o-o;

Sep 20, 2007 23:58


 hmmm...
today, i actually had to explain to someone what hard of hearing is O_o; In ASL I was practicing with someone and made the sign for hard of hearing and she was like er? Really? What does that mean? So i had to explain it.
...for some reason i thought it would be kind of obvious...but whatever XD

...but then again... there was that time in ( Read more... )

random, rant

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Comments 11

remy_hahn September 21 2007, 08:16:14 UTC
For some odd reason, when I say it in my head in Chinese...it sounds wrong. o_o

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arashikeiko September 22 2007, 21:06:04 UTC
really? how so? o-o'

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rudetuesday September 21 2007, 12:37:19 UTC
Hard of hearing is an odd English construct, from an earlier time. It sounds strange to younger speakers, I think. Still, a person should be able to figure out what it means! ._.

I don't know any Chinese, but in English "I'm not Chinese EITHER" better describes the speaker not being Chinese, in addition to 1) a single listener also not being Chinese or 2) the speaker adding this phrase to something else he or he isn't (tall/smart/silly/whatever). "I'm also not Chinese" expresses this quality with 1)any number of listeners who are not Chinese or 2) any number of qualities the speaker describes.

Either means there are two things talked about, while also is more general and can include positive and negative ("I am tall, American, and also not Chinese" is a clunky but usable example).

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arashikeiko September 21 2007, 17:27:55 UTC
yeah... i was like ... ._.''

ooooh well...it was like a reply to the sentence "I'm not Chinese, how about you?"
so... i figured well "I'm also not Chinese" would suffice as an answer. ._.'

I understand what you mean though. Thanks for the explanation! ^^

But! It's a language class and most teachers are a bit more lenient on the English translation of stuff (and there IS the fact that about half of the class doesn't even speak English as their first language so, their English isn't always going to be perfect)

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rudetuesday September 21 2007, 22:35:55 UTC
You're welcome! I actually enjoy the little things about English grammar and wonder how those intersect with other languages. Thanks for putting up with my li'l lecture. ^^ I'm sure you were all... @.o WTF? I come to my LJ to RELAX and vent, yo. :D

It really depends on the teacher, I suppose. It's interesting that students with English as a second or third language are getting this level of rigor. It can suck, if you don't have a feel for English. It's a really irregular and twisty language. On the other hand, maybe it's not too late for people to get some rudiments down...

/I'm off my soapbox. I can barely figure out stroke order on the kanji I'm starting to memorize, let alone the ON and KUN thingies. I should be a little more lenient. ^^

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arashikeiko September 22 2007, 21:26:03 UTC
oh no i don't mind at all ^^ i like learning random new stuff so woot! ^^

i guess it does depend on the teacher (i've just never had a language teacher THAT picky about the translations before...especially since languages aren't always directly translatable and such D: )

yeah, i sort of feel for them with the English stuff D:
it's all the more interesting since English is her second language (and it's not like she has absolutely perfect English either...though it IS really really good...but then again she has a PhD /ramble )

I SUCK at stroke order (which...she got mad at me for XD) and yarrrr there are so many on and kon yomi it's...dizzying ><'

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juuchan September 21 2007, 15:12:39 UTC
It is more correctly translated as "I am not Chinese either," mostly because of the problem with using the English word "also" to describe a person's characteristics, as the other person above notes. In general conversation, by context "I am also not Chinese" makes sense, but there are better ways ( "I too am not Chinese" would be acceptable, but I think this is an un-American construct? My friend tells me my English is very strange sometimes...XD).

And the punctuation does matter, as the comma used in Chinese (,) is for separating clauses, whereas the 、is used for separating items in a list. And of course, the 。is also different.

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arashikeiko September 21 2007, 17:36:24 UTC
oooh thanks for the explanation ^^

I'm sure I WOULD be caught saying "I too am not Chinese" ...my friends and I have odd English as well XD

I guess I've gotten spoiled and lazy with my punctuation haha
My teachers in High School never complained about how I wrote my punctuation so when she actually took off a point for it i was like
O_O;
...
>________>'''

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sgwhitelighter September 21 2007, 20:27:29 UTC
how are paragraphs one and two connected? O.o

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arashikeiko September 22 2007, 21:05:43 UTC
i...really have no clue haha

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sgwhitelighter September 23 2007, 03:58:51 UTC
lol! i thought that it was an interesting non sequitur tho. XD

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