Czuch Chuckers: LOL I didn't say nothing could happen, but there are 8 or 9 of us able to deal with anything that may happen in that time. We won't remove a moderator just because he can't be around for a month. Life happens sometimes.

So, can we get back to languages now? I'm rubbish at learning any other language. I know some sign language but its not much use on here

harley: Sure, nothing can happen in a month, why bother with a moderator at all then?

Reza won't be away for long anyway, a month at the most.

Czuch Chuckers: All globals do keep an eye on the busy boards. When a problem arises and a mod or co-mod isn't on a global does or should step in.
Good thing is the boards are very quiet right now.
OK, OFF topic a tad.
Back to languages.

Rose: Maybe they should do that with all the boards as well? Would certainly keep things more consistent!

All global moderators can watch the board, I assume. It isn't so busy and at least one of us is online most of the hours of the day.

Reza, who will run this board in your absence? Rose is my suggestion!

Mr. Shumway: Thanks Alf!

gogul: Suhk isn't german, but very similar to the german "Zug". And "guter Zug" means "good move".

Lamby: its ok - thank you loads for trying - hopefully somebody who can read chinese will come on here and offer to help

Fiona: lol hmmmm.....sorry

Lamby: thank you for that but after staring at 100s of symbols i still cant find the ones on my picture lol

http://zhongwen.com/


hope this helps you Fi! :o)

Rose: suhk isn´t german

Hi, i am just wondering if anybody can translate chinese (or japanese as not sure which it is) as when i decorated my lounge i found some nice wall-art which has symbols on it and i have always wondered what it says or means. If anybody can help please can you pm me your email address and i will email the pics of the art i am on about

Hope somebody can help me

thanks
Fiona

Any one know what this means?

- guter suhk

gogul: I got what you meant. In written form, only the 'normal' way of reading a sentence is done unless we have enough clue leading us to read a sentence differently. So it's almost no trouble in written form. And in spoken form, well you hear what the speaker says. So no serious problem really.

gogul: I didn't fully get what you meant. Did you mean that the sentence 'I have this from a book' has 6 meanings?

Czuch Chuckers: Got it. I'll make sure to go there sometime and cause you a lot of trouble then :-)

Reza: What I am saying is that in America, if you wanted to say that you are a teacher from Italy, you would never say "I am an Italian teacher". We would not have to worry about putting the accent on one word or another to change the meaning of what we are saying. We would simply state it differently.... "I am an Italian teacher" always means that you teach the Italian language, never that you are a teacher from Italy. If you wanted to say you are a teacher from Italy, you would say it different than "I am an Italian teacher".

Czuch Chuckers: I fully understood what you said. I gave that example just because English was the only word I could think of that is both the name of a language and a nationality, beside French. That's why I asked that question.

Maybe it would have been better if I had given 'I'm a French teacher.' as an example.

But when you say you never have the stress on teacher, do you mean that when you want to say you're a teacher from Italy, you still put the stress on Italian in the sentence below?

I'm an Italian teacher.

Harley: Thank you very much for your replies. Sometimes, some questions cannot be answered without the help of native speakers.

harley: Maybe it is the difference in our variation of your language..... to me, either way, the accent will always be on the word English and never on the word teacher.

Anyway, in America, if you want someone to know that you teach the English language, you will say "I am an English teacher". If you want someone to know that you are from England and that you teach the English language, you will say " I am an English teacher from England". But if you want someone to know that you are a teacher, you will say "I am a teacher". My point being, that if you want someone to know that you are a teacher, you would never say "I am an English teacher" with the accent on the word teacher. So, to conclude (I am very long winded today) the spoken sentence "I am an English teacher" will always mean that you teach the English language, and if you mean something different, you will NOT use the same sentence with a different word accented, you will simply change the phrasing of the words all together!

