Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mellow-d]

How about this:

You must draw nothing on the wall.
(talking about rules)

Is it grammatically correct even though it sounds a little awkward? You could say: "You must not draw anything on the wall." Or even, "You must say nothing to him" and they sound okay.

[lifeinkorea]

umm, one is positive and the other is negative using "any".

It's just like saying "No smoking allowed". It could have been, "Don't smoke anything"

[mellow-d]

Wouldn't they both be negative and have the same meaning?

You must draw nothing on the wall.
You must not draw anything on the wall.

[lifeinkorea]

[rms2279]

Sounds grammatical to me -- why do you think it sounds awkward?

[lifeinkorea]

[rms2279]

[lifeinkorea]

[rms2279]

[lifeinkorea]

[The Cosmic Hum]

lifeinkorea wrote:

[Thiuda]

[lifeinkorea]

[Thiuda]

[lifeinkorea]

Thiuda,

I won't quote, cause it's right above. This will save space.

I am all for these books you are referring to. I bought an electronic dictionary when I was in Japan. This had many useful examples, including sentences not commonly used.

In Korea, I bought one too, but I lost it. Since then, I have collected a few books here and there, and I see what you are saying. I have seen it, to be more accurate.

My point is, if a student can't understand the basics and determine which words in a reading they should look up then why worry about the small stuff.

I can go to a Japanese website and read about fires, theft, results of sports games, and weather. When it comes to the political jargon and medical terms, I fall short. In that case, and other times I can't make out sentences, I pull out the dictionary and those books you referred to and find the corners of my ignorance.

I found that this gives me better results than waiting for a teacher to spoon feed this information. Of course, I should check the appropriate use of words with a native speaker, but that teacher isn't helping me by showing me their intelligence. More specifically, their reach. As an analogy, we can look at professors at a university. The typical image is that of a person who lectures in a hall full of students. Those students are required to do their work.

Compare this with high school, where the teacher would babysit the students basically. These students have homework checked, detention, etc...

I don't remember teachers though spoon feeding me rare uses of words or phrases. Instead, we had card catalogs. We researched, and looked through information. Then, we sat down and wrote. Our teachers would correct us.

One interesting concept learned in one of these classes was the notion that "facts are stupid things unless they are put to use". This was supposed to teach us to use what we find and not just gather data for the sake of gathering data.

One of my current students never looked up words. She constantly asked me to tell her what a word meant. Then she would complain because she couldn't understand my explanations in English. Now, 4 months later, she has a new ipod with dictionary and she looks up every word she doesn't know (on her own). Before she is able to look up words, I try to give her my understanding of them and she now can understands more of what I say because she studied the more frequently used words and I am using the more frequently used words.

When it reaches the stage where the definition is different and not often used, then she looks them up and we confirm with other words. I don't believe we can set up phrases and words to be joined like legos and work successfully. The language as a body of words and grammar is just as arbitrary as the day the first word entered the language.

Too many argots, not enough indians.