| Profil de YongEnglish for ChineseBlogRéseau |  Outils  Aide |
|
|
5 février "whom" vs "who" > e.g. Whom did they invite? Mr John,to whom i wrote yesterday is a professor. The author whom you criticized in your review has written a reply. 这里whom在从句中作criticized的宾语。 "whom" used at the beginning of a sentence is odd, makes it hard to understand, and sounds old fashioned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whom has an example of it, and is a great article discussing its usage. For people learning English in the 21st century, why not remember a simple rule, say "whom" only immediately after a preposition and "who" everywhere else? Use slangs or not? > 我想问在正规考试中运用流行美语(美国年轻人常用的俚语)行吗? My Chinese friends asked me a question like this before. I told them it's always a good idea to try to understand slangs but avoid using them. But in situations that you think are very suitable, and you're absolutely comfortable with a particular slang, use it. In exams, it's almost always a bad idea to use slangs. Writing a novel would be different. 31 janvier "beat the man with something" > 我发现SVO＋介词词组就会有歧义，比如 I beat the man with a stick。 [SVO: subject, verb, object] Fascinating example! But I bet 99% of the people you ask around will say it means "I use a stick to beat the man", not "I beat the man that has a stick in his hand". It just makes more sense when you envision the scenario. If it were "I beat the man with a tattoo", 100% of the people reading it know "with" takes the other meaning, simply because you cannot possibly use a tattoo as a weapon! 28 janvier Pronunciation: "here" as "hier" or "hijer"?The following is a duplicate of http://bbs.wwenglish.net/dispbbs.asp?boardid=99&id=286318&star=1&page=1 I copied it here only because that page is not guaranteed to be available. It's an interesting discussion, but with no conclusion. Use your own judgment. > 请教 here,dear,near在美式发音是接近于 hier/dier/nier（备注e还部是倒写的）还是hijer/dijer/nijer > (备注e还部是倒写的),这两种发音的区别就是多了一个半元音j User 下上小大: Those who have learned a second foreign language and/or phonetics should know this: In English (BrE/AmE/AusE/...), the [i:] sound is actually pronounced as [i:j]. Yong: That's an interesting observation. Can you elaborate a little? I don't get that. If that were the case, "That will be S" would sound like "That will be Yes" when read fast. I don't think that's true. User 下上小大: The English high vowels [i] and [u] are usually pronounced as non-phonemic diphthongs and more accurately transcribed as [iy] and [uw], meaning during pronunciation the vowel is not held steady as a pure vowel but instead with a following off-glide. If you can't hear the difference, you can do your own research on the topic of English vowels and off-glides, but here is one source found on Google: http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/IPA/SSAE.html Many dialects of English (including standard American and British RP)
have extra diphthongs that aren't phonemic. In these dialects, all
tense vowels are actually diphthongs. Thus, words like beet or peak are
better transcribed with The chart below shows words that contain these non-phonemic diphthongs.
In your example "There will be S", at play is another linguistic process called external sandhi, which keeps the [j] from being carried across the word boundary.Yong: Thanks for the explanation. I want to point out two minor points.
First, the cited article says "many dialects". Please do not miss the
word "dialect", meaning it's not the pronunciation of everybody in an
English-speaking country. Now when I think about it, I think that
article is quite right. I do hear some people, especially those living
in rural areas here in the US, say 38 like thirty yeight with "y"
pronounced very lightly. You do NOT hear that among educated people,
though. I've never learned to say that and never intend to. The application of the sandhi process here is not an exception, but rather a coexisting phonological rule. The [j] is stronger inside than across the word boundary, and few speak like Popeye: "I yam what I yam." 22 janvier Subjunctive (虚拟语气)> Linda was called into the manager's office this morning. She was told > that unless she came to work regularly she would lose her job. > 对于划线的句子我比较困惑,因为我可以有两种理解,或者说是两种分析: > 1.是虚拟语气中对现在的虚拟------条件句中用过去时(came),主句中用过去将来(would lose); > 2. 作为从句服从主句的时态,即过去时(told),所以come变came,will lose变would lose.这样看,变化之前是 > "unless she come to work regularly she will lose her job",虽然也是正确的,但不是虚拟语气. > 这两种理解哪个是对的? It's the second case. If it were subjunctive (虚拟语气), we could assume the following two statements are both true: (1) "If she did not come to work regularly, she would lose her job." (2) "She comes to work regularly." (1) is obvious; it's just a rewrite of the clause in the original sentence. But (2) may come as a surprise to you, if you think there was subjunctive. The original sentence clearly implies Linda actually does NOT come to work regularly (after all, that's the very reason her boss asked her to go to his office), (2) is false. 19 janvier "Have you ready" or "Are you ready"?