online. Perhaps Tamara can give some information for me |
Hi Pamela
As I have paper-based Russian-English/English-Russian dictionaries that are quite suitable for my current level  , I rarely use online ones (only to translate a few words quickly when I’m NOT at home. By using ABBYY Lingvo http://www.lingvo.ru/lingvo/index.asp , that’s generally… not the best . Or http://www.multitran.ru/ that provides ‘phrase search’, as well.
(That’s obvious that sites like http://translate.ru are useless for phrases.)
You can take a look, for example, at http://www.akmwest.ru/dictionary-ru.html (for Russian speakers), maybe you’ll succeed in finding what you want - among dozens of all those universal, specialized, terminological and very-very specific dialect dictionaries - for lots of languages.
Imagine, they promise even such ones as 'Common words and phrases in lenape (delaware)' , 'Mayanga-spanish-miskitu dictionary (cidca 1995)' and 'Japanese-english sumo glossary'
(I didn’t check whether all links from their list are still ‘alive’).
Tamara
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It’s impossible to learn swimming without entering the water…
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Tamara
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 25 May 2006
Posts: 1577
Location: UK
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 13:35 pm 'Next to all' |
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| Englishuser wrote: | | I don't think that ammunition is needed, either, because we all make mistakes. However, when searching "next to all" on Google I find that 'next to all' gives me 382,000 matches. |
You obviously didn't read the matches, but looked only at the number. You won't find one that matches your usage. What you are calling "matches" are sentences like...
"Put an asterisk next to all the records set during this era."
"When you try to install Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, Setup may display a red X next to all the items in the installation list and may display the ..."
"Check marks will appear next to all the ads in the Ad Group."
...and it continues like that. A Google search doesn't demonstrate any possibility that you might be right. It only shows further that your use of the expression does not exist.
| Englishuser wrote: | | Of course native speakers make mistakes, too, which makes it all more complicated. I suppose this needs further investigation, and it's also proper to ask ourselves: What is grammatical English? Who decides about when a construction is grammatically correct or simply a dialectal, regional, or other variant of the language? There is no institution with the authority to decide about correct and incorrect English. |
Now you're just playing games to keep from admitting you didn't use the expression correctly. If I say you're wrong, you're right. If I document and demonstrate that you're wrong, you're still right. You just can't take correction. If someone corrected my German this way, the dispute wouldn't have gotten this far, because I'd have thrown in the towel long ago and been convinced by the weight of the evidence.
It reminds me of some of the ESL teachers in the Czech Republic. I frequently found mistakes in the ESL textbooks that were written by Czechs. When I pointed them out, the Czech teachers insisted it was "British English". When the native speaker from England pointed out that the expressions were wrong, and affirmed that they were not "British English", the Czech teachers told her that her English was polluted with Americanisms. They couldn't be wrong. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4400
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 13:53 pm What dictionaries you use? |
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"Next to all (words)" reminds me for some reason of German: "Nahezu alle (W?rter)".
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Yankee
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 8251
Location: USA
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 14:29 pm What dictionaries you use? |
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| Yankee wrote: | .
"Next to all (words)" reminds me for some reason of German: "Nahezu alle (W?rter)".
. |
Maybe we know her mysterious, elusive native language now. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4400
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 15:05 pm What dictionaries you use? |
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| Tamara wrote: | | Pamela wrote: | | ... dictionary online. Perhaps Tamara can give some information for me |
Hi Pamela
As I have paper-based Russian-English/English-Russian dictionaries that are quite suitable for my current level , I rarely use online ones (only to translate a few words quickly when I’m NOT at home. By using ABBYY Lingvo http://www.lingvo.ru/lingvo/index.asp , that’s generally… not the best . Or http://www.multitran.ru/ that provides ‘phrase search’, as well.
(That’s obvious that sites like http://translate.ru are useless for phrases.)
You can take a look, for example, at http://www.akmwest.ru/dictionary-ru.html (for Russian speakers), maybe you’ll succeed in finding what you want - among dozens of all those universal, specialized, terminological and very-very specific dialect dictionaries - for lots of languages.
Imagine, they promise even such ones as 'Common words and phrases in lenape (delaware)' , 'Mayanga-spanish-miskitu dictionary (cidca 1995)' and 'Japanese-english sumo glossary'
(I didn’t check whether all links from their list are still ‘alive’).
Tamara |
Hi Tamara,
Many thanks! As for Lingvo I have it installed as a programme. |
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Pamela
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 1236
Location: Rf
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 15:09 pm Mistakes |
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| Quote: | Jamie wrote: Now you're just playing games to keep from admitting you didn't use the expression correctly. If I say you're wrong, you're right. If I document and demonstrate that you're wrong, you're still right. You just can't take correction.
