Nice works: Is that why we drive on the parkway, and park on the drive way? Or that shipments go by truck, and cargo goes by ship?

AlliumCepa: :)

Орлин: You should ask Fencer. I am not sure how he decides to add languages. I believe people interested in a particular language also contribute to its being implemented and translated onto the site.

I have missed Pedro Martinez. Does anyone here or elsewhere know what has become of him?

lizrising: Pedro might be able to help you. I am waiting for his return to continue a few games. I'm sure he'll check out your post when he returns. He has extensive knowledge of many languages, though I do not know if he knows Slovak.

"This was the very hour drive." <----- Is what I got.

I tried Google translate. The words make sense, but without context it looks like gibberish to me too. Are the Slovak words spelled correctly and in proper tense? I was told this language, Czech, and others in this area can be very strict on these things.

fukuhara: I've heard opposite usage.

I've read of a movie as being set in modern day China and conversely as taking place during the time when Genghis Khan was making trouble.

Bwild: The United States.

That's the original name, though the "The" and the "United" are not capitalized with number of states listed.

http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_zoom_2.html

It was "the thirteen united States of America"

Pedro Martínez: Is a double room one that has two beds? Or is it something else? I've re-read your sentence with and without the "a". Both ways seem OK to me, almost like it doesn't matter.

I think I am used to hearing a room with two beds just called a "double". The word "room" is what is strange to me in your sentence. A single has one bed, a double has two, and then there's the possibility of having a rollaway brought in for more sleeping space. More than one room is often called a "suite", whether or not there's any more beds in it.

Bwild:

England and the United States

Two countries separated by a common language? :)

Here's one I hear a lot and it concerns Czech Republic. The very use of "the" when one says Czech Republic! I usually just say Czech Republic, but it seems I am the only that says that. Everyone else I know always says 'The Czech Republic". Ukraine gets the "The" too. England doesn't. Hardly any other countries in Europe get the "The". The Netherlands is one that does. I wonder how this came about?

Around here we use "the" in ways that people from the East Coast don't, especially when talking about freeways. Interstate 5 is the most common example. It is often called "The 5". Other roads get this same treatment, The 22, The 405, The 55, The Orange Crush, The Four Level. Even bureaucracies get this. The Department of Motor Vehicles is called "The DMV" for short. I have heard a few people just say "DMV", but it's not very common compared to putting the "The" in front. I live in Southern California, so maybe we talk a different version of American English? :)

Pedro Martínez: Sure thing, though I am not sure as to what a double room is! When I say something is with something, but not a specific thing, I always use "a". English has the two articles. "the" and "a", definite and indefinite, respectively. Your sentence sounds strange to me to just say, "double room with shower" as compared to "double room with a shower". This has me reflecting on the fact that using the indefinite article in this manner makes it very definite in the fact that it implies just one shower for the double room! :) It seems it might be better to say "double room with one shower" or "a double room with one shower" or even "a double room with shower" implying the accommodation just has one shower even though the room is double sized in other respects.

It's a trip that using the definite article to describe just having one shower doesn't seem right at all to me. I'm going to have to see if there's other instances of this. Perhaps it is a common thing and until your question I had not given it any thought.
"double room with the shower"

Bwild: These are great examples. I suppose the usage is the key to it, eh? I took the hard way to show it! :)

awesome: I'm with "awesome" on this. I think of shade as a collection of shadows or as something used to get out of the sun. A shadow caused by a light or the moon is a little different. A shadow to me is primarily about the thing causing it. Also, a shadow is something that isn't normally thought for using as shade. When a shadow is used for shade it is often a temporary or unusual event. As using a tractor-trailer rig's shadow on the freeway to shade your vehicle or when someone happens to block the sun with their shadow giving you some shade.

