the stupidest thing

[duke o' york]

I didn't want to point that out.

[Kuciwalker]

Grammatical is defined as what sounds natural to a native speaker. Read out loud, Asher's post sounds completely natural.

[Dauphin]

That what grammar is, innit? Bovvered like what yeah?

[/local dialect]

[Kuciwalker]

That's English, not American

[laurentius]

Isnt Voice of America english simple enough? How stupid do they think we are....

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Mercator

You are deluding yourself. No language has a perfectly phonetic writing system and every language has its quirks.

As far as I know ( and I may be wrong on this , but I'm 95 % certain ) , the Devanagari script is perfectly phonetic - no exceptions . And Sanskrit , which uses this script , is supposed to have no exceptions ( at least , that is what we were taught in school ) .

Note that I know the Devanagari script , and I am yet to find a single non-phonetic word .

[Asher]

Originally posted by Cort Haus




A similar irony might involve a sentence with no verb, such as : "Like your grammar, for instance."

Originally posted by duke o' york
I didn't want to point that out.

That is not grammatically incorrect. Do you know the difference between grammar and style? You both are from the UK, so maybe this is a cultural disconnect thing.

Figure out the difference between conversational informal style (such as on gaming forums) and formal style (such as in academic papers).

[Aabraxan]

Originally posted by atomant


Correct me if I am wrong, but is english not a Germanic based language, at least from a phonetic root perspective? The sames as spannish, french and italian are latin based languages

Yes, English & German are both Germanic languages. Spanish, French & Italian are Latin-based (Romance) languages.

[Aabraxan]

The main problems with learning English as a second language are the sheer number of exceptions to our grammar rules (which don't always make a lot of sense to begin with), spelling, and the size of our vocabulary. IIUC, English has one of the largest vocabuaries on the planet. German, at the very least, has far fewer exceptions to its grammar and spelling rules than English.

As far as changing the spelling as suggested in the article, though . . . that's not the answer. IMO, all that would do is invite students to ignore spelling altogether. I read some stuff a couple of years ago about teachers in some US schools allowing for "creative spelling." When I was a young'un, they called it "wrong."

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Asher
Figure out the difference between conversational informal style (such as on gaming forums) and formal style (such as in academic papers).

I'm all for informal conversational style and use it all the time. Not at the same time as being a grammar nazi, though.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Read out loud, Asher's post sounds completely natural.

Of course it does, but we don't necessarily speak grammatically. The fun was in the irony of using a spoken style which broke two formal rules to fault another's grammar.

The classic example is "You should learn to talk proper".

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Aabraxan

quote:
Originally posted by atomant


Correct me if I am wrong, but is english not a Germanic based language, at least from a phonetic root perspective? The sames as spannish, french and italian are latin based languages

Yes, English & German are both Germanic languages. Spanish, French & Italian are Latin-based (Romance) languages.

English is far more Latin than Germanic in terms of quantity of root vocabulary (~80% being Latin derived IIRC ), which may account for the confusion.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Of course it does, but we don't necessarily speak grammatically.

Yes we do, pretty much by definition.

[Aabraxan]

No question that English has a relatively high percentage of latin-based vocab, and that said percentage may cause some confusion. But it's technically classified as a Germanic language. IIUC, its classification is based on its "ancestry," for lack of a better term. English, Dutch and German all stem from the same root language - a language that is not Latin. By contrast, French, Spanish and Italian are all based in Latin.

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Dauphin


English is far more Latin than Germanic in terms of quantity of root vocabulary (~80% being Latin derived IIRC ), which may account for the confusion.

That seems odd to me. If it were true, then wouldn't English be classified as a Romance language, rather than Germanic?