Clearly, a maths section was missing on this forum. Some readers are probably not interested only in downloading, even though I fear too many are coming only to download and leave.
First and foremost, do we have to say math or maths in English? Actually both are correct, however math is American English and math British English. Whether there is a s or not, the word is always singular.
Note that in French, the word "mathématiques" is always used in the plural, and you can also find the abbreviation "maths" and "math".
So I have a little problem: Here is a random variable X and its distribution probability:
P(X=0)=1/4, P(X=1)=1/12 P(X=2)=1/6 P(X=3)=1/2
Its Expected value is E(X)=23/12
Im looking for the standard deviation. I found 0,909 but a program gives me 1.26. I recall the standard deviation is given by sqrt(E(X²)-E(X)²) according to the formula of konig huygens.
It was an error, doing it again I found 1.26. thats ok.
Here is an interesting biquadriatic equation,that some of you can eventually solve:
x^4-(e²+1)x²+e²=0
tips: a change of variable is required. There are 2 couples of solutions.
I'm glad you opened this topic. Many years ago when I was in school I was a whiz at math. Unfortunately it's been many years and I didn't get the opportunity to study higher math. I still remember quite a bit.
In this example you gave, naturally the idea is to factor the equation. Hmm... I'm familiar with regular quadratic equations but not biquadratics. Tell me more.
Quote from: humbert on August 02, 2013, 02:04 AMI'm glad you opened this topic. Many years ago when I was in school I was a whiz at math. Unfortunately it's been many years and I didn't get the opportunity to study higher math. I still remember quite a bit.
In this example you gave, naturally the idea is to factor the equation. Hmm... I'm familiar with regular quadratic equations but not biquadratics. Tell me more.
Indeed,without e^2 at the end it could be a factorization. It's in fact a change of variable that is required: x^2=X. Then try to solve X^2-(e^2+1)X+e^2=0. Ill give the solution later.
Here is the solution:
We try to solve x⁴-(e²+1)x²+e²=0, this is a biquadriatic equation.
Here, a change of variable is required: x²=X.
We are now trying to solve X²-(e²+1)X+e²=0
So now we have a classic polynomial equation to solve: X²-(e²+1)X+e²=0
Here we have something that looks like this ax²+bx+c=0
Let's calculate the discriminant.
I remind you that the discriminant of a polynomial is a quantity that depends on the coefficients and determines various properties of the roots. It is generally defined as a polynomial function of the coefficients of the original polynomial. It is often denoted by the symbol Δ
The discriminant of the quadratic polynomial ax²+bx+c, with a ≠ 0 is: Δ = b² - 4ac
If Δ < 0 ax² + bx + c = 0 has no solution in R
If Δ = 0 then the equation has one solution x = −b/2a.
Si Δ >0 then the equation has 2 distinct solution x' and x": x' =( −b + √Δ )/2a and x" =( −b − √Δ )/2a.
Here, Δ=(e²+1)²-4e² and cant be used easily...
But there is 1 obvious root: 1 since 1²-(e²+1)*1+e²=0
What's more (e²+1)²-4e²=(e²)²+2e²+1-4e²=e⁴-2e²+1≃40.82. So Δ>0
And we know that for a polynomial ax²+bx+c tel with a≠0 Δ>0 and with x1 and x2 the 2 roots of the polynomial, then x2=c/(a*x1).
Here X1=1 (the obvious root).
So we know that X2=c/X1
Then we have the solutions:
X1=1, X2=e²/1=e²
Then we have to change the variable again to come back to the first equation:
as x²=X, x=sqrtX or x=-sqrtX
then x=sqrtX1=1 or x=sqrtX2=e or x=-sqrtX1=-1 or x=-sqrtX2=-e
So the equation x^4-(e²+1)x²+e²=0 has four solutions: {(1,e,-1,-e)}.
Here is a harder equation to solve: (cosx)^3-(sinx)^3=0
Here is the function f(x)=(cosx)^3-(sinx)^3
(https://i.ibb.co/554jgnq/cosx-3-sinx-3.jpg)
Here is the solution:
(cosx)^3-(sinx)^3=0 <=> (cosx)^3=(sinx)^3
We are going to study the the 2 following functions:
h(x)=(cosx)^3
h'(x)=(sinx)^3
h(x)=gof(x) with g(x)=x^3 and f(x)=cos(x)
h'(x)=gof'(x) with g(x)=x^3 and f'(x)=sin(x)
We know that g is bijective and therefore injective, which means that if g(x)=g(x'), x=x'.
Then gof(x)=gof'(x)<=>f(x)=f'(x)
so (cosx)^3=(sinx)^3<=>(cosx)=(sinx)
We know that cos(x) and sin(x) are 2π periodic and that cos(x)=sin(π/2-x).
then cos(x)=sin(x) <=> sin(π/2-x)=sin(x+2kπ) with k a relative number.
by identification π/2-x=x+2kπ <=> 2x=π/2-2kπ <=> x=π/4+kπ (the sign before k is not important since it's a relative number).
So the solution is x=π/4+kπ. There is an infinity of solutions with a π periodicity.
Note that if you have to do your research in French, the words in mathematics are very similar (bijection/bijective, fonction...)
Probably it was a little hard. For the second exercise,i had the correction and for the third exercise i knew the method. Note that its essential to study the periodicity before the identification for any equation with cos, sin or tan. Clearly i don't deserve a field medal, the equivalent of nobels for mathematics. I'm going to propose an exercise with vectors, humbert will appreciate.
If you have any problem of mathematics, feel free to ask.
So I have renamed the topic maths exercises. It's better like that.
I'm now proposing an exercise with vectors. The wording was in french so I translated it:
The space is linked to an orthonormal system OIJ. S is a real number.
We give the points A (8 ; 0 ; 8 ), B (10 ; 3 ; 10) and the line (D) defined by the parametric equations:
x =-5+3s
y =1+2s
z =-2 s s= IR
1)
a) give a system of parametric equations defined by the line Δ defined by A and B.
b) Demonstrate that (D) and (Δ) are not coplanar.
2)
a) The plane (P) is parallel to (D) and contains (Δ). Demonstrate that the vector n (2 ; − 2 ; 1) is normal to (P) then determine a Cartesian equation of (P) .
b) Demonstrate that the distance of any point M of (D) to (P) is independent of M.
c) give a system of parametric equations of the line defined by the intersection of ( P) with the plane (xOy).
3) the sphere (S) is tangent to the plane ( P) on the point C(10 ; 1 ; 6). The center Ω of S is at the distance d = 6 of ( P) , on the same side that O. Give the Cartesian equation of S.
So I'm going to give a correction for the last exercise. Humbert has already revised its factorisation and is perhaps waiting impatiently to check his results. I did this one under notepad to copy it directly, but I couldn't do the last part which is difficult.
1)
a) The vector AB(2;3;2) is a direction vector of Δ.
Then,
x = 8+2t
y = 3t t=IR
z = 8+2t
b)2 lines are coplanar if they are not parallel, nor secant.
let's take the vector u(3,2,-2) a direction vector of (D).
-lets prove they are not parallel:
AB(2,3,2) and u(3,2,-2) are not collinear (there is no real number k such as AB=ku)
then (Delta) and (D) are not parallel.
-lets prove they are not secant:
We have to solve the system to eventually find a point of intersection:
x = - 5 + 3 s
y = 1 + 2 s
z = - 2 s
x = 8+2t
y = 3t
z = 8+2t
<=>
-5+3s = -2s <=> s= 1
y = 1 + 2 s
z = - 2 s
x = z
y = 3t
z = 8+2t
<=>
s = 1
y = 3
z = -2
y = 3 <=> t = 1
z = 10
The system has no solution then the lines (AB) and Δ are not secant.
The lines (AB) and Δ are not parallel nor secant, they are not coplanar.
2)
a) The plane (P) is parallel to (D) and contains Δ. The vector n (2 ; - 2 ; 1) is normal to (P).
Then the vectors AB(2,3,2) and u(3,2,-2) are direction vectors of the plane (P).
Let's do The scalar products to check if n is normal to (P):
n • u = 3 * 2 + 2 * (– 2) + (– 2) * 1 = 6 – 4 – 2 = 0
AB • n = 2 * 2 + 3 * (– 2) + 2 * 1 = 4 – 6 + 2 = 0
n is orthogonal to u and AB, and therefore orthogonal to (P), n is a normal vector to (P).
Knowing the normal vector, the cartesian equation of (P) has the form: 2x-2y+z+d=0
The plane (P) contains Delta and the point A(8,0,8) then
2*8-2*0+8+d=0 <=> d=-24
the cartesian equation of (P) is 2x-2y+z-24=0
b)lets take the point M(x,y,z).
we know the coordinates of M verify the system:
x = - 5 + 3 s
y = 1 + 2 s
z = - 2 s
Let's calculte the distance of M to (P) with the known formula:
d(M,(P))=|axM+byM+czM|/sqrt(a²+b²+c²)
then
d(M,(P))= |2x-2y+z-24|/sqrt(2²+(-2)²+1)=|2(-5+3s)-2(1+2s)-2s|/sqrt(9)=|-36|/3=12
We find a real number independent of the point M. Then the distance of any point M of (D)
to (P) is independent of M. The interpretation of this result is obvious since (D) is parallel to (P).
c) To give a parametric equation of (P) with (xOy) let's solve the system:
2x-2y+z-24=0
z=0
<=>
2x=2y+24
z=0
<=>
x=y+12
z=0
The system of parametic equations is:
x=t+12
y=t t=IR
z=0
3)
How far up in math did you go when you were in school? I also like math, but sadly all I could do is Calculus I.
to humber...baccalaureate +5.
This exercise was in fact not very difficult but the notation can seem weird for a beginner.
Now Im proposing a new exercise of probability that is probably a little easier:
The antitheft device of a car radio is made up of 4 numbers, each number taking a value between 0 and 9 (10 possible values)
1)a)What is the number of all the possible codes ?
b)What is the number of codes made up of 4 distinct numbers (distinct 2 by 2).
2)After a power cut, the owner of the car radio has to reintroduce its code to use it.
He knows the four number of his code are 1,9,9,5, but he has forgotten the order of these numbers.
a)How many codes can he enter with these 4 numbers?
b)If the first code entered is not good, the owner has to wait 2 minutes before entering a new one. The waiting time is doubling between two successive attempts.
How many codes can the owner test to the maximum in 24 hours?
@scarface - I envy your level of education in math. Sadly for me that wasn't possible - and not due to lack of interest or not understanding it.
The number of possible codes is 104, or 10,000. Give me an example of what you mean by distinct codes, I'm lost on that one.
Oh... I forgot. Did you post that you were now working? Do you finally have a job?
Its a good answer...perhaps Ill give a correction tonight after a beer.
As for the level of these exercises, probably you can understand the correction if you understand the notation. If they were really difficult, you couldn't.
As for the job, yes, Im now working. I worked today but I took 3 weeks leave, Im tired.
correction of the exercise:
1)
a) the number of possible codes is a 4-lists of 10 numbers. so they are 10^4=10000
b)The number of different codes (0987 has four different numbers, 1223 has not) is composed
by 10numbers, then 9, then 8 then 7, every chosen number cant be taken again. So this number is 10*9*8*7=5040.