Pedro Martinez is now a moderator. His linguistic skills will be very helpful in this discussion board. Thank you Pedro.

anastasia: I took two years of German in highschool, but I doubt if I know one hundred words. I got so discouraged with all the words for "the". People can complain about English all they want to, but when it comes to articles in English, there's just two. A definite one and an indefinite one; "the" and "a". Whereas German has at least five! Der, die, das, den, dem. and that's just for "the", "a" gets the same business too, ein, eine, einen, and things I can no longer remember. :) The whole business of gender for nouns seems ludicrous to me too. I guess it makes learning Spanish easy if you're already are used to having the article with the noun, as Spanish also has this gender and tense grammar stuff to deal with too. I wonder if the gender is the same in those languages? If not, then it might be hard depending on how many differences there exist. Here I just learn the word, like say the word is "table". That's it There's no masculine, feminine, or neuter to learn. It doesn't matter if it's now, tomorrow, or yesterday. Or if it's your table, my table, or somebody else's table. It's either that table, or any table.
I was told that Japanese doesn't even have articles. I'm willing to bet for a Japanese person, English might have that one thing easier to learn than German or French, but maybe not.

For me, German seemed like a needlessly complex language, but I'd say the main reason I didn't learn it was I had no one to speak it with. I should've taken Spanish. It's almost the main language around here in Santa Ana. It gets equal or even primary billing in a lot of places and venues. Plenty of people I meet daily don't speak English but know Spanish. I could probably speak it every day with someone. And there's newspapers and television stations in Spanish that I could also use to learn it. But German has the beer drinking songs, and that's where my heart was even before I liked beer! :)

I would definitely find people that you can speak German with if you want to learn it. There's bound to be a German club or group in your area. They should be able to help with learning German. German has dialects like American English has them. Maybe try Der Spiegel, or's that Das Spiegel? Die? See, the the messes me up. Anyways, it's a big magazine or newspaper in Germany. They might have an English edition and you can compare the articles in them side by side.

TheCrazyPuppy: I haven't had much luck tracking down a translation. The "juden" translates to Jew in a couple of languages. Spilensi and spilen seem like related words to my eye. Knowing the language it is written in woiuld help a lot. Or if it is spelled correctly. I'll ask someone that has rejoined the site.

Spilensi juden spilen

TheCrazyPuppy: I tried, but I can't even find what language it is in.

King Reza: Hi Reza! Long time no see. Are you just checking in, or are you back?

P-G: I use Google's translator. Seems to work good for German and Spanish into English and vice versa, though I don't have a direct way to know for sure.

http://translate.google.com/translate_t?langpair=de|en

Contractions of the type that have not in them should only have one apostrophe. "I would not have" is "I wouldn'tve" not "I wouldn't've."

Reza, how's the use of ain't taught there? Avoid or use?

I've never heard the possesion deal with contracting have. That's not a rule I ever heard of, but in your example sentence I would say the word have and not contract it. I think it depends on what is being talked about or possessed. Can notions be possessed? Such as, "I've a notion to do something about that?" I've noticed the over use of the word got, especially when it follows I've. It seems to me if you wouldn't say, "I have got it", then you shouldn't say, "I've got it."

Pedro Martínez: Ah, Legalese. A very difficult language. It looks like English, but it's something else completely. I'll have to read your passage a few times before I can try to fathom it. Even then it might escape me. Perhaps a lawyer familiar with this type of writing can help you out. :)

Pedro Martínez: It needs some context. It doesn't make much sense to me.

Is efforts the right word? Effects would make a little sense, as from a will or estate. Though I have heard of someone trying something or taking a climb up a mountain and they could be said to be "expending a lot of effort" in their attempt.

King Reza: Yes, his English is different than my English. Spoken differently, spelled differently, and even some of the grammar is done differently. Years ago someone said this of the two languages and countries. "Two countries seperated by a common language." It's kind of nonsensical, but there's some truth to it. Our cultures are different too. There's lots in common. Someday I'll travel to England to see for myself. The make some of my favorite beer there, so it's got a lot going for it from the start. :) Perhaps you can save up and travel there yourself? I think you're closer, but I'd have to check a map. I saw that it was around $750 to fly there from here the other day. I'm not sure if that was round trip or one way.

