Ray51

Una , jaz sem jeden ( od takshnih ) !
Zelo lepo razmem Slowenschino - in mi je vshech !
Pozdravljena , z Anglije
R.J.M.

booboo24

Ok.. I used google translate and it not make any sense.
Something about good Slovenian men

fizzytom

Not Google translate! We often have people in the hospital asking if anyone speaks Italian or Russian or whatever because there's a patient who needs assistance of a letter that needs urgent translation and someone always suggest Google translate - which invariably provides a poor translation.

Isn't Ray saying he's one of the people you're talking about (who picks up Slo quickly)?

Ray51

Una , Tom & ze ozzers , interested-or-NOT ,
I wrote , word-per-SLOword , up above :

" Una , I too am one of such ...( implicating : pple ! ) ;
I understand Slowenian v. nicely and I like it ...( pleases me ? same fing ! )
Regards ( to U = female ) from EngerLand ,
R. "
I could offer to Xchange a week of tuition , for a week @ yr loveliest cottage ,
razmesh me dobro in poshteno ?

In zdaj : tudi to !

Do swidanja , Na swidanje ( Russki ? ) , Dowidzhenja ( HRvatski , Polski , Czech , Srpski , BiH , Montenegro ) ,
a la prochaine & tanti Auguri a Tutti , mit Freundlichsten Gruessen noch ,
R.J.M. , by The River ( Thames )

fizzytom

So I was right!

Ich kann slowenisch gut verstehen

Ray51

Ja , natuerlich !

booboo24

I still have not met such a person

Ray51

IF you persist , I could be available ( ? )
Thinking right now : of driving down thereto , early-ish coming summer ( IF we Ever get one , this year ? ) , mebbe a Lavender Cottage could be an Option , yet .....

Sir Harry le Fise Lake

I agree it is rather funny/perceptive, and true in many ways.

But, some of his assumptions are incorrect - and show his own ignorance of the English language, I'm afraid.

In fact, in his very first attempt at an example, he inadvertently uses an incorrect tense himself, at least from a British-English perspective - it's an example of how US English is destroying the subtle use of the present perfect tense to convey the English understanding of time/action.

IN English, the present perfect tense - eg I have done something - is a kind of half way house between the present and the past tenses.

I may have lost anyone who has not been taught to analyse language and/or teach English to non-natives, so here is the example.

He says something like; It's easy in English - we say "Did you have lunch yet? You see, just one question."

What he should have said is: "Have you had lunch yet?" - or "Have you eaten lunch yet?" - because in English, we are concentrating on the action - has the action happened - and not the time, which is anytime in the (recent) past.

This concept - just like, say, the use of the dual for non-native learners of Slovene - is very difficult for many learners of English to grasp - which is why, in fact, American English is losing it - they are "thinking" in their mother language, which does not have this "half-way house" tense.

rgds, HlFL

fizzytom

My students wouldn't be allowed to use that kind of American-English!

I think one of the hardest things about learning a new language for adults who didn't learn one at school is to get over that urge to translate every word.

I also find that many Brits don't know the names of the different tenses in English so find it more difficult to recognise and construct them in a foreign language.

booboo24

Some basic lessons


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvJQR8TrEQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUIdWu05Ik0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePVykBAMnbE