yong321

I agree. Both are correct. But (1) is more common. (2) is correct because the answer can be "Such and such are the major differences ..." English uses the same word, "what", to start the clause regardless whether it acts as the object or subject in the clause.

Many people have suggested listening to native speakers and living in the country where the language is spoken. Note that as an adult, we have largely lost the innate capability of learning the native accent by listening. This loss is said to start around the age of 7 (but various researches say it differently). Being able to discern the difference in other people's pronunciation is always easier than being able to utter it yourself, even for a child. Although some adults have remarkable talent in mimicking unfamiliar sounds, many don't. For example, many Chinese Americans still pronounce "mug" as /mag/ (where /a/ is the the first part of the diphthong /aɪ/ in "high") instead of /mʌɡ/, even though they have listened to the native speakers for decades. They can tell the difference between the correct /mʌɡ/ and the wrong /mag/ when listening. But they have trouble in speech production. How can they improve? My suggestion is to carefully studying International Phonetic Alphabet, or at least the vowel graph of it, combined with focused listening and self-practice.

I agree with both linguaholic and Xequeo. My suggestion is to just change to an easier and more interesting book. I always wonder if there's research to prove my hypothesis, i.e. if the study material can be understood about 70 or 80%, you'll have the highest efficiency and make the fastest progress. This is about both reading and listening. Nowadays I don't allocate large chunks of time studying languages. I mostly read one page of Facebook newsfeed from Le Figaro, Der Spiegel, ... sometimes plus readers' comments, and memorize a few words or expressions I didn't know or know well. (I use an outdated web browser to read Facebook to avoid infinite scrolling.) Reading one page takes little time. But I do this a few times a day. Studying languages many times a day, but for a short duration every time, is efficient for me and keeps me interested.

Someone brought to my attention the book CHINESE IDIOMS AND THEIR ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS (https://www.amazon.com/CHINESE-IDIOMS-THEIR-ENGLISH-EQUIVALENTS/dp/9620700430/) It cannot be previewed on Google Books or Amazon. But one reader's review on Amazon tells us how the entry looks like. It's a wonderful dictionary. The authors did exactly what this Multilingual Idiom List does, limited to Chinese-English only but with a far greater number of entries. It may be the only Chinese-English idiom dictionary ever created if we emphasize the word "equivalents" in the title. I don't know if there're other idiom dictionaries between two (or better yet, more than two) languages that list the equivalent idioms.

" a current " -> "the current" (if I understand you correctly) "The speed" -> "Speed" (just to be consistent with the other subtitles) " , everyone " -> ". Everyone" or "; everyone" " , all passengers" -> ". All passengers" or "; all passengers" " Passengers health" -> "Safety of the passengers" (I don't think you're talking about people's health here.) " , we still have not enough" -> ": we still don't have enough" or "is that we still don't have enough" " railway ... that" -> "the railway system ... than"

Regarding "the younger the better", I've always wondered if that claim is only valid for certain modes of language capability. (Mode refers to reading, listening, writing, speaking, etc.) For example, it's extremely difficult for an adult to learn a foreign language and be able to speak with no accent. It's also difficult, at least compared with a child, for an adult to learn to speak and listen. But an adult can learn to read with probably the same difficulty or ease as a child. I occasionally check the latest research on Second Language Acquisition on various websites but don't recall seeing such study differentiating the modes of language capability with respect to age of learning.

More sample words: inhabituel unusual, uncustomary. Since habituel means “usual”, “customary”, “habitual”, this word with the in- prefix means exactly the opposite. Just don’t confuse it with English inhabit (which would be habiter in French) or its related words. The key to remember is that English prefix in- here means “in”, “within”, “inside” while French in- signifies negation. Thus, for instance, English inhabitable is French habitable, English uninhabitable is French inhabitable. épater to amaze, to flabbergast. épatant amazing, stupefying, splendid. The root is patte (“animal’s paw or leg”). It’s said the word originally referred to breaking off (é-) the foot (patte) of a glass, by an angry gambler (Cf. Charles Virmaître, Dictionnaire d'argot fin-de-siècle). Actually, this word is more about “to amaze or impress (with talent etc.)” than “to surprise or alarm” in general. English idiom knock off one’s feet (as on hearing one winning a grand prize) is a good match literally and figuratively, although its origin is unlikely related to this French word. If you know Spanish, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that Spanish despatarrar (where pata means “leg”) can also mean “to amaze”, as well as, if used reflexively, “to open legs wide” or “to manspread”. See also patte.