Czuch Chuckers: Yes, I agree to a point. It would be easier to say "I'm English and I'm a teacher" to avoid confusion. But reza was asking about a specific sentence worded in a certain way. And that sentence could have two meanings, depending which word was stressed.

harley: I agree.... but I also think that in either sentence the accent is on the word English, not teacher. If the accent were meant to be that you are a teacher, you would simply say, "I am a teacher". Its likely that if you were in a foreign country , you might be trying point out that you are a teacher from another country. But if I am an American teacher in England and I say " I am an American teacher", you will not be confused as to what I meant. Basically the only time there will be confusion is if a person with an obvious British accent is in America, and says "I am an English teacher". But its likely that he would say "I am an English teacher from England".

Point is that in almost every situation, if someone says "I am an English teacher", they mean that they teach the English language, regardless of which word is accented.

Czuch Chuckers: Its difficult to explain on here without sound, but theres a difference in speech between "I am an English teacher" and "I am an English teacher".

Reza: Spoken English and written English, like most languages, I would guess, are not always the same. When writing English it is important to be as specific as possible, to clarify, like Harley did in her examples. But you were referring to someone speaking those sentences. I am a native American (not Indian) speaker of English, and when someone says to me, "I am an English teacher", they mean that they teach the English language. Unless they have a thick 'British' accent, then I may wonder exactly what they meant. (they may be saying that they are a teacher from England) Now in England this may be different. So the word which is stressed isn't as important as the context in which it is delivered.

Reza: I think you've got a very good understanding with what you say there, and theoretically you would be absolutely correct. But in reality... well unfortunately its easy to miss stresses on words like that, and misunderstandings often happen over such things, and more explanation is needed.
Some people don't hear the stress on the necessary word, and other people put the stress on the wrong word by mistake.

harley: I think it's hard for you or anyone to be so detailed about this minute points, but I'd appreciate it if you could give it a try.

In the phrase 'English history teacher' you either want to have English and history together as a unit, or history and teacher.

I, based on what I know theoretically about English, think that when English and history are together, since English is an adjective for history, the stress should fall on history. Just like in 'a beautiful girl' which has the stress on girl, not beautiful, normally speaking.

Then, 'English history' is the subject that I'm a teacher of, and therefore, if I want to indicate that I'm a teacher teaching it, I have to stress 'English history' rather than 'teacher.' Just like in 'math teacher' that has the stress on 'math.'

So, if I want to give numbers based on how strongly the words are pronounced to the phrase 'English history teacher,' I do it like this:

English = 2
History = 1
Teacher = 3


1 is the strongest and 3 is the weakest.

Now about the second case, if I consider 'history teacher' as a unit, then 'history' will take the stress. Now in 'English history teacher', since English is the nationality, the part 'history teacher' takes the stress. So, This time, the numbers will be like this:

English = 3
History = 1
Teacher = 2

So based on my theory, in both cases it's the word History that takes the primary stress, but English and teacher take different stresses in different cases.


Do you find any of it true in reality?

Is that at least close to the way you say that sentence in those two different situations?

I know it's a tough question, but you take your time with it.

Thank you

Reza: This is quite an interesting one. You're right about the first bit, "I am an English teacher" does or should change meaning depending which word is stressed more. But, people often don't pick up on that, and need a more detailed sentence to confirm it.
Thats when you would use either of your two sentences below to clarify the meaning.

1)I'm a teacher who teaches English.
2)I'm a teacher from England.


The same can be applied - to a point - to the second sentence.

I'm an English history teacher. means you teach history (I would guess world history) but that you are English.

However, if you wanted to explain that you are a teacher that teaches English history I think the emphasis would be on two words; "I'm an English history teacher.

Hrqls: I agree that in written form they are both ambiguous. English and all other languages are full of sentences that are not clear in meaning. However, I do believe that there should be a way to distinguish between the meanings of those sentences when they are spoken. I am almost sure of my theory about the first sentence --I am an English teacher.--

If you're a teacher who teaches English, you never put the stress on the word 'teacher' when you're saying that sentence. You somehow say the word 'English' more strongly.

I think a similar way should exist with regards to the second example too. But I'm not sure of the details.

Reza: the sentences can mean both .. they are ambiguous

the same with the sentence :
i met my cousin and his friend, who married my sister

if course its more like to have the friend marry your sister .. but the sentence could still mean your cousin married your sister :)

in english you have learn and teach .. in dutch we only have 1 word leren .. i cant find an example right now .. but there are a lot of sentences (which happen in every day speak) in which its not clear if you are teaching someone or being taught :)

Czuch Chuckers: About my first sentence, I myself have an opinion, but about the second, I think the theory will still work, but how, I don't know!

