Grammar

[bgmnts]

How good is your grammar?

I literally have no idea how good my grammar is. I am unsure if it's needed being a fluent English speaker and language constantly evolving but it is startling how little I know.

Where do you put a comma instead a semi colon and vice versa? What is a predicate and what is an independent clause?

Madness.

[Bazooka]

. m,ine is top notcH!

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Not as good as my grampa.

[idunnosomename]

Good in bed

[SteK]

How good is your grammar?

I literally have no idea how good my grammar is. I am unsure if it's needed being a fluent English speaker and language constantly evolving but it is startling how little I know.

Where do you put a comma instead a semi colon and vice versa? What is a predicate and what is an independent clause?

Madness.

English grammar is fairly simple, no noun or adverb inflections, but tenses are complex, take a look at the Russian noun inflection table I had to learn at uni, fucking mental!

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Ropá!

The word "white" has a 6 in it. That's just silly.

[SteK]

Ropá!

The word "white" has a 6 in it. That's just silly.

That's a 'b' - 'byeli' as in Belarus - White Russia....

[bgmnts]

English grammar is fairly simple, no noun or adverb inflections, but tenses are complex, take a look at the Russian noun inflection table I had to learn at uni, fucking mental!

I should have specified punctuation really.

That chart is a bit mental though, Welsh levels of impenetrable.

[kalowski]

What's the difference between animate and inanimate accusative?

[SteK]

What's the difference between animate and inanimate accusative?

Animate are living things, people, cats etc, inanimate are tables, cars etc...

There's also verbs that are different according to whether they are done once and completed or can continue. Passive verbs I think. Nightmare....

[Bence Fekete]

In Latin they used to chop your hands off. Then you weren't so animated.

[Marner and Me]

Fk U

[SteK]

Animate are living things, people, cats etc, inanimate are tables, cars etc...

There's also verbs that are different according to whether they are done once and completed or can continue. Passive verbs I think. Nightmare....

Remembering this now, if you are driving someone to the airport and it's a one-off it's certain verb, but it's like you are driving to work and it's something you do everyday, it's a different verb, or a modified version.

Not THAT hard but it's constantly having to think and remember....

Passive/Active verbs.....

[oy vey]

How good is your grammar?

I literally have no idea how good my grammar is. I am unsure if it's needed being a fluent English speaker and language constantly evolving but it is startling how little I know.

Where do you put a comma instead a semi colon and vice versa? What is a predicate and what is an independent clause?

Madness.

Marks off for using "literally". It's grammatically perfect, but you should liken it to wearing white socks and sandals, and dry-humping everyone, in a nightclub. Adverbs in general are for cunts, with occasional exceptions (he said daintily). For commas, semicolons, etc. MS Word, etc. seem to provide decent suggestions these days. You could argue it's a lost art, but fuck it. I don't think grammar is as important as clarity. If I understand what you're saying, who gives a fuck beyond that. Fun fact, the world champion of public speaking in 2013 was Polish. His grammar was quite iffy, but he rocked the house.

+1 for Russian. The cyrillic alphabet is funny but, despite having approx. 6 different cases for one noun, there are no articles which I find refreshing though I'm not yet fluent. It's hard.

+1 for English having no meaningless genders on nouns. In Russian, a razor is feminine. A toilet is masculine.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I speak reasonable French and a modicum of Spanish, enough to get by anyway, and I've always found that I converse with people better after I've had a few drinks, because then all your worries about grammar and syntax go out of the window. It's at those moments where you really key into it and realise that people can still understand you, even if you're getting things a bit wrong sometimes.

So that's my life advice. You want to speak foreign languages? Have a few drinks first. Then you'll become a fine specimen like me.

[weekender]

What is a predicate and what is an independent clause?

The former is from Latin and the latter is from the Vikings, you fucking mongrel. 

Sorry, that was probably unreasonably aggressive.  In my defence I've just watched the latest episode of Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who and found it reasonably enjoyable, which is a position I'm struggling to mentally comprehend.

Anyway, I think both of your examples possibly both derive from French/Latin terms anyway, so that's me fucked (like all of the ancestors of your mother) as far as this post goes.

Fundamental point remains that most of the English language is a bastardisation (like all of the ancestors of your father) based on a) regional interactions and b) historical invasions.

[weekender]

You want to speak foreign languages? Have a few drinks first.

Good advice, but the same end result can easily be achieved by pointing at glasses and then pointing to yourself so that everyone knows you get a round in. 

Who needs language?

[touchingcloth]

I think a lot of that stuff is only really of interest to language students and isn't needed for a functional, fluent or even idiomatic understanding of a language. I know a lot of it in English, but I'm learning Portuguese at the moment and I've found courses which focus on explaining the structure of the language of much less use than the ones which teach you whole phrases and sentences at a time, as I get too bogged down in stuff which ultimately isn't important to understanding what people are trying to say.

How good is your grammar?

I literally have no idea how good my grammar is. I am unsure if it's needed being a fluent English speaker and language constantly evolving but it is startling how little I know.

Where do you put a comma instead a semi colon and vice versa? What is a predicate and what is an independent clause?

Madness.

[weekender]

I know a lot of it in English, but I'm learning Portuguese at the moment and I've found courses which focus on explaining the structure of the language of much less use than the ones which teach you whole phrases and sentences at a time, as I get too bogged down in stuff which ultimately isn't important to understanding what people are trying to say.