That's indeed a great idea. I can see the value in language studies. But I wish the books they publish were originally in more diverse languages. I mean, look at the selection of the titles. Most were written in English, and then translated to other languages. I would love to have e.g. Don Quixote in Spanish and English, Madame Bovary in French and English, Calvino's novels in Italian and English, etc. I recently read Le Petit Prince in French, English and Chinese (a trilingual book) and noted quite a few differences or even errors in the English and Chinese translations. It was fun.

I'm a little surprised too. But note that the poll creator has both Mandarin and Chinese. If you add the two together, Chinese will be lower than Russian but higher than Portuguese. It's still lower than what many people would expect. The reason may be that this poll is about people's free choice of languages to study, not really out of usefulness to their career or work. Secondly, the members of the Polyglots group are probably concentrated in Europe. (I'm guessing. I don't have the stats.) It makes sense for Europeans to study Europeans languages more than non-European languages.

Everything "linguaholic" said. But it really depends on your personal interest. I choose languages to study 99% out of interest and 1% out of usefulness. I happen to know a big poll about what other polyglots are studying and I saved the result as follows I happen to be studying the top few languages. Not a pure coincidence! You listed "Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek" as possible languages to study. They are all good. But I heard that the Dutch people don't appreciate much if you study Dutch; they may ask "Why do you study that?"

It means, if the OCS skills (not sure what it is) are mastered earlier, then when these kids grow up, their skills are more relevant or (simply) more useful in a complex environment.

It would be better to allow people to see what's going on first. The link forces visitors to sign up.

I have completed writing my book, Learning French Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics: A New Approach to Vocabulary Study. Please see http://yong321.freeshell.org/lfw/ for details. Unfortunately, I was not able to convince a publisher to have it published. In the meantime, I can accept donation for a free copy of the book, on the condition that the book is not shared beyond your immediate family. Any comment or critique or correction is very welcome.

I replied to you and the message disappeared, and got an email in my Yahoo email account: Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address. <[email protected]>: 550: No Such User Here --- Below this line is a copy of the message. ...[some crypted text snipped]... ------=_Part_2105749_1282543207.1548198877556 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Yes I tried that, many times. I would never try other means without going = to that first. The Contact Us page is working now. Thanks for fixing it. Yong On Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 5:08:51 PM CST, Linguaholic <admin@lingua= holic.com> wrote: =20 =20 =20 | | | | | | Linguaholic | | | | | | | | =20 | Hi yong321,=20 linguaholicquoted one of your posts in a topic. | | =20 | =20 | =20 | Posted in Need better way to contact admin | | =20 |=20 | 4 hours ago, yong321 said: =20 Finally logged in, after months of this error=20 Sorry, there is a problem =C2=A0 Something went wrong. Please try again= ..=C2=A0 Error code: 2S119/1 =C2=A0 and not being to able to contact a= ny admin, including [email protected] [email protected] | | Really? I am very sorry to hear that! Have you tried the Contact US=C2=A0section of the website?=C2=A0 That shou= ld workjust fine. Thanks for pointing this out! Best,=C2=A0 Lingua

Finally logged in, after months of this error Sorry, there is a problem Something went wrong. Please try again. Error code: 2S119/1 and not being to able to contact any admin, including [email protected] and [email protected]

I subscribe to a few news feeds on Facebook, such as Le Figaro, Le Monde. On my cell phone, I use an old version Opera Mini browser, the only one I find that allows you to copy text in the big block of text plus image (not sure how to call it). In other browsers, you can't select the text. So, whenever in doubt, I copy the text and click the Google Translate bubble.

