Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 18:59:18 +0530 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Non-native English (was: cvs commit: src/share/man/man5 sysctl.conf.5) Message-ID: <20000117185918.C368@mojave.worldwide.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <200001170736.IAA99539@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de>; from olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de on Mon, Jan 17, 2000 at 08:36:24AM %2B0100 References: <85ta0f$1fkh$1@atlantis.rz.tu-clausthal.de> <200001170736.IAA99539@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de>
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On Monday, 17 January 2000 at 8:36:24 +0100, Oliver Fromme wrote: > G. Adam Stanislav <redprince@redprince.net> wrote in list.freebsd-chat: >> At 09:31 16-01-2000 -0800, Eugene M. Kim wrote: >>> No, they (including me and my friends) are not confused if contractions >>> aren't used. In almost all English classes (as a second language) they >>> first teach `you are' then explain briefly about its contracted form >>> `you're', not the opposite way. >> >> FWIW, as a native Slovak speaker who studied English in Slovakia, I was >> taught to use contractions in spoken English, while the full form in >> written English. > > I'm German, and learned English as 2nd language at school. We > learned both forms ``you are'' and ``you're'' etc. at about the > same time, at the very beginning. This confirms my suspicion. You and Adam are the only two non-native English speakers on this thread, and you both confirm that the contractions are no source of confusion. > We were taught that the non-contracted form is often used to > indicate emphasis, or to stress that part of the sentence. > I.e. ``You are'' is more emphasized and "stronger" than the > contracted form ``you're''. Compare the following two > conversations: > > 1. A: ``Where am I?'' > B: ``You're at the airport.'' > > 2. A: ``How do I get to the airport?'' > B: ``You _are_ at the airport.'' Good example. > The sentence of person B is the same, except for emphasis and > accentuation. (I've aded underscores to indicate this.) In the > second conversation, it is not possible to use the contracted form > without breaking the emphasis. Although the the non-contracted form > could have been used in the first example, but I think that's not > very common. Agreed. > But then again, I'm not a native English speaker, and maybe my > English teachers and books were clueless. :-) I've seen some evidence of this in Germany, but these examples are fine. Greg -- Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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