Second Language Acquisition (research)

[Der Helm]

"A people without a land"

Does not compute. At all.

It just feels wrong. I understand the reason for using it that way, but again I'd have to force myself to use it.

Weird.

[NowhereMan]

Eh, English can be a malleable language, hell verbing and nounage are fairly common though they usually sound weirder than "a people". Also try reading some of the translations of German philosophers in English, transliterating German neologisms produces some... interesting results.

[sidereal]

Do exceptions like this come naturally to you native speakers or do you have to think about it ?

If you had to think about it, you wouldn't do it, unless you're taking pains to be correct.  In casual speech, people use whatever idiom comes naturally and unconsciously, even if it's 'irrational'.

My current favorite is the fact that 'news' is a the plural ('s') of an adjective ('new'), and normally it's illegal to pluralize an adjective.  (Note that it's probably not correct to say that you're pluralizing a noun that was created out of an adjective, like 'the reds', because it's not correct to use 'new' as a noun in the singular. e.g. *'That's a nice new'.).  And that this is also true in Welsh ('new' = 'new' [noun], pluralize 'news' = 'newydd').  Weird.

[Raging Turtle]

I'm not sure you can say you're pluralizing the word 'new' when you compare it to 'news', as the meanings don't really overlap.

And something that occured me to when walking home today: 'a people' is often used to describe/stereotype races or nationalities.  "The Czechs are a crafty people", or "The Germans are an industrious people".  A native speaker wouldn't think twice about those statements.   

My random grammatical complaint of the day: People using 'an' incorrectly.  No, it does not go before words like useless or university, only before words that sound like they begin with a vowel.  You fail, headline writers at reddit and digg.  Not that that's anything new.

[sidereal]

I'm even more irritated by the excessive use of 'an' where there aren't any initial vowels at all, most often when people are interjecting an adjective between the indefinite article and a vowel-initial noun, like 'an singular honor'.  That just sounds pretentious.  Knock it off.

[stray]

I never liked how, say, music bands (or any group for that matter) aren't described as a singular entity. Ex. Rage Against the Machine are a kickass band.

To me, it sounds better if you said "Rage Against the Machine is a kickass band".

The only time "are" would sound right if the name of the band is plural (The Rolling Stones are a kickass band).


Sorry if someone has mentioned something similar.

[Samwise]

I agree, Stray, and I believe I use it as you describe.  Whether or not that's considered correct.  I think treating band names as plural is just a holdover from when most band names were plural, and common usage hasn't entirely caught up yet.

[sidereal]

Pluralization of collectives like that is pretty arbitrary.  For ex, in UK English it's typical to refer to a corporation or business in the plural (e.g. 'Microsoft are attempting to buy Yahoo'), whereas in US English it's singular (Microsoft is), even when the company name is plural (e.g. 'Feathered Friends has cheaper prices than REI')

[Der Helm]

My random grammatical complaint of the day: People using 'an' incorrectly.  No, it does not go before words like useless or university, only before words that sound like they begin with a vowel.  You fail, headline writers at reddit and digg.  Not that that's anything new.

I'm even more irritated by the excessive use of 'an' where there aren't any initial vowels at all, most often when people are interjecting an adjective between the indefinite article and a vowel-initial noun, like 'an singular honor'.  That just sounds pretentious.  Knock it off.

What I like about this is the the way in which phonology influences morphology. If you talk very slowly, you begin  to understand how some rules came to be.

[NowhereMan]

I found something strangely satisfying in discovering when much younger that in French you don't pronounce 'h', suddenly reading an hospital or an hotel started to make a lot more sense. At least I presume a large part is a holdover from the French influence when the vowel sound would have been coming first.

Also I quite like overusing an, only when I'm trying to obnoxious though.

[Tale]

Pluralization of collectives like that is pretty arbitrary.  For ex, in UK English it's typical to refer to a corporation or business in the plural (e.g. 'Microsoft are attempting to buy Yahoo'), whereas in US English it's singular (Microsoft is), even when the company name is plural (e.g. 'Feathered Friends has cheaper prices than REI')

I don't think that's a UK-US divide. At least, it's more correct in Australian English (mostly UK influenced) to say Microsoft is attempting to buy Yahoo. "Are attempting" is colloquial English. It seems to vary between wire services in journalism, but I write is, not are.

I have a tougher time with sport stories. Every sports journalist writes "Liverpool are playing Manchester United", when Liverpool is a team in the singular and they should be writing "is". But I've given up fixing sport stories because they're so full of shitty writing that they live in their own style world.

A big difference between German and English today is that Germans are conscious of protecting their language and keeping it German. Lots of English words enter German, especially in new technology. English speakers, using the dominant international language, are blissfully unaware of outside influences on vocabulary and grammar, so they are less conscious of correctness.

[Murgos]

And pretty much everyone in the last several posts on this page has missed the point.  The point is, you are all wrong and the people speaking the language are right.

e.g. Liverpool are.  Well, yeah.  The guys of Liverpool are playing the guys of Manchester United.  Just because you interpreted it differently doesn't mean you are correct.