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I'm glad to notice that you take the time to point out mistakes I make. However, I'd like to emphasize that making mistakes is very common. You make mistakes in your own writing, too, and yet it doesn't mean that you wouldn't know how to write. Alan makes mistakes, Yankee makes mistakes, and you don't correct them, either, for some reason unknown to me.
| Quote: | | It reminds me of some of the ESL teachers in the Czech Republic. I frequently found mistakes in the ESL textbooks that were written by Czechs. When I pointed them out, the Czech teachers insisted it was "British English". |
I somehow don't like the way you express yourself. It makes it sound like you'd know English like God and that no one who's a non-native speaker of English can ever achieve native-like skills in the language. I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that it's claimed that people who start learning English before the age of 15 can achieve native-like grammar skills in English. (And I personally believe that you can do so even when learning the language at a later age.) If you read papers written in English by English-speaking university students you'll find that many of them make mistakes in grammar as well as in vocabulary.
| Quote: | Jamie wrote: Yankee wrote:
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"Next to all (words)" reminds me for some reason of German: "Nahezu alle (W?rter)".
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Maybe we know her mysterious, elusive native language now. |
You probably don't know my elusive native language, and most likely you won't get to know it unless I choose to tell you what languages I speak natively. There simply are too many languges in the world for you to be able to tell what languages I speak: it could be anything from Welsh to Telugu, from Pangasinan to Sinhala. Besides, I don't like the fact that you seem to think that every mistake I make has to do with interference from another language. Many expressions that I use incorrectly would be incorrect also in other languages I know. So sometimes it's clearly just an attempt to use a new expression that has very little to do with in which language I use. |
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Englishuser
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 06 Jun 2006
Posts: 806
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 18:37 pm Mistakes |
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| Englishuser wrote: | | I'm glad to notice that you take the time to point out mistakes I make. However, I'd like to emphasize that making mistakes is very common. You make mistakes in your own writing, too, and yet it doesn't mean that you wouldn't know how to write. Alan makes mistakes, Yankee makes mistakes, and you don't correct them, either, for some reason unknown to me. |
Why do we need an exhaustive list of all the people on earth who are capable of making mistakes? You made a mistake, and I corrected you. You could have left it at that, but instead you chose to make a big production of it. Now you've made yourself fun to criticize.
| Englishuser wrote: | | I somehow don't like the way you express yourself. It makes it sound like you'd know English like God and that no one who's a non-native speaker of English can ever achieve native-like skills in the language. |
That's not in my words. You're projecting that on me. You already know that I have seen foreigners with a near-native command of English. None of them, however, are sensitive to being corrected when they have clearly made a mistake. In fact, that kind of ego sensitivity has been documented as one of the major impediments to achieving a native-like command of a language. You loudly ballyhoo your exalted "near-native" language skills, but considering your ego barriers, I doubt they are as good as you claim. My guess is that you're now in a native-speaking environment and finding that your skills aren't what you thought they were. I get many foreign ESL teachers in my intermediate ESL classes who are in this upsetting predicament. Some of them find it deliciously absurd, and others get into a fury over it.
| Englishuser wrote: | | I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that it's claimed that people who start learning English before the age of 15 can achieve native-like grammar skills in English. (And I personally believe that you can do so even when learning the language at a later age.) |
It depends more on circumstances than on age. And the usual age given is 12 (i.e., puberty). However, that Chomskian "critical period" hypothesis is being disproven more and more by further research. The situation is much more complicated. If it were as easy as a "critical period", I would get no native-born American students who sound like they came from Laos, Iraq or Poland five years ago.
| Englishuser wrote: | | If you read papers written in English by English-speaking university students you'll find that many of them make mistakes in grammar as well as in vocabulary. |
I routinely have to read papers written by native-English-speaking university students, and I see their mistakes. However, there is usually a clear distinction between a foreigner's mistake and native speaker's mistake. I have been pointing up your foreigner mistakes, not the mere slips.
| Englishuser wrote: | | You probably don't know my elusive native language, and most likely you won't get to know it unless I choose to tell you what languages I speak natively. |
You're clearly ashamed of your origins, but that's your business. Notice that nobody else in the forums feels any trepidation about revealing their native languages. In fact, sometimes it helps others pinpoint the source of their difficulties. Since you don't even want to know where you need improvement, you miss out on this.
