I'll chat with you in English.

1 ：Jess：2015/09/28(月) 16:17:46.63 ID:AhKuXE19!.net

I will chat in English for a little while.

240 ：臭い米国人：2015/10/21(水) 23:04:40.40 ID:e6dctE11!.net

>>238
Yes I noted that ease of language is another factor. With the advent of the internet it is very cheap to learn foreign languages, even for some esoteric languages.
Look up Moses McCormick for an example of what I mean. Of course I'm not a native of any of the languages he has studied, but there is means to getting
materials that were only two decades ago restricted to the ivory towers of academia.

I hadn't noticed I wrote that insult while proof-reading my post, my bad. Yes there are stereotypes, and yes there are exceptions. However, when personal
experience has involved growing up around groups who fit the stereotype, it's hard to persuade somebody to think differently. In this case, yes I am referring
to myself. But I am not going to get into my personal history over this.

The references that are cited when talking about difficulty are usually from the Foreign Service Institute's rankings.
Here is a PDF, but it's hosted on the NSA website, for those of you who are paranoid about that:
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_spectrum/foreign_language.pdf

241 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/22(木) 00:08:49.95 ID:L+5dNSLi!.net

>>239

You're not refuting my main point- that if it "ain't broke don't fix it"
you've only shown that yes, they all all "broke".

I had already said that Korean, Chinese and Japanese are the hardest, Japanese is the hardest period.

Allow me to make a point of this- these languages are difficult because they
A. Use symbols, and a great deal of them
B. can be interpreted (to a certain extent)
C. Are not closely linked with other languages; this is most pronounced in Japanese and least pronounced in Korean
Chinese, while having the greatest number of characters, is probably the easiest of the trio to learn because it is so structural;
Chinese grammar can be learned in a day.
For this same reason is why Chinese works near perfect in machine translation with other Euro-american languages; plug in a sentence in chinese
and the machine will spit out a near-perfect equal in english or vice versa.
Korean is harder because its grammar is a bit more complicated however korean was modernized (well, as modern as the 15th century can be) and has a comparatively
puny amount of common Hangul symbols. This helps ease of access greatly. Korean can be used in machine translation with some effort.
Japanese is the hardest because it has a high number of Kanji (I would argue 2020 to read a wiki page) and a high number of Hiragana and katakana (adding up to around 100)
Technically you could write everything in Hirigana (which would be a good idea in theory) but good luck reading that. (cont in a bit)

242 ：777 ：2015/10/22(木) 09:27:51.60 ID:oawe4yGu.net

>>241
>You're not refuting my main point- that if it "ain't broke don't fix it"
>you've only shown that yes, they all all "broke".

What exactly do you mean by "Japanese is broke"?
Are you saying that Japanese is an uncivilized defect-ridden language
(hence it should be reformed) because it is difficult for native English speakers to learn?
Since when did English become the paragon of human languages?

243 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/22(木) 13:10:32.32 ID:Ba21153+.net

Poor little Willy is crying so sore,
A sad little boy is he,
For he's broken his little sister's neck
And he'll have no jam for tea.

　　　Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes
　　　　　by Harry Graham (poet, 1874-1936)

To read other poems by him, click here:
　　　https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Graham_(poet)

244 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/22(木) 14:07:00.59 ID:Ba21153+.net

ROMEO, on seeing Juliet for the first time:

　　　O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
　　　It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
　　　As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear,
　　　●Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.●
　　　So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
　　　As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
　　　The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand
　　　And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
　　　Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight,
　　　For ●I ne'er saw true beauty till this night●.

　　　　　　　　Romeo and Juliet 5.1.43-52

245 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/22(木) 14:35:36.59 ID:Ba21153+.net

>>244
>>Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
　　　Romeo and Juliet, 1.5.46

Notes for this line in Arden Shakespeare Third Series:

This continues the image of Juliet as an ornament too precious to
be worn, of such worth that all earth cannot afford her, reinforcing
the idea of an ethereal presence not best suited to the sublunary
world of *use* and the deterioration of beauty.

246 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/22(木) 20:08:35.59 ID:mpPcWLOz.net

Thirst for knowledge too intense for use, for earth too dear
Hunger for beauty and nobility unbearably elevated,
　　　maddeningly enhanced for this cesspool of a world

Whenever I feel ready to immerse myself in the world of language and literature
　　　demonic voices of utility terrify me, saying it's all useless
Whenever I am intensely impressed by the heavenly beauty of art
　　　the monotonous, mechanical reality and practicality drags me back into the usual spitoon
Constantly irritated by electronics, television, the Internet, motorization,
　　　and the screeching cries of babies and infants,
　　　together with the insane noises of meaninglessly babbling
　　　middle-aged women and half-illegally reckless motorcycle riders
I am doomed to work, work, and work, enduring all this monotony
　　　in this catastrophic country, in this entirely meaningless universe
When will the Supreme Being pardon me and let me vanish into thin air,
　　　back to my good old quietude where the quintessential beauty
　　　of total, absolute nothingness prevails?

247 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/22(木) 20:32:33.78 ID:o4UbNtOu.net

Watching his clock tick, tack, tick, tack all the time,
　　He did nothing else
He was too busy to do anything in the world
　　He was jobless, staying in his patient's room,
　　taken care of by his nurses and psychiatrists
He was too noble to do anything in this cesspool of a world
　　All he did was to watch and listen for the tick-tack of his clock
Every single second was much too dear to him
　　He was constantly terribly busy
　　Trying desperately to live with the keenest awareness of the moment
Yes, he was busy
　　Yes, he was really busy
　　He didn't even have time for sex, for reading, for listening to music,
　　for small talk, for anything at all
He was by far the busiest person constantly aware of
　　the significance of his being at this corner of the universe
Awareness was his profession
Feeling this nothingness was his profession

248 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 10:56:47.89 ID:/3FIqI4l.net

★ A hilarious website ★

Just a glance at this thread was enough to make me laugh an awful lot.

ITT: Thou shall'st talk like Shakespeare
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-961693.html

249 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 13:17:55.86 ID:mxnE5tpT.net

Romeo and Juliet 2.2

ROMEO [Comes forward]

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious:
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.

250 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 14:10:03.86 ID:mxnE5tpT.net

Romeo and Juliet 2.2

　　　[JULIET aloft.]

ROMEO:
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

JULIET:　　　　　　　　　　　　　Ay me.

251 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 14:37:45.66 ID:mxnE5tpT.net

ROMEO:
　　　　　　　　　　　　　She speaks.
O speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

JULIET
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEO
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

　　　Romeo and Juliet 2.2

252 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 20:47:11.58 ID:9TFTdxyJ.net

Romeo and Juliet 2.2.38

JULIET
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm nor face or any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

ROMEO
　　　　　　　　　I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love and I'll be new baptized.
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

JULIET
What man art thou that thus bescreened in night
So stumblest on my counsel?

253 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 21:44:00.69 ID:o4yDcqq0.net

Romeo and Juliet 2.253

ROMEO
　　　　　　　　　　　　By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am.
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIET
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

ROMEO
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIET
How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

ROMEO
With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIET
If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

254 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/23(金) 21:49:45.72 ID:o4yDcqq0.net

Romeo and Juliet 2.2.71

ROMEO
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

JULIET
I would not for the world they saw thee here.

ROMEO
I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes,
An but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

JULIET
By whose direction found'st thou out this place?

ROMEO
By love, that first did prompt me to enquire.
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot, yet wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.

