BrainKing - Forum (Languages)

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Asking a native speaker is the worst thing you can do if you want to get precise information on the grammar of any language (unless such a person is a linguist, of course). Native speakers take their language as something "natural", they don't really think about the construction and linguistic meaning of their sentences. This MUST and HAVE TO thing is a good example of that. The difference between these has absolutely nothing to do with importance of what is to be done, as SR suggested, although it might actually seem so in lots of cases. The "truth" is as follows:

There are two fundamental meanings of MUST and HAVE TO - the first is used in cases when the speaker wants to express a necessity or obligation to do something. Now if it's an obligation or necessity caused by external circumstances (e.g. provision of law, prior promise, a need to get some information, the situation itself, etc), we have to use HAVE TO. It's also useful to remember that questions with MUST aim for wishes or intentions of the person asked.
Compare these sentences and think about if the MUST could be replaced with HAVE TO or vice versa:
Some day I must ask him why he did it.
I'm sorry, but I must insist on an answer.
You can go there, but you must be home by six.
Walter's the expert. We'll have to ask him how it works.
I have to laugh when I think about it now.
Must you leave so early? --- I'm afraid I have to.

The second meaning is used when we are sure of something, since it can be logically derived from a particular situation. Here, we have to use MUST.
What a marvellous offer, he must be very generous.
You must be crazy to want to marry her!
I always know what I want. --- That must be nice.
Romantic music must have shocked its first listeners.

7. april 2006, 11:05:47

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: very true about native speakers ... if i am not sure about something in dutch i pronounce both possibilities and chose the one which 'feels right' :)

the same when i ponder over the spelling of a word .. i write down both spellings and chose the one which 'looks or feels right' :)

7. april 2006, 11:13:30

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: I bet the Dutch 'g' and 'ch' can be quite tricky, huh? Same thing with the Czech 'i' vs. 'y' and 's' vs. 'z'. It seems to be almost impossible to find a Czech who would speak and especially write proper Czech. :)

7. april 2006, 11:14:36

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: yes, as well as the 'f' and 'v' and the 's' and 'z' in the middle of some words .. write them down and one version will look 'ugly' .. so you use the other one :)

7. april 2006, 11:21:23

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: Right. That's how it works in all languages with multiple letters for the same sounds. Reza would probably be able to tell whole stories about all those 'Z's and 'S's in Farsi. :)
Fencer: The Czech "translation" is perfect, of course. As far as I can tell, however...:) Plus note that I said "almost".

7. april 2006, 11:24:22

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: *nod* my gf had to write 'pawns' in dutch ...

1 pawn = 1 pion
2 pawns = 2 pionnen

'pionnen' looks ugly though so she thought .. and i wasnt sure either ... but 'pionen' looks even more ugly ;)
it turned out to be 'pionnen' .. which is logically as well when you think of the rules again :)

7. april 2006, 17:49:30

Walter Montego

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Onderwerp: Re:

Aangepast door Walter Montego (7. april 2006, 17:52:20)

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.

7. april 2006, 17:57:06

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Onderwerp: Re:

Walter Montego: Farsi has only one article too. And it's a definite article. However, unlike English, it's added to the end of a noun instead of the beginning of it.

Walter, Do you have any explanation regarding Trip, Travel, Journey, Voyage, Excursion?

7. april 2006, 18:00:38

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Onderwerp: Re:

Walter Montego: The Germans actually don't learn the articles with the nouns. They learn the usage of the correct ones from how their parents and other people around them talk to them and later in life, they don't even think of most of articles and suffixes connected with them since they seem to be obvious.

7. april 2006, 18:03:33

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: I agree. Just like the English people never think on using He or She but I have to mak eup my mind if it's a He I'm talking baout or a She. In Farsi thre's no gender-related pronoun. So basically be you a man or a woman, you're always تو and He or She are both او .

7. april 2006, 18:24:53

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: with short notes we always leave out the articles and person-pointers (he/she/..) .. often in speech as well, or the articles are spoken so fast (and almost swallowed) that they are hard to notice

7. april 2006, 18:31:01

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: Is there only one case in Dutch? I'm not sure now, but I think so. Well, it's easier to swallow het and de than einem, einer, etc...:))

7. april 2006, 19:02:27

toedder

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: when speaking loosely we often just say "n" - and that fits for female, male and neutral :)

7. april 2006, 19:06:37

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Onderwerp: Re:

Mr. Shumway: But you say something like "mit n'm schönen Hai" for instance...the case is almost always evident.

7. april 2006, 19:11:33

Walter Montego

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Onderwerp: Re:

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

7. april 2006, 19:33:13

toedder

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: Yes, that's true! Even the almost absent article is inflected - crazy ;) And I made a mistake: for female nouns we don't say "n" but "ne", so only male and neutral are the same. And that just because the original words are both "ein". So I propably have to take back my whole post ;)

7. april 2006, 19:53:52

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Onderwerp: Re:

Mr. Shumway: It can be hard to distinguish masculine and neutral gender in 2nd and 3rd case. So not the whole post, just a part of it...:)

Hrqls: It's as Mr. Shumway said. BTW, what do you mean that you had more cases? You mean some earlier form of Dutch?

