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28 mars

"..., won't you"

> You'll go to the picnic, won't you! Yes : not to ; No: go
> ....., 不是吗? 是的,我不去; 不,我去。 [/quote]

A: "You'll go to the picnic, won't you?"
B: "Yes, I will."

You can't say "Yes, I won't". That's a common mistake some Chinese make, because the Chinese language allows you to have one positive and one negative part in the answering  sentence.
26 mars

推荐几本工具书

> 不会的单词总是用翻译软件查询,虽然快捷,但是学不到用法,不能学到延伸的知识,大家平时用工具
> 书么?书店里英文工具书很多,大家能不能推荐一本或者几本,这里谢过了

Google
Dictionary.com
m-w.com

There're all kinds of tricks in using Google. Some are not that obvious.

推荐几本工具书

Google
Dictionary.com
m-w.com

There're all kinds of tricks in using Google. Some are not that obvious.
19 mars

Wrong sentence: "How to speak these in English?"

> How to speak these in English?

That's a gramatically wrong question very commonly asked by the Chinese studying English. Do not say "How to say...?" or "How to speak...?" as a whole sentence. Say "How should I say...?" instead, or "Can anybody tell me how to say...?"
18 mars

为什么单词都会,却无法组成句子?

>> 为什么别人说的一句英文中的单词自己明明都知道,可是让我看着中文翻译英文,
>> 却总是支离破碎的呢?特别是什么时候有do does 什么助动词的,自己完全不
>> 明白有人说这是背单词的时候不背词性的原因,是这样吗?还是基础太差了
>
> 基础太差了,连基本的语法都不懂怎能造句呢。如果句子是一条珍珠项链,单词是
> 一粒一粒的珍珠,那语法就是把珍珠连成项链的绳子。这样说你应该很明白了吧,
> 造成这种情况的原因是缺乏语法!

Grammar is absolutely important. But humans are not machines or computers. To learn a human language, a human student needs more practice than studying grammar. In contrast, for a computer to study a human language, *it* only needs grammar rules.

9 mars

Re: 诚求英语单词速记法

> 小弟在学校过程当中感觉那英语单词实在难记,记前忘后现象很明显,小弟特在此
> 请教各位高手达人教小弟几招好使的方法,一解脱小弟困惑,不胜感谢!

http://yong321.freeshell.org/misc/LearnChinese.html

Read the "怎样记字最快?" section. I wrote that about learning Chinese. But the ideas apply to learning any foreign language.

8 mars

Old style English

> > > > > > "Often times they consider our way of business practice rather aggressive and we consider their process
> > > > > > of decision-making time-consuming."
> > > > > > often times是个短语吗?在句中做状语?
> > > > >
> > > > > I am afraid the authour is guilty of committing a common error in spelling oftentimes as two words.
> > > > >
> > > > > of·ten·times adv.  Frequently; repeatedly
> > > > >
> > > > > tx
> > > >
> > > > "often times" has > 4 million hits on Google search. "oftentimes" has < 3 million. In fact, I didn't
> > > > even know the one single word "oftentimes" till I saw tx's posting. Well, maybe I saw that before
> > > > but I forgot.
> > > >
> > > > Yong Huang
> > >
> > > I try my best to stick to dictionary spellings. I am painfully aware that, the the years, I've
> > > become more and more a liguistic purist when it comes to my own writing, for one quickly learns that,
> > > in an adopted scociety, one has to be better than better just to be good. However, I am definitely
> > > not a defender of linguistic purisms, for, as you've so aptly pointed out,  a living language is
> > > defined by its usages after all.
> > >
> > > tx
> >
> > Thanks, tx. You sound like a 19th century British gentleman!
> >
> > Yong Huang
>
> Ha ha! Oftentimes I feel older, much older.  :)
>
> tx

That was extracted from
http://bbs.wwenglish.net/dispbbs.asp?boardID=99&ID=288709&page=1
a forum I often go to. tx is a frequent poster, probably a senior English teacher. Sometimes I find his English interesting because it reminds me of the language you read in last century, actually, last before last century, English books. One of the most salient features of this old style may be the usage of "for" to mean "because" or "since". Nowadays you rarely see that in English, except in poems. People say "because" or "since" now, or "in that" sometimes in writing.