255 ：Dreas：2015/10/24(土) 00:09:54.16 ID:RdNmMplw!.net

Ack, college is a mess.

I'd sign up with the military as I could, I don't really fear death, but I do think my health issues would keep me out.


What'd you guys do for your college? How do your respective countries handle college and the military?

256 ：古閑双：2015/10/24(土) 02:19:32.57 ID:OjUDwJE+.net

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/netouyonews/imgs/1/6/16061cff.jpg

習主席の屈辱、英議会演説で拍手は一度も起こらず
http://netouyonews.net/archives/9008974.html

http://netouyonews.net/archives/9008974.html


26: 名無しさん＠おーぷん 2015/10/22(木)12:51:26 ID:Cic

さっきデイリーメール見たら
奥さんの化粧がはげはげの写真載ってたｗ
ほんと英国人は悪趣味だよ

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/netouyonews/imgs/1/6/16061cff.jpg

257 ：Dreas：2015/10/24(土) 05:15:48.99 ID:RdNmMplw!.net

>242

Uncivilized has no part in this. "Civilized" is such an emotional word, you can brand anything "uncivilized"
Here's the real problem- it's impractical. It's impractical for the people who learn it as a first language because it's so unbelievably complicated.
Not only this but it is also only, and crucially spoken in one country. These flaws brand it unacceptable.
Right now one of the most spoken languages on earth is English- and the one most spoken on the internet (this is very important) is also english, by an incredible majority.

Don't think I am so foolish that I think English is the best because I am american and a patriotic idiot. I am not so foolish.
I said it before, and I will say it again, that English is in desperate need of a revision. It is an an absolute mess. Just an incredibly widespread mess.
It is acceptably logical and perfectly practical, if that makes sense.


If we were to ignore practicality and just go with the most logical, functional language I would choose an artificial language every time, like for example Esperanto.
Though even that could use some editing.

258 ：baka gaijin：2015/10/24(土) 05:42:43.83 ID:prJa95Xp!.net

lol why is someone dumping shakespeare?

259 ：777 ：2015/10/24(土) 10:07:24.55 ID:cfZtvZBe.net

>>257
>It's impractical for the people who learn it as a first language
>because it's so unbelievably complicated.

If it's so much complicated, why the literacy rate of Japan is over 99%?

I think you have two misconceptions about the Japanese language.

1) Because of Kanji, Japanese vocabulary is *far* more difficult to learn than
learning English vocabulary.

2) Japanese is more difficult to learn for native English speakers than, say, Spanish
because Japanese is *intrinsically* more complicated than Spanish.

First, I'll explain quickly why I think 1) is wrong.
If you learn the very basics of Kanji(as shown here
http://kanjialive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/intro-to-kanji.pdf
), which can be learned for one day,
I think learning a kanji character, say, 快(which means "comfortable") is not very difficult
compared to learning, say, a German word "Gemütlich" which also means "comfortable".

Many Japanese words are made by combinations of two or three kanji characters.
For example, 難民, which means "refugees", where 難 means "difficulty" and 民 means "people".
It's pretty easy to guess the meaning of 難民 once you know the meanings of 難 and 民.

Just because the English writing system uses only 26 characters does not mean
it's easier to acquire English vocabulary than Japanese one.

Secondly, Spanish is easy to learn for native English speakers because English and Spanish
belong to the same language family called the Indo-European languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages

260 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/24(土) 18:20:56.46 ID:jJf64dtE.net

HIGH WAVING HEATHER
　　　By Emily Bronte

High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars

All down the mountain sides wild forests lending
One mighty voice to the lift giving wind
Rivers their bands in the jubilee rending
Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending
Wider and deeper their waters extending
Leaving a desolate desert behind

Shining and lowering and swelling and dying
Changing forever from midnight to noon
Roaring like thunder like soft music sighing
Shadows on shadows advancing and flying
Lightning bright flashes the deep gloom defying
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon

　　　For a vigorous, fantastic recitation of this poem, click here:
　　　　　https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdBeYWUDA3Y

261 ：臭い米国人：2015/10/24(土) 22:35:51.63 ID:immxonyQ!.net

>>257
Where does Chinese fit into this?

Also, the most logical language would obviously be communicating via propositional logic.

>>258
Because he is an advanced learner of English and posts it for discussion.

262 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/25(日) 07:19:32.25 ID:9eiecwwm.net

>>260
Literary critics say that Emily Bronte was a great poet. If I remember
correctly, Virginia Woolf went so far as to say that, even if Bronte's
novel "Wuthering Heights" may fall out of people's mind some day,
her poems will survive.

My English still irritatingly far from perfect, I unfortunately
can't seem to appreciate the beauty of all of her poems. But I do
think I understand the intense vigor of this particular poem
"High Waving Heather." The punchy recitation on YouTube is a great
help in savoring her powerful rhythm.

Note the numerous repetition of the "--ing" verb form (the present
participle), which effectively depicts the velocity and intensity
of the stormy blasts. In moonlit midnight, Emily would have often
gone out of her cozy house, which would have been separated from
any other nearby hamlet or neighbor dwelling in Yorkshire, into
the vast heather-covered field. She never got married, never
left her birthplace except for some very short periods, and
died at 30. Most of her family members died very young, say,
around the age she died herself. Her mother, her sister Charlotte
Bronte the author, and her brother all died young. Her clergyman
father was the only one who survived and lived long. (to be continued)

263 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/25(日) 07:20:06.92 ID:9eiecwwm.net

[continued]

Emily was mannish. She was really intense, passionate. She loved dogs
much better than she did people. She was so passionate that there was
even a time when she struggled with a fierce dog and got much wounded.
She would have fought the dog with her bare hands.

Her novel and her poems seem to have much in common. Reading her poems
gives me a deeper understanding of her worldview and personality,
which should have given birth to her quintessential novel.

Both her novel and poetry are intense, vigorous, beyond the norms of
ordinary people. (I'm babbling a lot about her literature, but I'm
not yet much versed in her literature. I know my limitations in
my English ability and my understanding of any kind of literature
in English.)

264 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/25(日) 07:38:54.04 ID:9eiecwwm.net

>>260
>>Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending
>>Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars

Back to the poem "High Waving Heather." Note the above two lines.
The stormy blasts blow wildly through the heather under the moonlit
sky with the stars shining, with the moonlight, starlight, and the sight
of the heather mysteriously blended together. The storm intensely
blows away the people's spirit from their "dungeon" of little bodies,
breaking their "fetters" and "bars."

This image of man's being imprisoned in a "dungeon," restrained by
the "fetters" and "bars" seem to be repeated many times in much of
her literature. I have noted it in several of her poems. Her soul
would have been so intense and passionate that it would not have
been satisfied with this particular mode of life in this monotonous
universe. That is why she craved eternity, which she believed existed
after her death. Here, she never was weak. She was not the kind of
person who hated life because she was too weak to survive in this
harsh world. On the contrary, she was much too intelligent, strong,
and powerful for this mediocre mode of living. She was quite beyond
all norms of humanity. That is why she could not help longing for
the quietude of the eternal world of death.

265 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/26(月) 21:25:14.12 ID:IN2Fhe8g.net

★ good-bad books, good-bad times ★

Reading some essays by George Orwell, I found him using the word
"good-bad" at least on several occasions. I'd never met the word.
I find it interesting and funny. I don't know how widely it is used.
Let me quote the definition of the word and the quotations containing
it from the OED.