You might want to get more dictionaries. There's a tradition of them in the United States. I can't say which one is best. The American Heritage Dictionary has a lot of words in it that most of the dictionaries leave out that are common words. Perhaps some web searching would give you a few to choose from. Next to this computer I have a medium size dictionary called Webster Illustrated Contemporary Dictionary. That's my spell checker. I use it when I need to spell a word I don't know too well. Luckily I know how to spell rendezvous already because I'd never be able to find it in the dictionary without searching every "R" word in order. Just who put the "Z" and "S" in it? And why is the second letter an "E" instead of an "O"? Yeah, blame the French for English spelling. It seems like the only reason I know of. Them two countries have quite a history between them. Lots of wars and conquests. English changed a lot. More of those extra words with the same meaning playbunny alluded to. I wonder if French changed as well? How complete is that Oxford dictionary? I've never seen one of those. Does it have words in it like snafu or fubar? If so, does it say what the "f" means? And then there's this internet. I suppose that's another way to find out about languages all around the world.

playBunny: Yeah, that "s" was throwing me off too. Hard to say which books and professors are teaching him English. And then there's your English as compared to my English. I bet Reza can speak as well as someone that grew up in an English speaking place, though he might have an accent. He certainly knows grammar better than most people I know.

Czuch Czuckers: It seems like you can, or am I making a mistake judging it so?

:)

King Reza: You did find some examples! :)

This isn't my bill. There must be an error.
I made an error about Julie. She's nice, really.
It was a huge error to send her to boarding school.
A week after the wedding she realized she had made a terrible error.

>Make no mistakes, we're facing a major financial crisis.<this is a different use of mistake. Kind of idiomatic and it won't look or sound right putting error in its place.>The accident was the result of pilot mistake.<
This might be a legitimate sentence, but as you have it is the way I always heard it.

Rising costs have left us very little margin for mistakes.

King Reza: That's not necesarily true about error. Sometimes an error is made when you are able to do something correctly, but fail to do so. An example is a ground ball hit to the second baseball who fields it cleanly and, having plenty of time to throw the ball to the first baseman, instead throws the ball way over the first baseman's head into the stands. This is an error, and the second baseman will be charged one for his mistake. The second baseman certainly has plenty of knowledge about what to do in this instance, he didn't do it.

I hadn't thought of the two words to compare them before. They usually mean the same thing and can be used interchangeably. I'm trying to think of other times when they mean differently enough from each other that only one would be proper.

He made an error. He made a mistake.
He spoke in error. He spoke mistakenly.

Least ways it's hard for me to tell them apart. Perhaps you can give an example where only one would be proper? I can't think of an example and the words seem to have the same meaning.

While building the model airplane, he made a mistake putting the propeller together.
While building the model airplane, he made an error while putting the propeller together.

King Reza: If I could have remembered it right, it might have read a lot better. Somewhere there's a collection of usages in English that are grammatically correct, but are almost never spoken or writen. That was the point I was trying to make. In this collection the word "and" is used. Apparently, and never appears twice in a row as and and. And and is so uncommon and yet it makes perfect sense as I write here, does it not? Untorn would seem like that too, but WatfordFC has found such a simple use of it that it bears to keep in mind the rule about exceptions to the rule. You'd think that as rare as and and is that three ands in a row could not happen in a sentence and have that sentence make sense, right? Consider the two cases of and and and and and and. And and and and and and might be extreme examples of this, but they do exist. Does anyone know of this collection? I'm sure it'd be of some interest to this discussion board. :)

As the teacher lectures the class explaining not to use double negatives and uses various examples, the students begin to drift off in that somnolent way they have when their eyes glaze over but still continue to look in the teacher's direction. The teacher senses this and writes some examples on the chalkboard to try and see if anyone is paying attention. He also includes positives with his double negatives in an attempt to show the proper usages.
"Logically", he explains, "the use of two negatives in a sentence should make the sentence positive in meaning, but that is not how people talk when they say things like 'No, you cannot have that.' As this is never taken to mean, 'You may have that.' No one says, 'Yes, you cannot have that' or 'No, you may have that.' There is no way to have two positives have this problem and have a negative meaning as in, 'Yes, you may have that.'
From the back row a student replies, "Yeah, right."

