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Things you learned in English class...

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-24 7:54

...that turned out to be bullshit in real life.

My teacher always told us that:

*Things don't happen at night, they happen by night
*You don't live a life, you lead a life

While you can lead a life by night, I've learned that most native English speakers (especially Americans) would live a life at night instead.

What other things not completely in touch with reality did you learn in your English/any other language classes?

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-25 11:04

Well doesn't 'at' designate specific points in time, whereas 'by' is more abstract or sliding?

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-25 12:59

hello everymew
how are you fine phank iou!
I wish i were a baird!
neko tonge (japanese tonge of politicans liers)
you look like mory prime minister
Oh my gaw!
im sory!

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-25 13:50

English teachers are faggots who need to accept that there is gonna be slang words/phrases in a language

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-25 23:01

>>2
Not really. It's perfectly correct to do something at night, or at lunchtime (meaning during your lunch break). “By”, in this sense, is only used in the phrases “by night” and “by day”, as far as I can recall. Maybe a few others. It's not generally usable in place of “at”; doing something “by lunchtime” means you do it prior to lunch. You might say that “by night” implies that the nighttime is an accesory to the activity, or a necessary condition. It could also imply that whatever I do by night is a habitual action, which would be a difference in aspect from some uses of “at”, but not all. Stalking the streets at night could refer to a habitual action as well.

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-25 23:49

English is needlessly difficult for foreigners. National languages were created/modified to fit regional areas, not the entire planet.

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-26 9:00

7 GET!

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-27 13:07

>>4
I don't think that's exclusive to English teachers. Other languages also have teachers who use academic language for students who want to be able to communicate normally.

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-27 21:21

>>8
I BET YOUR A NIGGER
9 GET

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-28 10:52

in our english book mortal is reffered to as "dodelijk" while this means lethal and mortal is "sterfelijk"

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-28 15:42

>>6
Standard English is relatively easy to learn.  The written system is irregular but that's about the only hurdle in the entire language.

Spanish is easier relatively speaking which is probably why many Americans think their language is difficult but compared to most other languages it's really not that bad.

It still boggles me though that this "myth" floats around so readily in America...

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-28 16:31

>>11
Standard English may be easy, but colloquial English would be hard as fuck. Luckily I'm a native English speaker, but think about all the idioms we have and how little sense they make. Also think about how many uses and definitions words like "set" have.

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-28 23:29

>>12
>Clearly never studied a foreign language before
You learn words like "set" in context; language is nothing but pattern matching.  All languages get harder when you go to a lower register.

Name: Captain A-rab 2010-01-29 15:04

Here's a puzzler: how is it that the words "suck" and "blow" can have both opposite meanings, i.e. "The vacuum sucked up the dirt." and "The wind is blowing hard today.", yet also are synonyms for fellatio. Pardon me, but what the hell were the people who invented that particular slang term thinking?

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-29 16:24

>>14
I don't think people who invent slang terms are generally thinking.

Name: Captain A-rab 2010-01-29 16:30

>>15
Good point. That is one of the most hilarious things about English I've ever noticed. Another is the fact that you can take the pronunciation of letters from various words and put them together to make "ghotigh" sound like "fish".

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-29 18:52

>>16
Another is the fact that you can take the pronunciation of letters from various words and put them together to make "ghotigh" sound like "fish".
Sure, if you're completely ignorant.

Name: Captain A-rab 2010-01-29 20:41

>>17
Yes, if you're learning a language you're generally ignorant of how it works, so quirks like that make English a very cumbersome language and one of the most difficult for non-native speakers to master.

Name: Captain A-rab 2010-01-29 20:51

But back to the topic, I've actually learned more about English from foreign language teachers than in English class itself. I assume it is on account of the teachers being linguists rather than typical grammar teachers.

Name: Anonymous 2010-01-31 18:55

is this a chair? no its a bag

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-01 5:25

>>17
he's just saying its an artefact of english that we have no consistent pronunciation patterns.

I'm sure you've heard that little bit of written phonetics hell.
gh from rough
o from women
ti from nation
=
/ˈfɪʃ/

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-01 10:42

>>16
>>21

Ah, the notorious ghoti example. What makes it idiotic is that

a) gh is never pronounced as an f at the beginning of a word
b) the o in "women" being pronounced as an i is a pretty isolated case - an o is an o in normal English
c) ti can only be pronounced as a ʃ sound when it comes before a vowel in certain suffixes

Thus what you really get is a word pronounced not unlike "goatee".

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-01 11:36

"Never use a preposition to end a sentence with."

>>22
Kinda reminds me of the infamous "20 30 40 50 Eskimo words for snow"...

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-01 14:26

>>22
a,b,c,d,e,f,g, thousands of exception, different readings for the same shit, or same reading for complete different shit
That's why english sucks, it has holes everywhere

I mean, "read" has two readings
But reed, read, they all sound like "rwid" with that typical bent-tongue R
Can't you native english speakers just make a structured language like everybody else did?

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-02 1:46

>>21
Except that we do, which is why this example is complete nonsense. I'm sure a motivated person could invent thousands of words whose English pronunciation is ambiguous, but this particular word is a counterexample, for crying out loud. Consistent English pronunciation rules make the proposed pronunciation impossible, and on top of that, it only has one possible pronunciation.

>>24
But reed, read, they all sound like "rwid" with that typical bent-tongue R
Wut. Silly foreigner can't tell r and w apart.

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-02 1:49

>>23
"Never use a preposition to end a sentence with."

But that's not even grammatical. Did you mean, “Prepositions are not for ending sentences with”?

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-03 13:47

Most of my English teachers were trying to hard to talk RP, so they ended up pronouncing the letters t and d like retroflex plosives; i.e. "pet" would sound almost like "perch".

The worst part is that many of my classmates also speak this way now.

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-03 20:28

>>22
>b) the o in "women" being pronounced as an i is a pretty isolated case - an o is an o in normal English

I ran across a word the other day that was spelled with an o but pronounced as an i.  I forget what it was but it stood out because one of my friends pronounced it the way it's spelled and I was like "what the fuck?"  The i came after a w or an h, something with a lot of "wind".

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-05 0:31

>>22
an o is an o in normal English
Bullshit. There's at least five different ways to pronounce an "o" depending on context:
* "Pron[o]unce"
* "Word"
* "One"
* "R[o]bot"
* "Women"

>>25
Except that we do
No, you don't. This is something most Spanish speakers realize after the first few classes of English. There's no way to know how an English word is pronounced without being told.
For example:
"Tough"
"Though"
"Through"
"Thought"
The pronunciation of "o", "u", and "gh" changed in every iteration, even going back and forth in silentness, even though the word changed very little.

Sure, there's some semblance of overall consistence, but you can't know the subtleties without hearing the word spoken.

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-05 2:54

>>29
No, you don't. ... There's no way to know how an English word is pronounced without being told.
That doesn't mean there aren't patterns.

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-05 17:40

>>27
t and d ... “pet”
wat

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-06 2:52

>>31
you mean wad

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-06 3:06

>>32
Actually I mean ward. Whatever did he mean?

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-06 4:15

>>33
No, I meant "word" (/wɜːd/).

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-06 4:16

>>34 again. Oops. Never mind.

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-06 22:14

>>33
>>34
Not me I'm >>32

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-07 5:43

>>36
Que cosa?

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-07 17:57

>>37
no hablo
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