10. april 2006, 10:02:29

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: yes, dutch had more cases in the past ... all cases are gone .. but we still find them in some words .. never nouns though

english has a few cases left as well, like 'they, them, their'

in dutch we have 'wiens, wier' and probably some more .. few people use those forms any more though

7. april 2006, 11:15:07

Fencer

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: I do. See the BrainKing translation to Czech.

7. april 2006, 11:22:19

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: in dutch we have only 2 words which can be used in front of words .. i cant find the proper english name ('lidwoord' in dutch) .. like 'the' in english and 'le,la,les' in french and 'die,der,das' in german .. we have 'de, het' in dutch

'de' is for female and male word and plural
'het' is for neutral words

lately i notice a lot of people using 'de' when they should use 'het'

also 'this' has 2 forms ('deze' and 'dit')
'that' as well ('die' and 'dat')

lately i hear a lot of people use the male/female/plural form for neutral words

i guess we are going to 1 form in the future

7. april 2006, 11:32:33

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: That's an interesting point about the articles. In Czech, there are no special words for them, but they are formed as suffixes and their usage is more complex. I often have the same feeling that in the future, we'll have only one gender, just like the English, as people keep mixing and mixing them. :)

How 'bout 'pions'? :) Is that "ugly too? LOL

7. april 2006, 11:38:55

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: yes very ugly :)
we have 2 plural forms in dutch indeed -en and -s .. most words use -en though i think ... i dont know of any rule to know if i should use -s or -en .. thats pure 'feeling' :)
(i guess foreign words use -s ?)

'articles' ? hmm never knew about that .. no wonder i couldnt find it :)

i also see a lot of people (in every job, level of education, etc.) use 'een hele mooie auto' while it should be 'een heel mooie auto'
(a very beautiful car)

this is because 'heel' in that sentence points to 'mooie' and not to 'auto' ... its a personal pet peeve of me ... every time i hear it on the news, see it in the news paper (its even written down! not just speech), etc. i yell out! :)
(my gf recently joins me in the yelling ;))

7. april 2006, 11:48:39

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: Heh, if I were like you, I would be constantly yelling when watching TV or reading newspapers.

I remember a situation when there was this sentence written on TV: "Mají doma krokodýli" (There should be 'y' at the end). After a minute or two, I guess after a phone call from some viewer, they changed it to "Mají doma krokodíli". LOL Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

7. april 2006, 11:50:06

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: lol! well at least they had the courage to change something ... to bad they were as blonde as me though ;)

7. april 2006, 12:54:30

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: Just out of curiosity Pedro, does this krokodýli hav eanything to do with crocodiles?

7. april 2006, 12:57:18

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Onderwerp: Re:

رضا: "Mají doma krokodýly" means "They've got crocodiles at home". :)

7. april 2006, 12:59:29

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: It's interesting how languages, especially European ones, have similar words.

7. april 2006, 13:03:50

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Onderwerp: Re:

رضا: Yes, I think it's fascinating.

7. april 2006, 12:17:52

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Onderwerp: Re:

Pedro Martínez: The explanation you provided supports what that link Marfitalu gave us and the book I have. So I guess it's all clear now what the difference really is.

English is full of words that are different in English, but in Farsi we use the same, or almost the same words for them.

Trip, Travel, Journy, Voyage, Excursion are a few such words.

I know how voyage is different from others, it's a trip by sea, but the rest are quite similar.

Take these examples:

1) My ... to work took more than 2 hours this morning.
2) For our holidays next year, we're going on a ten-day ... to Australia.

3) We always go on a day ... to France in December to buy Christmas presents.

4) The price of this holiday includes a full-day ... to a place of cultural interest.

5) He's hoping to go on a(n) ... to the Himalayas next year.

7. april 2006, 12:45:00

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Onderwerp: Re:

رضا: my 'feeling' tells me

trip : short distance
travel : the act itself, or when the trip is still busy
voyage : longer time
journy (journey?) : about the same as voyage, i think voyage is an older word and not used much anymore ?
excursion : you have something of interest to watch during the trip/voyage

7. april 2006, 12:50:02

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: Well, I'm almost certain about the voyage one. It's a trip or journey by sea. Water should be involved somehow.

Let's wait for our native friends to give us a hand with it.

By the way, how do you make those black dots?

7. april 2006, 12:53:32

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Onderwerp: Re:

رضا: could be .. i never used the word .. but that doesnt mean anything :)

to create a list (the black dots) you can do the following

you define place [ul] and [/ul] around the list
each list item has [li] in front of it
(after each list item you can place [/li] but it isnt really needed)

so a list of animales would be
[ul]
[li]dog
[li]cat
[li]horse
[/ul]

dog
cat
horse

(replace the [] by <> to make it work for real :))

7. april 2006, 12:57:11

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Onderwerp: Re:

Hrqls: Thanks for the dot explanation :-)

7. april 2006, 12:55:00