Becoming bilingual

[naditch]

More and more people are complaining they can't make out anything of those crazy letters here... So I guess I might post in English once in a while.

They say you've really mastered English once you've learnt to say really in thirty different ways. That goes for British English. To master American English, you need to learn thirty way of

Comments

[sonatanator]

Yay!

Many options: yous's, yall's, yours's. I usually go with "all of your."

[naditch]

Wow, that's a lot of options indeed! But you can say "all of your" addressing to one person, can't you? Like "I've read all of your books".

[kshawkin]

That's different. :) sonatanator means it as a possessive derived from "all of you" (meaning вы), but I can't come up with a natural example of this. I don't think I ever use this construction as a possessive.

However, there are cases where it's ambiguous which you mean. If you tell your students after an exam "I've read all of your essays", it's not clear whether it means "все ваши" or just "ваши". I guess it doesn't really make a difference in Russian either!

[kshawkin]

I think some people say "you guys'", pronounced "you GUY-zez". All of these options are jarring to a native speaker, in any case.

more English

[anonymous]

Nad'ka what about to master Russian English? I believe a genuine linguist will face no problem here.

Papik

Re: more English

[naditch]

Комментарии можно по-русски писать. :)

Даже не знаю, что сказать на это...

[klaboo]

Ха, Надька, велком ту ве клаб

[naditch]

Гы.

А почему ве? Я видела де, а сама говорю зе. :)

[klaboo]

Ну я говорю ве. Если забуду язык между зубами просунуть - чисто "ве" же!
куку!

[anonymous]

one can't overestimate the educational impact of this move on your friends :)

dan'ka

[naditch]

Гы!!!