I just published my book Basic Chinese Characters https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5TC3RD/ with detailed descriptions in the Notes on page http://yong321.freeshell.org/bcc/ The book contains 2500 commonly used Chinese characters selected by the Ministry of Education of China. It sorts the characters by frequency usage according to Google's estimate of occurrences on the Internet. A learner may choose a certain point in the book suitable to his level and start to learn the characters. The book is ideal for learning Chinese characters in a casual way and on a cell phone.

If the learner is an adult, I suggest learning IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), just the subset of it that English uses. By no means do I suggest excluding other practices, especially lots of listening to native speakers and mimicking. But knowing and consciously checking the tongue positions and articulating places with the help of IPA is an important supplementary method. Most adults don't do this, and they end up with heavy accent the rest of their life.

l’Office québécois de la langue française has excellent webpages discussing the fine distinctions of various synonyms, e.g. the page about éclaircir and éclairer http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=3087 I wonder if there is another website, especially one hosted by a formal institution. The best would be one on Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (www.cnrtl.fr), a branch of French Academy of Sciences if I'm not mistaken. But as far as I can tell, they don't have such webpages. The Québécois pages are definitely authoritative. But sometimes I wonder if they may unintentionally bring in word connotations and nuances that are in Canadian French but not in French French.

"你吃了吗？" is a native greeting for sure, used around meal time. (You wouldn't say it around, say, 3 PM.) But as I said, it's slowly getting old-fashioned, at least to the young generation in big cities. How the English greeting "How do you do?" became old-fashioned is what's happening to this Chinese greeting now.

I'm a native Chinese speaker. If I utter an interjection spontaneously, it's distinctively Chinese. I think that's a good way to test how native one's language is, isn't it? "你好" is for greeting. "你还好吧?" can be used for greeting but more for inquiry (about health, about recovery from a car accident, etc.). I consider English "How are you?" a greeting more than an inquiry. "嗨" is used for greeting among the young generation that have at least some exposure to foreign culture. I worked at eBay Shanghai for over a year about ten years ago. People say Hi to each other. (I'm referring to the native Chinese speakers. But everyone is proficient in English as that's the language at work.) I guess its usage as greeting is equivalent to using "uh-huh" as a synonym for "Yes". All Chinese that have some exposure to foreign culture or language understand it, and some even say it. But when I said that to my mother in answering her question on a phone call, she repeated the question, thinking I had not heard her. The Chinese people are highly tolerant of variation of the language, not only in accent, but in word choice as well. When a foreigner says "嗨", they know he's greeting. When he says "你好吗?", it's understood the same way. If you explicitly ask a native Chinese whether these greeting words are correct, most likely they won't say they're wrong. But to many people, these greetings still sound foreign (and very friendly by the way).

Hi Wanda, "你好!" is equivalent to "how are you?" in actual usage, and is not just used for the first meeting. Well, it depends on how you interpret this "first". I can say "你好!" to my coworker (officemate) this morning and say it again tomorrow morning, but probably not again just a few minutes or even hours later. “嗨” is not used in China as a greeting. “你吃饭了吗？” is, especially around meal time, but this is slowly becoming old-fashioned.

> If you want to ask 'how are you', say 你好吗？ That's a greeting used by non-native Chinese speakers. Native speakers just say "你好!" I blogged about it at http://english-for-chinese.blogspot.com/2011/12/ni-hao-ma-is-not-native-chinese-greeting.html

Hi linguaholic, 我是中国人. I'm a native Chinese speaker. Thanks for telling me there won't be conflict if two people are editing the list. Google Docs is doing a great job! I just blogged about this list: http://english-for-chinese.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-multilingual-idioms-list.html Any comment is welcome! Could you make some minor corrections on the first column of the list? For instance, "burn (not bum) the midnight oil". Change "a" to "A" in "achilles", "a to z" to "A to Z". Append "a" to "piece of cake". I only went through the first 50 or 60.

I added the column Chinese and provided a few idiom translations. I wonder, how we can make sure the file is not being edited by more than one person at the same time. When that happens, I think it's possible that some of their changes become lost. Should there be a locking mechanism to allow one person to edit at one time? This Multilingual Idioms List may be the first in lexicography or in human history. There ought to be a Wikipedia page for this work. Once the Wikipedia English page is set up, we can easily translate it into numerous languages and set up pages in those languages.