Ask questions or just talk about different languages. Since BrainKing is an international game site supporting many languages, this board can be kind of useful.
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Rose: According the way they read the word, in my opinion congradulations is a better spelling. Just as in during that is really pronounced with a J sound. But that's the way it is. Congratulations is written with a T, not a D.
With congratulations... I saw a banner at a wedding one time that read "congradulations on your wedding". I was floored. I couldn't believe that mistake got by the printers. Does it mean that maybe folks are so lax in their English that many, many don't know the proper words/spelling etc?
رضا: Yes, I realize that part. I think a lot of it is lack of written use in every day life. Most folks don't normally write or type very much except at sites like this. Maybe showing them the difference will help them to learn the difference. Just a thought.
Rose: And about Congratulations, my assumption is:
The word Congratulations, according to dictionaries is pronounced /kengratsuleisnz/, with a CH sound, but people read it with a J (as in jam) sound which can occure just if a D sound and a Y sound come together, like in soldier which has originally been soldYer. So people think there must hav ebeen a D in congratulations too!
I am by no means a scholar or the best at grammar in the English language but I can't get over how many people make these common mistakes!
It is You're welcome, not your welcome!
It is congrats or congratulations, not congrads!
I can hear you, not here you!
It is their car, not there car!
they're going away, not there going away!
Eriisa: "You do not know the Chinese language can be used to communicate with you? I want 85B, section suitable? A suitable allocation of pants? Thank you"
There's a very interesting article I have about these problems with English:
Crazy English
English is crazy language. There's no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
we take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are suare and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig!
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices? is cheese the plural of choose?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on.
When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essey, I end it?
Now I know why I fluncked my English. It's not my fault; the language doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going.
last holiday i had troubles finding the english word for 'square' : an area surrounded by houses.
As very few squares are actually square (at least in the netherlands) it was very tough to think of the word, whenever my mind came close to the word 'square' it discarded it because it wasnt logical ;)
Lamby: Thanks. It's a great board because there are a bunch of great people posting on it.
Thnaks for the explanation you gave us. So let me see if I've got it correctly:
If the government bans something, it means we're disallowd or not permitted to use it anymore. So basically it's forbidden from then on to use that thing and if they see us by chance that we're gonna use it, they'll prevent us from doing that.
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Hrqls: Try this link Pedro is currently using an dyou may like it :
pauloaguia: Then again, googling on the subject I found both versions. Though the word prohibited shows up in 90% of the cases vs about 10% for forbidden
Pedro Martínez: I won't rebate it, after all my English comes mostly from the movies ;). My answer just sounds better to me that's all.
Or maybe it's just another one of those british/american things and Smoking is prohibited in London and forbidden in New York?
pauloaguia: I agree with Lamby. I think it should be 'prohibited' since it was forbidden by the authority of the city of London. Great post, Lamby, BTW...thanks for that.:)
Lamby: I'd agree with you in all but the second. My first intinct would be that Smoking is strictly forbidden on underground trains in London.
But then again, I'm not an expert in proper english grammar ;)
pauloaguia: *nod* thats the main profit that i have from having learned ancient latin and ancient greek .. some languages look like latin, but more importantly i learned how certain language groups are built and can expand on that when i hear a new language .. it certainly helps me when i am in a forgeign country :)
Hrqls: the only real reason i can think of would be to study ancient texts in their original language Or to better understand how a certain language evolved.
For instance, if you study latin, you may have an easier task finding similarities between french, spanish, italian and portuguese and understand them easier, since you'll know a strong common root between them.
(It doesn't mean you'll know how to speak them well. Linguists in so many languages are rare - but you'll understand them fair enough)
رضا: why would someone learn ancient latin ? why would someone learn ancient greek ?
the only real reason i can think of would be to study ancient texts in their original language
as i am not linguist, and never will be one, my skills are more in the mathematical field, i will never translate any ancient texts .... but i did have some benefits from learning to read ancient greek and ancient latin .. it made it easier for me to understand other foreign languages. i never learned any italian or spanish, but having had ancient latin i can roughly read spanish and italian news papers. i never found a language which made me think of ancient greek .. but maybe i might have some use for it when i visit greece? .. at least it helped me during my physics study because i know the names for the symbols used to the angles .. other students always used the wrong names .. lots of fun :)
other than that i have no real use for having had those languages in school .. but since i went to a 'gymnasium-only' school i had to have both language and have exam in at least one of them (i chose ancient greek as those texts were more interesting, and the language seems more fun, and because we just had the gerundivum (i think?) with ancient latin just before we had to chose which we would do exam in .. so i dropped latin as i didnt like that special case ;))
رضا: In English, there is only one case. All the nouns are written and pronounced in the same way no matter where it is in a sentence or what kind of preposition precedes it. However, in a lot of languages, nouns do change (or their articles). In Czech, each noun (and also adjective, pronoun and numeral) has seven forms. Anybody who studies Czech as a foreign language should learn all these forms and remember which suffix goes with which case. For instance if you want to say "by bus", you should know that this is a 7th case and the suffix is -em ("autobusem"). Accordingly, "without anything" is a 2nd case and the suffix is -ho ("bez ničeho"). I hope it makes some sense. :)
Pedro Martínez: yes, only 1 case .. but we had mores cases (i think similar to german, or maybe 1 less, german has 5 cases isnt it ? or is that ancient greek and ancient latin has 4 ? i am always confused :))
ancient greek didnt have articles i think .. its been 10 years since i had it though, and we were only taught to translate ancient greek readings to dutch
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