WatfordFC: Yeah, and the contraction you are is you're, not your.

Unworn and untorn in one clear sentence. That's a good refutation if I ever saw one. :) Even better than the new car smell, eh?

King Reza: You're right Reza. I typed the sentence incorrectly. I've fixed it.
Correct or incorrect? Opposites
Flammable or inflammable? Synonyms
Go figure. :)

King Reza: I'd not say inexpensive is the synonym of cheap. Even saying it's low priced is a better opposite. Something cheaply priced maybe, but to just say cheap is not how I'd say it.

Further research found this link:
http://www.synonym.com/synonym/inexpensive
Perhaps you're right about cheap and inexpensive. It just seems that where I live the word cheap is not used for some reason unless there's something wrong with what it is you're talking about. Perhaps this is just in my area and how advertisers and television can twist the meanings and usages of words.

By the way this link might help you find lots of opposites and alikes (antonyms)

pauloaguia: In that case King Reza could add the Languages link to the header of this page and those of us interested in more sayings to translate can add them here for Fencer to check out.
http://brainking.com/en/Languages

A right nice page there Fencer!

yoyudax: It's easy enough to do here without too many tricks. You put into a post box just like this one the things you want in it. Then King Reza puts a link to it in the title or header at the top of this page. Then all of us can view the page and it can be updated or added to as more phrases come up.

Fiona: Cool. Do you have a link to the picture for us to see it while reading this translation? Was redsales in on the translation too? Does it mean anything, or is it just art with the characters? Have you tried tracking done the author or creator of it and seeing what his meaning of it is?

Pedro Martínez: I asked him indirectly through his friend phatplayer. Between the two of them I'm sure they'll have it. Phatplayer said he wrote to her just a few minutes ago, so when she comes on they should be able to make the connection. She's made me curious as to what it might say or mean.

Fiona: I've asked a couple people if they can do the translation for you. It might be hard since art can be anything, especially if stylized for looks. Reza had a link to some old Persian art that was neat looking, but made of writing. It will take someone fluent in Chinese to give it a go if it's anything like that.

I have the feeling those translation machines are really bad at Chinese to English. :)

رضا: Later should never be said with a "d" sound for the "t". Where'd you ever get the idea that was OK? Same thing for better or bettor. As for utilization, I wouldn't either. Or Utah.

Lamby: http://www.sequoia.national-park.com/info.htm#tree

I suppose there's probably one for the coastal redwoods too. And since it's a National Park there will be an official web site.

And for this page the alternate spelling. Sequoyah

Lamby: Sequoia is a common word in California. There's a few of forests with them. They are the largest living things on the earth. I've seen one that had a path around it and the first branch is 100 feet up and it's 6 feet in diameter. General Sherman Tree it's called. There's a few of them that have tunnels cut through them and you can drive a car through a tree. The coastal redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. Whole groves of them over 200 feet high. I think a few of them get over 300 feet. These trees aren't as big around as the sequoias in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It's amazing to see them. They're so huge. No tap root either. I've never figured out how the keep from tipping over. Some of them do get blown over in big storms though. I remember seeing them laying on the ground. I wouldn't want to be around there when one of those goes. It's a fast growing tree. I believe they're planted and harvested like other woods too. The big ones that I'm talking about can be over a 1000 years old.

Lamby:

Sequoia has all five vowels in a seven letter word.

Facetious has them in alphabetical order.

I'm told meaiou is an alternative spelling to meow, but I don't believe it.