　　　*******************

★good-bad★ adj. designating something which is simultaneously
good and bad, esp. that is generally bad or inferior, but has
redeeming characteristics, or is a particularly good example of
an inferior thing; (also) relating to both good and bad.

(1) 1852 tr. R. de Maistre in Dublin Rev. Dec. 390
　　　There is nothing so dangerous as ●good bad● books, that is to say,
　　　bad books written by excellent men deceived.
(2) 1899 Chambers's Jrnl. 23 Sept. 674/1
　　　Smugglers in the ●good-bad● old times pursued what they euphemistically
　　　called the ‘fair trade’.
(3) 1933 A. Thirkell High Rising ii. 41
　　　‘●Good bad● books?’ ‘Yes. Not very good books,..but good of a
　　　second-rate kind.’
(4) 1949 M. Mead Male & Female xvii. 346
　　　A frequent theme of modern movies is the ‘●good-bad●’ girl.
(5) 2003 R. Feasey in M. Jancovich et al. Defining Cult Movies xi. 173
　　　They do not reject or invert standards of good and bad taste,
　　　but rather distinguish between the ‘●good bad●’ movie and the bad movie
　　　which is simply bad.
　　　========================
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2014).

266 ：臭い米国人：2015/10/27(火) 02:35:44.82 ID:SbXow/Fn!.net

>>264
I'm a native and I don't understand poems, so I'd say it's nothing to worry about. However I feel you won't accept that, since you want to know how to read poems.
Maybe you could find an English board where they discuss poetry?

>>265
We don't really use good-bad as far as I know. Instead what I hear is "X is so bad it's good" which has a meaning most similar to example 5.
Otherwise from what I can recall is just using words like "mediocre" and "okay" to describe something which has a meaning similar to example 3.
1 is fine as it is, because it explains what it means by good-bad, but 2 and 4 would probably be written completely different.

267 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/27(火) 06:57:01.84 ID:wW/kcFZc.net

>>266
Thanks, 臭い米国人, for both of your valuable inputs.

As for the poem, yes, you're right. If I do want to discuss it seriously
with someone or ask somebody serious questions about it, I know
there are other websites designed for those purposes. I also know
that the best way is to join a course organized by Oxford University
for part-time online students for a fee. Here in this thread, I have
been writing these things without expecting responses from others.
Yes, of course, I'd appreciate some, but I know I can't force them
to respond to me. In the future I may take the university course.

As for the word "good-bad," I had had a vague feeling that it was
no longer used, at least not widely. George Orwell was using the word
in the 1930s and the '40s. I suspect the word was more prevalent
in Britain than today. Or perhaps he was using the word while well
aware that it was rarely used. Despite that, just a look at the word
is, I think, enough to let the readers know what the author means.

I also know that huge numbers of words that the OED picks up are archaic,
rare, total jargon, or otherwise of little importance, at least to
the general public. But I do take interest in the fact that at some
point during the long history of English there have been a period
when a certain word was used widely or at least by one famous author,
although it looks very rare or totally meaningless to us today.

268 ：臭い米国人：2015/10/27(火) 23:18:29.43 ID:SbXow/Fn!.net

>>267
I understand completely what you're saying. There's something very thrilling about learning the etymology of a word, and knowing words that were once used but aren't any more.
It amazes me that sometimes you can use these words in current time, and although it will sound funny to hear, it can be understood what it means by context.
As in your "good-bad" example. I guess the thrill to me in learning about old words and phrases is that even though they're not used today, and the language as a whole could be used completely differently,
the fact that these words can still be understood by advanced speakers means the language hasn't changed as much as we think it has.

269 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/28(水) 12:17:05.54 ID:DJQxk81Q.net

● Said no one ever ●

In a thread for Japanese learners of English here on 2-channel,
one Japanese asked what this phrase means. I was positive it was
some kind of typo or that some words are missing at the end of
the phrase.

I was wrong. I googled it half unconsciously. Lo and behold, it's
a popular phrase that seems to be widely circulating on social media.

　　　****************

“Said no one ever” is an off-the-rack punchline designed to fall
at the end of a deliberately absurd statement, inverting the meaning
of what came before it and advertising the user as someone who is
both clever and playful, as well as inside the tent with the rest of
the cool kids.

The phrase is used as the punchline in a recent TV commercial for
Carnival Cruise Lines, in an attempt to persuade millennials to
take more sea-based vacations. Cruise ships are awesome
●said no one ever●, anyway my point is it’s time to stop using it.

Before the joke expired, use of “●said no one ever●” was just the
evolution of sticking “not” on the end of a sentence, that childish
craze of the late 1990s which was itself an extension of the
playground game of bending double with laughter whenever someone
said something and yelling “It’s opposites day!” in their face.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/14/no-one-should-ever-say-said-no-one-ever

270 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/30(金) 17:50:40.38 ID:j+R67D2X.net

LEAR
When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
　　　(King Lear 4.6.177)

GLOUCESTER
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
　　　(King Lear 4.1.38)

271 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/30(金) 18:24:52.74 ID:j+R67D2X.net

Les Pensees, Blaise Pascal

133　DIVERSION
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have
decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. (169)

136　The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking
of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind
off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy,
like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is
called diversion. (139)

272 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/10/30(金) 18:33:47.30 ID:j+R67D2X.net

198　
When I see the blind and wretched state of man, when I survey the
whole universe in its dumbness and man left to himself with no light,
as though lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who put
him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him when he dies,
incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man
transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes
up quite lost and with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so
wretched a state does not drive people to despair. I see other people
around me, made like myself, I ask them if they are any better
informed than I, and they say they are not. Then these lost and
wretched creatures look around and find some attractive objects to
which they become addicted and attached. For my part I have never
been able to form such attachments, and considering how very
likely it is that there exists something besides what I can see,
I have tried to find out whether God has left any traces of himself. (693)

　　　Les Pensees, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, 1966
　　　(Penguin Books, p.59)

273 ：Dreas：2015/10/31(土) 00:02:57.25 ID:DRhMljMm!.net

>>261
>Where does Chinese fit into this?

Chinese is, as I said before, wonderfully simplistic in it's grammar. However the number of characters,
and the inability to interpret foreign words, prevents it from being any degree of practical

>Also, the most logical language would obviously be communicating via propositional logic.
this is true. Maybe someday we'll have that tech. But not today.

274 ：Dreas：2015/10/31(土) 00:06:26.29 ID:DRhMljMm!.net

>>259
This simply isn't true. German is easier to learn because you can import words from other languages, and uses the basic Latin alphabet,
Which somewhere around 3 BILLION people use in their languages, either as first language or second.

Are you seriously arguing that it's easier to learn 10,000+ complicated symbols than 26 letters?
You're simply not being realistic.

275 ：777 ：2015/10/31(土) 17:45:39.65 ID:t44tZnKz.net

>>274
>This simply isn't true.

What exactly do you mean by "this"?

>Which somewhere around 3 BILLION people use in their languages,

What is your point in saying that?

>Are you seriously arguing that it's easier to learn 10,000+ complicated symbols than 26 letters?

You don't seem to know what you are talking about.
First, only about 2,000(not 10,000) Kanji characters are taught in schools in Japan.
Newspapers are written using only those characters with a small number of exceptions
like place names.

Secondly, Kanji characters are ideograms, not phonograms like the Latin alphabet.
Each Kanji character has a meaning while a Latin alphabet letter does not.
In other words, a Kanji character can be viewed as a *word*.
So it's absurd to compare the number of Kanji and the number of the Latin alphabet.

