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Odd question for native english speakers
Mojarn Piett
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:07 am 
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(colonel_sponsz @ Oct. 25 2007,23:32)
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It's also the reason English is the only(?) European language that does not assign gender to objects [snip]

Finnish words do not have a gender. Nor do we use articles but that is just about the only easy aspect in the language (or so I've been told).  :)

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vanvlak
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 7:35 am 
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Anybody for Maltese? A semitic language including Phoenician and Arabic and even Jewish roots, and using a Latin alphabet, with a good deal of Latin and several hundred words derived from Italian, French and English....
And we have singular, plural, collective plurals, doubles (eg different words exist for saying an eye, a pair of eyes, and a collective bunch of eyes - but no commonly used word for expressing the simple plural!).
At least loghba and tilghab (the soft gh only extends the vowel sound) are the closely related words for game and playing; and that's that. A 'play' (as in a theatrical performance) would be recta (c = ch), and a 'farse' tejatrin (j = y). Interestingly, 'recta' is similar to recitare (Italian) or recital; whilst tejatrin is similar to 'theatre' or 'teatro' (Italian). You could also have a dramm (dramatic play) and a radjudramm (radioplay). See how it works?

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colonel_sponsz
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:48 am 
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(Hena @ Oct. 26 2007,07:43)
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As Mojarn already pointed out, it's not entirely correct.


Depends how you define European  :O   Finnish comes from the Uralic language group rather than the Indo-European group.  Still I didn't know that Finnish didn't have gender before now:  Every day's a school day...

However you could have dropped the he/she split as well. Finnish don't have that and I'm always struggling to make a sentence with 3rd person reference in it (when I don't know the person). I tend to do either 'he/she' kind of thingy or make the sentence passive and use one.

Is there a better way to do this :D?


'He' or 'she' can generally be substituted with 'they'.

So:  "He/she is a keen Epic player" => "They are a keen Epic player".

Orde

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CyberShadow
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:29 am 
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(colonel_sponsz @ Oct. 26 2007,09:48)
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'He' or 'she' can generally be substituted with 'they'.

So: ?"He/she is a keen Epic player" => "They are a keen Epic player".

Yes, the singular form of the word. I love English!  :p

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Markconz
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:43 am 
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Yes I hate the he/she problem in English. I use 'they' a lot, but I'm not actually sure that is viewed well in formal writing (which often has 'he or she' repeated through it in an exceedingly irritating fashion Eg a 'Practitioners Code of Ethics' I'm reading  :( ).

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Enderel
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:10 pm 
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English can be needlessly complicated, even for native speakers.  We generally have words for everything regardless of whether it is actually required or not!  (Was going to mention Eskimo's and snow but was recently told that it's a myth about that..)

However it does offer exceptional abilities of description due to it's roots in numerous other dialects.  

My hat off to anyone who learns other languages, it's a skill that seems to have completely passed me by.  I'm constantly amazed by everyones abilities on the board to operate under one lingua franca even if it is not their own mother language.

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colonel_sponsz
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:53 pm 
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The plural would be:  "They are keen Epic players."  (Note the loss of the singular 'a')

Orde

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colonel_sponsz
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:08 pm 
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Ha!  I've just had an occasion to use 'they' to refer to someone as I don't know their gender.

Orde

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Blarg D Impaler
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:03 pm 
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(BlackLegion @ Oct. 25 2007,13:49)
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Because this is the first english board wich came to my mind where i casnpost this and not deleted because it is waaaaaaaay offtpic i ask here :D

The question: Wat is the difference between "the game" and "the play"?

The german translation would be "das Spiel" for both.

So what is "a game" and "a play". What is "gaming" and what is "playing"?
Are we playing a game or are we gaming a play? (in german both would be "Wir spielen ein Spiel.")

P.S: Sorry for my sillyness :D

While everyone has given good responses, I think there are a couple more answers that may help out.

In the typically American sports of baseball and American Football, a "game" is, obviously, a contest between teams.  A "play" is an action or small segment of a game.

Game is also used to refer to animals that are hunted.  If you find a "gaming preserve" you are looking at an area of land that is protected from people so limited numbers of animals can be hunted while maintaining the herd.

"Gaming" is also sometimes used to refer to gambling.  In the state of Nevada here in the USA, where Las Vegas is located, there is the "NEVADA GAMING COMMISSION and STATE GAMING CONTROL BOARD" whose job is to regulate gambling in the state.

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Dwarf Supreme
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:26 pm 
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(Enderel @ Oct. 26 2007,07:10)
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I'm constantly amazed by everyones abilities on the board to operate under one lingua franca even if it is not their own mother language.

I'm amazed, too. There was a time (when I was in college) that my knowledge of German was pretty good and given enough time and a English-German dictionary I might have been able to participate in a forum that was in German, but not anymore. That's why I'm very tolerant when members whose mother tongue isn't English post replies.

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BlackLegion
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:51 pm 
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If you want to hone your skills in german then come over there in the german epic-board :D

Using "they" if someone don't know the gender is used sometimes in german too.
Complicated it comes if you realise that the german "sie" means both "they" and "she" :D "er" is german for "he" and "es" for "it".
Anmd then you have the plural and id goes alloverboard.

You remember "der M?rser"? singular and masculinum.
but "die M?rser" ist plural and still masculinum.
If you have plural the article changes to "die" regardless of gender. And depending of subject you have a plural form or not.

"das Gewehr" singular, femininum -> "die Gewehre" plural ("the Rifles" in english)
"die Kanone" singular, neutrum -> "die Kanonen" plural ("the cannons" in english)

Here you have different suffices to discern plural from singular.

And there are different words in german which have only one word in english.

Example: "humanity"
It derived from tho word "human" = "Mensch"
In german humanity coould be "Menschlichkeit" as in "acting very kind and helpful"
or "Menschheit" as in "all of the humans in existance".

Which sends me to Wh40k: Here we have "the Imperium of Man" (and where are the women? :D ) which is in german "das Imperium der Menschheit" but if you translate this back you have "the Imperium of Humanity" but you know...the Imperium isn't whery humane ;)

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Dwarf Supreme
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:14 pm 
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(BlackLegion @ Oct. 26 2007,10:51)
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If you want to hone your skills in german then come over there in the german epic-board :D

Actually, every now and then I poke my head in there to see if I can understand anything. Sometimes I can, but usually I can only pick out a few words that I know.  :p Even if I ever did reply, I would be using what my German professor once called "baby German".  :D




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BlackLegion
 Post subject: Odd question for native english speakers
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:22 pm 
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LOL. Hey better than nothing ;)

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