> have you ready? 有这种说法吗？ 好像都are you ready? 啊 > 应用环境： 员工抽奖大会上的一个标语！ "have you ready" not followed by anything is awkward English at best or simply wrong. Here "ready" is used as a verb, but it's a verb that strongly calls for an object. If you really want to say that, say something like "Have you ready yourself for a big surprise!", or a question "Did you ready yourself for ...?", where "ready" can be replaced by "prepare". Based on the context, the correct and easy to understand way to say it is simply "Are you ready [for a big surprise]?" 17 janvier "up to now" and "up till now" > up till now一般是和现在完成时搭配的，表示个时间一直持续到现在。 > Until now, doctors have been able to do very little to treat this disease. "up to now" is different from "up till [or until] now". Whenever you have the word "till" or "until", it implies that something did not happen before that point in time BUT IT DID HAPPEN AT THAT TIME! The above sentence you gave means that the doctors now ARE ABLE TO do something significant to treat this disease. "up to now" may or may not have that implication or side effect. It's much less used. In fact, I always say "until [till] now" to HAVE that side effect and "so far" to AVOID that. Answers.com and thefreedictionary.com claim that "up to now" can only be used in negative sentences (see e.g. www.thefreedictionary.com/up+to+now). That's not right. You can see people's usage by searching on Google for this phrase (wrap the three words in double quotes), and ignore the cases where the phrase "be up to" is meant. 16 janvier English translation: “闹圆宵 慈善义卖 游园会”社区活动通知温馨提示 关于：“闹圆宵 慈善义卖 游园会”社区活动通知 尊敬的业主、住户： 我们诚挚的邀请您于2月23日星期六上午09：30～12：30出席我们在会所广场前举办“闹元宵 慈善游园义卖会”的活动。届时，将有中华南派舞狮、传统节日民俗、灯谜竞猜、仁恒河滨花园合唱队的表演，热气腾腾的饺子、元宵更是把你带进了元宵佳节的喜庆中。 在这个新春吉祥迎春纳福的日子里，我们更加欢迎业主们奉献您的爱心，为那些生活贫穷线上备受疾病煎熬的困难的人们伸出您的爱心。捐助您不常 用的物品加入到我们的慈善义卖中来。我们由衷的企盼在这个喜庆的日子里让那些困难的人们感受到来自我们园区的那份暖暖的爱意。届时，将有理财咨询、便民服 务、医疗保健、幼儿教育等为您提供便捷的服务。 和谐、融洽与关爱需要您的参与。欢迎您至居委会报名参加慈善义卖会。 恭祝您与您的家人：新春吉祥 身体健康 财源光进 阖家泰康！ 仁恒河滨花园物管中心 仁恒河滨花园居委会 Friendly Reminder: Yuanxiao Festival, Charity Sale, and Party 14 janvier English translation: 万圣节Literal translation won't do a good job. The following is my translation of a notice of the community Halloween party in Shanghai. > 尊敬的业主、住户： > > 孩子们翘首企盼的每年一次的万圣节捣鬼夜马上就要来临了。我们仁恒物业将在10月30日 > 星期二的晚上。在会所广场前为中外的小朋友们精心准备了欢度万圣节的活动。 ... > 如果您希望可爱的孩子们届时上门为您增添节日的惊喜，请您在10月29日前至会所领取 > 专用的标志贴在您的信箱上，我们将会有目的的上门而避免不必要的打扰）。 Dear Residents, Every kid is expecting the night of Halloween Trick or Treat. On the night of October 30, Tuesday, right in front of the Club House, we the Yanlord Riverside Garden Property Management will have something to keep the kids happy and busy. ... If you'd like our lovely children to give you a pleasant surprise, please come by the Club House to pick up a tag and post it on your mailbox. We won't disturb you without your prior permission. English translation: 从这里给墨西哥打电话，需要多少钱> 从这里给墨西哥打电话，需要多少钱 >how much money do i call to Mexico
> 这样合适吗? Think about what you're saying. If you say that, you're "calling money", which makes no sense. I mean, your sentence has a structure that implies the word "money" can be "call"ed. The correct way to say this is "How much is it to call Mexico?" Well, grammatical purists may argue that you can't call Mexico, a country, because you can only call a human. So it has to be "call somebody in Mexico". Fine. Say "How much is it to call anybody in Mexico?" then. But in reality, when you say call a place, people understand you perfectly. 8 janvier Question: 什么时候使用过去分词做状语> armed with a torch,the doctor wnet up into the room to see what was going on
> armed whth a torch,过去分词做状语 Whenver you feel like! Basically, if you can say "somebody is done... and he ...", you can say "Done..., he ...". So in your case, "The doctor was armed with ..., and went ...". You can machanically convert it to "Armed with ..., the doctor went ...". If you really want to pursue further, there's actually a little bit more to this structure. "Armed with ..., he ..." means the clause has some relationship with the main part of the sentence, for instance, a cause-and-effect relationship ("Because he was armed with ..., he was able or was not afraid to go up ..."). But a plain "somebody is done... and he ..." may not imply such relationship. 5 janvier English translation: 怕冷 or 怕热 > 我比较瘦，怕冷不怕热 I don't have a Chinese-English dictionary with me. I wonder what they translate the word 怕 to. You can't say "fear" or be "afraid of". A proper word may be "be sensitive to". So here's my translation: "I'm skinny. I'm sensitive to cold (or cold weather). But I'm OK when I'm hot [or when it's hot]." But that may be too literal. You could simply say "I don't like cold weather", or "I don't feel comfortable when it's cold", "I feel cold when it's cold". 3 janvier English translation: 和老外交流没有问题> I have no problem to communicate with English speaker. "speaker" -> "speakers". Sorry to be picky. In English, a countable noun is rarely used in its singular form without "the" or "a" or "an" in front of it. 31 décembre Silly or idiot?