276 ：777 ：2015/11/02(月) 10:11:13.13 ID:+7IMwy8L.net

Suppose you are not sure whether a person called Leslie Smith is male or female.
Do you think the following phrase is natural?

I guess Leslie Smith did *their* best.

277 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/02(月) 21:21:07.75 ID:RQp5p6if.net

Virginia Woolf "To the Lighthouse"

'Yes, of course, if it's fine to-morrow,' said Mrs. Ramsay. 'But you'll
have to be up with the lark,' she added. (snip)
　　'But,' said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window,
'it won't be fine.'
　　●Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have
gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then,
James would have seized it.● Such were the extremes of emotion that
Mr. Ramsay excited in his children's breasts by his mere presence;
standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the blade of one,
grinning sarcastically, not only with the pleasure of disillusioning
his son and casting ridicule upon his wife, who was ten thousand times
better in every way than he was (James thought), but also with some
secret conceit at his own accuracy of judgment.

　　　　(Everyman's Library, pp.1-2)

278 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/02(月) 21:35:32.15 ID:RQp5p6if.net

Virginia Woolf "To the Lighthouse" (2)

James kept dreading the moment when he [= his father] would look up and
speak sharply to him about something or other. Why were they lagging
about here? he would demand, or something quite unreasonable like that.
And if he did, James thought, then ●I shall take a knife and strike
him to the heart.●
　　He had always kept ★this old symbol of taking a knife and striking
his father to the heart★. Only now, as he grew older, and sat staring
at his father in an impotent rage, 【it was not him, that old man
reading, whom he wanted to kill, but it was the thing that descended
on him - without his knowing it perhaps: that fierce sudden
black-winged harpy, with its talons and its beak all cold and hard,
that struck and struck at you】 (he could feel the beak on his bare
legs, where it had struck when he was a child) and then made off,
and there he was again, an old man, very sad, reading his book. That
he would kill, that he would strike to the heart.

　　　(Everyman's Library, p.209)

279 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/03(火) 00:04:40.37 ID:hECzMjU4!.net

>>276
Yes that's perfectly natural. Just don't buy into the bullshit of new pronouns idiots are trying to use like "xir/xe" and what not.
No matter what you might hear from another English speaker, if you don't know the gender you would use a form of "they".
It's also used when trying to be official on occasion.

280 ：777 ：2015/11/03(火) 15:46:38.45 ID:Lw90uJis.net

>>279
>if you don't know the gender you would use a form of "they".

Thanks. I had suspected that a majority of native English speakers might have
the same opinion as yours, If this is true, I guess English grammar has almost
changed about the use of "they".
As you probably know, most people would have said "I guess Leslie Smith did *his* best"
before about 1980. Before the feminism movement started in the 1960s, "he" had been
universally used as a gender-neutral pronoun.

I know that the singular "they" has been used since Chaucer's time.
But as far as I know, it has been used only for a non-specific indefinite person like "nobody",
"everyone", "someone", etc. Since such a pronoun is semantically plural,
I think referring to it as "they" is not unnatural.
However, I think referring to a specific definite person(like Leslie Smith) whose gender is unknown
as "they" is quite a new phenomenon.

281 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/04(水) 21:49:34.98 ID:g7F24hrL.net

To the Lighthouse 1.17 (Mr. Bankes' monologue in the presence of
his old friend, Mrs. Ramsay, at a dinner party with her big family)

It would have hurt her [= Mrs. Ramsay] if he [= Mr. Bankes] had refused
to come. But it was not worth it for him. Looking at his hand he thought
that if he had been alone dinner would have been almost over now; he
would have been free to work, Yes, he thought, it is ●a terrible waste
of time●. [snip] How trifling it all is, how boring it all is, he
thought, compared with the other thing - work. [snip] What a waste of
time it all was to be sure! Yet, he thought, she is one of my oldest
friends. I am by way of being devoted to her. Yet now, at this moment
her presence meant absolutely nothing to him: her beauty meant nothing
to him; [snip] He wished only to be alone and to take up that book.
[snip] He felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit
by her side and feel nothing for her. ●The truth was that he did not
enjoy family life.● It was in this sort of state that one asked
oneself, ★What does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one
take all these pains for the human race to go on?★ Is it so very
desirable? Are we attractive as a species? [snip] Foolish questions,
vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied, Is
human life this? Is human life that? One never had time to think
about it.

　　　Everyman's Library, pp.101-102

282 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/05(木) 00:08:20.85 ID:EIy4AsSz!.net

>>280
I haven't studied about the history of using pronouns when unsure of gender. That does make sense though,
as anecodotally I have noticed many technical books switching more to defaulting as "her" as it became later in the 90s and now the new millenia.
I'm probably being a curmudgeon, but the choice of "he/her" should be the author's, not society's.

283 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/05(木) 00:14:50.31 ID:EIy4AsSz!.net

Double post, but...
>>281
What is meant by these [snip]s? If it's omission, just end the previous sentence with ellepses (...) after the punctuation mark.
Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time... How trifling it all is...
What does one live for?...Are we attractive as a species?...

Just as long as it's only used sparingly.

284 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/05(木) 06:57:27.62 ID:+QNNM5l7.net

>>283
Oh, I had seen - if I remember correctly - some people use a [snip] or
a <snip> in the middle of a quoted passage to mean an ellipsis designed
to shorten the quotation. And I had assumed it was standard usage of
English. I was wrong, huh? Thank you for telling me.

　　　>>Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time...
　　　　　How trifling it all is...

Yes, that notation looks like a good idea, but I fear readers might
then wonder whether the ellipses were made by the original author
of the passage or by me (the quoter).

If I remember correctly again, some quoters use the following notation:

　　　(1) Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time [...]
　　　　　How trifling it all is [...]
　　　　　　--- Here, the quoter means the ellipses are made by
　　　　　　　　the quoter, not by the original author.

　　　(2) Yes, he thought, it is a terrible waste of time...
　　　　　How trifling it all is...
　　　　　　--- Here, the quoter means the ellipses are made by
　　　　　　　　the original author of the passage.

Am I right about (1) and (2) above, I wonder?

285 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/05(木) 07:58:48.06 ID:GAt1bas5.net

After writing >>284, I scanned a couple of collections of literary
commentaries containing lots of quotations. There I've found that
some authors write as in (1), that is, three periods in brackets,
while others write just three periods, as in (2). In both cases, the
authors are quoting passages of literary works, while omitting some words
in the middle of each quotation. They don't seem to be making
distinctions between omissions made by the original author and
those by the quoter.

In Japan, on the other hand, the general convention seems to be
that they use the word 中略 (churyaku) to mean that the omission or
ellipsis is being made by the quoter, not by the original author of
the passage. Then, when there occurs three dots like this
　　　いや・・・ちょっと待ってくれ
then it means that it is not the quoter but the original author
of the passage that is making the omission.

286 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/05(木) 08:06:23.94 ID:GAt1bas5.net

continued from >>285

Therefore, suppose you are reading a literary commentary and you come across
a passage like this:

　　　「いや・・・ちょっと待ってくれ」と恵三は言った。彼の表情は（中略）少し堅かった。

Then, the reader can clearly understand that the three dots (・・・)
mean that the omission or ellipsis is made by the original author
of the novel. Then the subsequent 中略 (churyaku) means that the
quoter is omitting some words that the original author wrote.

