Do you know English?

[eric25]

Re: Do you know English?

Arigato, ga kore wa nihongo desu. ^.^

Thank you this is Japanese. Ha I did remember stuff from last semister.

[sumzup]

Re: Do you know English?

Everyone should be able to recognize "Arigato"/"Arigatou" (whichever version it may be) as Japanese...

[sarahxjane]

Re: Do you know English?

I didn't catch that either.
I must fail at English then.

The OSSLT was so easy, all you need to do is read the instructions.
The majority of people who fail didn't read them carefully.
And if you don't pass the first time, well, you have a few years to complete it.

( We need to pass it to graduate high school )

I passed it first time around in grade 10.

[rzr]

Re: Do you know English?

That just blew me away.
I don't know about everyone, but I didn't particularly catch that phrase error. The school board in my province has a certain English exam (OSSLT: Ontario Seconard School Literacy Test), but that doesn't even come CLOSE to these exams that immigrants have to take, such as the TOEFL. The OSSLT is a test grade 10 students officially take nowadays as one of the several means to earning a high-school degree. But the questions on it are as ridiculous as :


(If you picked anything other than c, you don't deserve a high-school degree.)

Actually, with the proper grammar, such as commas, the fourth answer could be correct.

[GuidoHunter]

Re: Do you know English?

And 'The standard of living has increased.' isn't wrong.. It's just a fragment, and not a sentence.

You must have absolutely no understanding of the English language if you actually believe what you just said.

It is most definitely a sentence, as it has a subject and verb which can stand independently. Also, "increased" is quite incorrect, as per the reasoning given in the article. Values increase; standards don't have values. Rather, standards rise.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Tps222]

Re: Do you know English?

I caught it, but only because of the fact that I'm currently typing a paper in which a rise in the standard of living is one of the topics I'm writing about.

PS: English is easy.

[Squeek]

Re: Do you know English?

It's the same as "less" and "fewer", "quantity" and "amount", etc.

But really it's stupid as hell. Oh no I started my sentence with a conjunction and forgot to use a comma to separate independent clauses! Who will police the grammar police?!

Also, Guido, one could argue that the "grammar error" in the sentence is that they do not specify the "standard". For all you know, the standard "cost" of living has increased. Cost is something to which you can apply numbers, correct?

So, arguing that it's a sentence fragment really isn't as silly as you thought, eh?

You can justify making grammatical corrections to any sentence ever written, whether it's correct or not. That's why things like this are stupid. In fact, I completely disagree with the entire English curriculum throughout elementary and middle school. But then again, I disagree with a lot of things in our education system, so we'll leave it at that.

[sumzup]

Re: Do you know English?

+1 support for Squeek as Secretary of Education

[Reach]

Re: Do you know English?

A standard can most certainly have a value. The question is not fair, given someone from another country might not know of the cultural context that 'standard' is referring to here, thus leaving no error to correct in the sentence.

I don't see the point of something like this. Getting the answer to this has more to do with process of elimination and test taking knowledge than actual knowledge. Let's face it - most people butcher the English language in day to day speech or when they write something.

[FishFishRevolution]

Re: Do you know English?

Canada: There are Grammar Police after all.

[rushyrulz]

Re: Do you know English?

-only read the OP post-

I got them both right. The first one took me about 10 seconds to examine all the possible avenues, but then I figured increased is only used for numbers or specific ideas.
I originally changed it to be 'The standard of living has increased from ...___ to ___(fill in the blanks), but then I guess risen is the easier way

[Arch0wl]

Re: Do you know English?

I think the distinction between "fewer" and "less" as well as "increased" and "risen" are unnecessary and pedantic distinctions. It's as pointless as counting "Few like music more than I" correct and "Few like music more than me" incorrect. The English language, as it becomes more internationalized, will obviously become more simplified. Trying to institutionalize English grammar to such an extent that "has increased" is incorrect is hopeless. The use of language is to express meaning... the "fewer"/"less" debate does not change the critical meaning at all because both essentially mean "a given quantity has become less than what its original quantity was" and when you get into issues like "I" versus "me" you're arguing over language that references language.

edit:

Values increase; standards don't have values. Rather, standards rise.

A common measure of standard of living is HDI value.

[Arch0wl]

Re: Do you know English?

think the amount of grammatical rules English currently has should be lessened for that reason.

Besides, there are a ton of issues with syntactical ambiguity ("Time flies like an arrow," "A pretty little girl's school") in the English language as it is. If anything, we should be -adding- to the English language instead of preventing certain usages which in the larger picture are totally insignificant.

Why are emoticons an informality, for example? If I say "This file sucks." then I seem authoritative and serious versus "This file sucks XD" which implies more that I enjoy it somewhat and light-heartedly think it sucks or "This file sucks :P" which implies that I like the person making the file but nevertheless think it sucks and have to face that reality. The exclamation point is standardized, so why not emoticons? This adds significantly more meaning and clarification to a sentence than specifying I/me.

[Arch0wl]

Re: Do you know English?

There's also the instance of modifying the phonetics of a word to express a certain emotion. If I say "boooooring" or "LMFFFAAAAOOO" I mean two distinct emotions that are difficult to express otherwise.

[igotrhythm]

Re: Do you know English?

That's wrong. It should be Eigo wa wakarimasen. Gomennasai. Demo, eigo wa tanoshiku arimasen.
英語はわかりません。ごめんなさい。でも、英語は楽しくありません。



Also incorrect. The structure itself is wrong in the standard sense (may be ok in a colloquial fashion).

Should be Arigatou. Demo, kore wa nihongo desu.
ありがとう。でも、これは日本語です。

or

Arigatai kedo, kore wa nihongo desu.
ありがたいけど、これは日本語です。

And wow. English, was more complicated than I thought? Wow.

Excellent. Now we have a Japanese grammar Nazi. XD