2)
a) If the number were all different, the number of different codes possible would be a permutation of 4 elements:
it would be 4!=4x3x2X1=24. (the first number can be one of the four numbers, then the second the 3 following numbers and the third the 2 following numbers...) But we have 1,9,9,5 and the number 9 is repeated. there is 2 possibility to permute 2 different numbers in a code so the numers of possibility is to divide by 2,
so the numbers of different possible codes with the numbers 1,9,9,5 is (4*3*2)/2=12
b)24hours is 24*60 minutes = 1440 minutes
if we do a chart to represent the numbers of attempt, the time to add between 2 attempts and the total waiting time, we have this:
attempt-waiting time-total time
1 0 0
2 2 2
3 4 6
4 8 14
5 16 30
6 32 62
7 64 126
8 128 254
9 256 510
10 512 1022
11 1024 2046
after 10 attempts 1022 minutes have passed, after 11, 2046. So the answer is 10.
Perhaps I'm going to come back to the first question of the exercise with vectors to give more explanations to humbert.
He seemed abashed, and I would not want him to stay traumatized.
I guess he didn't understand the terms "system of parametric equations"
In a normal plane, (Oij), we usually have reduced equation like y=ax+b. probably shadow97 knows what Im talking about, its something we can see at school.
for this kind of equation, we could use a Cartesian equation like y-ax-b=0 but its rare.
In the space,its different, we use a plane (Oijk) and a line is either defined with a system of parametric equations or a system of Cartesian equations because a line is considered as an intersection of 2 planes. if you look at the vectors you see 3 numbers, we are in the space.
so let's take the first question:
we have the point A(8,0,8) and the vector AB(2;3;2), a direction vector of delta.
Then,
x = 8+2t
y = 3t t=IR
z = 8+2t
This is the system of parametric equations. This result is obvious and can be found rapidly.
now we are going to look for a system of reduced equations using this system, probably more understandable for you.
So we have this system. We are going to isolate t:
t=(x-8)/2
t=y/3
t=(z-8)/2
therefore:
(x-8)/2=y/3
y/3=(z-8)/2
then
3x-24=2y
2y=3z-24
so we have the system of cartesian equations:
3x-2y-24=0
2y-3z+24=0
if you dislike this notation we can write:
y=3/2x-12
y=3/2z-12
both equations are necessary unlike in a plane Oij where there is no z.
The last time we have seen that humbert was happy to do some mathematics. This time we are going to do some statistics.
I chose a somewhat difficult exercise, but for those who know the distribution of Poisson, it's certainly not that complex.
So we have 2 variables, X and Y based on the Poisson distribution with the parameters l and u: X->P(l), Y->P(u).
We are going to demonstrate that the Sum S=X+Y is based on the parameters l+u: (X+Y)->P(l+u)
Here is what I did:
(https://i.ibb.co/pzttT8c/330067-WP20140104004.jpg)
Impressive, I've got an A in maths but I have close to no idea what's going on. I think I'm going to further study Maths next year. It's a good thing to know.
The last exercise in statistics is at an academic level. Probably You wont study the distribution of Poisson anytime soon. The exercises in maths are easier.
This is the part of Math that I'm glad I already finished my undergrad studies. Hopefully no complicated Maths in Masteral subjects! ???
My big bro will probably be happy about this, he's really into math... I, on the other hand, choose to vow out of this situation. I'll leave you guys to it... ;)
Scarface you're a cool one. I'm recoginsing here a formulas we learnt at math statisitics at univercity. But I never can imagine that someone can play with this just for fun, like you do. :) We using this Poisson distribution in theory of digital signal processing and in calculation statistical distribution of marketing parameters.
We have seen that Daniil, like humbert was eager to do some statistics. And no matter why, it can be useful in real life, not if your only hobby is to watch TV of course.
Now we are going to have some more difficult exercises. if shadow97 wonders why he has not done that at school, its normal, perhaps he will see that if he wants to become an administrator in a statistics institute.
So here is the exercise:
X is a random variable with the following density of probability:
f(x,c)=e^(-(x-c)) if x>c (c is an unknown real parameter)
0 otherwise
1) calculate the expected value of X
2) deduce an estimator of c based on the random vector Xn={X1,...,Xn}
is it biased or convergent?
tips: we are going to use the expected value with the law of the great numbers.
Here is a correction for the exercise.
For those who will work on that, its an opportunity because I explained the moments method used to obtain an estimator. In this case its simple though.
(https://i.ibb.co/hZrXSGd/495791-WP20140126004.jpg)
@Scarface - how far up in math did you go, and how long ago did you study it? Sadly I only went as far as Calculus I, which isn't a whole lot. Bad circumstances made it impossible for me to keep studying. :(
What I did is not your business humbert. But I can assure you I was good at statistics before doing these exercices. Im doing this to eventually take some exams and move on to other jobs.
Of course, We havent finished with the last exercice yet.
Here are 2 more questions:
3) Calculate the limited distribution of the estimator ( using the theorem of the central limit).
4) Calculate the bound of Cramer-Rao for the estimator (very difficult).
@Scarface â†' I don't understand why you're upset. All I asked was how far up in math did you go in school. Of course it's possible that you studied more of it as well as statistics on your own. Was that what happened, if you don't mind telling us?
I studied mathematics...10 years ago. I just regret not to have done something useful like Ahmad. So I wont talk about the past. And dont think its easy, if I know how to resolve question 3) I have no idea how to do 4)
Quote from: scarface on January 30, 2014, 01:15 AM
I studied mathematics...10 years ago. I just regret not to have done something useful like Ahmad. So I wont talk about the past. And dont think its easy, if I know how to resolve question 3) I have no idea how to do 4)
It's past midnight over there. Shouldn't you be asleep? :)
I'm like you in that I too regret that I was not able to continue studying math, physics, stats etc. It's a long story. Like you said, the past is the past, we must continue forward. And yes, hopefully Ahmad will finish medical school and graduate as a doctor.
yes it is. and I'm getting up at 7 am because I'm working but I'm not sleepy. Perhaps because I'm drinking a lot of coffee each day.
Quote from: scarface on January 30, 2014, 01:27 AM
yes it is. and Im getting up at 7 am because Im working but Im not sleepy. Perhaps because Im drinking a lot of coffee each day.
-Offtopic-
I quite often stay up to 4-5AM on school days where I have to get up at 7. I really can't fall asleep at night. I go to school, and come home, sleep then do what I want for the rest of the hours.
Regarding coffee though. How much do you drink? I love coffee, strong coffee with a little milk.
Do your parents know youre talking to a guy nicknamed scarface twice as old as You during the night? You might be tired at school.
Here is the correction for the question 3. Perhaps it will be of some use for shadow97, who knows. The question 4 will be seen later, its more difficult.
(https://i.ibb.co/ByjgW9d/17676559ex.jpg)
Here Is the correction for the fourth question.
The bound FDCR Is used to calculate the lower bound of the variance of an estimator.
Previously humbert told us he was afraid his level might not be sufficient, si I guess he hasn't found the bound of Frechet-Darmois-Cramer-Rao...
This example was not good anyway as the 3rd hypothesis makes it useless to calculate it.
(https://i.ibb.co/SdydjhT/WP-20140222-001.jpg)
Tonight I Will suggest an easy exercise in statistics. Previously we have seen that Daniil was delighted to do some statistics, the distribution of Poisson probably reminded him of a distant past.
We know how to calculate a cumulative distribution function (cfd) when we know the probability distribution (pd) But its harder to do the contrary.
a cfd of a random variable X Is equal to 0 when x<1.
F(X)=1-1/(n(n+1)) for n<x<n+1 and n>=1
Question: find the pd.
Quote from: scarface on February 25, 2014, 08:23 PM
Tonight I Will suggest an easy exercice in statistics. Previously we have seen that Daniil was delighted to do some statistics, the distribution of poisson probably reminded him of a distant past where he was happy.
We know how to calculate a cumulative distribution function (cfd) when we know the probability distribution (pd) But its harder to do the contrary.
a cfd of a random variable X Is equal to 0 when x<1.
F(X)=1-1/(n(n+1)) for n<x<n+1 and n>=1
Question: find the pd.
How do you come up with these exercises? Is there a reason to solve them or is it completely for fun?
I find them in books. You can solve them if You want, or not. It seems nobody ever tried, except perhaps humbert. I forgot to say n Is an integer, so the variable Is discrete.
for this exercice the answer Is P(X=n)=F(n+1)-F(n) (You can calculate that) for n>1 and P(X=1)=1/2.
Quote from: scarface on March 01, 2014, 11:48 PM
I find them in books. You can solve them if You want, or not. It seems nobody ever tried, except perhaps humbert. I forgot to say n Is an integer, so the variable Is discrete.
for this exercice the answer Is P(X=n)=F(n+1)-F(n) (You can calculate that) for n>1 and P(X=1)=1/2.
I would probably try if I had the knowledge to do this. I'm not experienced enough, I still got atleast one year left of maths, probably 2 years.
Youre Lucky. Did You see me? Im an old bag and im still doing That. In fact I wish I could do something else. I told my coworkers I wanted to adopt a 20years old (I wouldnt have the time to breed a child), and he could even work and bring some money for me. They told me I was crazy.
Quote from: scarface on March 03, 2014, 12:36 AM
Youre Lucky. Did You see me? Im an old bag and im still doing That. In fact I wish I could do something else. I told my coworkers I wanted to adopt a 20years old (I wouldnt have the time to breed a child), and he could even work and bring some money for me. They told me I was crazy.
Believe me, a child is an awesome responsibility. The problems you have will multiply exponentially.
Quote from: humbert on March 03, 2014, 06:01 AM
Quote from: scarface on March 03, 2014, 12:36 AM
Youre Lucky. Did You see me? Im an old bag and im still doing That. In fact I wish I could do something else. I told my coworkers I wanted to adopt a 20years old (I wouldnt have the time to breed a child), and he could even work and bring some money for me. They told me I was crazy.
Believe me, a child is an awesome responsibility. The problems you have will multiply exponentially.
How many do you have, if I may ask?
Actually I have no offspring. But knowing There are 7 billion people, and seeing what Is going on, Im trying to put things into perspective.
We have seen That humbert and shadow97 were abashed at the difficulty of the previous exercises. We are going to do something easier.
We are launching 2 coins and we are playing heads or tails.
-what is the probability to see 2 heads?
-determine omega (the universe)
-determine card omega (number of possibilities)
Quote from: scarface on March 03, 2014, 01:43 PMActually I have no offspring. But knowing There are 7 billion baboons and seeing what Is going on, Im trying to put things into perspective.
We have seen That humbert and shadow97 were abashed at the difficulty of the previous exercices. We are going to do something easier.
We are launching 2 coins and we are playing heads or tails.
-what is the probability to see 2 heads?
-determine omega (the universe)
-determine card omega (number of possibilities)
- 25%? 1/4th
O 50% X 1/2 O = heads, X = tails
/ \ / \
25% O O 25% 25% O X 25 % 1/4
- 8 possibilities
I don't really understand what you mean by omega, sorry ^^ I hope this is somewhat correct, if so this is what we did last year.