287 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/06(金) 00:09:57.61 ID:G5WusNc2!.net

>>284
I don't recall seeing a <snip> like that before. So if it's used, it must surely be new.
It's always been the way I stated, or the way you pointed out with [...]. Very rarely there will be "TEXT OMITTED" as well.
The last one is a very special case, and it has a sense of being used only in documents where clarity is the utmost importance, such as legal documents.
I can't describe it beyond that , as I don't use it personally.

I did not know about 中略、so thanks for explaining that!

288 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/06(金) 06:22:39.58 ID:+N7C4I47.net

>>287
Oh, thank you, 臭い米国人, for the input. Keep in touch.

289 ：777 ：2015/11/07(土) 07:52:24.52 ID:0VQzOm1q.net

>>282
Here is a passage from a novel called "Rogue in Space" by Fredric Brown.

【CALL HIM by no name, for he had no name. He did not know the meaning of name, or of
any other word. He had no language, for he had never come into contact with any other
living being in the billions of light-years of space that he had traversed from the far
rim of the galaxy, in the billions of years that it had taken him to make that journey.
For all he knew or had ever known he was the only living being in the universe.
He had not been born, for there was no other like him. He was a piece of rock a little
over a mile in diameter, floating free in space. There are myriads of such small worlds
but they are dead rock, inanimate matter. He was aware, and an entity. An accidental
combination of atoms into molecules had made him a living being. To our present knowledge
such an accident has happened only twice in infinity and eternity; the other such event
took place in the primeval ooze of Earth, where carbon atoms formed sentient life that
multiplied and evolved.】

(To be continued)

290 ：777 ：2015/11/07(土) 07:53:53.50 ID:0VQzOm1q.net

>>282
(Continued)
Since it was written in 1957, the thing is referred to as "he".
In the present【Political Correctness 】world, perhaps it should be written as folows?

【CALL THEM by no name, for they had no name. They did not know the meaning of name, or of
any other word. They had no language, for they had never come into contact with any other
living being in the billions of light-years of space that they had traversed from the far
rim of the galaxy, in the billions of years that it had taken them to make that journey.
For all they knew or had ever known they was the only living being in the universe.
They had not been born, for there was no other like them. They were a piece of rock a little
over a mile in diameter, floating free in space. There are myriads of such small worlds
but they are dead rock, inanimate matter. They were aware, and an entity. An accidental
combination of atoms into molecules had made them a living being. To our present knowledge
such an accident has happened only twice in infinity and eternity; the other such event
took place in the primeval ooze of Earth, where carbon atoms formed sentient life that
multiplied and evolved.】

291 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/07(土) 18:53:36.29 ID:2suz8qdn.net

>>1 yes

292 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/07(土) 20:03:48.04 ID:TxVD6qUu.net

The Castaway
　　by William Cowper (1731-1800)

Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind. (to be continued)

293 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/07(土) 20:14:50.65 ID:TxVD6qUu.net

[Continued]
Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives and hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried -- Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank. [to be continued on Part 3]

294 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/07(土) 20:15:20.43 ID:TxVD6qUu.net

[Part 3]
No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he. [End of poem]

295 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/07(土) 20:29:42.51 ID:TxVD6qUu.net

This poem quoted at >>292-294 was really hard for me to understand.
First, it contains a great many words I'm not familiar with and
I had to consult my dictionaries numerous times. Second, many of
those unfamiliar words are archaic. Third, although I already knew poems
put rhythm and stylistic beauty before grammatical correctness
(or idiomatic-ness), this particular poem was one of the hardest
to understand, at least for me anyway, in terms of structure and
grammar. Even after a couple of hours of study of this poem, some
of the phrases still remain a mystery.

That said, I think I've managed to appreciate the approximate gist
of the spirit of the poem anyway. The reason I tackled the poem is
that it appears in my favorite, if very difficult, novel
"To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf. Fragments of the poem are
quoted here and there in 3-5 of the novel. Woolf's novels are ridden
with fragments of famous novels. Not only that, she writes her novels
as if as long poems. "The Waves" is a full-length novel (about 250
pages long) but it reads exactly like a very long novel. It doesn't
feel like an ordinary novel at all.

In any case, her novels are filled with famous novels and they read
like long poems themselves. Whenever I find a fragment of a famous
poem in any of her novels, I try to find the whole poem containing
the fragment and read the whole poem through. Not only that, there
are lots of allusions in her novels, including mythical heroes,
so that it takes a very long time to read a single work of hers.

296 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/07(土) 23:34:58.10 ID:5800UlhT!.net

>>289-290
This passage feels like even today it would still be "he" because I get the
impression that the author intended for the main character to be a man.

>>295
It's great that you enjoy these works, but I'm sorry to say the rhythm to this
poem is one of the most basic that's taught here, at least when I learned
poems. I'm sure you understand its structure now, but just to make it obvious,
the structure is as follows:

1) I therefore purpose not, or dream,
2) Descanting on his fate,
3) To give the melancholy theme
4) A more enduring date:
5) But misery still delights to trace
6) Its semblance in another's case.

1) and 3) rhyme with the last word, and share the same number of syllables.
2) and 4) rhyme with the last word, and share the same number of syllables.
5) and 6) rhyme with the last word, and share the same number of syllables.

So every other line rhymes on the last word, and have the same number of syllables.
Except the last two lines rhyme with each other and have the same syllable count.

297 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/08(日) 06:43:22.30 ID:pKWdakAB.net

>>296
Thanks, 臭い米国人, for your explanation of the poem. As a matter of
fact, when I was trying to decipher the poem yesterday before making
my last post here, I was so busy merely trying to decipher the meaning
of each word, consulting my dictionaries literally fifty or even a
hundred times, and trying to grasp the grammatical structure of each
phrase or line, that I failed to notice the rhythm that you beautifully
explained above.

Then, later last night, when I was browsing several
passages of a book on the basics of poetry (entitled "Understanding
Poetry" by Cleanth Brooks), I noticed the rhythm, which was quite
obvious. I think I hadn't noticed the whole forest, busy with
examining the single tree that was right before my eyes.

I also noticed only later last night that the poem dates back to the
18th century. No wonder the language itself felt a bit difficult
to me, at least harder than poems written in the 19th and 20th
centuries anyway. Dryden's poems, however, at least the ones that
I've happened to read, are easier for me to understand even though
they date back to the 17th century, being even older than this
Cowper poem. And oh, John Donne is also rather hard for me because
his language seems very archaic to me.

298 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/11(水) 08:21:31.02 ID:lZbcX0VL.net

Virginia Woolf "To the Lighthouse," 1-3

[Note by the quoter: The following quotation depicts the feelings and
thoughts of Mrs. Ramsay, a middle-aged mother of eight children. She
is staying for a summer vacation in a country cottage on the Isle of
Skye (one of the Habrides, Scotland) rented by the family together
with her children, her husband, and her several guests. She is sitting
in the house, with her young son. She is hearing murmurs from another
room. The murmurs are probably those of her husband and one of her
guests. She also hears the voices of some of her children playing
cricket outdoors. She also hears the soothing sound of the waves.

The following quote consists of one very long sentence. Or could it
be called three sentences? (It looks like a single sentence divided into
three segments by semicolons.) Even if they are three sentences, they
are each very long anyway. Structurally, they are hard for me to
understand. For me at least, to savor the delicate meaning of the
passage, it takes a long, long time. But the effort is quite rewarding.
It is just beautiful. Virginia Woolf is a genius of quietude.]

