In message , Hans Aberg
writes
On 6 Feb 2009, at 23:00, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
I was surprised recently to discover how FEW rules it takes to
pronounce English words. Given that the average person has a 20,000
word vocabulary, it apparently only takes about 30 or 40 rules for a
computer
In message <20090207154751.ga2...@nagi>, Graham Percival
writes
Sure, and what about languages with a variety of accents, like English?
Which one do you base the spelling on?
The Queen's, of course. ;)
You mean English, as spoken by a German, of Saxon descent imported to
kick the Anglish o
In message <498d801d.3020...@gmail.com>, Jonathan Kulp
writes
Graham Percival wrote:
IMNSHO, one of the first rules of an (alphabetized) written
language should be that every single word should be pronouncable
by a complete novice after 10 hours of study. Or maybe 5 or 20...
but you get the i
In message <20090207083104.ga2...@nagi>, Graham Percival
writes
On Fri, Feb 06, 2009 at 10:00:04PM +, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
In message <20090204160623.ga2...@nagi>, Graham Percival
writes
being surrounded by nothing but ESL people now (and
trying to teach them better English), I have
Graham Percival wrote Saturday, February 07, 2009 3:47 PM
But in a well-designed language, the accents would at least be
consistent -- i.e. if you pronounced "about" as "aboot" (which,
despite the best efforts of the cartoon South Park", I've never
heard any Canadians say), you should also pron
On 6 Feb 2009, at 23:00, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
I was surprised recently to discover how FEW rules it takes to
pronounce English words. Given that the average person has a 20,000
word vocabulary, it apparently only takes about 30 or 40 rules for a
computer speech program to *correctly*
On Sat, Feb 07, 2009 at 11:04:30PM +0800, Graham Breed wrote:
> Graham Percival wrote:
>
>> I'm not as sympathetic when they forget to add a "the" or "an" in
>> front of a noun. English is consistent on that point.
>
> It is not. Countable and uncountable nouns are already a good hour's
> lesson
Graham Percival wrote:
I mean, in Japanese there's no pluralization of nouns. Given the
writing that I see from the graduate students here, I gather that
Chinese doesn't pluralize nouns either. Now how can I explain to
them how to do something as simple as saying "one foo" and "two
foos" ? Th
Graham Percival wrote:
IMNSHO, one of the first rules of an (alphabetized) written
language should be that every single word should be pronouncable
by a complete novice after 10 hours of study. Or maybe 5 or 20...
but you get the idea.
Cheers,
- Graham
100% right. I have no idea how anyone
On Fri, Feb 06, 2009 at 10:00:04PM +, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> In message <20090204160623.ga2...@nagi>, Graham Percival
> writes
>> being surrounded by nothing but ESL people now (and
>> trying to teach them better English), I have newfound appreciation
>> for what a completely stupid la
In message <20090204160623.ga2...@nagi>, Graham Percival
writes
As a cat person, I agree entirely. This is pretty much the only
time in my life that I'll express agreement with the English
language... being surrounded by nothing but ESL people now (and
trying to teach them better English), I ha
On 4 Feb 2009, at 16:44, Valentin Villenave wrote:
After one week of this (BTW, there's an English phrase "eating
your own dog food"; I'm not certain if it translates into other
languages :), I'll begin another round of GOP recruitment.
What is with you guys and dog food? There's also this phr
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 04:44:24PM +0100, Valentin Villenave wrote:
> 2009/2/4 Graham Percival :
> > After one week of this (BTW, there's an English phrase "eating
> > your own dog food"; I'm not certain if it translates into other
> > languages :), I'll begin another round of GOP recruitment.
>
>
2009/2/4 Graham Percival :
> After one week of this (BTW, there's an English phrase "eating
> your own dog food"; I'm not certain if it translates into other
> languages :), I'll begin another round of GOP recruitment.
What is with you guys and dog food? There's also this phrase about
dog's breakf
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