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On June 05 2013 15:44 TOCHMY wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 14:37 momotaro wrote:
thedeadhaji is not American? A few of these words are pretty standard middle school English stuff here in Japan
Yet you'll have a hard time finding a japanese willing to speak english to a gaijin... T_T
I didn't mean that as an insult. I was only a bit surprised how someone who could write English fluently not know some of the words which I learned in middle school. For example, corrugated steel, cretaceous era, indolent, and others seem fairly common in books, magazines, newspapers, and other reading materials.
To Archas, thanks for "cornobble", I need to find a use for this word soon :p
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On June 05 2013 22:57 momotaro wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 15:44 TOCHMY wrote:On June 05 2013 14:37 momotaro wrote:
thedeadhaji is not American? A few of these words are pretty standard middle school English stuff here in Japan
Yet you'll have a hard time finding a japanese willing to speak english to a gaijin... T_T I didn't mean that as an insult. I was only a bit surprised how someone who could write English fluently not know some of the words which I learned in middle school. For example, corrugated steel, cretaceous era, indolent, and others seem fairly common in books, magazines, newspapers, and other reading materials. To Archas, thanks for "cornobble", I need to find a use for this word soon :p
I wasn't insulted it's ok!
I guess they're just shy.
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Really, "wooden"? As in "made from wood"?
Also you really should know "flagstone", considering that it's part of the twilight tileset in Broodwar (the dark blue/black stuff).
Not knowing "unhinged" shows that you don't play MTG.
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I'm doing this with 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson and estuary was one of the first words on my list.
There's a ton of words on that list that I recognize but I'm not completely sure what they mean. Like askew (not straight?), mauve (a colour, maybe dull yellowish orange?), deportment (the way someone carries themselves physically?), haggard, fecundity and a few more.
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This reminds me of those awful exercises back when I was a kid in school. "Read the text and look up the unknown words." (words from my native language) We had to write them down along with their definitions to prove that we actually did it. -_-'
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On June 05 2013 16:27 kjwcj wrote:
Once you have learned all of these, read The Canterbury Tales and make another blog. :D
Below is the opening few lines of the Canterbuy Tales. This was produced from memory as I was required as a lad to memorize them when we first studied it in High School.
Whan that Aprille with its shoures soote
The drogthe of March had pierced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in switch licour,
Of which vertu engendered is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth,
Inspired hath, in every holt and heeth,
The tendre croppes and the yonge sunne,
Hath in the Ram his half course y-ronne.
Yes it is all spelled weird (Middle English, yo!), I probably spelled most of it wrong, but the gist of it should be there.
Some notes on pronunciation if you are trying to read it:
-The lines do flow a bit if you are pronouncing the words correctly.
- Words like roote, soote have the 'e' at the end pronounced as an 'eh' sound. So "root-eh" for roote.
- Bathed, Inspired should be read as bath-ed (emphasis on the ed) and Inspir-ed (emphasis on the ed). Same with shour-es (emphasis on the es).
The entire text is nearly unreadable if you don't have a real translation nearby. (What is shoures, soote, drogthe, etc?) I do remember most of what this passage is about see below for my (AWFUL) attempt to bring it into modern prose. I have some () remarks in there for you to help understand what is going on there.
When April's sweet showers
Have pierced the drought of March,
And bathed every root in such liquor (1)
Of which virtue engendered is the flower. (2)
When Zephirus (3) comes with his sweet breath,
Inspiring in every wood and hearth,
the young flower shoots and the young sun,
Have in the Ram (4) their half course run. (5)
(1) Such liquor = aka water for the flowers after the drought.
(2) Basically this is a convoluted phrase saying "When the middle of April has come". He is being flowery in the language here and thus all the talk about the flower of virtue and what not.
(3) Zephirus is the greek god of wind also spelled Zephyrus, the latter is more common these days for whatever reason.
(4) He's talking about Zodiac signs here (the Ram).
(5) The Ram's sign is about halfway over in the middle of April. Hence when "the Ram's half course is run", you are in the middle of April.
A lot more in there than you thought eh? Canterbury Tales is a lot of fun to read, but certainly not for those eager for a quick read. A lot of the stories in there are rather bawdy (especially for the time) and are pretty funny if you know the context. The Prologue alone is quite long, let alone the whole of the Tales itself.
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On June 05 2013 13:54 RuskiPanda wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 12:44 felisconcolori wrote:
Interesting - it may be a volume or a genre thing, but when I read the Time Machine I was already aware of a majority of those words and their proper usage. (Fantasy and Science Fiction authors, especially from the early Golden Age, seem to like using such words.) There are a couple words in there that I am surprised someone could miss (wooden?), but then I come from a different educational system to the one that we have had for the past 20 years.
The thing that gets me about The Time Machine (and some other stories of the time) is the third person storytelling perspective as specifically laid out - most of the book is a conversation, with long stretches of only one voice speaking.
