Fun Stuff > CHATTER
English is weird
Barmymoo:
Kat has nailed it, and thank you to everyone for this discussion because it will make it easier for me to write the explanation I need to do for tomorrow's lesson! We have talked about definite vs indefinite articles, and he does sort of get them - and he understands a and an, but I've never come up with a clear and concise explanation.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Akima on 16 Jun 2012, 05:56 ---To me a butt is part of a rifle, spear etc., not a human being
--- End quote ---
My Shorter Oxford Dictionary has no less than ten separate entries for "butt [n]"; and the rifle and bottom meanings are sub-parts of the same entry (being the thick end of something).
Patrick:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 14 Jun 2012, 14:18 ---Someone told me that ESL speakers have to work hard to determine when to use "a" versus "the", and my instant reaction was that it was trivial, but then I began to think about it. How can a distinction that's almost impossible even to describe contribute to accurate communication?
--- End quote ---
Fun fact: Albanian has no direct equivalent for articles like "a" or "the". The closest thing would be modifying a noun ending, since all infinitive nouns end in consonants. There's three possible ways they do it. A feminine noun (which never ends in k) would end in -a, like "piramida" for "the pyramid". A masculine noun ending in any letter other than K ends in -i, like "plazhi" to mean "the beach". Masc. nouns ending in K end in -u, so my name (which in Albanian spelling is required to drop the C; it's phonetically incorrect) would be Patrik, and referring to specifically one guy (in this case, someone I know talking about me) it would be Patriku.
Fucking languages, man.
LTK:
Some languages, including Dutch and German, have multiple forms of the definite article. German has a masculine (der Mensch), feminine (die Sonne) and neutral (das Wort) article, while Dutch uses one article for masculine and feminine (de grond, translate to 'the ground') and one for neutral (het boek, translate to 'it book'). The indefinite article is the same everywhere and is translated simply as 'one'.
You don't even want to know about how German conjugates their indefinite articles.
--- Quote from: Patrick on 17 Jun 2012, 15:15 ---Fucking languages, man.
--- End quote ---
How does the meaning change if you drop the u? Is it proper to refer to someone as 'the Patrik' instead of just 'Patrik'? Do you modify name endings for celebrities too?
Patrick:
--- Quote from: LTK on 17 Jun 2012, 15:36 ---How does the meaning change if you drop the u? Is it proper to refer to someone as 'the Patrik' instead of just 'Patrik'? Do you modify name endings for celebrities too?
--- End quote ---
In a word, yes to all, but it's worth noting that it's only done when no surname is involved. I figure that it only really works because it's a pretty small society (the entire Albanian diaspora is probably 5 million strong). There's a lot of variety in given names, and both given and family names are unique usually to either Albanian or Turkish (Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire til 1912).
I dunno for sure, but experience suggests that names that can be translated (ex.: Patrick = Patrik/Patriku, George = Gjergj/Gjergji, John = Xhon/Xhoni) all get the article suffix treatment, whereas names with no translation, such as Beyonce, don't (but they definitely get mispronounced in Mrs. Knowles's case; I never heard an Albanian that didn't silence the second e).
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