There is no protecting the language.  The language that you are 'protecting' (read: whining about) is just a transition between what the people before you were 'protecting' and what the people after you will be 'protecting'.  Meanwhile the language will live on and everyone else will be able to convey meaning exactly as meant, regardless of what you made up in the interim.

edit: also, I'm drunk.  Yay.

[Samwise]

The point is, you are all wrong and the people speaking the language are right.

Unless they're from the South, amirite?

[Der Helm]

OK boys and girls, I got the information I needed, it's time to start.

I need to groups of people, the more in each group, the better.

First group: Native speakers of English with knowledge of German (ALL (can't stress that enough) levels of proficiency are needed)

Second Group: Native speakers of English

If you want to participate, please do this:

Write me a message on this board.

Please give me:

A working email-address

1. Your age.
2. Place of birth
3. Place of living
4. Profession
5. Known languages and competence in those languages..

For point 5 I want you to list all the languages you have or had contact with and your proficiency in it.

For example, I would rate myself  (Native German speaker, Second language English, also "contact" with  Latin and Spanish) like this.

Language proficiency (1-5)

1st language: German  5
2nd language: English 4
3rd language: Latin 2
4th language: Spanish 1


I need as much replies as I can get. The experiment itself will ask you to answer a rather small set of not more than 25 questions and should not take much of your time.
All personal information will be used for statistical purposes, group allocation and communication during the experiment, it won't be connected to your person at any time after I have received your message and allocated you to a group.

If people are interested, I will publish the results here in this thread, but I won't be able to tell you about the purpose beforehand.


Thanks a lot in advance.

[Der Helm]

So far I got three volunteers. 

But I need more. A lot more. I am counting on all you guys who mentioned that they learned some German at school.


HAELP!1!

[Tebonas]

I could pretend I am a native english speaker, but my email suffix would give me away :)

[Der Helm]

I could pretend I am a native english speaker, but my email suffix would give me away :)

The email is only used by me. It won't show up in the paper.

I say this just in case some people are afraid to have the emai-adresses published.

Also, I think you could argue that German is your second language. Depending what dialect (if any) you grew up with of course.

[sidereal]

Incoming

[Engels]

sent

[Der Helm]

Thanks to all who replied so far. We are getting somewhere.

What I still need are more native speakers of English who had contact to German.

Don't make me PN you.

[Tebonas]

Also, I think you could argue that German is your second language. Depending what dialect (if any) you grew up with of course.

Having grown up in Upper Austria and Vienna, one could argue that when I TALK German, but my written German works like everybody elses because
contrary to your belief we don't learn writing in Mundart! 

[Bungee]

Also, I think you could argue that German is your second language. Depending what dialect (if any) you grew up with of course.

Having grown up in Upper Austria and Vienna, one could argue that when I TALK German, but my written German works like everybody elses because
contrary to your belief we don't learn writing in Mundart! 

 

[Der Helm]

Having grown up in Upper Austria and Vienna, one could argue that when I TALK German, but my written German works like everybody elses because
contrary to your belief we don't learn writing in Mundart! 

One would have to test you to verify if the way you speak influences the way you write. While the experiment I will conduct (most hopefully, I STILL need more people) is concerned with the written language, that is just because of the medium I will use for communication.

Please do not think that I (or any "real" linguist) rates dialects of a certain language in terms of good/bad or right/wrong. They are just different manners of articulationg "inner soundless speech".

PS: Your "Mundart" might be unintelligeble to me, but I doubt you'd understand my "Kölsch" better (which, non-linguistic speaking IS the better dialect  )

[Tale]

sent

Hey, don't make me break out the Bayerisch.

[Der Helm]

OK, so far I have 10 volunteers, I will create the questionnaires this weekend and send them to you next Monday.

But I still could use more people.

[Der Helm]

Ooops. Internet is hard. I don't think anyone got an email.

I am at work now, will send them later in the day.

[Baldrake]

I still didn't get my email, fwiw.

[Der Helm]

I still didn't get my email, fwiw.

Apparently I am unable to send 10 emails at once.

I am working on it.

[Der Helm]

Task I was send out yesterday, Task II will follow in a few hours. That is all 

[Der Helm]

Second (and final) task sent.

Get to work 

 

[Baldrake]

Task I was send out yesterday, Task II will follow in a few hours. That is all 

I didn't get my email.

[Der Helm]

True. You are not on my mailing list.

edit: Your PM did not contain an email. I can send you the tasks via PN or email, what would you prefer ?

[Samwise]

I got the first task, but not the second.  Was that one just for the German speakers?

[Der Helm]

I got the first task, but not the second.  Was that one just for the German speakers?

I don't have my notes with me at the moment. If you were in the control group, there was only one task.

[lamaros]

I only noticed this thread now but if you still need some more people and it's not too late let me know. I did 4 years of German at school.