As for consonants, hmm. How about syllables? I know a word with one syllable that has eight letters in it. It's a noun, so adding "s" will make it a nine letter word with one syllable.

That ten bird stuff further down sounds ridiculous. They're all pronounced the same. Ten is ten. A real tongue twister can make you talk funny.

The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick.

Pedro Martínez: Pedro, I thought you lived in Czech Republic. Have you moved? I know you don't live in trees. Weren't they all cut down?

I was asking this of Reza because of how he told me they censor rock music in Iran a few months back, but I didn't know if they censored movies of this type. I'm well aware that California exports movies around the globe, it is where I live. I'm willing to bet you can buy just about any movie you want to in Czuch Republic at any store that sells them. I doubt if this is the case in Iran, hence my question for Reza. There's probably an underground or blackmarket for the restricted movies and songs. Same thing for China and anywhere else that has people dictating to others what they can watch or listen too. Think about it. China censors the Rolling Stones! What are the "authorities" afraid of? It's just music. I sure don't need someone forcing me as to what to listen to or not listen to. I'm perfectly capable of changing the station or shutting the radio off on my own and I don't have to buy anyone's music if I don't want to. I sure wouldn't want to live in a place that made it against the law for me to buy a Rolling Stones album whether or not I wanted to buy one. I believe I should make the choice for myself.

I've always been amazed that here in the United States you can buy or see just about any movie with a very large amount of torture, violence, and killing in it, but if there's any kind of nudity in it without even sex they slap an R rating on it. Why is it here that parents would rather have their kids see someone put a bullet in someone's head, but get upset if the sex shown goes beyond a kiss?

Reza is using this board to learn about language. Are American made movies that feature violence a good way to learn English? So many movies of all types are made here. I can't say that I've ever heard of a Czech movie being shown in a theater around here. I'm willing to bet you've seen a few movies made in California or other parts of the United States. What about our television shows? Do you guys watch them too? How about satellite service? Do you get HBO and other American content programs there? In English? Maybe this is one more reason that English is so well known. I'm amazed at how many people on this site and elsewhere in the world speak English. I never made the connection until right now that it might be in part because of movies. Is it not something to wonder why so many of the movies in the world that are worldwide known are made in the United States? Why is that? Why don't other countries have a lot of films for me to see here? I think England and Canada are the only other coutries I have seen movies or television shows from. Maybe France too, I can't remember. How many countries besides the United States do not have a government bureaucracy for the approval of print, movies, or music? I wanted to know if he saw it in a theater or at home. Or if it had been shown in the theater at all. Had it not been for the fact that I just happened to be walking past a television showing this Saw II two weeks ago, I would never have made the connection to the words he wrote down. I have to think Reza has seen the movie more than one time to know these words so well, so maybe he has the DVD and played it over a few times in that part of the movie to get the words.

Have you seen the movie? I did not watch it except for that part that he just happens to be quoting. I find movies like that to be a waste of my time to watch. I have little interest in seeing yet another way to kill someone. And it is as graphic as Reza says. I did not realize the key was inside of his head, put there by the guy that put the beartrap contraption on his victim's head and started a clock running. It's hard not to look at such stuff, but it can be done. Just leave the room or change the channel. Obviously my way of thinking on this is a small minority view or there wouldn't be money to be made from the making of movies of this type. Like I said earlier, I can decide for myself to watch a movie or not. So now I'm wanting to hear from Reza about this movie and how he came to see it in Iran. Or even if he liked the movie. I didn't watch it, so I don't know if I would have liked it. One movie of this type that I have seen is "Silence of the Lamb".

How do they advertise movies in Iran, or Czech Republic? Some movies here get plastered in every type of media you can think of.

Reza. I'm curious about the fact you were able to view this movie. Where did you see it?