Currently doing my maths homework:
I can write out my excersices. My homework is due tomorrow, soo yup.
1; You have the equation x - 18 = 22.
A: Which number should you add to both the sides to get x free? (I will do my best to translate)
B: Which solution does the equation have?
2; You have the equation x + 13 = 47.
a: Which number should you subtract from both the sides to get x free?
b: Which solution does the equation have?
3; You have the equation 4 * x = 22.
a: With which number should you divide both the sides to get x free?
b: Which solution does the equation have?
4; You have the equation x/7 = 15.
a: With which number should you multiply both the sides to get x free?
b: Which solution does the equation have?
^Not hard in my opinion, that is basically what you need to get the grade E.
9; Which of the following steps should be executed to solve the equation and in which order?
{A: Add 5 to both sides.}
{B: Subtract 5 from both the sides.}
{C: Multiply both the sides with 5.}
{D: Divide both the sides with 5.}
a: 5x + 5 = 30
b: 5x - 5 = 3
c: x/5 - 5 = 20
d: x + 5/ 5 = 3
I have no issues with these assignments, I think that they are too easy for me.
I just find it annoying that i have already solved all of this, but I need to turn it in now, 3 weeks later because I've worked too far ahead in the maths book. And, ofcourse I have trashed my paper with the solutions 8)
Omega Is a greek letter usually standing for the universe, or fundamental ensemble.
here Is the correction:
if A Is the event "2 heads", P(A)=1/4
Indeed, there is a 50-50 chance to obtain heads during each coin toss and since the coin tosses are independent, if C is a coin toss with heads, then P(C inter C)=P(C)*P(C)= 1/2*1/2=1/4.
omega={H,T}²={HH,HT,TH,TT}
card omega=4 (I don't know how you found 8 ).
For Omega you could have typed Alt 234 Ω or Alt +3A9 Ω -- Ω Ω Ω and of course "squared" is alt 253 ² :) :)
Quote from: scarface on March 05, 2014, 12:12 AMOmega Is a greek letter usually standing for the universe, or fundamental ensemble.
here Is the correction:
if A Is the event "2 heads", P(A)=1/4
Indeed, there is a 50-50 chance for each coin toss and since the coin tosses are independent, if C is a coin toss with heads, then P(C inter C)=P(C)*P(C)= 1/2*1/2=1/4.
omega={H,T}^2
card omega=3 (I don't know how You found 8 )
The exercises You have are easy indeed.
I got no idea what I am doing ;D
QuoteFor Omega you could have typed Alt 234 Ω or Alt +3A9 Ω -- Ω Ω Ω and of course "squared" is alt 253 ²
Under Windows phone, no alt nor ², sorry.
We can note That shadow97 found successfully the first question, though hes probably not learning that at school.
Quote from: scarface on March 07, 2014, 07:18 PM
Under Windows phone, no alt nor ², sorry.
I've never tested Windows Phone, but if there's no way to insert special characters that's pretty lame. Many Android keyboard programs have a good number of special characters, plus there are Unicode program that allow you to copy and paste them, just like Character Map on Windows.
A long time ago I remember that humbert told me that he could learn the French language in 6 months. And he's probably right since a lot of words are close in English and French. It's partly due to the fact that England had French kings in the past. I also learnt Spanish and despite the fact that both language have Latin roots, it was quite hard to learn it. For example compare carotte in French, carrot in English and...zanahoria in Spanish.
And some people here should be proud to master English as well as they do. Others still have to improve it though.
Anyway I wanted to show humbert, who is very gifted, that speaking French is not enough. It's an incredibly difficult language if you want to write it - without fault.
So I'm going to give humbert a few easy examples to show him why it's difficult.
For him it will be an easy class.
Let's begin.
Les participes passés utilisés avec l'auxiliaire être s'accordent, alors qu'ils ne s'accordent pas avec l'auxiliaire avoir.
ainsi compare:
-Les babouins ont mangé (pas d'accord)
-Les babouins sont tombés (accord)
Note que contrairement à l'anglais, le pluriel n'a pas d'impact sur la prononciation.
par exemple, babouin - babouins se prononcent de la même façon. Ce n'est pas le cas en anglais: baboon - baboons.
Ce n'est donc pas obligatoire de bien connaître la grammaire pour avoir une prononciation correcte des mots, même si certains pluriels sont liés, entre un article et le nom qui le suit notamment. Par exemple pour "les éléphants", la prononciation correcte implique de dire un "z" entre les 2 mots, puisque "éléphants" commence par une voyelle. Mais il y a des exceptions. Par exemple on dira "des arbres" avec "z" mais pour "des haricots" il n'y a pas de liaison, le h est dit "muet". Beaucoup de personnes ignorent cette règle et le prononcent cependant.
maintenant plus difficile, avec l'accord des verbes pronominaux.
imagine que le sujet "Je" est une femme.
-Je me suis blessée (accord, le verbe s'accorde avec le pronom me, qui représente la femme, placé avant le verbe)
-Je me suis blessé la main (pas d'accord: la femme s'est blessé quoi? la main, qui est objet direct et placée après le verbe).
-C'est à la main que je me suis blessée. (accord: le participe passé blessée est accordé avec la main, nom féminin et placé avant le verbe.
Bien sur il y a des exceptions et certains verbes ne suivent pas la règle.
compare:
elles se sont blessées (accord car le pronom "s' " est objet direct est placée avant le verbe)
elles se sont succédé (pas d'accord car le pronom "se" est un objet indirect: elles ont succédé à elle-même - forme pas très correcte)
Note que normalement il n'y a pas d'accord avec l'auxiliaire avoir. Mais si le complément est direct et qu'il est placé devant, le participe passé s'accorde...
par exemple:
Ils ont acheté des tee-shirts (pas d'accord).
Ce sont les tee-shirts qu'ils ont achetés (accord)
Plus difficile: quand le verbe pronominal est suivi par un infinitif.
Compare:
-elle s'est laissée mourir. (accord: elle est le sujet)
-elle s'est laissé rejoindre (pas d'accord: elle n'est pas le sujet réel, quelqu'un l'a rejointe)
la règle est la même avec l'auxiliaire avoir:
-c'est la femme que j'ai entendue chanter (entendu est accordé car c'est la femme qui chante)
-ce sont les fruits que j'ai vu cueillir ('vu' n'est pas accordé car les fruits ne font pas l'action)
-ce sont les fruits que j'ai vus tomber ('vu' est accordé car ce sont les fruits qui tombent)
Note que sans verbe à l'infinitif à la fin de la phrase, c'est la règle décrite avant qui fonctionne....
par exemple:
-ce sont les fruits que j'ai vus (il y a accord obligatoire du participe passé 'vu')
Quote from: scarface on April 25, 2014, 10:02 PMA long time ago I remember that humbert told me that he could learn the French language in 6 months. And he's probably right since a lot of words are close in English and French. It's partly due to the fact that England had French kings in the past. I also learnt Spanish and despite the fact that both language have Latin roots, it was quite hard to learn it. For example compare carotte in French, carrot in English and...zanahoria in Spanish.
And some people here should be proud to master English as well as they do. Others still have to improve it though.
Anyway I wanted to show humbert, who is very gifted, that speaking French is not enough. It's an incredibly difficult language if you want to write it - without fault.
So I'm going to give humbert a few easy examples to show him why it's difficult.
For him it will be an easy class.
Let's begin.
Les participes passés utilisés avec l'auxiliaire être s'accordent, alors qu'ils ne s'accordent pas avec l'auxiliaire avoir.
ainsi compare:
-Les babouins ont mangé (pas d'accord)
-Les babouins sont tombés (accord)
Note que contrairement à l'anglais, le pluriel n'a pas d'impact sur la prononciation.
par exemple, babouin - babouins se prononcent de la même façon. Ce n'est pas le cas en anglais: baboon - baboons.
Ce n'est donc pas obligatoire de bien connaître la grammaire pour avoir une prononciation correcte des mots, même si certains pluriels sont liés, entre un article et le nom qui le suit notamment. Par exemple pour "les éléphants", la prononciation correcte implique de dire un "z" entre les 2 mots, puisque "éléphants" commence par une voyelle. Mais il y a des exceptions. Par exemple on dira "des arbres" avec "z" mais pour "des haricots" il n'y a pas de liaison, le h est dit "muet". Beaucoup de personnes ignorent cette règle et le prononcent cependant.
maintenant plus difficile, avec l'accord des verbes pronominaux.
imagine que le sujet "Je" est une femme.
-Je me suis blessée (accord, le verbe s'accorde avec le pronom me, qui représente la femme, placé avant le verbe)
-Je me suis blessé la main (pas d'accord: la femme s'est blessé quoi? la main, qui est objet direct et placée après le verbe).
-C'est à la main que je me suis blessée. (accord: le participe passé blessée est accordé avec la main, nom féminin et placé avant le verbe.
Bien sur il y a des exceptions et certains verbes ne suivent pas la règle.
compare:
elles se sont blessées (accord car le pronom "s' " est objet direct est placée avant le verbe)
elles se sont succédé (pas d'accord car le pronom "se" est un objet indirect: elles ont succédé à elle-même - forme pas très correcte)
Note que normalement il n'y a pas d'accord avec l'auxiliaire avoir. Mais si le complément est direct et qu'il est placé devant, le participe passé s'accorde...
par exemple:
Ils ont acheté des tee-shirts (pas d'accord).
Ce sont les tee-shirts qu'ils ont achetés (accord)
Plus difficile: quand le verbe pronominal est suivi par un infinitif.
Compare:
-elle s'est laissée mourir. (accord: elle est le sujet)
-elle s'est laissé rejoindre (pas d'accord: elle n'est pas le sujet réel, quelqu'un l'a rejointe)
la règle est la même avec l'auxiliaire avoir:
-c'est la femme que j'ai entendue chanter (entendu est accordé car c'est la femme qui chante)
-ce sont les fruits que j'ai vu cueillir ('vu' n'est pas accordé car les fruits ne font pas l'action)
-ce sont les fruits que j'ai vus tomber ('vu' est accordé car ce sont les fruits qui tombent)
Note que sans verbe à l'infinitif à la fin de la phrase, c'est la règle décrite avant qui fonctionne....
par exemple:
-ce sont les fruits que j'ai vus (il y a accord obligatoire du participe passé 'vu')
this is a good tutorial. for a while i'm just reading and when i'm sure will joined
so i wanted to know also humbert. merci beaucoup
When I was saying that some should do efforts to speak English, I was also thinking about you iih. Of course you can try to learn French, if you have some questions (des questions intéressantes, c'est évident), you can ask me, but first you should try to do efforts to improve what you write here. Read again some of your posts and you will notice that some are hardly understandable, perhaps even for you ("when i'm sure will joined"=> is it meaning anything?).