If you say: I'm an English teacher.

With the 'English' stressed, then it should mean you teach English, just like a geography teacher who teaches geography.

But if you say: I'm an English teacher.

With the word 'teacher' stressed, then it should mean you're from England. Just like you say an American teacher is from the U.S..

Czuch Chuckers: So you mean they don't have secondary meaning?

I'm not talking about the written forms, but the spoken forms. Is there any chance that by changing the stressed word in those sentences, you can change the meaning?

Reza: Im an English teacher means you teach the English language...

Im an English history teacher means you teach the history of England.... or perhaps you teach the history of the English language.

Hrqls: If they are all pronounced exactly the same, yes. Then the phonetic symbols will be the same too.

I have no idea about how those words are pronounced in languages other than English, so I cannot give you my word for it.

But I can give you other examples:

In English, They're, their, there are all pronounced exactly the same and therefore, all are shown this way in phonetic symbols: /ðea(r)/

there is a funny thing with the vowels when we compare dutch with english

in english the A is pronounced as the dutch E
in english the E is pronounced as the dutch I
in english the I is pronounced as the dutch IJ

would the phonetics of those different vowels be the same ?

is there a diffence in phonetic script for the different languages ?

how would you write the following words ?

• we (english)
  
• oui (french, means 'yes')
  
• wie (german, means 'how')
  
• wie (dutch, means 'who')
  

How do Native speakers of English distinguish the two different meanings of the following sentence?

I'm an English teacher.

1)I'm a teacher who teaches English.
2)I'm a teacher from England.

And, how about this one?

I'm an English history teacher.

1)I'm a teacher that teaches English history (the history of England).

2)I'm a teacher from England, who teaches history (any history).

BBW & Pedro: *nod* 'ik spreek alleen engels' is the correct translation

'ik spreek slechts het engels' would translate back into english as 'i only speak the dutch'
(you could say 'ik spreek alleen de engelse taal' which would translate to 'i only speak the dutch language' .. but thats worded too officially)

I'm just trying to find someone that might understand or know the Polish Language. If u do could u pls PM me So I can ask aabout some words I read on a sign . Moderator pls don't get to mad at me and TYVM BK board for theto ask my
:o)

Reza: You should hear the Dutch language! That's the true خ - one!!! Words like "gracht" (ﺨﺮﺨﺖ) are just amazing! :)

Pedro Martínez: So I was right in thinking that Ach refers to our خ . I already knew German to sound like a'tough' language because of the frequency of that sound in it. When I listen to German radios or TVs, it sounds like they're just yelling at eachother!

gogul: The German 'ch' corresponds to Spanish 'j' or ﺨ in farsi.

gogul: English does not have many sounds that exist in other languages. I think I may know what sound you're referring to by Ach. We have it in a tougher form in Farsi. But that sound does not exist in English. I think in French they have it.

When you're using the phonetic symbols, you don't pay attention to the spelling of the word. So the ...tion at the end of examplification is simply written as /...ʃn/. Not /ʃion/.

gogul: Not bad for the first try, But the correct way would be: /igzæmplifi'keiʃn/

pauloaguia: Sure.

gogul: Yes. ^ represents the sound short a as in BUS or CUP.

Using phonetic symbols gives people the ability to distinguish sounds from eachother. For example in a word such as examplification there are to letters represented by 'a' symbol in alphabetical letters. But do they both sound the same? No.

If you write that word in phonetical alphabet, it's easily shown that the two A's are not the same in pronunciation.

gogul: the ^ is just the first symbol in the tables in the link that reza posted. they stand for the sound in cup or luck.

reza: Why not post that link in the description of this board. It's a usefull resource that is needed many times around here ;)

gogul: It's quite simple. Until when Fencer adds the symbols to the site, I'm using the link below:

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm

So that will be:

/ w^z^p /

I don't know why, but the symbols are copied with spaces.