Lamby: They're all pronounced the same, so I'd go with the accent theory. :)

rain, rein, reign
to, too, two, 2
for, four, fore, 4
lead and lead are pronounced differently!
lead, led
feat, feet, fete
read and read are pronounced differently!
read, red
read, reed

I'm surprised you guys didn't have the peeve with "our" and "are" as I see them mixed up all the time.
And why is it in English some words have acceptable alternate spellings and others only have one accepted spelling?
Honour or honor are OK, but don't you dare spell congratulations with a "D"

Pedro Martínez: I heard the Japanese does not have articles at all.

رضا: You guys obviously aren't from Southern California and the land of freeways, cars, and traffic! :)
It's a trip to work. There are statistics that call them trips or cartrips.

Going to work can be a journey or a voyage or often times an adventure. It is quite common for people to drive over 50 miles one way to get to work. I used to work in downtown Los Angeles and it is 34 miles one way from here. "Good morning commuters, there's big rig jackknifed on the 405 at Imperial and it's caused a Sigalert, you'd better use an alternate route. Let's talk to Jeff in the 'copter over the six car pile up at the 605 and 91." And when it rains around here, it's a real mess. Good thing it doesn't snow. At least twenty radio stations will broadcast traffic conditions throughout the day. Two of them, KNX 1070 and KFW 980, do it every six to ten minutes. We have a lot of television stations do it too.

Drive is the other word that would be used.

For sentence 1, I'd use "trip" from your list, but it'd be common to hear "drive" or "commute" around here.

For sentence 2, I'd use "trip" from your list. Vacation would be common and if by ship you'd hear cruise. Canadians use the word "holiday" as Americans use the word "vacation."

Because of the word "day" in front of your blank in sentence 3, about the only word I would use is "trip." A day trip is a common expression for a trip that has you returning to the starting point the same day. It's said of hiking too.

For sentence 4 from your list, "excursion" might be used. I wouldn't use outing for part of a paid and organized trip. Outing to me is something spontaneous that a family might do, like jump in the car and just head off until something comes up or maybe just head to the beach to spend the day and walk around. I've seen another word for this in travel brochures, but it escapes me right now. It could also be called a "side trip", but I doubt if they'd word it that way in an advertisement. "Tour" is the word I'm thinking of. A full day tour or guided tour.

Sentence 5. Trip or journey seem OK to me. Journey usually implies having to make extra effort to get to somewhere, and the Himalayas qualify.
_________ _________ __________ _________ _______

Voyage doesn't have to be by ship or even a trip to anywhere. It is sometimes said when one is going through life that you're on a voyage. Or a voyage of time. It can also be used for a land crossing, but it's not a very commonly used word. It is as you say much more common for use with travelling by water, but also some type of conveyance. So a train trip could be a voyage across a continent or said of a covered wagon from the pioneer days to cross the continent.

Excursion is not word too many people use. Now that Ford has made this giant SUV and named it the "Excursion" I only hear it when someone is talking about those. The word has a thrusting connotation to it to me and I think of military terminology when I hear it. I suppose it can used to describe some types of trips or vacations.

Hrqls: There's just two articles in English that I know of. An indefinite one and a definite one.

"a" and "the". I have the hardest time figuring out why so many of the other European languages have all them articles and genders. I suppose when you grow up speaking German you just learn the article with the noun, but in English you just learn the noun. Der, die, das, den, and dem. They all mean "the". English has one thing that is easier to learn, now if we could just figure out how to spell English.

رضا: I believe "hasta la vista" means "see you later." Baby is just him saying something to rub it in.

رضا: In a lot of movie the lines spoken don't mean much because it is in the context of what is happening that makes them have meaning. Then we remember them.

Awhile back I asked you if you had heard the song "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. You said you hadn't. In that song there's a line about making sure of the meaning of what someone says. You should check out the song sometime. It is one of the best songs ever made and for sure the greatest rock song.

"And you know, sometimes words have two meanings."

This is close to the actual words sang as I'm not exactly sure. It certainly seems to apply to some of this discussion so far.

رضا: The first three words are Spanish. And yes, you've correctly identified the movie.

رضا: What, no "Hasta la vista, baby!" ? :)