There is nothing difficult about Spanish. You read and write it exactly the same way you pronounce it. Vowels have only one sound - their own name - in every and all situations. Grammar rules aren't too complicated. It's almost like Esperanto. By comparison English and French are nightmares. In French you have many [for example] 8 letter words, and 5 of them are silent. But at least in French, just like in Spanish, you have accented vowels and extended characters to help. There's nothing like this in English. You have words such as "appropriate" which, if pronounced "a-pro-pri-Ät" means one thing, but pronounce it "ap-pro-pri-it" and it's another definition entirely. There is NO accent or extended character to tell you which is which. And as in French, you have plenty of silent letters.
Tonight I'm going to give you a French lesson, and we have seen that the last time I taught a course, iih was very happy to attend the class. Maybe teachers are scarce in his country and internet is a good way to learn some things. At least, personally I learnt many things thanks to my computer. I wasn’t bilingual 10 years ago, but reading some newspapers and watching some movies in English have been really helpful. I stay lucid, it won't be enough to read the newspaper le Monde, but you may learn a few things. What's more, the French language is only spoken in France,Switzerland,Canada,North Africa, and less and less in Vietnam. So it is unlikely that Vasudev or iih will have to speak French in a discussion one day.
(http://copinette.c.o.pic.centerblog.net/tfkmv7qj.gif)
Maybe those with gaps in English are going to learn a few words, even though we are going to see some common words. Tonight's lesson will focus on false friends.
A false friend is a word that looks similar but whose meaning is different.
For example, let’s take the word Important: in French it means both significant and important:
une personne important/an important person. une somme important/a significant sum (an important sum would not really make sense).
So on the left I put the French words, and on the right the English translation.
Important Important/significant
Librairie Book shop (bibliothèque=library)
Actuellement Currently (en fait=actually)
Éventuellement Possibly
Fastidieux boring (Méticuleux= fastidious/meticulous)
Habileté skill (and not ability)
Réaliser to achieve/to realize (Achever= to complete)
Hasard chance (Danger = hazard/danger)
Heurter to hit (Blesser= to hurt)
Prétendre to claim (Faire semblant=to pretend)
Raisonnable sensible (sensible=sensitive)
Approvisionner to supply (supplier=to beg)
Impoli rude (rude=hard/rough)
Nom de famille surname (surnom=nickname)
Expression phrase (phrase=sentence)
Monnaie change (changer=to alter/to change)
Grandiose grand (grand=tall)
Grue crane (crane=skull)
Tissu fabric (fabrique=factory)
Exiger to demand (demander=to ask)
Some persons must be getting a bit bored on the forum...I was doing some accounting exercises and suddenly I was thinking “maybe shadow97 or usmangujjar are eager to do these exercises tooâ€.
So, here are a few question about amortization.
Nomaher.com company bought a new patent for $25,000. Because of government regulation the patent is now worth $35000. The process is only expected to be used for 5 years. The annual amortization expense associated with this patent is
A $2,000
b. $5,000
c. $7,000
d. $10,000
The estimate of the value of an asset at the time of disposal is the
a. acquisition cost.
b. residual value.
c. depreciable cost.
d. cost of living.
Depreciation expense is recorded in order to
a. ensure that the firm has adequate cash to replace the asset.
b. present assets at fair market value.
c. be able to sell the asset easily when the firm does not need it any more.
d. allocate the cost of noncurrent, nonmonetary assets to periods benefited.
You can reply and I'll tell you if your answers are right or wrong...
And here is an exercise about the declining balance method, which is a widely used form of accelerated depreciation.
You have to do an amortization table. Well you’ll find a model below, and if you want to reply you just have to fill it. Note that for the US rule, the last depreciation must take into account the residual value. It’s not the case in the French accounting system where only the linear method is taking into account the residual value.
Cost of asset = $40,000
Estimated residual value = $4,000
Estimated useful life of asset = 5 years
Depreciation rate = (1/useful life) x 2=40%
Year Cost Depreciation Rate Depreciation Accumulated Depreciation Book Value
1 40000 40%
2 40000
3 40000
4 40000
5 40000
Today, I'm going to suggest a philosophy test.
Test your knowledge with these 5 philosophy questions. The answers are below.
1 "Beauty is the symbol of good" according to:
- Hume
- Plato
- Kant
2 What idea was John Stuart Mill behind?
- Better to be a dissatisfied man than a dissatisfied pig "
- Stop and think about the meaning of your actions â€
- Man is neither angel nor beast, and misfortune dictates that whoever wants to be an angel plays the beast "
3 According to Hobbes, the three main causes of quarrels are: rivalry, mistrust and…
-Pride
-Jealousy
- Ignorance
4 According to Sartre, "man is condemned to ...":
- Die
- Be free
- Live
5 According to Plato, to know the real it is necessary:
- To isolate yourself in a cave
- To detach from the senses
- To look at the stars
The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, in the museum Rodin, near the Invalides, in Paris.
(https://i.ibb.co/h88Q6Rp/thinker-auguste-rodin-museum-paris-1904.jpg)
1 "Beauty is the symbol of good" according to Kant, in the Critique of the faculty of judging. As Lamouche, Rosset and Cerqueira write, “if the beautiful interests us, says Kant, it is because it presents an analogy with the good: just as the concern for the good relegates our interest to the background, the beautiful brings us into a disinterested pleasure distinct from the pleasant â€.
2 For John Stuart Mill “Better to be a dissatisfied man than a dissatisfied pig; it is better to be a satisfied Socrates than a satisfied fool ".
3 According to Hobbes, the three main causes of quarrels are rivalry, mistrust and… pride. "It becomes clear by this that as long as men live without a common power that holds them all at bay, they are in this condition which is called war, and this war is war of each against each" (Leviathan).
4 According to Sartre, "Man is doomed to be free. Sartre writes this in Being and Nothingness. Man, who is absolutely free, "is always in a position of choice, and therefore of responsibility, which plunges him into anxiety and forbids him lightness", explain Lamouche, Rosset and Cerqueira.
5 According to Plato, to know the real one must detach oneself from the senses. "The soul of the true philosopher is kept away from pleasures, passions, sorrows, fears, as far as it is possible" (Phaedo).
I have 2 questions for humbert or whoever can answer it.
First question:
In English we say "It's a story I never heard of".
Likewise, if we use the verb "to belong", we would say "Draw a line from the tracks to the animal you think it belongs to".
In both case, you can't do away with the preposition.
But if we say "It's the place he belongs", is it correct? Because I read this expression somewhere. Note that we can also use the expression "he belongs here", which does not need the preposition "to"
Second question:
"To Belong" is said to be an intransitive verb in English dictionaries. But its equivalent in French, the verb "appartenir" has a similar construction since you need to use the preposition "à ". You can check the following example: "Le livre appartient à humbert". Similarly, you can say "Le livre lui appartient" the pronoun "lui" being an indirect object (which refers to humbert in this case). Thus, this verb shouldn't be intransitive: it is a transitive-indirect verb.
In a French dictionary, I had the confirmation that the verb "to look", used with "at" is transitive-indirect since it's using a preposition: for example in the sentence: "Vasudev looks at the tiger".
Note that if you take the sentence "he put off his meeting until the holidays", we have a transitive verb since "off" is not used as a preposition but as an adverbial particle.
Therefore I have the impression that English dictionaries are not making the distinction between Intransitive verbs and transitive-indirect verbs. What do you think about this?
(https://i.ibb.co/WW3Mt4r/verb.jpg)
English is a bastard language with no central authority regarding spelling and grammar. Americans have their spellings and grammar, the British and others have theirs. There wasn't even a dictionary until the early 19th century, at least not in America. It first got spread by the British when the sun never set upon their empire, and subsequently by the Americans. As you know, the American empire is not one of military occupation or repression. Although it is cultural and economical, it continues to spread the bastard language just as quickly.
As far as I know France is the only country where French is predominant and universal. The CIA world factbook states that only 22% of Canadians consider it their primary language. Switzerland has 3 other languages. Although French is official in Haiti, only about 10% of the population even speak it. Let's not even mention Africa with respect to other languages in supposedly French speaking countries.
Note that some messages in this topic were restored.
I know that humbert, shadow.97 and Vasudev have been trying to solve some maths problems here, unfortunately I noticed that strange symbols have appeared since the forum was updated to a new layout. Fortunately I had kept a old version of the forum and I updated a few messages.
Before modification:
"Here is an interesting biquadriatic equation,that some of you can eventually solve:
x^4-(e²+1)x²+e²=0"
After modification:
"Here is an interesting biquadriatic equation,that some of you can eventually solve:
x^4-(e²+1)x²+e²=0"
I used to be very good at math as a young man. I passed Calculus I with flying colors. Unfortunately too much time has passed and I'm very rusty. Sadly due to bad circumstances in my life, I was unable to attend college. Oh well, c'est la vie.
With respect to posting subscript and superscript numbers, this a^4 is garbage. a⁴ is much better. For the benefit of those who don't already know, use these shortcuts:
Superscript Subscript
0 Alt +2070 Alt +2080
1 Alt 0185 Alt +2081
2 Alt 253 or Alt 0178 Alt +2082
3 Alt 0179 Alt +2083
4 Alt +2074 Alt +2084
5 Alt +2074 Alt +2085
6 Alt +2076 Alt +2086
7 Alt +2077 Alt +2087
8 Alt +2078 Alt +2088
9 Alt +2079 Alt +2089
On those that have a plus sign in front, you must type the plus sign and your registry must include the following setting:
HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method -- create new string (REG_SZ) called EnableHexNumpad set value to 1 and reboot (logging out and logging back in is sufficient). Once the registry key is set, the following method can be used to enter Unicode codepoints:
• Keep the A key pressed. Press the "+" key on the numeric keypad.
• With the A key still pressed, type the hexadecimal using the number the numeric keypad for digits 0-9 and the normal keys for a-f.
For example, A+11b will produce ě (e with caron).
Hope all this helps.
Quote from: scarface on June 12, 2022, 12:40 PM"Here is an interesting biquadriatic equation,that some of you can eventually solve:
x^4-(e²+1)x²+e²=0"
Math is a good thing! I never was really good at math - math is always difficult for Russian-speaking peoples (as I understand now, because of horribly inadequate translation of western-genesis math terms to Russian).
My solution may be incorrect, but - for this equation:
Quote from: Daniil on June 14, 2022, 02:13 PMMath is a good thing! I never was really good at math - math is always difficult for Russian-speaking peoples (as I understand now, because of horribly inadequate translation of western-genesis math terms to Russian).
I had no idea. Many people study the sciences in Russia, including Maher who studied engineering at Kazan University. It's hard to believe they haven't found some workaround.
Quote from: Daniil on June 14, 2022, 02:13 PMMy solution may be incorrect, but - for this equation:
You lost me here. I'm not clear what you refer to in the subscript numbers. Even so, plug your values into the equation. If you get 0 you're OK.
Tonight, I'm offering a new math exercise:
Can you find a number which added to its inverse equals 2,05?
Maybe a user of the forum can solve it, otherwise I will give you the step-by step solution.
Since nobody was able to find the solution, here it is:
First and foremost, let's put this into equation:
X+1/X=2,05 with X≠0
I guess this was the main problem of humbert to solve this exercise.
Then, let's multiply each term of the equation by X
X²+1=2,05X
Let's solve this equation.
X²-2,05X+1=0
Here we have to solve a quadratic equation.
