English Practice

gniv, on Jul 13 2005, 06:41, said:

I guess I stand no chance contradicting you here. It is indeed the correct grammatical form ( explain something to someone). BUT - I think there could be a  but - it is possible to say "explain someone something". I heard this latter way of expressing for some time now. "Explain him what you meant!" - there is a certain tendency to avoid the use of "to" in English. And for proof, you may type "explain me" or "explain him" into Google's searchfield and you'll find numerous sentences with this form. Nonetheless, I cannot contradict what Gniv said. He's right about it. But spoken English sometimes uses this...let's say "vulgar" form.

Edited by Stars, 13 July 2005 - 09:53.

arty, on Jul 13 2005, 07:15, said:

Active95 made an interesting observation regarding the "in" issue. In order to express the idea of time in AE it is possible to use the "in" preposition. But in BE, the "in" preposition expresses the notion of place. So, depending on what you know about the interlocutor, you are able to choose the meaning that he had intended to give his statement. [and speaking about my example and my intentions, I can't avoid worrying about the mix-up between the AE&BE notions that exists in my head; it is soooo wrong to use (by mistake of course) elements from both languages in the same phrase :death:]

All of my previous post's had mistakes. This worries me a bit.
I speak 3 languages regularly. Hungarian, Romanian and English (American English I guess, at least that is how I like to belive).

In Hungarian, my native language, there are only 3 tenses: Past, Present and Future.
In Romanian there are more than that... but I can't really tell them. English has 12!!! tenses. That's a lot...

I don't know to many grammar rules, I just feel how it is correct, and this leads to some mistakes, both in Romanian and in English. Could you suggest some internet websites where I could practice grammar?

PS. Feel free to correct my post and debate on the mistakes found.  

Penn, on Jul 13 2005, 11:37, said:

Correction just for fun (btw, if you feel that twelve tenses is a lot, count the Romanian ones again, you may find that English has in fact a very light verb syntax - compared to Romanian, anyway).

Pana nu am primit rapunsurile unor profesori nativi de limba engleza in legatura cu problemele alegate de "I felt good that..." ... m-am abtinut sa raspund acestor posturi...

Problema am pus-o in modul urmator:

Which variant do you think it's correct:

1.It felt good when you corrected me.

2.If felt good when you had corrected me.

3.It felt good that you corrected me.

4.It felt good that you had corrected me

(the action of correcting is finished at the time of speaking)

Also, I'd like to know whether the expression "It felt good" is correctly used in this context.

*************************************************
RASPUNSUL(unul dintre ele):

I like #1and #3 among the four, but would really prefer 'I'm glad (that) you corrected me'.  'It felt good' sounds a little odd in this context to me.  The past perfect is inappropriate-- it has nothing to do with the time of speaking, but with the relationship and relative age of the two past events.  Here, the feeling and the correcting were essentially simultaneous, so simple past for both.

si celelalte idem...

Edited by gtk, 14 July 2005 - 10:21.

gtk, on Jul 13 2005, 22:13, said:

I am a bit confused here. Because we know that the feeling wasn't essentially simultaneous with the action of correcting, the former appeared well after the latter took place,so...what is the correct choice afterall ?!?

Penn, on Jul 13 2005, 10:37, said:

..at least that's what you want to believe, not how, because you want to believe something, not someway
post's [wrong] - posts [correct]
(much better post than the first, this one won't cause such "fierce" debate )

gtk, on Jul 13 2005, 23:13, said:

Totally right and i agree.
That would be the proper way to address when the essence of the sentence is to acknowlege the fact that one was wrong about something but ( and i could be way wrong on this one ) i believe Penn made that statement as a snappy comeback/sarcastic remark in which case the "it felt good...  " acctually translates as " it felt good like a pain in the a* that....." .
For the record as i said, i could be way wrong so i'll apologize in advance Penn.

And off topic, i guess the trap that us as foregniers fell into sometimes is the fact that we "formulate" the sentence first in our native language and then "translate" that into foreign language.
As an example that always cracks me up and doesn't make too much sense to us is the
"you are right". Quite a few times i came across "you have right" ( which btw sounds more normal to us, since "to have"-- a avea makes a whole lot of sense vs "you are"--- tu esti )
Again just my 2 cents

Stars, on Jul 13 2005, 10:53, said:

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
HELPNOTE You cannot say 'explain me, him, her, etc.': Can you explain the situation to me?