| Englishuser wrote: | | There simply are too many languges in the world for you to be able to tell what languages I speak: it could be anything from Welsh to Telugu, from Pangasinan to Sinhala. Besides, I don't like the fact that you seem to think that every mistake I make has to do with interference from another language. Many expressions that I use incorrectly would be incorrect also in other languages I know. So sometimes it's clearly just an attempt to use a new expression that has very little to do with in which language I use. |
Of course, many foreign speaker's mistakes come from things other than interference from their native language. They could even come from interference from another second language, as well as from other sources. However, anyone's choices are conditioned to some degree by his native language, and many of your foreigner-type mistakes are of the interference type, whether they involve experimental expressions or not. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4400
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 19:07 pm Mistakes |
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| Quote: | | Jamie wrote: You loudly ballyhoo your exalted "near-native" language skills, but considering your ego barriers, I doubt they are as good as you claim. My guess is that you're now in a native-speaking environment and finding that your skills aren't what you thought they were. |
I wouldn't say that I ballyhoo my exalted language skills. And when I'm in a native-speaking environment I find that my skills are much better than I thought they were even though there is still plenty of room for improvement.
| Quote: | | It depends more on circumstances than on age. And the usual age given is 12 (i.e., puberty). |
I'm aware of the fact that the usual age given is 12, however, this applies more to other aspects of language than to learning its structure.
| Quote: | | I have been pointing up your foreigner mistakes, not the mere slips. |
I wouldn't say that all the mistakes you've mentioned are "foreigner mistakes". Most of the mistakes you've corrected are quite obvious to me when I see them corrected.
| Quote: | | Since you don't even want to know where you need improvement, you miss out on this. |
I don't think that there are too many specific things that I need to work on, and I learn more all the time simply by reading and listening to English. It has been a pleasure for me to notice that many of the texts I've submitted for professional proofreading have been free from mistakes (or with mere slips). |
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Englishuser
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 06 Jun 2006
Posts: 806
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 20:39 pm Mistakes |
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| Englishuser wrote: | | I don't think that there are too many specific things that I need to work on, |
And you have shown that you're not open to knowing about the subtleties that you DO need work on.
| Englishuser wrote: | | and I learn more all the time simply by reading and listening to English. It has been a pleasure for me to notice that many of the texts I've submitted for professional proofreading have been free from mistakes (or with mere slips). |
But you show raging displeasure when a true mistake is found, and your first reaction is frequently to deny that it's a mistake. When that doesn't work, you start pointing to the fact that other people can make mistakes. Most people's reaction is to say, "Oh, I made a mistake. Thank you." This method prevents a long, argumentative thread.
And as for mistakes being obvious after they are pointed out, there's the old adage that was repeated to us by the Japanese senseis in martial arts training: "If you can't do it, you don't know it." There's a great deal of difference between knowing something intellectually and being able to perform it, as I'm sure you know. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4400
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 20:58 pm Mistakes |
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| Quote: | | Jamie wrote: And you have shown that you're not open to knowing about the subtleties that you DO need work on. |
I've been very happy to see your corrections. I appreciate them very much as I've told you. I just think it's difficult for people to help me improve my English because of the random nature of my mistakes. For instance, if I write 'provoking' instead of 'provocative', it's nice to learn the right way of saying it, of course, but I don't think I can make use of the correction when building other words as I normally manage to do it correctly in the first place.
| Quote: | | Jamie wrote: But you show raging displeasure when a true mistake is found, and your first reaction is frequently to deny that it's a mistake. When that doesn't work, you start pointing to the fact that other people can make mistakes. Most people's reaction is to say, "Oh, I made a mistake. Thank you." |
It depends on the mistake. Like I said, I'm often pleased about your corrections. But I'm also aware of the fact that no one knows English like God, and therefore corrections made by you can be wrong, too. For example, 'full evening dress' is a certain kind of suit worn by a man even though you had a different impression. I must admit that it irks me that you say that people make mistakes simply because of their non-native speaker status. Native speakers make mistakes, too, and I don't think that you need to refer to the fact that it's a foreigner mistake you're correcting: simply correct it and everybody will be happy. In my opinion you should strive to correct more or less all mistakes people make, not only grave errors. |
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Englishuser
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 06 Jun 2006
Posts: 806
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| Mon Jul 10, 2006 23:03 pm How to be a professional moderator? |
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Hi Englishuser,
Please try to stick to the important facts here. Most of our users are looking for direction and guidance when it comes to learning English. If two moderators are discussing language mistakes the vast majority of our users are struggeling to understand you are confusing them more than you are helping them. Are you sure you understand the role of a forum moderator? If I'm learning English and I have the choice between two moderators who claim to be right -- how do I know what is true? Jamie has been a professor of English for quite a long time, you don't want to tell us anything about your professional background. Jamie's native language is English, he was born in the US where he grew up and spent most of his life.
You obviously have achieved a very good command of the English language, however, you also seem to have a quite a lot of room for improvement in certain areas.
You are making it quite difficult for us to act as a team of moderators who are focussing on our users.
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