yong321

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.

répartir to share, to distribute, to divide. Not to be confused with repartir (“to leave again”, “to restart”), which has a higher frequency. Historically, the sense of “to share” appeared first. When the sense “to leave again” appeared, the form for “to share” changed its prefix from re- to ré- to avoid confusion. Only as a mnemonic, think of re- for simple repetition (“again”) and the slightly less simple ré- for a more unusual meaning, in this case, “to share”. palme palm tree leaf; swimfin, flipper (for swimming or diving). Note that English palm, a cognate, combines two meanings in one word: “palm tree or leaf”, which is palme in French, and “palm of hand”, which is paume in French. To help remember the difference, as a mnemonic, think of l in palme as the tree trunk while u in paume means the palm is spread out. The meaning of “swimfin” is because a swimfin resembles a palm leaf. See also paume. cingler to whip, to lash, to beat with a strap, fouetter; to sail. cinglé (informal) crazy. In the first sense of cingler, it’s cognate with cingle (“girdle”, “belt”), cinch (“saddle girth”). In the second sense, it’s cognate with sail if traced to Proto-Germanic, but probably influenced by the first sense (wind beats the sail). The meaning “crazy” of cinglé is from an old idiom which literally means “to beat the nose” but figuratively “to get drunk”. As a mnemonic, consider the fact that unmarried or single people are on average more likely to develop dementia (become crazy) in later life. (Note: These are sample words from my to-be-published book Learning French Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics, The words are arranged in usage frequency order. Underlined words serve as clues in a mnemonic.)

This article "This ancient mnemonic technique builds a palace of memory" (https://aeon.co/ideas/this-ancient-mnemonic-technique-builds-a-palace-of-memory) describes the remarkable memory capabilties of various aboriginal peoples. It's true that without a written language, they must develop extraordinary skills in memorizing things. But I'm still not sure how we can make use of the techniques or physical devices (gadgets) in learning foreign languages or anything for that matter. Aren't they just mnemonics after all? We all use them anyway. Why are they more efficient? Comments?

terrible terrible (cognate), horrible; (informal) terrific (cognate), excellent, formidable (as in French, not English). Note the meaning in informal or colloquial usage. While all derived from the same Latin source, English separates the two opposite meanings into terrible and terrific but French keeps one form, taking different meanings according to context and tone of speaking voice. baiser kiss (n.); (vulgar) to fuck (v.). Cognate with an outdated English word buss (“kiss”). Use a mnemonic such as “He gave his girlfriend Beth a kiss.” Be very careful with the meaning of baiser used as a verb. It used to mean “to kiss”, which nowadays is embrasser in French. You can use the word as a noun (in spite of the -er ending) without such concern. Not to be confused with baisser (“to lower”).

chouette owl; (informal) cool (adj. or interj.), great. In the sense of “owl”, it’s cognate with chough (a crow-like bird), but folk etymology believes it’s from chat (“cat”) + hurler (“to howl”). The second sense, “cool”, is not clear in origin; it’s somewhat unthinkable an interjection of “Cool!” would sound like the hoot of an owl or the meow of a cat. Use a mnemonic such as “Sweet!” For old-timers, use “Swell!” instead. Not related to chute (“fall”). parapluie umbrella. From para- (“to guard against”) + pluie (“rain”). The prefix is cognate with parry (“to ward off”), doublet with parer (“to fend off”). If you happen to know Spanish, you may think of the word to mean “for rain”, which serves as a good mnemonic. See also parer.

gré liking, will (n.). Cognate with grace (“free favor from God” in religious context). Often used in phrases such as contre le gré (“against the will”), à son gré (“to his liking”). See also malgré (“in spite of”). bijou jewelry. Celtic origin. Use “bead jewel” as a mnemonic. Try pronouncing d and j lightly. meurtrier murderer (n.); murderous (adj.). meurtre murder (n.). These words are cognate with English murder if traced to Proto-Germanic. Note that there’s no doublet in French matching English murder as a verb; use assassiner or simply tuer instead.

The following are sample headword entries from my Learning French Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics, which makes use of etymology to help you remember French words, and failing that, suggests a mnemonic. I'm not aware of any other book dedicated to foreign language vocabulary study that intentionally combines these two methods in learning. tromper to deceive; to cheat. Cognate with trumpet. According to A. Brachet, an etymologist, this word means "properly to play the horn, alluding to quacks and mountebanks, who attracted the public by blowing a horn, and then cheated them into buying; thence to cheat". écarter to separate, to remove. écart gap. From ex- (“to remove”) + carte. It originally meant “putting the cards aside” in card-playing. chauve bald. Cognate with callow (“immature”, “inexperienced”; previously “bald”). Chauvinism is named after “Nicolas Chauvin, a legendary and excessively patriotic soldier of the French First Republic” (Wiktionary). The surname Chauvin literally or originally means “bald man”. Alternatively, think of the common image of a group of right-wing chauvinists that are bald-headed.

I had this idea for some time and posted it on my blog. I think we can organize volunteers to do one thing that was never done before. Suppose we want to know the most popular opinion of the people in a specific country on a specific indident. We can visit the major news Web sites of that country and see what the popular comments are. The most like'd comments can be considered as the representative opinions. The reason I brought this idea up on this forum is that the comments are written in a specific language. To make them readable by other people (mostly English speaking people) requires translation. Unfortunately, casual writing with some spelling and grammatical errors poses a challenge to machine translation. Volunteers speaking different languages can do the work much better. I hope this idea can produce a free Web site. It fills a niche on the Internet, because it's something never done before. (My blog posting http://some-new-ideas.blogspot.com/2016/09/web-site-to-collect-dominant-opinions.html explains this idea in greater deatils.)

http://yong321.freeshell.org/misc/mltr.php You enter in English, and get translations in multiple languages of your choice. You could use an existing translator such as Google Translate but you have to do that one language at a time. Mine does it all with one click. Any comments are welcome.

Some people prefer repeated drills. It works great especially for young people. Some others like to analyze a new word. It works better if he has some knowledge of etymology and phonology. But if etymology fails to help, this "word analysis" may still help with creating a hint as a mnemonic. I use this method extensively (and even wrote a little book about it). To see examples, visit http://yong321.freeshell.org/lsw/sample3.html http://yong321.freeshell.org/lsw/sample6.html where almost every entry is like a mini-blog. Any critique is welcome.