Deci nu e corect chiar deloc... faptul ca ai vazut multe rezultate pe google nu spune mare lucru... daca te uiti bine la rezultate ai sa observi ca aproape toate sunt forumuri iar posturile sunt scrise de straini... "explain me" e considerata o greseala frecventa(common mistake) in randul vorbitorilor nenativi...

Stars, on Jul 14 2005, 01:05, said:

revin cu noi raspunsuri...
eu:
Suppose the correction occurred some time before the person being corrected saw that correction. Is it possible to use past perfect in this case?

profesorul nativ:
Unless there is chance of confusion as to which came first, the correction or the elation, I see no reason to employ past perfect.

alt raspuns(tot de la un nativ), la aceeasi intrebare:
Yes, but then one might say, "It felt good when I noticed that you had corrected me."

active95, on Jul 14 2005, 02:41, said:

we
I agree with what you said. Unfortunately, we have developed a certain pattern of thinking, specific to our language. Therefore, we are prone to many mistakes when coming in contact with another language. Without a lot of practice and exposure to correct language, our competence in any foreign language would be far from great.

Edited by gtk, 14 July 2005 - 16:28.

@gtk ok, you've shut my mouth. We can now say that Penn's first post is finished correcting we will need another subject for analisys... I'll try to find something interesting

gtk, on Jul 13 2005, 13:13, said:

#3 sounds right, at least for me. rest of them may be correct but aint natural in day/by/day use. I mean, ppl will understand but they would even if you let a few words out.

think in english and DON'T do translations. shorter it's way better, focus at what you are saying. avoid  many verbs in short sentences. keep it short, simple and clean, that's english... rest is translations INTO english.

I for one would have chosen "It felt good to be corrected".  It best avoids the problem that we have been talking about.

Actually, I would have chosen someting like "I'm glad/happy that you corrected me"

"It felt good", "I felt/feel good" don't really work here...

mai precis in romana, exact s-ar traduce: a fost bine ca... m-am simtit bine ca/atunci cand... deci nici in romana nu prea merg aceste combinatii

Nu suna ciudat sa spui :  "M-am simtit bine ca m-ai corectat"? sau chiar "M-am simtit bine sa fiu corectat"? ... eu spun ca suna foarte ciudat...

sunt convins ca Penn a vrut sa spuna ceva de genul "Ma bucur" ,"Imi pare bine", ... "ca m-ati corectat"...

OK, rather than further disecting an already corrected post (like that of Penn's) I propose going on. My "practice text" sounds like this:

Ieri a trebuit sa vin pe jos pana acasa de la serviciu. Pana atunci eram obisnuit sa iau autobuzul din Obor, dar ieri, in mod surprinzator, nu a venit nimic, chiar daca am asteptat rabdator. Stateam in statie de o ora cand s-a apropiat cineva de mine si m-a intrebat daca vreau cumva sa iau autobuzul de acolo. De-abia atunci am aflat ca circulatia a fost deviata.

I think this is a nice text to analyse. I put a few (not very) difficult elements in it, but that's what makes it nice. So, what's your variant?

Yesterday I had to walk home from office. Till now I used to take the Bus from Obor but yesterday, surprise, none came, inspite my patience and waiting. Afetr about 1 h some1 asked me if I was waiting for a bus. Then I found out that the traffic was detoured.

so I sat there wondering whatta hell is happening, when someone from the angry crowd came up with an amazing theory: "the autobuzist has forgotten to take the right turn"

uat iz da parpas of dis topic?

Yesterday I had to walk from work to home. Till then I was used to getting the bus from Obor but yesterday, surprisingly, it did not arrive even though I waited patiently. I was standing at the bus stop for one hour then someone approached me and asked if I would like to get the bus from there. That's when I found out the trafic was detoured

traduceti asta:

"Azi fusesi la camp. In afara de puzderia de lacuste lacome ce se infruptau din bogata mea recolta nu vazui mai nimic. Un prichindel juca barbut de unul singur la umbra unui fag. Ma intorsei si dadui cu caciula de pamant de necaz. Fu--i mama ei de viata!"

Edited by denis.m, 16 July 2005 - 11:15.

Yesterday I had to walk home from work. Until then I had used to take bus from Obor, but yesterday, surprisingly, nothing came by, although I waited paciently.
I had been waiting for an hour at the bus stop when someone approched me, asking me whether I wanted to take the bus from there. It was only then that I found out that the traffic had been re-routed(BE).

Edited by gtk, 16 July 2005 - 11:53.