Δ=b²-4ac=(-2.05)²-4*1*1=4.2025-4=0.2025
Δ>0 so
X1=(-b-√Δ)/2a=(2.05-√0.2025)/2=(2.05-0.45)/2=1.6/2=0.8
X2=(-b+√Δ)/2a=(2.05+√0.2025)/2=(2.05+0.45)/2=2.5/2=1.25
Quote from: scarface on October 21, 2022, 11:58 PMCan you find a number which added to its inverse equals 2,05?
I'm not clear what you mean by "added to its inverse". Maybe we call it something else. Give me an example.
Quote from: humbert on October 23, 2022, 05:39 AMQuote from: scarface on October 21, 2022, 11:58 PMCan you find a number which added to its inverse equals 2,05?
I'm not clear what you mean by "added to its inverse". Maybe we call it something else. Give me an example.
The inverse of the number "x" is "1/x". Now you almost have the equation that you have to solve.
Quote from: scarface on October 23, 2022, 01:47 PMThe inverse of the number "x" is "1/x". Now you almost have the equation that you have to solve.
We called it the "reciprocal" in school. Any number x its reciprocal = 1
Quote from: humbert on October 27, 2022, 05:44 AMWe called it the "reciprocal" in school. Any number x its reciprocal = 1
The reciprocal is another term for the inverse of a number indeed. I think my Math teachers were using this word when I was in preparatory class for high schools.
I'm still waiting for sb to solve this math problem. Otherwise I'll give the solution soon.
Guys, I have a question about English language. At my workplace, they teaching us English, for free. But, as far as I know English, sometimes they teach us very strange things. So I need a help of you as native ot almost-native english-speakers.
First of all:
Task (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v7_wgtgGm7eu8REKJkVYCLF_cMHxzn2-/view?usp=sharing)
and
answer (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GjWgWXLax-ssUM_WLxAAb5MHPZzdfDG-/view?usp=sharing)
Take a look at what I underscribe by red. The phrase is: "Our corporate culture is based on advanced pharmaceutical research by the best minds in Europe." And teacher said to us that that's normal, that's the way how english-speakers can talk about corporate culture. Errm, what? How should I understand this? How corporate culture could be linked with pharmaceutical researches? Or they using meth and LSD in their corporate life??? >:( ;D
Quote from: Daniil on November 11, 2022, 12:57 PMTake a look at what I underscribe by red. The phrase is: "Our corporate culture is based on advanced pharmaceutical research by the best minds in Europe." And teacher said to us that that's normal, that's the way how english-speakers can talk about corporate culture. Errm, what? How should I understand this? How corporate culture could be linked with pharmaceutical researches? Or they using meth and LSD in their corporate life??? >:( ;D
Well, for me it depends on the context. If this sentence is used in the booklet of a pharmaceutical company, it might not be a problem. If this is a car salesman who says that, it's more ambiguous.
PS: I don't know the verb "underscribe", and after further investigation, it's not in my dictionary. You should use "underline" instead.
PS2: Note that your example is not really a phrase, it's a sentence. You should avoid the word "phrase" in English in this case, a phrase is an expression, just a group of words that doesn't convey a complete thought. Note that the English word "sentence" is translated in French by "phrase" by the way...(otherwise the word sentence in French means judgement and is close to the second sense of the English word).
Quote from: Daniil on November 11, 2022, 12:57 PMGuys, I have a question about English language. At my workplace, they teaching us English, for free. But, as far as I know English, sometimes they teach us very strange things. So I need a help of you as native ot almost-native english-speakers.
I believe I mentioned somewhere else of the forum that written English is an absolute disaster. It's a bastard language which originated after the Norman invasion of England in 1066. It is French mixed with the Norse dialects spoken in Britain at the time. There is no governing body. Americans write it one way, everyone else another way. Sadly the British Empire took their bastard language and spread it all over the world.
From what I've learned so far from trying to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, I'm noticing that the Russian language is very phonetic. Mostly you write like you say it. Spanish and Italian are also like that.
With respect to your question about the strange sentence, is there any way you could ask the author what he meant. Frankly it's not clear to me either.
Quote from: scarface on November 11, 2022, 01:11 PMWell, for me it depends on the context. If this sentence is used in the booklet of a pharmaceutical company, it might not be a problem. If this is a car salesman who says that, it's more ambiguous.
Thank you very much for explanation, friend! I'll follow your recommendations!
Quote from: humbert on November 14, 2022, 06:06 AMI believe I mentioned somewhere else of the forum that written English is an absolute disaster. It's a bastard language which originated after the Norman invasion of England in 1066. It is French mixed with the Norse dialects spoken in Britain at the time. There is no governing body. Americans write it one way, everyone else another way. Sadly the British Empire took their bastard language and spread it all over the world.
Well, bastard or not, but it's now a main language of international communications and science. So I must know it well!
BTW, I clearly understand your opinion about English. I can say a lot of similar things about Russian. Today Russian language contains a lot of useless and "official" forms, but, for example, contains not any word for private business. Did you ever hear the theory about that language forming a mentality? Russian language definetly forming russian mentality. I.e., when we could do nothing because we can't even imagine that (have no words for that!), but have a lot of words for hate, suspect and claiming.
Quote from: humbert on November 14, 2022, 06:06 AMWith respect to your question about the strange sentence, is there any way you could ask the author what he meant. Frankly it's not clear to me either.
That's the point! I've asked out teacher about this, she said that this sentence is from a textbook. She said that she'll send it to me via Telegram.
Quote from: Daniil on November 14, 2022, 01:22 PMBTW, I clearly understand your opinion about English. I can say a lot of similar things about Russian. Today Russian language contains a lot of useless and "official" forms, but, for example, contains not any word for private business. Did you ever hear the theory about that language forming a mentality? Russian language definetly forming russian mentality. I.e., when we could do nothing because we can't even imagine that (have no words for that!), but have a lot of words for hate, suspect and claiming.
I'm not surprised. For 1500 years or longer Russia has been ruled by dictators and despots who controlled everything. In this environment it was impossible for private business to get started. To analogize, languages of many indigenous cultures who live in tropical environments have no word for "snow" or "ice". The word "hurricane" is a loose translation of the indigenous word "huracán" to describe huge tropical storms. The Spaniards imported it because their language had no word for it.
Mostly I was referring to the fact that, unless I'm mistaken, the Russian language is very phonetic. You write it the same way you say it. English is nothing like that.
Quote from: humbert on November 15, 2022, 04:14 AMMostly I was referring to the fact that, unless I'm mistaken, the Russian language is very phonetic.
Yes, that's correct. We have a lot of difficulties with suffixes and endings of words. You probably understand already that in Russian endings of a verb in sentence changing relatively to sex of subject of sentence (for example, in English "He did ..." and "She did ...", but in Russian "Он делал ..." and "Она делал
а ..."). But in case of writing, we never have such stupid things as in English (for example, like in an old joke, when "write Liverpool, but pronounce as Manchester" ;D ).
BTW, as far as I can understand, English which we learn from official textbooks and real everyday English speaking is very different. Is that correct? I tried to learn US urban slang and found it really funny and interesting for me. 'coz, y'know, it's helluva diff cases! ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: Daniil on November 15, 2022, 07:12 PMYes, that's correct. We have a lot of difficulties with suffixes and endings of words. You probably understand already that in Russian endings of a verb in sentence changing relatively to sex of subject of sentence (for example, in English "He did ..." and "She did ...", but in Russian "Он делал ..." and "Она делала ..."). But in case of writing, we never have such stupid things as in English (for example, like in an old joke, when "write Liverpool, but pronounce as Manchester" ;D ).
The romance languages are like that too. They're very genderized. Even inanimate objects have genders. For example, in Spanish "la calle" (the street) is a feminine noun, so the article is
la. However, "el camino" (the road) is a masculine noun, so the article is
el. After having some knowledge of the language you learn which is which. BTW, I'm noticing that in Russia married women take their husband's name and add an A at the end. Putin's wife's last name is Putina. Is that how the Russian naming sysem for wives works?
In Russian I don't understand the difference between
Ш and
Щ. I also have some trouble understanding what the hard and soft signs
Ъ and
Ь are used for, and with the letter yeru
Ы. The other letters I more or less understand. For example, unless I'm wrong you wrote "ona delal" and "ona delala".
How do you say "you" in Russian? By this I mean is there a higher and lower version depending on who you're speaking to? In Spanish there is
usted (the higher) and
tu (the lower). In French is
vous and
tous respectively. Is there something like that in Russian?
Quote from: Daniil on November 15, 2022, 07:12 PMBTW, as far as I can understand, English which we learn from official textbooks and real everyday English speaking is very different. Is that correct? I tried to learn US urban slang and found it really funny and interesting for me. 'coz, y'know, it's helluva diff cases! ;D ;D ;D
All this is essentially American slang. They even gave it a more phonetic spelling not found in any dictionary. Remember there is no central authority for the language. If you ever travelled to the United Kingdom and then to America, you'd notice many signs are spelled differently. American is more phonetic.
And of course never forget that the reason English is so important in the world today is because as recently as 100 years ago the sun never set on the British Empire. Add to this the fact that at that time America started to become a world power by itself. Unlike the British, they didn't export English by force. They did it culturally through cinema and other similar waya.
Since nobody was able to solve the math exercise I proposed a few weeks ago, you'll find the solution here:
https://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=1110.msg37965#msg37965
Quote from: humbert on November 16, 2022, 05:09 AMThe romance languages are like that too. They're very genderized. Even inanimate objects have genders. For example, in Spanish "la calle" (the street) is a feminine noun, so the article is la. However, "el camino" (the road) is a masculine noun, so the article is el. After having some knowledge of the language you learn which is which.
Yep, that's very close to gendering in Russian. We just doesn't use an articles - gender is implied in the word itself.
Quote from: humbert on November 16, 2022, 05:09 AMBTW, I'm noticing that in Russia married women take their husband's name and add an A at the end. Putin's wife's last name is Putina. Is that how the Russian naming sysem for wives works?
Almost correct. Russian name system containing 3 parts. First name is the name (for ex., Vladimir), second name is "family" name (for ex., Putin), and also there is "father's name" (for ex. Vladimirovich). Official appeal is first name and second name - in case of Putin it would be "Vladimir Putin", like in news. If you want to show respect to other, you can appeal to him with first name and "father's name". In case of Putin it'd be "Vladimir Vladimirovich" like in different political TV shows when different toadies speaks to him. Married woman takes her husband second name (same as in English/US custom), but taken name in that case would be converted to female gender. Also, there is a lot of exceptions. ;D
I need to mention about gender in russian language. Our nouns have gender "by default". If we need to show different gender for a noun, we use different noun (or changing it in a way allowed it to sounds feminine). Our adjectives changing with gender by more rigid rules, but by same principe. In our verbs we are changing only finishings, but also by same principe. That's, in a bird-eye view, how it works.
Quote from: humbert on November 16, 2022, 05:09 AMIn Russian I don't understand the difference between Ш and Щ. I also have some trouble understanding what the hard and soft signs Ъ and Ь are used for, and with the letter yeru Ы. The other letters I more or less understand. For example, unless I'm wrong you wrote "ona delal" and "ona delala".
