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kdynamic
Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 562
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:06 am Post subject: |
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| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
"Did you eat dinner yet?"
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To me, a native speaker of American English, this sounds completely natural and acceptable. I had never even considered the possibility it wasn't grammatically correct until you brought it up here.
What do you guys say? "Have you had dinner?" To me, this sounds kind of stuffy.
How about "Did you get a chance to look at those reports?" or "Did you make it over to Sam's new apartment?" These sound fine to me.... |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:26 am Post subject: |
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| kdynamic wrote: |
| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
"Did you eat dinner yet?"
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To me, a native speaker of American English, this sounds completely natural and acceptable. I had never even considered the possibility it wasn't grammatically correct until you brought it up here.
What do you guys say? "Have you had dinner?" To me, this sounds kind of stuffy.
How about "Did you get a chance to look at those reports?" or "Did you make it over to Sam's new apartment?" These sound fine to me.... |
I would probably say "Have you eaten yet?" The fact that there is a "yet" in there makes it difficult for me to say it in the past tense.
"Did you make it over to Sam's apartment?" sounds completely okay to me as does "Did you get a chance to look at those reports?" |
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6810
Joined: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 309
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:35 am Post subject: |
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want an antidote to losing English?
Try doing a PhD while you're in Japan.
Want to find ways of nearly going off the deep-end trying to think it all through?
Try doing a PhD while you're in Japan. |
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kdynamic
Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 562
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:10 am Post subject: |
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Hmmm I just got an email from a Japanese friend asking "Did you ever see this before??"
This makes me realize how unnatural the construction can sound. I guess it's just been colloquialized in certain contexts. |
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JonnyB61
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 216
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
I would probably say "Have you eaten yet?" The fact that there is a "yet" in there makes it difficult for me to say it in the past tense.
"Did you make it over to Sam's apartment?" sounds completely okay to me as does "Did you get a chance to look at those reports?" |
Is it not a question of whether we are discussing finished or unfinished time? Yet connects the have you eaten ? with the present so creating unfinished time which requires Present Perfect. Did you eat speaks about finished past time so something like: Did you eat well when you were in France? suggests that you are no longer in France.
Similarly, when speaking about life experiences. If the speaker or the addressee is still alive (unfinished time) one would say: Have you ever......eaten snake? If the person we are speaking about is dead (finished time) we would use past simple: Did Billy the Kid ever know his real father.? |
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DNK
Joined: 22 Jan 2007
Posts: 236
Location: the South
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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This worries me a good bit. The fact is that in four weeks of a TESOL course I was starting to talk with a Ukrainian accent and speak in such a retarded way as to make me think I had developed my own language.
I pick up accents and speech patterns like it was my job. I'll subconsciously switch between some bastardized Southern accent and an Asian one if you put me in a room with a speaker with either for more than 5 minutes...
So I am screwed? |
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nawlinsgurl
Joined: 01 May 2004
Posts: 363
Location: Kanagawa and feeling Ok....
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Wow, ok so many replies---I feel wayyy better! I thought that I was the only one. Honestly, I don't remember what I said to my Father over the phone, but he responded with "I speak English, you don't have to do that silly talk for me"--which is what got me thinking about how I sound to others. I have noticed that I leave out articles and often find myself not able to explain the definitions of semi-easy words like "nausea" and "stock market" without wanting to grab the nearest dictionary. (Maybe that's laziness??) Short of making tons of calls back to the States, how do I fix this problem? |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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| I think my English has improved. I have been exposed to many new expressions and words from English speakers from all over the world. I have not lost the art of conversation. |
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JonnyB61
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 216
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:11 am Post subject: |
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| DNK wrote: |
| This worries me a good bit. The fact is that in four weeks of a TESOL course I was starting to talk with a Ukrainian accent and speak in such a retarded way as to make me think I had developed my own language. |
Why? Didn't they stress to you the importance of not using baby talk or speaking, as you say, in a retarded manner? They should have done. Building students up from simple sentences to more complex ones is the name of the game. However, simple sentences should always be delivered as they are and not babified.
eg: Do you like natto? is fine.
However, Natto, yum yum, you like? is a definite No,No.
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| I have noticed that I leave out articles |
No! Leave them in. You are not helping your students by dropping articles or auxilliary verbs when you speak. In fact, it just means that another teacher has to put these defects right at a later date. It's better if they get it right from the beginning. Grade the language you use to the students' levels and model it properly. Now, that helps them.
Last edited by JonnyB61 on Thu Jun 21, 2007 9:16 am; edited 2 times in total |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:20 am Post subject: |
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I completely agree with JonnyB here and I have to say that babytalk and the dropping of articles are things that I can't stand hearing teachers do. Teachers who adopt pidgins are no longer a model for their students to aspire to which means that they may as well be non-native untrained speakers of English.
As I suggested earlier in the thread, record one of your lessons (with your student's or students' permission) and listen to the way you speak. If you hear yourself using sentences that you would consider incorrect coming from a student then you know there is a big problem. These are bad habits that you simply have to make a conscious effort to break. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:31 am Post subject: |
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I think it is interesting, gaijinalways, that you see "I have much money" as being obviously wrong and yet "I have many friends" as being correct.
The point is that they are both as "correct" as each other. Money is uncountable and therefore is fine in the sentence "I don't have much money" just as "I don't have many friends" is correct for countable nouns. The general rule is that we don't use much and many for positive sentences but we do use them for questions and negative sentences. This is just a general rule and there are exceptions. But in cases where no context is given such as my examples you should avoid sentences such as:
I have many friends.
I have much money.
Aspara is right about "very delicious". Gaijinalways points out that it is the same as Japanese but that is part of the problem. Most English speakers use delicious only rarely and almost never add very on to extreme adjectives such as this. |
No, 'I have many friends' is okay, 'I have a lot of money' is also okay. We use 'much' with negative sentences and questions. Again, it might be a difference in N. American English. As to 'I have many friends', you didn't state that there was a context (or not). Many sentences sound odd out if spoken or written out of context.
Saying that something is rare ("very delicious") doesn't mean that you can't say it. I have said it on a few cases, though I would probably more likely use 'really delicious'.
Last edited by gaijinalways on Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:42 am; edited 1 time in total |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:38 am Post subject: |
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Much and many are only for questions and negatives.
Do you have much money?
I don't have much money. These are both ok.
I have much money. Is completely wrong. |
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kdynamic
Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 562
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:58 am Post subject: |
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| then how come "I have so much money I don't know what to do with it" sounds ok? |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:01 am Post subject: |
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I have so many grammar books at home but I can't find the answer to that one.
Maybe "so much" is not the same as "much"? |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:24 am Post subject: |
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Okay then. Where I come from, "I have many friends" is not natural spoken English, in any context, and others seem to agree. It sounds straight out of a Nova textbook to me. Possibly there are pockets of the English-speaking world where it is natural, I have not come across them yet though.
As a challenge, gaijinalways, I want you to find an example of a native speaker using the sentence "I have many......." in a conversational way somewhere on the internet or in a movie or TV script. Same with "very delicious".
Native speakers leaving out articles and dropping the plural "s" when talking to Japanese people is a pet hate of mine- it sounds so retarded, and I don't think it makes the sentence easier to understand. It is possible to simplify English without degrading it. |
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