English thread. Why not?

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Gez
 
 
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Gez »

Depends on what kind of words.

Nouns generally have stress of the first syllable, but verbs usually on the second. It's how you can remember where to stress for noun/verb homonyms, like desert: for the noun corresponding to an arid zone, the stress is on the first syllable, for the verb meaning to abandon, it's on the second. Adjectives and adverbs built from it (like desertic and deserted) also stress on the second syllable.
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lil'devil
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by lil'devil »

Oh, yea. I've noticed that, too. Contact/contact, subject/subject, &c, but thanks for clarifying! :)
Really neat feature, BTW.
Edit: just to clarify, I was mostly talking about nouns in my previous post.
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Ravick
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Ravick »

What is this stress thing in words? Is it the 'strongest' syllabe in a word?

___

Edit: In chemistry labs, there is an equipament used to exhaust harmful gases that in Portuguses is called "capela de exaustão" ("exhaust chapel"). I could not find it on the web by searching "chapel". I guess it is not a common subject in here, but does anyone happen to know the propper name of this thing in English? :(

Images of this 'chapel'.

Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Ravick on Sun Sep 09, 2018 7:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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lil'devil
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by lil'devil »

It's called "fume hood".

I searched for the word 'capela' in Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capela#Portuguese) and one of the definitions was the fume hood.
Wiktionary is a good site, I advise you to use it! :)
Gez
 
 
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Gez »

Ravick wrote:What is this stress thing in words? Is it the 'strongest' syllabe in a word?
Yeah. English words have a stressed syllable, and if they're long enough they can have a secondary stressed syllable. The rhythm of stressed syllables in a phrase, its meter, is important for poetry and song lyrics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(linguistics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry)
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Enjay
 
 
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Enjay »

lil'devil wrote:It's called "fume hood".
I have one in my room at work. I (and my colleagues) always call them "fume cupboards". I would understand someone referring to a fume hood, of course, but it would sound a bit weird to me. Perhaps it's a regional/country thing (maybe American versus UK English)?
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Ravick
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Ravick »

@lil'devil: Thank you a lot! I tought this lab meaning would be too specific to something as wiktionary! :o I'll used it more indeed!

@Gez: Thank you a lot too! :) I always like to read your posts about linguistics.

@Enjay: Maybe it is as weird as we calling it a chapel. :p Trivia: Here, if it is smaller so it can be placed in a workbench, it is an 'exhaust chapel', but it is bigger as a cupboard, we just call it "fluxo" (flux). I don't know if there is such difference in English too.

Thank you all, pals!
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Ravick
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Ravick »

//double post D:

'In anyway, the skin can be used both for a zombie or a living man then.'

This a phrase of mine in another thread. The "both" word, in this case, is used right?

'The skin can be used for both a zombie or a living man.' //Is this corrcet?

'The skin can be both used for a zombie or a living man.' //Or this?

I see "both" being used in ways very different from it's equivalent in Portuguese, so I often get a little confused.

Thanks in adavnced. :)
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by wildweasel »

Both placements of "both" are correct; the thing I'd correct is the use of "or" - in this sense, I'd use "and" instead. If you prefer "or," try replacing "both" with "either", since "both" is inclusive while "either" is exclusive.
Gez
 
 
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Gez »

I'd say you can use:
"for both x and y"
"both for x and for y"
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Reactor
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Reactor »

Quick question: What is the plural form of "priestess"? Frankly, the word "priestesses" sounds quite dumb.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by wildweasel »

Reactor wrote:Quick question: What is the plural form of "priestess"? Frankly, the word "priestesses" sounds quite dumb.
Yet it's correct.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Darkcrafter »

You guys complain about English but imagine how many troubles Russian or any other Slavic language possess. I believe there is no easy language in the end of it. What I could say about Russian? It's borrowed lots of words from such languages like German, English, Latin, Greek, even the alphabet is a mixture of Greek and Latin! I really like the cyrillic alphabet because it has one big advantage for me as an English learner: because the alphabets between Russian and English are different, I have no trouble switching pronunciation between two :3: now imagine how you guys with the same alphabets struggle, because deep inside your pronunciation is linked to the symbols of your alphabet.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Enjay »

I have heard from a number of sources that Polish is particularly difficult to master, with native speakers being considered adept in their own language quite a bit later (i.e. older) than the native speakers of many other languages. I know some native English speakers who live in Poland and they say that if you come to the language late, you basically have to accept that, although you will be able to make yourself understood reasonably easily, you will always sound like the weird foreigner as you constantly mess up context specific word endings etc.

On the flip side, it is apparently quite easy to ensure that you are pronouncing written words correctly because there is very little variety in the way the various written letters are pronounced. So, once you have learned the letter to sound rules, you should be able to make most words sound right, even if you don't know which ones to use in conversation.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Darkcrafter »

That's interesting, I must admit that I understand Polish with 50% chance and I've never learned it. But I still find their writing more complicated than Russian, seems like they borrowed some elements from French which I really hate because of their writing too. I really like the way English, German and Russian are being written, there are no "special" letters with special meaning to them like a and a with > or ' at the top of it, in these languages everything is being written according to their alphabets. Yeah in Russian there are such letters like ё (yo) and й (iy), but they're in the alphabet already, with the former vanishing slowly. All these special symbols I believe are nothing more than try to indicate pronunciation, but we all know that every words still needs to be learnt individually whatever the language it is.
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