Difference between
Ш and
Щ is simple - first pronounced as "sh", second as "sch". With hard ans soft signs it's a bit more complicated. Soft sign means higher tone of pronunciation (something as tones in Japanese or Chinese lang), hard sign vise versa. Pronunciation of Ы I can't explain to English-speakers, because there is nothing like this in English. Try to think about it as an "'ee" - long e with apostrophe.
Quote from: humbert on November 16, 2022, 05:09 AMHow do you say "you" in Russian? By this I mean is there a higher and lower version depending on who you're speaking to? In Spanish there is usted (the higher) and tu (the lower). In French is vous and tous respectively. Is there something like that in Russian?
In Russian is exactly same thing as in French and in Spanish, moreover, even the words are sounds likely. Higher form is "
вы", lower form is "
ты".
Quote from: humbert on November 16, 2022, 05:09 AMAll this is essentially American slang. They even gave it a more phonetic spelling not found in any dictionary. Remember there is no central authority for the language. If you ever travelled to the United Kingdom and then to America, you'd notice many signs are spelled differently. American is more phonetic.
That's why I like it. Slang is a mirror of real, inofficial culture, it shows lives of the people. How heavily US slang differs from region to region? And how heavily it changed, for example, since 80's?
Regarding school english and real english. The difference is massive, it will get you around plenty, but there is always localised differences that you have to just learn.
For example, Bunda(big butt) is used in the UK but not really in Ireland or America to my understanding. Wasnt aware of the word until I visited some month back.
It takes some getting used to local dialects. I've heard people with similar to this:
https://youtu.be/pj705DvCSxg
And when they speak fast and others nearby are talking at the same time. It's hard to understand. Especially if you dont know the topic well.
Quote from: Daniil on November 21, 2022, 03:38 PMYep, that's very close to gendering in Russian. We just doesn't use an articles - gender is implied in the word itself.
When you say there are no articles, do you mean that if in English you say "This is the street", in Russian you'd say "This is street"? In this case
the is the article.
Quote from: Daniil on November 21, 2022, 03:38 PMIn case of Putin it'd be "Vladimir Vladimirovich" like in different political TV shows when different toadies speaks to him.
I always wondered why on TV interviews, the reporter always called Gorbachev "Mikhail Sergeievitch". Now I know. :)
Quote from: Daniil on November 21, 2022, 03:38 PMDifference between Ш and Щ is simple - first pronounced as "sh", second as "sch". With hard ans soft signs it's a bit more complicated. Soft sign means higher tone of pronunciation (something as tones in Japanese or Chinese lang), hard sign vise versa. Pronunciation of Ы I can't explain to English-speakers, because there is nothing like this in English. Try to think about it as an "'ee" - long e with apostrophe.
I'm going to Google translate and checking the pronunciation. Now I understand. Thanks.
Quote from: Daniil on November 21, 2022, 03:38 PMSlang is a mirror of real, inofficial culture, it shows lives of the people. How heavily US slang differs from region to region? And how heavily it changed, for example, since 80's
There are subtle differences in spoken accents from region to region. For example, someone from New York speaks with different accent than someone from Atlanta. There is also some slightly different slang. Due to the fact that the world is hypercommunicated and there is easy travel from one place to the next, every day these differences grow less and less every day.
Quote from: humbert on November 22, 2022, 06:18 AMWhen you say there are no articles, do you mean that if in English you say "This is the street", in Russian you'd say "This is street"? In this case the is the article.
Yes, like this. Also, we don't use "is" in this case. So, in Russian "This is the street" will be "Это улица" (Literally "This - street"). "Is" ("есть") is an old form, used in very ceremonial sentences like "Запуск первого искусственного спутника
есть великое достижение cоветского народа" ("Launch of a first artificial satellite is a great achivement of soviet people").
Quote from: humbert on November 22, 2022, 06:18 AMThere are subtle differences in spoken accents from region to region. For example, someone from New York speaks with different accent than someone from Atlanta. There is also some slightly different slang. Due to the fact that the world is hypercommunicated and there is easy travel from one place to the next, every day these differences grow less and less every day.
Oh, that's very interesting! Is that easy to determine from where the person is, by his accent? For example, what's typical for new-yorkers? I hear that in NYC slang there is a lot of italian, jewish and russian forms.
Quote from: Shadow.97 on November 21, 2022, 07:10 PMIt takes some getting used to local dialects. I've heard people with similar to this:
https://youtu.be/pj705DvCSxg
Yep, that brat sounds very funny with his Irish accent. ;D
Quote from: Daniil on November 22, 2022, 12:07 PMOh, that's very interesting! Is that easy to determine from where the person is, by his accent? For example, what's typical for new-yorkers? I hear that in NYC slang there is a lot of italian, jewish and russian forms.
All these people essentially blended into one, liguistically speaking. It is the New York accent. Also, not all parts of this country have accent. Most have the generic American English you hear people speaking. Still, it's not too hard to hear a New Yorker, a Southerner, and a Californian and tell who's who. Also, by "Southerner" I specifically mean American states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi where the accent is most pronounced. I should also mention that black Americans also speak with their own accent.
Is that the case in Russia? Does someone from [for example] St Petersburg speak a little different than someone from Moscow? I would guess that faraway Siberia must have different accents too.
Hi,
I just received a message from Daniil, and I thought it would be useful to share it in case other users have a similar problem:
This message was: "I've got a trouble on posting on our forum - I can't add a message into topic "Maths & statistics exercises / French and English lessons". Forum returns me Error 403 - forbidden to execute action."
Actually I never had trouble posting new message. However, I encountered a similar message when I tried to modify old messages. But it only appeared a few times. It must be a bug with SMF not being able to remove "unknown characters".
In fact, I found this message on SMF:
https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=575211.msg4070841#msg4070841, you may use weird characters that are not correctly handled.
Quote from: scarface on November 24, 2022, 07:54 PMActually I never had trouble posting new message. However, I encountered a similar message when I tried to modify old messages. But it only appeared a few times. It must be a bug with SMF not being able to remove "unknown characters".
Well, let's check. Probably, there is a trouble with some characters. I'll reformulate message I wanted to post with other words.
Upd: WORKING!!! :))
Upd2: Message with my answer to mr.Humbert throwing an error 403 only in case when I tried to add there words "as people from Moscow". Very strange glitch.
Quote from: humbert on November 23, 2022, 06:22 AMStill, it's not too hard to hear a New Yorker, a Southerner, and a Californian and tell who's who. Also, by "Southerner" I specifically mean American states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi where the accent is most pronounced.
Oh, I probably read about it in a books. They prolonging vowels in words, shortening word endings and pronouncing "e" a bit incorrect way?
Quote from: humbert on November 23, 2022, 06:22 AMIs that the case in Russia? Does someone from [for example] St Petersburg speak a little different than someone from Moscow? I would guess that faraway Siberia must have different accents too.
No, in Russia there is no big differences in pronunciation, except a few cases. That is because of education politics at soviet era
Quote from: humbert on November 23, 2022, 06:22 AMStill, it's not too hard to hear a New Yorker, a Southerner, and a Californian and tell who's who. Also, by "Southerner" I specifically mean American states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi where the accent is most pronounced.
Oh, I probably read about it in a books. They prolonging vowels in words, shortening word endings and pronouncing "e" a bit incorrect way?
Quote from: humbert on November 23, 2022, 06:22 AMIs that the case in Russia? Does someone from [for example] St Petersburg speak a little different than someone from Moscow? I would guess that faraway Siberia must have different accents too.
No, in Russia there is no big differences in pronunciation, except a few cases. That's because of education politics at soviet era. That time in schools teachers corrected pronunciation of pupils, teaching them speak correctly. So today in regions with slavic majority in population, we speaking mostly without specific accent - for example, I dated with a girl from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, and her pronunciation was no different from mine.
The only exceptions are regions with Muslim majority (like in Caucasus), their languages are not slavic in roots, so their accent are very strong and very easy to sence. And, also, a people from far and very depressed villages - they have a lot of older forms in everyday speaking, and they have mostly old ways of accenting in words.
Quote from: Daniil on November 25, 2022, 02:39 PMwe speaking mostly without specific accent - for example, I dated with a girl from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, and her pronunciation was no different from mine.
At first I thought Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy was a neighborhood in St Petersburg. This until it occurred to me to look for it on Google Maps. Wow!! That place is on the other side of the country! Who even lives in the Kamchatka Peninsula? Did she go to St Petersburg or did you go there? If she came to you how did she get there? No major airports anywhere near there. Maybe a week or more on the Trans-Siberian railroad.?
Quote from: Daniil on November 25, 2022, 02:39 PMThe only exceptions are regions with Muslim majority (like in Caucasus), their languages are not slavic in roots, so their accent are very strong and very easy to sence. And, also, a people from far and very depressed villages - they have a lot of older forms in everyday speaking, and they have mostly old ways of accenting in words.
This makes perfect sense. In a country that size inhabited by so many different types of people, getting everybody to pronounce the same way is just impossible.
Quote from: humbert on November 27, 2022, 05:24 AMQuote from: Daniil on November 25, 2022, 02:39 PMThe only exceptions are regions with Muslim majority (like in Caucasus), their languages are not slavic in roots, so their accent are very strong and very easy to sence. And, also, a people from far and very depressed villages - they have a lot of older forms in everyday speaking, and they have mostly old ways of accenting in words.
This makes perfect sense. In a country that size inhabited by so many different types of people, getting everybody to pronounce the same way is just impossible.
Incredible, as in Sweden, driving 1h(or maybe 2) gives you a completely new accent.. :D
There are parts of Sweden where I have trouble understanding it if spoken at a decent speed. The closest being 2h 50 minutes drive according to google maps. (200km)
Quote from: Shadow.97 on November 27, 2022, 05:59 PMIncredible, as in Sweden, driving 1h(or maybe 2) gives you a completely new accent.. :D
There are parts of Sweden where I have trouble understanding it if spoken at a decent speed. The closest being 2h 50 minutes drive according to google maps. (200km)
Whereabouts are these places with different accents? I'm thinking this is in the far north. As I recall from studying geography at school, this is an area know as Lapland. I once met a Finnish woman from Rovaniemi. She is a Lapp. She told me that when her mother first went to school, she didn't speak Finnish and had to forcibly learn it.
I would guess driving there in the winter is next to impossible.
Quote from: humbert on November 28, 2022, 05:19 AMQuote from: Shadow.97 on November 27, 2022, 05:59 PMIncredible, as in Sweden, driving 1h(or maybe 2) gives you a completely new accent.. :D
There are parts of Sweden where I have trouble understanding it if spoken at a decent speed. The closest being 2h 50 minutes drive according to google maps. (200km)
Whereabouts are these places with different accents? I'm thinking this is in the far north. As I recall from studying geography at school, this is an area know as Lapland. I once met a Finnish woman from Rovaniemi. She is a Lapp. She told me that when her mother first went to school, she didn't speak Finnish and had to forcibly learn it.
I would guess driving there in the winter is next to impossible.
There are way too many dialects to be able to list. More or less every town in my region has its own quirks. It's also hard to tell at what point it becomes a distint dialect and what is just a stronger version of the same dialect.