　　　******** QUOTE ********

　　But here, as she [= Mrs. Ramsay] turned the page, suddenly her
search for the picture of a rake or a mowing-machine was interrupted.
The gruff murmur, irregularly broken by the taking out of pipes and
the putting in of pipes which had kept on assuring her, though she
could not hear what was said (as she sat in the window), that the men
were happily talking;

(The long sentence is continued on the next post.)

299 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/11(水) 08:22:11.37 ID:lZbcX0VL.net

[Continued from >>298]

this sound, which had lasted now half an hour
and had taken its place soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on
top of her, such as the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden
bark now and then, 'How's that? How's that?' of the children playing
cricket, had ceased; so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the
beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to
her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as
she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured
by nature, 'I am guarding you - I am your support,' but at other times
suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself
slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning,
but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of
life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its
engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in
one quick doing after another that it was all ephemeral as a rainbow
- this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other
sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up
with an impulse of terror.　
　　(Virginia Woolf, "To the Lighthouse," 1-3, Everyman's Library p.17-18)

300 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/11(水) 11:10:59.37 ID:KhmY+vL6.net

>>298
[Structural analysis]
I'm omitting the first sentence beginning with "But here," because
it's short and easy to understand. Here comes the second, long sentence:

　　　***************

The gruff murmur,
　　irregularly broken by
　　　the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes
　　　　　which had kept on 【assuring her】,
　　　　　　　though she could not hear what was said
　　　　　　　　(as she sat in the window),
　　　　　【that】 the men were happily talking;

(Note: In the above phrase, the phrase "assuring her" is followed by
"that + clause." And the above phrase as a whole is a noun phrase,
if I may put it that way (I don't know what it is called exactly in
grammatical or linguistic terminology). What I mean is that the
above string of words as a whole has the main subject ("the gruff murmur")
but it is not followed by a verb. Its verb, if I understand the
whole long paragraph correctly, appears long, long afterwards. 9 lines
later in my paper version of the novel. The verb of "the gruff murmur"
is actually "had ceased."

301 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/11(水) 11:23:36.78 ID:KhmY+vL6.net

>>299
[Structural analysis of the second segment of the long sentence]

【this sound】,
　　which (1) had lasted now half an hour
　　　and (2) had taken its place soothingly
　　　　　in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her,
　　　　　　　such as　(i) the tap of balls upon bats,
　　　　　　　　　　　　(ii) the sharp, sudden bark now and then,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　'How's that? How's that?' of the children playing cricket,
【had ceased】;

　　　****************

If I understand it correctly, in this second segment of the long sentence,
the phrase "this sound," appearing at the top, is the subject, which is
followed by its verb "had ceased," appearing at the end.

302 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/11(水) 11:41:54.91 ID:KhmY+vL6.net

>>299 [Third and last segment of the long sentence]

Here comes the third and last segment of this long sentence. It's by
far the longest segment and pretty hard to analyze, for me anyway.
Is it easy enough for educated native speakers, I wonder?

　　　*******************

so that
[AAA] ■the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach■,
　　which ●for the most part●
　　　　★(1) BEAT a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts
　　　and
　　　　★(2) SEEMED consolingly to repeat over and over again
　　　　　　<< as she sat with the children >>
　　　　　　the words of some old cradle song,
　　　　　　　　murmured by nature,
　　　　　　　　　'I am guarding you - I am your support,'
[[[ but ●at other times● suddenly and unexpectedly,
　　especially when her mind raised itself
　　　slightly from the task actually in hand, ]]]
　　　　★(3) HAD ◆no◆ such kindly meaning,
　　◆but◆ << like a ghostly roll of drums >>
　　　　★(4) remorselessly BEAT the measure of life,
　　　　★(5) MADE one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea,
　　　and
　　　　★(6) 【WARNED】 her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another
　　　　　　　　　【that】 it was all ephemeral as a rainbow
- [BBB] ■this sound■ which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds
　　　(i) suddenly THUNDERED hollow in her ears
　　and
　　　(ii) MADE her look up with an impulse of terror.　

303 ：Dreas：2015/11/13(金) 01:30:13.99 ID:GnpkwPzK!.net

back, how have you fellows been doing?

304 ：Dreas：2015/11/13(金) 01:32:53.86 ID:GnpkwPzK!.net

>>280
If people don't know the gender of a person, like, if I were to say "x person invented the jet engine"
I would say "he invented the jet engine." Keep in mind this would ONLY be used if I knew neither the person or the name,
Or just the last name.

305 ：Dreas：2015/11/13(金) 01:40:04.73 ID:GnpkwPzK!.net

>>275
>You don't seem to know what you're talking about.
Oh the irony.

I don't understand why you don't understand what I'm saying. I'll try to make myself as simple as possible:

Japanese, has lots of characters, lots of rules, and cannot properly import foreign words. It is also used by only japan as a primary OR secondary language.

English, while more complicated in it's grammar, can import foreign words with ease; as well as letters, and it's alphabet is a puny 26 characters, or 30 if you use adapted, improper ones.

It is used as a primary language or secondary languages by quite literally billions of people.

More importantly, it's alphabet, the Latin script, is used in other languages WELL over half of the world.


Additionally, well over half of the internet is written in english, and up to about 90% is written in the Latin script.


So, if I speak english, I will not only have a better chance to learn the languages of other places, use the internet, speak with other people,
adopt new words, and educate others. This is why it's preferable.


However, it also needs a revision to be proper.

Do you understand me a little better now? I'm not trying to attack Japan or it's people.

306 ：Dreas：2015/11/13(金) 01:46:40.86 ID:GnpkwPzK!.net

>>276
Top expand on this a little, Mr. Or Mrs. Smith would in a casual setting default to he or him.

"They" and it's forms is also used, so you are correct in saying that, and possibly more so in a professional setting

If Leslie Smith was my future employer I would not want to screw up his gender!

I would myself use something along the lines of


"Dear Leslie Smith, I am interesting in applying for work positions in your company."- avoiding the use of any gender indicative words
English is a language of avoidance in many ways.

307 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/14(土) 00:00:53.45 ID:VmjNtcUs!.net

>>302
I can't make heads or tails of this, but it's because of all of these extra symbols that are on the words.
I imagine that you put them there? If so, what do all of them mean? We don't use a lot of symbols in English
when analyzing texts, so to me I have no idea where to begin or end.
We mainly use [ ] or ( ) when adding something the source originally omitted, and the ellepses for our own omission of the original work.

>>305
English is simply the language used by the world powers for this current time period.
As late as the early 20th century, Latin was the dominant language for the sciences, and depending on how far back one goes,
the dominant languages have included Italian, Egyptian, Greek, and Chinese.
Had the interconnectivity started in another nation, the internet, we most likely would be striving to speak that language instead.

The ability to import words "properly", which is a vague term, has no relation to the ease of learning the language. Instead it has to do with
grammatical and lexical similarities.

This last part I'm stating to you directly: please learn the distinctions between graphemes and phonemes, because you project that you don't know the difference.
Your attacks on the character count as making the language impractical are baseless. They may -add- to the time to learn the language, but if they wielded
a power over the language as much as you think they do, they would have been abandoned in favor of another way of writing thousands of years ago.

308 ：777 ：2015/11/14(土) 10:48:16.30 ID:2Jse3XUF.net

>>304
>Or just the last name.

"Leslie" can be use for both male and female names.
If you don't know the gender of a person called Leslie Smith, what pronoun do you use to refer the person?