Portuguese try fuck-fuck Spain neighbour, Spain butt-fuck Portuguese neighbour.

See also the Catalan district, and also why Cristiano Ronaldo is a bit butt-hurt for speaky-Spanishy/never being able to fully understand Alex Ferguson unless he was shouting and spitting.

[touchingcloth]

Portuguese try fuck-fuck Spain neighbour, Spain butt-fuck Portuguese neighbour.

See also the Catalan district, and also why Cristiano Ronaldo is a bit butt-hurt for speaky-Spanishy/never being able to fully understand Alex Ferguson unless he was shouting and spitting.

Xã xã xã xã xã xã xã xã.

[weekender]

Bit harsh, although I enjoyed the fact that the dialect wasn't obvious on the 7th xã.

[flotemysost]

Those adverts for Grammarly and similar services make me feel weirdly unsettled - something about the idea that someone's penned an algorithm to determine the one superior way to speak/write English makes me feel a bit sad. I know it's just intended to help people tart up their CVs and it's not worlds away from the Spelling & Grammar function on Word and similar existing tools, but I still find it a bit depressing.

I often feel pretty conscious of my own grammar in work emails as I have to contact authors and editors a fair bit, but it's not like I have to adhere to a house style or anything (although in a previous job I did once have to field a complaint from Bill Bryson about a comma. See, I don't even know how that sentence should have been constructed. Priti Patel's probably totting up my points right now.)

Plenty of my friends and colleagues speak English as a second language, and there are often subtle idiosyncrasies of their native tongue in the way they say certain things - for example there's a specific type of 'Indian English' I've noticed - but honestly, who the fuck cares about this stuff, as long as you can understand what the person's getting at? I actually find it really nice to hear - I'd much rather hear someone say 'When it is?', meaning 'When is it?' (as I've noticed some of my colleagues would say), than something like 'Right, going forward we've got to think outside the box when it comes to BAU' which will take me some time to translate.

I know a lot of it in English, but I'm learning Portuguese at the moment and I've found courses which focus on explaining the structure of the language of much less use than the ones which teach you whole phrases and sentences at a time, as I get too bogged down in stuff which ultimately isn't important to understanding what people are trying to say.

I'm trying to take on this approach to learning languages, I mean I'm pretty much an uncultured monolingual dunce at the moment but whenever I've tried to learn another language in the past, when it gets to the inevitable lesson with the big scary grid that explains THE RULES I've got too caught up in memorising it all which makes me feel stupid when I get it wrong, and eventually I just give up.

[Twit 2]

The level of bullshit grammar in the primary National Curriculum is pretty staggering. Year 2 children (5 and 6 years old) required to know the past progressive tense by name.  By the end of year 6 children are expected to know all sorts of ridiculous technical terms by heart.

Have a go at this and try not to track down Michael Gove and shake him by the shoulders indefinitely:

End of KS2 grammar test (The questions get progressively harder.)

[touchingcloth]

I'm trying to take on this approach to learning languages, I mean I'm pretty much an uncultured monolingual dunce at the moment but whenever I've tried to learn another language in the past, when it gets to the inevitable lesson with the big scary grid that explains THE RULES I've got too caught up in memorising it all which makes me feel stupid when I get it wrong, and eventually I just give up.

Exactly so. It feels overwhelming to be faced with tables of verb conjugations to memorise rather than just being swamped with endless whole snippets like "I used to eat chicken but now I eat fish and tomorrow I will eat potatoes".

Duolingo is a bit MeToo, though. It keeps giving me phrases like "I did not follow her", "no, I am not following you" and "your red blouse is short and tight". I've only used most of them a handful of times in real conversations.

[Captain Z]

What's the difference between animate and inanimate accusative?

I don't know, what is the difference between animate and inanimate accusative?

[gib]

The level of bullshit grammar in the primary National Curriculum is pretty staggering. Year 2 children (5 and 6 years old) required to know the past progressive tense by name.  By the end of year 6 children are expected to know all sorts of ridiculous technical terms by heart.

Have a go at this and try not to track down Michael Gove and shake him by the shoulders indefinitely:

End of KS2 grammar test (The questions get progressively harder.)

I skipped to the last 4 questions, sheesh.

[oy vey]

Exactly so. It feels overwhelming to be faced with tables of verb conjugations to memorise rather than just being swamped with endless whole snippets like "I used to eat chicken but now I eat fish and tomorrow I will eat potatoes".

Duolingo is a bit MeToo, though. It keeps giving me phrases like "I did not follow her", "no, I am not following you" and "your red blouse is short and tight". I've only used most of them a handful of times in real conversations.

Probably machine learning based on your browsing habits. Try purchasing a few loose fitting burkas and cut down on stalking.

[touchingcloth]

Probably machine learning based on your browsing habits. Try purchasing a few loose fitting burkas and cut down on stalking.

Is that why it gave me "no, not me, the phallus is in your arse"?

[oy vey]

Is that why it gave me "no, not me, the phallus is in your arse"?

Switch off your webcam. Easy mistake to make. You don't want to know the shit I can say/order in Russian.

[pigamus]

Context is the most important thing. I was taught the parts of speech like they were fixed things. Didn't help me understand anything.