Even the closest town from me has a different dialect, most big town have been more heavily influenced by TV and have a more standardised swedish. The closest communities to my home town have a more "farmer" way of speaking. Especially the people aged 60+.
Official list of dialects is here: https://www.isof.se/lar-dig-mer/kunskapsbanker/lar-dig-mer-om-svenska-dialekter/utforska-sveriges-dialekter
According to this list, my region (Småland) has 3 dialects belonging to 3 different parent groups of dialects. My understanding is that I have the South Småland dialect.
In my region you have 3 different "forces" pulling you to different dialects.
North (More towards Gothen-burg style)
North east (By Stockholm region)
South (By the ex Danish regions)
But personally, I group them as one when I speak with someone from for example Stockholm, but if I were to speak with someone from the same region, we would specify which county and not just region your dialect is from.
Kalmaritiska would be the dialect of Kalmar, Vimmerby dialect would be the one specific to Vimmerby.
Might be of interest for you to see this wiki page if you're interested in seeing more about Swedish in finland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_population_of_Finland
I have quite a few friends from Oulu which is a city not too far from Rovaniemi. None speak/understand more than a few words of Swedish. Even if they had it in School.
My ex- colleague from Malung either spoke in dialect or national swedish, but even her "national" sounded very dialect influenced. If she spoke in her native dialect, I did not understand much at all.
I mostly speak English with my friend who is from Laholm(118km, 73miles away) , but him and I both get confused when we say just a word or two in Swedish as we are not used to eachothers dialects. He has a very thick southern dialect that I am not used to. Even the true southerns are easier to understand than him, as he has oddities to his dialect that are not common to any of the primary dialects.
However, a lot of Stockholm people see all the dialects south as one and all the northern as one.
You usually adapt the dialect to the person you are speaking with. So when I speak with family my dialect is more noticable.
This is a topic I have too much to say about and contradict myself in, so if you want the ful story I think the best would be for us to call :D
Quote from: Shadow.97 on November 28, 2022, 03:50 PMThere are way too many dialects to be able to list. More or less every town in my region has its own quirks. It's also hard to tell at what point it becomes a distint dialect and what is just a stronger version of the same dialect.
I'm not too clear about something. How do you define the term "dialect"? For example, America, the UK, and Australia all speak English, just with different accents. They are close enough that the 3 nationalities can speak to each other without needing an translator. Is this what you define as "dialect" or do you mean to a situation where what is spoken is different enough where speaking without a translator becomes difficult, if not impossible?
Quote from: humbert on November 29, 2022, 05:35 AMQuote from: Shadow.97 on November 28, 2022, 03:50 PMThere are way too many dialects to be able to list. More or less every town in my region has its own quirks. It's also hard to tell at what point it becomes a distint dialect and what is just a stronger version of the same dialect.
I'm not too clear about something. How do you define the term "dialect"? For example, America, the UK, and Australia all speak English, just with different accents. They are close enough that the 3 nationalities can speak to each other without needing an translator. Is this what you define as "dialect" or do you mean to a situation where what is spoken is different enough where speaking without a translator becomes difficult, if not impossible?
An accent would be if you as an american came here and learned the Stockholm dialect.
Then you'd have an american accent but a stockholm dialect.
My swedish colleagues who moved to Ireland have slightly different ways of speaking English. They all the the swedish accent, but their dialect still shines through. I can often tell if they're from north, central or southern part of Sweden by carefully listening to their English. But it's hard compared to hearing them speak Swedish.
The dialect 2h from me is greater than the difference of New york english to Texas english. But due to the gradient of dialects in Sweden, you can reach points where the difference is greater than Irish Donegal english and Texas english without you realising that it suddenly changed.
And yes, there are parts that either you have to change your dialect to a more standardised or you will have issues understanding eachother. Unless you learn to understand theirs. Translators wont be needed unless you have lived completely cut off from the rest of the world. However explaining words and changing which word you use is common place. If it's a pronounciation issue you can always spell the word out.
Especially Finland-swedish. They do not use tonation and I have had to swap over to English instead. Because they have finnish loan-words that mainland swedish does not use.
But it's a none issue. Understanding dialects come naturally, one thing American/UK English native speakers are bad at, is to understand foreigners English when it's spoken. Due to accents and choice of words. Foreigners more often understand eachother as they are more lenient and can imagine different meanings of words even if they are improperly used according to them or their way of speaking.
I am a fluent English speaker with an accent, but due to the locals thinking I'm stupid or something they have a harder time understanding me than if I speak to germans in English. It can get really frustrating.
Some examples of words in Swedish that other regions have issues understanding would be: Balle (Means butt in some parts of sweden, and balls in other parts). Due to this difference, there's been severe confusion in my life. "I fell backwards on to my balle" a person once told me. I was very confused about the acrobatics made to fall backwards on ones balls, or if they just hung very low.
Wheelbarrow is another word that causes confusion, in the region slightly south, it's called "Rullebär" from Danish, instead of "Skottkärra". There's words only being used locally that arent used throughout the country. This on top of pronounciation differences can make it hard to tell if it's a different word they are using or just a difference in pronounciation.
I found this map on Wikipedias Swedish-Estonian people page. I think this is one of the more accurate ones to show the Dialect-areas. I would call this the "parent"-dialects, as you have more ones regionally. But they can be hard to differentiate.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Swedish_dialects.PNG)
Even if Finland Swedish dialects sound the same to me, I am well aware that phrases and words are vastly different from region to region. The island finish-swedish is easier to understand as they have less loan words from Finland.
I hope some of this makes sense. It's very hard to explain all of this while trying to make sense of it.. ::)
Quote from: Shadow.97 on November 29, 2022, 04:36 PMI hope some of this makes sense. It's very hard to explain all of this while trying to make sense of it.. ::)
I do understand it. It makes sense. Reminds me of one day I was visiting Buenos Aires. The guy who was with me asked the waitress for something, saying it the way we say it. She didn't understand. I then said the same word how they pronounce it and she understood me.
I have a grammar question for humbert and for those who are speaking English very well.
Look at those 2 sentences:
The board demanded (that) he be hired / he were hired
The board demanded (that) he resign / he resigned
In the past, subjunctive is used like the past participle, except for the verb to be where the form is "were". Here the subjunctive is used because it's introduced by a relative pronoun in relative clause. This is the same thing in French.
Till there, I guess everybody on the forum knows that.
Now look at the sentences below:
If I were him, I would go to Iceland.
Paul eats as if he were a dog
Actually, I knew these forms, but I wasn't aware I was using a subjunctive form in the past. Actually, I was just thinking that the form "were" was used to show that it's not possible, but apparently there is a grammatical explanation.
Maybe humbert, Gulliver, Daniil, Vasudev, or shadow.97... can tell us if they knew the form "If I were" and not if I was (I have no doubt about it), and if they were aware they were using a subjunctive form.
Quote from: scarface on December 13, 2022, 08:19 PMMaybe humbert, Gulliver, Daniil, Vasudev, or shadow.97... can tell us if they knew the form "If I were" and not if I was (I have no doubt about it), and if they were aware they were using a subjunctive form.
All I know is that this level of grammatic correctness is not needed in real life ::)
I'm not very good at understanding grammatic rules. I usually brute-force learning it by going through a large amount of examples. Leading me to knowing it, but being unable to understand it.
Quote from: Shadow.97 on December 14, 2022, 03:18 AMAll I know is that this level of grammatic correctness is not needed in real life ::)
You're absolutely right. Yesterday I read in the news that during the putsch on 6/1/2021, one fanatical member of Congress sent Trump a text message asking him to invoke
marshall law (note the spelling). Once I saw a picture of a protest sign in the paper. Trumpist fanatics protesting immigration. The sign read: This is ARE country! What makes this even worse is these are Americans who speak no other language except English. You can forgive someone who's just learning, but not these guys.
Scarface: Many years ago I learned in school that if you're talking a hypothetical situation, you always use the plural of the verb
was, i.e., were. Example: "I wish I were a billionaire" is correct. Why? Who knows. Ask the idiots who wrote this bastard language. Sadly the British Empire spread it throughtout the globe, and that was followed by strong American influence everywhere.
Quote from: humbert on December 15, 2022, 05:59 AMScarface: Many years ago I learned in school that if you're talking a hypothetical situation, you always use the plural of the verb was, i.e., were. Example: "I wish I were a billionaire" is correct. Why? Who knows. Ask the idiots who wrote this bastard language. Sadly the British Empire spread it throughtout the globe, and that was followed by strong American influence everywhere.
We were also taught this, I had completely forgotten about it until you mentioned it.. ;D
My biggest pet peeve in english is when people use Am instead of I'm/I am:
"Am home" instead of "I am home"/"I'm home"
(PS. My 700th post!)
Quote from: Shadow.97 on December 16, 2022, 04:44 PMMy biggest pet peeve in english is when people use Am instead of I'm/I am:
"Am home" instead of "I am home"/"I'm home"
As you know, the correct spelling is "I'm home". The "am home" pronunciation is typical of the southern American states and also black Americans - just their accent or dialect.
Quote from: Shadow.97 on December 16, 2022, 04:44 PM(PS. My 700th post!)
Keep 'em coming! You're a very sharp valued member of our forum with plenty of intelligent things to say. Your input is always welcome.
Quote from: scarface on December 13, 2022, 08:19 PMMaybe humbert, Gulliver, Daniil, Vasudev, or shadow.97... can tell us if they knew the form "If I were" and not if I was (I have no doubt about it), and if they were aware they were using a subjunctive form.
Very interesting thing! For me as native Russian speaker, this grammaitc construction looks (and even hears) as something very familliar. Because in Russian there is a form "Если бы я был ...", which literally can be translated "If (it were the situation when) I was ..."
English speakers, same as in Russian, just cropped the sentence probably. (BTW, my shiz stubbornly pushed me a word "trunked" instead of "cropped"... Is that a correct replacement, or the sence of sentence would be lost?)
Quote from: humbert on November 27, 2022, 05:24 AMAt first I thought Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy was a neighborhood in St Petersburg. This until it occurred to me to look for it on Google Maps. Wow!! That place is on the other side of the country! Who even lives in the Kamchatka Peninsula? Did she go to St Petersburg or did you go there? If she came to you how did she get there? No major airports anywhere near there. Maybe a week or more on the Trans-Siberian railroad.?
On Kamchatka lives a lot of geologists, fishers, and military personnel. She was from a family of geologist. Yes, she went to Moscow, for learning in uni, and then she got here to St.Petersburg (but we met each other in internet long before this). It's not so difficult to get from Kamchatka to Moscow - on a regional plane to Khabarovsk, and from there on airliner to Moscow.
Quote from: Shadow.97 on November 27, 2022, 05:59 PMIncredible, as in Sweden, driving 1h(or maybe 2) gives you a completely new accent.. :D
It looks just like a madness for me. BTW, probably that's why a lot of Russians have a troubles with foreign languages - we use to live in very unified language space and most of those who lives not in central cities could never hear any other languages in whole their life (except from TV). BTW, probably in China now they faced same.