309 ：777 ：2015/11/14(土) 10:52:15.10 ID:2Jse3XUF.net

If you don't know the gender of a person called Leslie Smith, what pronoun do you use to refer *to* the person?

310 ：777 ：2015/11/14(土) 10:59:34.35 ID:2Jse3XUF.net

>>305
>Oh the irony.

I meant that you didn't seem to have enough knowledge of the Japanese language to discuss the subject.
Can you read a Japanese newspaper?

311 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/15(日) 00:14:00.01 ID:W/libPC+!.net

>>309
Since you asked specifically for pronouns, it would be "they" and its derivatives.
Sorry, thought I had answered it before.

312 ：777 ：2015/11/15(日) 03:26:00.60 ID:oUnb/Jar.net

>>311 Oops, I forgot to say that the question was asked to Dreas.

313 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/17(火) 10:04:06.27 ID:rxWnqTpI.net

【F. Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby"】

I've just begun reading "The Great Gatsby." People say the author's
language is really beautiful. I don't care about the plot but the
beauty and rhythm of the language in novels. And yes, the reviewers
were right: Fitzgerald is a great stylist.

　　　******** QUOTE ***************

I [= the narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway] began to like New York,
the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that
the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the
restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic
women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to
enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove.
Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the
corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me
before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted
metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and
felt it in others - poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows
waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner - young
clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

　　　　F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby," Chapter 3,
　　　　　　Everyman's Library, p.48

314 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/17(火) 18:25:11.85 ID:rxWnqTpI.net

【New Testament, St. John 11:1-】

Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town
of Mary and her sister Martha. (...)
When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but
for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. (...)
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died. (...)
Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. (...)
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in nme, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest
thou this? (...)
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come
and see.
Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
(to be continued)

315 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/17(火) 18:31:52.55 ID:rxWnqTpI.net

(continued) St. John 11:37-
And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the
eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It
was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that
was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath
been dead four days.
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth.
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with
graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith
unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things
which Jesus did, believed on him.

　　　New Testament, St. John 11:1-45

316 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/17(火) 18:50:51.65 ID:rxWnqTpI.net

【The beauty of language as a source of solace】

Toward the middle of Chapter 4 of "Crime and Punishment," Raskolnikov
the hero/murderer urges Sonya the harlot to read for him the
above-quoted passage about the raising of Lazarus. She then reads it.

I've read the novel at least 12 times, most of the time in English.
I've also listened to the reading of the novel by a professional actor
at least 30 to 50 times.

Although not a Christian, this passage somehow impresses me a lot. God
may be dead, but the beauty and the power of the Bible lives on. I
may not believe in God but I do believe in the mysterious power of
language. This world may be just a cesspool, constantly temping me to
seek the quietude of nothingness, but the beauty of language remains
a great source of solace, keeping me barely able to live on.

May God or the Universe bestow ye my brethren a similar source of solace!

317 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/18(水) 19:41:49.75 ID:/WHPKoP4.net

You might be thinking opposite, but Kelt is black also Turkish. Parisians are white.

318 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/18(水) 19:42:58.52 ID:/WHPKoP4.net

However, Teutons are white.

319 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/20(金) 15:29:42.94 ID:VCV17z5K.net

【Lao-Tzu "Tao Te Ching" 老子「道徳経」】

55
　　　Thirty spokes.
　　　Share one hub.
Make the nothing therein appropriate, and you will have the
use of cart. Knead clay in order to make a vessel. Make
the nothing therein appropriate, and you will have the use of
the clay vessel. Cut out doors and windows in order to make
a room. Make the nothing therein appropriate, and you will
have the use of the room.
Thus we gain by making it Something, but we have the use
by making it Nothing.

　　　　　Translated by D.C. Lau, Everyman's Library, p.59

320 ：臭い米国人：2015/11/24(火) 01:14:21.28 ID:OybvGTdR!.net

I read a book by Kato Lomb over the weekend. She was a hungarian polyglot who did simultaneously interpretation after WWII.
The book is called

321 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/25(水) 09:42:33.96 ID:ISgpFXXX.net

【Lao-Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" (2)】

　　　Bowed down then whole;
　　　Warped then true;
　　　Hollow then full;
　　　Worn then new;
　　　A little then benefited;
　　　A lot then perplexed.

Hence the sage grasps the One and is the shepherd of the empire.
　　　He does not display himself, and so is conspicuous;
　　　He does not show himself, and so is manifest;
　　　He does not boast of himself, and so has merit;
　　　He does not brag about it, and so is able to endure.
It is because he does not contend that no one is in a position
to contend with him.
The way the ancients had it, 'Whole through being bowed down',
is as true a saying as can be. Truly, it enables one to hand
it back whole.

　　　Lao-Tzu's "Tao Te Ching," Everyman's Library, p.71

322 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/11/29(日) 18:32:42.20 ID:dsJA0jFU.net

>>208 >>211
I'll move my bags. を僕が発音した録音サンプル

この下にあるリンクをクリックし、そのあと、
暗証番号として 000 つまり「ゼロ3つ」を入れると、
録音サンプルを聞くことができます。

　　　http://www.dotup.org/uploda/www.dotup.org630553.m4a.html

323 ：臭い米国人：2015/12/02(水) 00:14:42.24 ID:rRkP7D2D!.net

>>322
You have good pronunciation. Especially the L's, which I know is hard for many Japanese.
If you don't mind a nitpick, your W on will is pretty strong. We don't push out a lot of air for the W, it's about as much as あ or い instead of は行。
But honestly I only noticed it because of your microphone clipping from too much air hitting it.

If you, or anyone else, wants a collection of phrases to practice pronunciation, look up

324 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 10:24:15.00 ID:t/q/jB48.net

>>323
Thanks for the compliment, 臭い米国人.
Here's my recorded response to you:
　　http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/214/Response+2+Amer.m4a

325 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 10:36:26.48 ID:t/q/jB48.net

>>323
Here's another recorded response to 臭い米国人.

326 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 10:38:06.90 ID:t/q/jB48.net

>>323
Oops, I forgot to post the link to that **second** recorded response to
臭い米国人.
　　　http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/215/Sri+America.m4a

327 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 12:15:54.98 ID:t/q/jB48.net

How I began to learn English at 11, then at school at 12,
and how I fell in love with its musicality: a recorded message
　　　http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/216/11+Yrs+Old.m4a

328 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 12:32:00.06 ID:t/q/jB48.net

The joy of learning (especially language and literature)
as my primary driving force in life: a recorded message (about 5 minutes):
　　　http://u3.getuploader.com/2chenglish/download/217/Joy+Learning.m4a
https://o.5ch.net/1dep.png

329 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 13:50:40.06 ID:t/q/jB48.net

How I Love "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
(my own recorded message on YouTube)
　　　https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JJ8XDoBXrE

330 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 14:19:47.58 ID:t/q/jB48.net

How I Love "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche
(my own recorded message on YouTube)
　　　https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOeZG3erF8Y

331 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/03(木) 14:43:20.36 ID:t/q/jB48.net

How and Why I Love "Les Pensees" by Blaise Pascal
(my own recorded message)
　　　https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mWD7ONiR8o

332 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/15(火) 06:29:51.01 ID:qYtbE1O2!.net

>>310
You haven't proved that I don't, you're just insulting people.


>>309
Just use the name, or perhaps "they, them" ext.