Still, a classic piece of science fiction. Jules Verne is a goldmine for that kind of stuff haha. Journey to the Centre of the Earth read more like a science textbook than an adventure novel sometimes.
I agree. I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I was amazed at how much time he spent describing the underwater life. I actually skimmed/skipped these parts because I couldn't handle all the scientific jargon he was using. I found these sections to be incredibly boring and after I skipped them, I could enjoy the book.
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i always wanted to look up words while reading but was too lazy, but thanks to the invention of ereaders my live changed drastically for reading. I was able to download books instantly (and sometimes for free!), i could carry around a ton of books in one little light weight thing (i usually have at least one non fiction and one fiction book on the go) and i can instantly look up any word i dont know with the built in dictionary. Absolutely love being able to do that.
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Wow this is so weird to me, everyone is saying how much work it is to look up words they don't know. I thought it was commonplace to do this. I have always done this, I thought it was standard to look it up if you didn't know. Its very interesting to me that most people do not do this.
I guess this might be my reason for excelling in vocab and failing in grammar. I can tell you a thrilling story with amazing syntax and vocab, that is full of run-on sentences and fragments, with comma's strewn about as if they were sprinkles on my cupcake story.
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Okay, at first I thought this was Haruki Murakami's blog. I was awestruck. But now it seems more realistic. Good on you for looking up those words! 
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On June 06 2013 09:57 Divinek wrote:
i always wanted to look up words while reading but was too lazy, but thanks to the invention of ereaders my live changed drastically for reading. I was able to download books instantly (and sometimes for free!), i could carry around a ton of books in one little light weight thing (i usually have at least one non fiction and one fiction book on the go) and i can instantly look up any word i dont know with the built in dictionary. Absolutely love being able to do that.
Dictionaries can be silly though. I don't want to read a two line description of a bird. I want a picture and maybe a map of its habitat.
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On June 06 2013 09:40 DenTenker wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2013 13:54 RuskiPanda wrote:On June 05 2013 12:44 felisconcolori wrote:
Interesting - it may be a volume or a genre thing, but when I read the Time Machine I was already aware of a majority of those words and their proper usage. (Fantasy and Science Fiction authors, especially from the early Golden Age, seem to like using such words.) There are a couple words in there that I am surprised someone could miss (wooden?), but then I come from a different educational system to the one that we have had for the past 20 years.
The thing that gets me about The Time Machine (and some other stories of the time) is the third person storytelling perspective as specifically laid out - most of the book is a conversation, with long stretches of only one voice speaking.
Still, a classic piece of science fiction. Jules Verne is a goldmine for that kind of stuff haha. Journey to the Centre of the Earth read more like a science textbook than an adventure novel sometimes. I agree. I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I was amazed at how much time he spent describing the underwater life. I actually skimmed/skipped these parts because I couldn't handle all the scientific jargon he was using. I found these sections to be incredibly boring and after I skipped them, I could enjoy the book.
The problem with reading Jules Verne in any language other than French, is that his books have often been horrendously translated to other languages, because of the scientific jargon. Also, for 20,000 leagues under the sea, the classification of the fish is completely different from modern ichthyological taxonomy, due to the fact that it was written in the 19th century.
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Haji, Have you read Heart of Darkness? If not, Conrad was a pole, who spoke english as his 3rd(?) language. Some of the most complex english vocabulary in a novel i have ever read.
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On a side note, The Time Machine was (in my opinion) an incredibly bizarre and nonsensical book. I didn't like it at all.
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Excuse me but what do you mean by "day week"?
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On June 06 2013 22:33 Silencioseu wrote:
Excuse me but what do you mean by "day week"?
Probably as in "4-day week" or stuff like that. Meaning 4 work days and 3 days off. I'm hard pressed to think of other uses. That one isn't in dictionary.com tho.
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The task becomes much easier if you own electronic dictionary with word list function. Though I haven't used it for while, the device still contains fascinating words as:
+ Show Spoiler +gyrate
enjoin
vernacular
succor
imbibe
marplot
sangfroid
confabulation
propound
ineffable
vacillate
groundswell
winsome
waylay
risible
vitiate
abut
prevaricate
vertiginous
travail
sententious
inculcate
salubrious
diffident
pusillanimous
execrable
temerity
doughty
rigmarole
vignette
truculent
augur
resplendent
shambolic
threnody
actuate
palaver
obloquy
piquant
perfunctory
imbroglio
parlance
promulgate
propitious
Not sure how many of them are common vocabulary. I mean, I guess it depends on person to person due to differing backgrounds.
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On June 05 2013 16:27 kjwcj wrote:
Once you have learned all of these, read The Canterbury Tales and make another blog. :D
I second this motion.
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I learned "archaic" from this blog. =)
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You didn't know "candlestick" before this?
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EPT