Quote from: humbert on December 15, 2022, 05:59 AMYou're absolutely right. Yesterday I read in the news that during the putsch on 6/1/2021, one fanatical member of Congress sent Trump a text message asking him to invoke marshall law (note the spelling). Once I saw a picture of a protest sign in the paper. Trumpist fanatics protesting immigration. The sign read: This is ARE country! What makes this even worse is these are Americans who speak no other language except English. You can forgive someone who's just learning, but not these guys.
;D In Soviet Union grammatical correctness for everyone was heavily obligatory. 'cause everyone must knew how to write main mottos of communism etc., and you can imagine, that nobody should made a mistakes in this. I.e., you can imagine what it could ended, I mean "how you dare to write sacred words of Lenin and Marks in incorrect way?!?!?!"
In Stalin's time that could be finished in deadly punishment, and even in late USSR you can after this "put your party ticket on a table". (That idiom means being excluded from Soviet Communistic Party, very hard punishment, denying to you a lot of priviledges).
Quote from: Shadow.97 on December 16, 2022, 04:44 PMMy biggest pet peeve in english is when people use Am instead of I'm/I am:
"Am home" instead of "I am home"/"I'm home"
Oh, I faced same troubles when I tried to listen songs of black Americans. Their throaty pronounciation sounds sometimes nice but understand them, especially on a fast talking, is tricky thing.
Sooo, comrades, I want to say some words about English and Russian prepositions (pretexts?)
It's quite difficult thing for Russian speaker to learn how to use English prepositions. Because here we can see the best way the differences in the way how we thinking (we can say - cultural differences).
Take a look. In my previous I wrote:
Quote from: Daniil on March 03, 2023, 01:33 PMIn Stalin's time that could be finished in deadly punishment ...
For English speakers it seems incorrect, because I used word "In" for a time. I know that I must use "At" at this case. But for Russian language, here is no mistake. We would said "В сталинское время", literally "
In Stalin's time".
I thought a lot about this... And you know what? Probably it's because of cultural differences in how we thinking about the time! English speakers are very carefully differentiate (almost in mathematical sense) time of an event (that's why in English there is so much tenses!) In Russian we because of our culture used to think about time in prolonged way (try to imagine, how to sit at home for a loooong winter evenings). So when we say about time we in most cases saying about a period (from -> to), and specially mentioned when we saying about a special moment. (Also, maybe because of this we have in Russian language very nasty form "успеть" - literally "catch in time", which causes a lot of troubles in life, but that's a separate topic).
I can't understand how to explain in that logic why in English you saying "at" about time ("at some date", "at age of ..." etc.) Maybe together we can find out the roots of this.
Quote from: Daniil on March 03, 2023, 01:59 PMSooo, comrades, I want to say some words about English and Russian prepositions (pretexts?)
Take a look. In my previous I wrote:
Quote from: Daniil on March 03, 2023, 01:33 PMIn Stalin's time that could be finished in deadly punishment ...
For English speakers it seems incorrect, because I used word "In" for a time. I know that I must use "At" at this case. But for Russian language, here is no mistake. We would said "В сталинское время", literally "In Stalin's time".
I can't understand how to explain in that logic why in English you saying "at" about time ("at some date", "at age of ..." etc.) Maybe together we can find out the roots of this.
Hi Daniil, well I'm certain that the phrase "
In Stalin's time" is correct. But I'm sure there are other syntax errors in your message (no matter...).
And note that you can use "in" with the word age, for example in the expression "in his old age" (when the exact age is mentioned the preposition "at" is used indeed).
As far as prepositions are concerned, it's true that you are not using them properly. But you are going to see that if I was applying my own logic, I would make much more syntax errors. And if I don't make these errors, it's because my level of proficiency in English allows me to interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party (but for that I studied and read many English books).
Let's take the French preposition "en".
In French the preposition "en" is generally translated by "in"
in English.
If I translate the sentence above: En français la préposition "en" est généralement traduite par "in"
en anglais. This time it's logical.
Now we say in French: "Je suis bon
en math" translated in English by "I'm good
at math" and not "in math".
This time it's not logical. That's why for a French speaker the syntax error "I'm good in" is common.
Well, what I'm saying is not totally true, since the expression "good in" exists but for very specific cases such as "Chocolate is good in cake".
For a Russian speaker, it might not be easy to learn and study English easily. For me Cyrillic and Chinese words look like hieroglyphics so I guess it's not easy for you to use a different alphabet.
But even for a French beginner, the English language is somewhat difficult because there are many "false friends": Some similar words, with a different meaning or a different but very similar spelling (language/langage). Actually, the influence of French on English pertains mainly to its lexicon but also to its syntax, grammar, orthography, and pronunciation. Most of the French vocabulary in English entered the language after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, when Old French, specifically the Old Norman dialect, became the language of the new Anglo-Norman court, and nowadays, words of French origin represent more than two-thirds of the English vocabulary.
And because of this, if a French learner doesn't read grammar books, or if one tries to apply one's logic, there can be misinterpretations or even nonsense.
And if we take a look at the "false friends" in English/French it's getting worse because they are numerous.
For instance, the word important can be applied practically for everything in French and has a broader meaning than is implied in the English term. It means both important and valuable. In French we can say "une somme importante". In English we say "a significant sum".
It's the same thing for the word "force", which has a broader meaning in French. It means both strength and force. For instance we say "force physique/physical strength. And If we are translating "force physique by "physical force", we are mistranslating it, because physical force involves a notion of violence, a force or physical means used upon or directed towards another person, or an act committed by a police officer for the purpose of restricting the movement of others. Unless I'm mistaken, we can't say "Mr Baboon is very strong, his physical force enables him to run as fast as a cheetah", in this case the substantive strength should be used.
But to show the power of an impact, then the same word is used in French and English: force de l'explosion/force of the blast...
Maybe a piece of advice: you could try to reread your messages before sending them, I'm sure you could see more misspellings/errors.
Guys, you gotta keep in mind that every language has it's own set of prepositions, expressions, meanings, and everything else. There is no such thing as a literal word-for-word translation. Whenever I need to translate I hear the statement in one language, get a mental picture of what they said, then explain it in the other language.
Scarface: There is nothing hard about the Cyrillic alphabet. Once you learn the different sound of the letters the rest is easy. I'm noticing that Russian is very phonetic. The one I've had trouble with is the Arabic alphabet. This is because it's a cursive alphabet and the letters are written differently according to whether they're alone or what part of the word they're in.
Daniil: Khabarovsk is almost as far away from St Petersburg as the Kamchatka Peninsula itself. To get to St Petersburg from there is it a non-stop flight or does the plane stop somewhere. Either way it's a long flight.
BTW out of curiosity alone, may I ask, is the lady from Kamchatka now your girlfriend?
Tonight, I'm going to give you an English lesson in order for you to know when to use the right tense. It might not be very useful for humbert or Vasudev because they speak English well, but it could be of some use for some users of the forum.
The three tenses in English are past, present, and future. We use past tense to write about the past. We use present tense to write about facts, opinions, or things that happen regularly. We use future tense to write about future events.
Past tenses
-Simple past
The simple past is used for finished actions that take place in a finished time.
Example: They recruited 25 new sales staff last year.
-Past progressive
The Past progressive is used for actions that are continuing at a finished time in the past.
Example: we were only selling databases 10 years ago.
Present tense
-Simple present
The Simple present is used to express habits, general truths, repeated actions or unchanging situations, emotions and wishes. It is also used to give instructions or directions.
To talk about schedules, it is also possible to use the simple present to speak about the future, with the verbs "leave", "arrive" "start" "finish" "begin" "end". To express future time, after some conjunctions: after, when, before, as soon as, until, the present tense must be used.
Example:
I play tennis (habit);
London is a large city (general truth)
You walk for two hundred meters, then you turn left.(instructions)
The Conference begins at 9 (schedule)
He'll give it to you when you come next Saturday.
-Present perfect:
Unfinished time : a period of unfinished time can be "today', "this week", "this month"
Example:
the strategy has changed three times already this year.
Unfinished actions : we also use the present perfect with actions that began in the past and are still continuing in the present.
Example: the company has worked in that sector for over 100 years.
Unfinished negative actions:
It is not necessary for the action to be a positive action. We can also use the present perfect for unfinished negative actions.
Example: They haven't sold products in North America since the takeover.
Future tenses
-The present progressive or the structure " going to + infinitive
To talk about future events which have already been planned, the present progressive or the structure "going to + infinitive" is used.
Example:
I planned to go fishing in the Tonle Sap Lake. I'm driving up there next week end.
I'm going to play tennis this afternoon.
-The simple future.
If a decision is made as we speak, the simple future is used. The simple future is also often used to make predictions about the future. This can combined with expressions like 'I think", "I'm sure"
Example:
I'll have to see if I can get the time off work.
I'm sure we'll get a good write up in trade magazines.
I doubt it @scarface. I can write very well but while speaking I've to sometimes pick the right word whether its translating from a different language to English or vice-versa. It's more there's definite brainlag.
Quote from: Vasudev on October 15, 2023, 08:55 PMI doubt it @scarface. I can write very well but while speaking I've to sometimes pick the right word whether its translating from a different language to English or vice-versa. It's more there's definite brainlag.
not perfect but still comprehensible then.
Note that the expression "to sometimes pick" is a "split infinitive construction". It's awkward despite its prevalence in colloquial speech. Actually, it's deprecated in modern English even if it's not incorrect.
Quote from: scarface on October 16, 2023, 01:43 AMQuote from: Vasudev on October 15, 2023, 08:55 PMI doubt it @scarface. I can write very well but while speaking I've to sometimes pick the right word whether its translating from a different language to English or vice-versa. It's more there's definite brainlag.
not perfect but still comprehensible then.
Note that the expression "to sometimes pick" is a "split infinitive construction". It's awkward despite its prevalence in colloquial speech. Actually, it's deprecated in modern English even if it's not incorrect.
I didn't know few phrases in a spech were deprecated. Oh is there any article that points towards newer speech?
Quote from: Vasudev on October 16, 2023, 09:17 PMI didn't know few phrases in a spech were deprecated. Oh is there any article that points towards newer speech?
I was just saying that the expression (and not the "speech") in which an adverb separates the "to" and "infinitive" should be avoided, as far as possible.
Hey Scarface -- do you have all this information in your head or did you look it up? I remember studying all this as a child many years ago. I forgot most of it.
Quote from: humbert on October 19, 2023, 04:56 AMHey Scarface -- do you have all this information in your head or did you look it up? I remember studying all this as a child many years ago. I forgot most of it.
Well, I knew that it's not advised to separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of a sentence. But I didn't know it was called a "split infinitive", I found it on wikipedia.
In fact I read books in English, It's useful to acquire knowledge of words and proper sentence structure.
Lately, I tried to read Jane Eyre, at least the first chapters, and it's very descriptive. It's a dramatic story in a slow-paced wrap. I stopped reading it, It's dull due to the author's prolix style. But I'll watch the movie. You will likely not find a split infinitive in the books of Charlotte Bronte.
I'm currently reading The Woman Who Lied.
(it's available here in ebook: https://www.fnac.com/livre-numerique/a17359658/Claire-Douglas-The-Woman-Who-Lied)