So if I don't know L. Smith, I could just say

"I had invited Leslie Smith to attend the meeting"

You'll figure out his/her/it's gender eventually if you stall enough I figure.
They/them might be awkward but it is gender-neutral

333 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/15(火) 06:30:24.18 ID:qYtbE1O2!.net

>>307
I'm aware it's only around for the time being, but you forget that English has been lent
a permanence because of it's scale, and because of the internet.

"The ability to import words "properly", which is a vague term, has no relation to the ease of learning the language. Instead it has to do with
grammatical and lexical similarities. "


That's not true, It's an important part of being able to adapt one's own language to others and to make it "familiar" so to speak. It also makes it much more flexible.
English evolves by importing other words. If I learn English, and need to describe something from my former language, I am completely able to just copy paste a word
from my previous language into English. Alternatively, if I want to do something as simple as call someone by name, I can call Jason, Jason, not some hideous butchering of the pronunciation.
"But English butchers pronunciations too!" Of course, but whereas there literally isn't an "l" sound in Japanese (not even getting into the fact that most Hiragana characters link two different phoneme) most English origin
goofs come not from a lack of foundation but from a literal lack of ability in the English speaker.
I can't speak Chinese because my vocal cords haven't adapted to the task, not because there is no letter for the "ess" sound or what have you.
Sadly when importing words many people don't bother to change the spelling properly; this is why "a" makes about four different sounds. But this is an issue with the people, not the tool.
and of course “lexical similarities” contribute greatly to ease of use.

334 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/15(火) 06:31:15.35 ID:qYtbE1O2!.net

"graphemes and phonemes"
If I didn't know what they are (and I do) I could simply search them on the internet. Are you a professor, teacher or so? If not then you have little base to criticize me on this.
I'm writing this all in vernacular English. I could go absurdly "scholarly" with this and use every overly long phrase, clause and word I possess but I won't because I shouldn't and I don't need to.
I'm not hiding anything.
Furthermore, don't insult your own audience, because that's not debate, that's just dumb.
I have not spoken against you in the past, am not doing now, and will continue to not do so in the future. This is because I respect you as an (anonymous) person and will give you your fair time to prove your points.
You should give the same respect to your opponent. At any time I could throw a hissy fit and refuse to talk with you and make a bunch of troll posts, but I'm not going to, because that would be dumb and I don't want to be dumb.

335 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/15(火) 06:33:09.04 ID:qYtbE1O2!.net

>>307

Now it's my turn to talk to you as a person. You can hold whatever opinion you want, so long as you can defend it in an educated way. But please man, don't be pretentious. Our posts are literally a click away
from some dude spamming a thread with pictures of futanari catgirls being reamed senseless by tentacle aliens. This is not exactly the place to try and format a doctorate. I don't know why you still seem to
think that I am somehow attacking you or your country. I am doing neither.



"Your attacks on the character count as making the language impractical are baseless. They may -add- to the time to learn the language, but if they wielded
a power over the language as much as you think they do, they would have been abandoned in favor of another way of writing thousands of years ago. "


You literally just admitted that it makes the language impractical. You just said it adds time to the learning of the language. That's a hindrance. Maybe it's a small one (it isn't) but it is still a hindrance.
We need as few hindrances as possible. And most (not all) "symbol" (logogram, morpheme, pictogram, ect ect) languages have been abandoned, modified, or adapted. The amount of people that use, as I stated before,
just the Latin script completely surpass the languages that use the former. Romaji exists for a reason. It makes things simple, or at the very least, more simple. If you think that having a massive amount of
Kanji somehow makes things easier, alright, can you prove it? But until you do so you can't honestly say that somehow memorizing some thousand plus Kanji in order to read a newspaper is easier than remembering the sounds of
26 characters, 30 in an edited alphabet.

336 ：名無しさん＠英語勉強中：2015/12/15(火) 06:33:34.44 ID:qYtbE1O2!.net

>>307


About the only perks I see to Kanji are that you can read without knowing
the sounds, which is a gimmick at best, and the fact that you can't have people insist that "no really, 'c' makes three sounds!"
That's actually a bonus, but it doesn't matter really, because that's a quirk only found in English, not the languages that English stole from.





I also do not understand while you repeatedly criticize me and English's notoriously unreliable alphabet as if I somehow like that mess.
I am criticizing it too. We need a better system.
If you think that English needs a completely new alphabet before it could ever be practical, I could agree with you; but that's not very practical.



Remember, English doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better, which I firmly think it is.
Are you arguing that Japanese is a better language? Why do you think this, if so?
Why do you think otherwise?

337 ：臭い米国人：2015/12/16(水) 00:16:57.28 ID:9Bwm9yu5!.net

>>333-336
I'm going to reply to these posts as they're separated.

>>333
I understand what you mean about needing to describe something and substituting
the English word. But are you saying that Chinese is a bad language to use as a world
language because you as the individual don't have the ability to produce certain sounds?
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say for those last few sentences, if it's not that.

>>334
I'm sorry it comes off as a personal attack, and re-reading it I can easily see why it looks like that.
It's just from how I understood it, what you had stated earlier sounded to me like you didn't know the difference
between the two.

No, I'm not a scholar in Linguistics. The closest I have is my undergraduate essay in the history of Japan's
writing system, which is saying almost nothing. I simply study Linguistics as a hobby, and most of what I've read is
written in the "scholarly" way. So it's just a natural way for me to write. If we were talking about something else,
I would most likely write differently, like I do when I've held conversations in the other English talking thread.

338 ：臭い米国人：2015/12/16(水) 00:17:50.34 ID:9Bwm9yu5!.net

>>335
If my writing is what's giving the sense of pretentiousness, I wrote about that in the previous response.
No, I did not say it was impractical. I said it adds time to learning it. With Japanese specifically, prior to widespread
adoption of kanji, and even with it for a while, people would use certain variations of kana depending on the word they wanted to say.
This is because of all of the homophones, and this is, in my opinion, what would happen again if kanji were to be abolished.

>>336
I'm fairly certain that most languages will have several ways to pronounce a letter, it's just English as it is today has
a lot more peculiarities with them compared to most. Even Japanese isn't 100% 1-to-1, look at 新聞 where ん shifts to an "M" sound.

Thank you for clarifying, because up until this point I had thought you were saying English was a
vastly superior language to others. So to me it felt like you were coming to this board to say
"Sure I'll help you with English, because your own is terrible and you should get away from it ASAP."

Lastly, no I don't think Japanese is a better language. I think that there will always be more than one language, and
honestly I feel that's for the best. This is because I'm a firm believer that language ties to culture, and they influence each other.
So although there will be world languages, like how English is right now, as long as people maintain their unique cultures,
there will be a lot of languages to learn.

339 ：臭い米国人：2015/12/16(水) 00:27:06.71 ID:9Bwm9yu5!.net

>>324
Haha oh my, thanks for that.
It wasn't meant to cut off at "look up" instead it was supposed to say:

If you, or anyone else, wants a collection of phrases to practice pronunciation, look up "tongue twisters".

Also, クサベ is fine, I know what the name 臭い米国人 means.

I have to go for now, I'll listen to the rest of your recordings later.

340 ：777 ：2015/12/16(水) 12:01:27.12 ID:b0mibE35.net

>>332
>You haven't proved that I don't, you're just insulting people.

I have no intention to insult you.
I'm just saying that you don't seem to have enough knowledge of the language to discuss the matter.
If I'm wrong, I'll apologize.
Would you tell me how much you know about it?