ENGLISH - bender

[bender]

Ok, English is Unilang's lingua franca and we're using English all the time to communicate here, but even so I feel like I need some extra practicing... I hope this will be also the place for natives and others to point out the mistakes I make in other threads and perhaps make comments about style.

My interests are languages (obviously!), music (disco, pop, rock, britpop, Brazilian music, etc.), movies, culture in general, gay lifestyle, computer, mathematics, etc...

[Car]

Which Brazilian musicians do you like best? I had a nice collection, but lost it, but I like your music very much! Which things about computers interests you most?

[traveller]

Ok, English is Unilang's lingua franca and we're using English all the time to communicate here, but even so I feel like I need some extra practicing... I hope this will be also the place for natives and others to point out the mistakes I make in other threads and perhaps make comments about style.

My interests are languages (obviously!), music (disco, pop, rock, britpop, Brazilian music, etc.), movies, culture in general, gay lifestyle, computer, mathematics, etc...

Bender,

There's nothing gramatically incorrect with what you wrote. But you if want to sound a bit more natural from a written-point of view, I would recommend the following:

Ok, English is Unilang's lingua franca and we use English here all the the time in order to communicate, but I still feel like I need some extra practice...I hope this can be the place for natives and others to point out the mistakes I make in other threads and perhaps make some comments related to style.

[bender]

Car:

MPB: Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso (I like his songs though I don't really like his voice so much...), Gilberto Gil, Marisa Monte

Pop/Rock: Cássia Eller, Rita Lee, Penélope, Pato Fu, Legião Urbana, Skank

And actually many others... What about you? How did you get to know Brazilian musicians? And how come you lost your collection? Was it a MP3 CD? I guess now you need another one!

And about computers... Well, I've always loved using them! Five years ago, at University, I learned to program in C and I also practiced a little Fortran... I really enjoyed the course, so I don't understand why I didn't keep on learning and practicing...
I also like using the computer to produce/copy/edit/analyze sounds and music, though hardware and software limitations don't allow me to do great things. I'm always trying to find out what I can do with what I have or can easily have.
I've never been really keen on computers, but then some weeks ago I realized myself reading computer magazines at the newstand and I thought that I would become a complete nerd if I bought them... Not a bad idea!

What about you?

[bender]

There's nothing gramatically incorrect with what you wrote. But you if want to sound a bit more natural from a written-point of view, I would recommend the following:

Does my text sound too informal or too foreign (or maybe a mix of both)?

[traveller]

No, actually it sounds fine. They were really just stylistic suggestions to make it sound more "native". But what you wrote is 100% understandable. I know a lot of Americans who cannot write as well you!

[Car]

In a mailing list, someone mentioned Brazilian musicians and I downloaded some of them (I don't think I can buy them here...), but when I burned them on a CD, something went wrong. They are somehow on it, but I can't listen to them, I can only see them in my burning programme.

I learned Turbo Pascal and a little Delphi in school (and also taught me some Basic), but it was too mathematical for me, so I didn't practise much outside school. I could understand it, but couldn't programme very well. I have to add that most pupils left, so at the end we were just 5 people, 4 of them extremely good in subjects like computer science, maths and so on and me. Didn't help either. At uni, we started a bit Java and continued it this semester. I like it really much and since we had to keep studying it all the time (practise every two weeks at uni and you had to be prepared), I learned it much better. Ok, my exam wasn't what I expected it to be (the result is average, though quite good when looking at the outcome and it's only 1 part of 4 counting for the final result in the subject and you only have to pass anyway), but I'll probably take media computer science as a main focus anyway. I like it, it's interesting and useful, so why not? And I like HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. even more. This summer, I'll also finally put content on my web site, it's a task I have to do for a uni subject which was absolutely disappointing. I'm not very much into the technical side of computers. Some years ago, I used to read several computer magazines, including computer games magazines, but that was also the time when I constantly upgraded my computer to play the newest games.

[bender]

In a mailing list, someone mentioned Brazilian musicians and I downloaded some of them (I don't think I can buy them here...), but when I burned them on a CD, something went wrong. They are somehow on it, but I can't listen to them, I can only see them in my burning programme.

Do you remember the name of those you like better?

Wow, you know a lot about computers... What do you study at Uni?

I'm not very much into the technical side of computers.

What do you mean by "technical side of computers"? Isn't programming technical?

[Car]

Do you remember the name of those you like better?

Unfortunately not, I only remember that I liked most of them.

Wow, you know a lot about computers... What do you study at Uni?

I study Information Management and we also learn some programming and web design (well, actually not much about design, only the languages) there and office programmes and similar software.

What do you mean by "technical side of computers"? Isn't programming technical?

What I meant was hardware.

[Tiwido]

Hello! I am new to this forum so you probably don't recognize me. But, I am a native (American) English speaker and would be glad to help .

[Buck]

Hello to all language oriented guys,
I am a newcomer to this forum (only a guest for the time being) and have already put a question I am very interested in, but that was another thread.
Could anybody please tell me: what is the present estimate of total number of words in English?
I would prefer a British grounded source though the American one can be of help as well.

[tommak]

re: total number of words

Obviously it is crucial what you mean by "words" -- what do you mean here?

[Buck]

You are quite correct. There are different concepts of what is to be understood by the term "words". I suppose when you use the term, you think of the words that belong to the corpus of the spoken/written language.

[tomakkia]

What is "spoken/written language" ?

Also, I don't think you've defined what you mean by words yet.

[Buck]

In reply to your question/s I will just quote what I have read and what made me wonder:
"Tha scavenger language par excellance, English takes to its bosom any word from any culture and adopts as its own. The result is a vocabulary of maybe two million words.French, by comparison, is limited to some 60,000 words, each brushed, disciplined and nose-wiped clean by the Academie francaise, the national language nanny."
The Wondiferous Wizard of Words by Rudolph Chelminski, Reader's Digest, February 2002, p 60b.

PS. As far as I know, Shakespeare used around 20,000 words. In everyday conversation you need not to know more than 300 - 500. For an expert, the total may be up to 5,000; but, again, is not a bit exaggerated: 2 million words / whatever you mean what words are!

[ttomm]

I think you'd really have to decide, not only what you mean by "spoken/written language" (I can't guess what that means -- does it mean both? does it mean either? does it mean some hybrid?), but also what you mean by words.

For example, are the following to be counted as distinct words?
- car
- cars
- speak
- speaks
- spoke
- spoken


I'd suggest ducking all such difficulties, and simply going to some easily available & allegedly authoritative source. As has been suggested elsewhere, you could simply go by the count of a dictionary -- pick one of a country that you prefer?

Or you could take one of the standard Scrabble lists -- that will probably give you a far lower number.

[Guest]

For example, are the following to be counted as distinct words?
- car
- cars
- speak
- speaks
- spoke
- spoken

No, each pair in that list are counted as the same word, just different forms.
Car = singular, cars = plural (same word, different number)
Speak = 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person plural form of the verb 'to speak'
Speaks = 3rd person singular of the verb 'to speak'
The word here is 'speak' or 'to speak'. Different conjugations still count as the one main verb. Spoke and spoken would both be included under the main verb.

[Barret VII]

That was me by the way. I thought I had auto-logon activated on Internet Explorer, but I guess not. I used to use Mozilla Firefox to browse these forums because it just worked a lot better with dialup, but now that I have cable internet, I use both of them.