A
friend's little girl played with my daughter. Both are about 11 years
old. One called the other an idiot and caused some unpleasant reaction.
I always thought "silly" would be a word used in joking and "idiot" is
clearly used in an offensive context, like "You silly boy!", "That's a
f!@#$ idiot!" I did some research. I agree with the last message in this thread: groups.google.com/group/alt.english.usage/browse_frm/thread/f404499647463ff8 or directly at groups.google.com/group/alt.english.usage/msg/9b57d36e96deaba8 I've been reading newsgroups for 10 years. My impression is that "idiot" is often used in flames (argument beyond technical content), but "silly" is not, at least in newsgroups. I remember watching a Japanese movie on the airplane. The teenage girl chased her singer model all the way from Tokyo to New York and back to Tokyo. She finally got his affectionate attention, when she grew up, mentally. In the last scene, the guy ran to the airport seeing her off, from outside the security check-in, calling her. She smiled and said (sounds like) ba-da. The English caption is "You idiot!" The context is clearly not about her resentment against the guy. It's quite the opposite actually. So I think the word "idiot" is very wrong here. I don't know Japanese. But I guess the translation should be something like "You silly boy!" English translation: 碰到问题
>> 如果你碰到这个问题，你的思路是什么？ > if you meet this problem, how will you work it out? 碰到 is meet only if you 碰到 a person. It's NOT meet when you 碰到 a problem. This is a very common mistake the Chinese people make in writing English. Encounter is the correct word here. But it's too formal. You can always work around it by saying something like "What's your thought when you have this problem [or when this happens to you]?" 21 décembre English translation: 第几次 > How do you say 第几次 in English? This is a difficult question. Believe it or not, English does not have a proper way to express this. Let's say you went to New York three times. The first time you visited the Empire State Building and lost your wallet! The second time you visited the Statute of Liberty and almost missed your flight back. The third time ... The Chinese language can specifically ask the question to which the answer must be the first time, the second time, or the third time. But English can only ask "On which trip did you lose your wallet?" Although the answer can be "the first time" or "the first trip", it can also be "It was the trip I went and I visited the Empire State Building". But the corresponding Chinese question would be 哪一次, instead of 第几次. The closest you can do in English would be add the available options to the question so the person that answers has to choose among them, "On which trip did you lose your wallet, the first or the second or the third?" Obviously if the number of trips is huge, you have to let the person know you don't mean the choice is only one of the THREE. Alternatively, my British-turned-American friend told me, if you have to ask the question to which the answer is the ordinal number of the trip, you may say "On which trip number of the trips you went to New York did you lose your wallet?" Well, you have to appreciate how awkward that is! That's all we can do. mei-you-ban-fa! 20 décembre Talking about English translation: 汉族English translation: 汉族 be made of 与be made from 的区别Very interesting discussion here: http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/frequently-asked-questions/1559-made-made.html That's good. But in case of dress made of silk vs dress made from silk, there's some ambiguity. I would say either one is OK, depending on how far away you think the dress is from the silk material. The old teaching in China (and apparently in Taiwan as well) is still valid, but should not be followed to the letter. English translation: 介绍信> “介绍信”用英文怎么说？ Reference letter. Some say recommendation letter. > 想知道正宗中国特色的介绍信，就是以前（好象现在有时候还需要）那种单位开的到别的机构/单位办事的介绍信怎么说 I see what you mean. I was thinking of the letter a job seeker is using. OK. 正宗中国特色的介绍信 is something English speaking countries don't use. So there's no corresponding word or phrase in English. You may want to say "authorization letter" or "proof of identity letter". If you do, you must explain in a few sentences what it means and why it's needed. Wrong English translation for "What do you think you are worth to us?"> What do you think you are worth to us？ > (你怎么认为你对我们有价值呢?) Looks like many Chinese web sites have that wrong translation (search on Google and you'll know). The sentence means How much do you think you're worth? Or how much do you think your expected salary is? The Chinese translation, if translated back to English, is Why do you think you're valuable to us?, which is a legitimate but totally different question. |
||||||||||||||||
; this diphthong is not phonemic since it isn't distinct from 
. That is, no dialect has two words that differ only by those vowels; every dialect has either the diphthong 
or 
or 
|
|
