Inside The Language

Hello Somy J,

Good effort on submitting your answer on the shortest English sentence.

It depends on how you define a sentence. If you ascribe to the definition of a sentence being containing a subject + verb + making a complete thought, then “Go” would not qualify.

In my opinion “I am” does meet this definition of a sentence. Let us hear what you think.

Well, now that we’re into 2016, let’s start off with a pop-quiz:

Question:

What is the shortest complete English sentence?

JasleenKaur, congratulations for reading the complete “Inside the Language” forum writings. Hopefully there was some helpful information for you.

If you would like to take some more reading journeys, I invite you to read the “Culture and Understanding American English Phrases forums.”

Thanks for your feedback. 

http://www.englishbaby.com/lessons/6488/member_submitted/culture_forum

http://www.englishbaby.com/lessons/5744/member_submitted/understanding_american_english_phrases

I have just experienced a great journey through the lesson from the very beginning to the latest comment, and I really enjoyed every bit and every tip of it.

Mr. Alston, Many thanks for your lessons.

I just read the latest comments on this forum and I find them quite interesting (especially the crime story) so I’m about to pack up and take a tour through this wonderful forum too.

La Princesse de la vie, I also face this disappointment every now and then. It sounds that learning a new language is a lifetime process especially when we live in an environment that the language is not widely spoken out there.

But as you mentioned there is no regret because the learning process is a bundle of joys. I like your attitude towards learning English as you described it as a great journey. In fact, It has been the most enjoyable journey that I’ve gone through in my life. I’ve seen different cultures and made a lot of friends on this journey. It even was more adventurous than Jules Verne’s around the world in eighty days.

Mr. Alston, I really appreciate your efforts and I’ll start to put every tip into practice from now. 

Learning is such fun and authentic with your informative lessons.

Many thanks to you, sir! 

La Princes, my previous post has been revised significantly, therefore I hope the revision will benefit you and others.

Yes you can achieve your goal of fluency if you continue your pursuit.

La Princes, congratulations on reading the lessons from the beginning to the current post. Your learning and enjoyment and makes it worth it for me to write them. I understand that you have started on the other forums I’ve written and I hope they will be informative for you.

Concerning your disappointment at yourself because of the assessment of your learning English, here is my recommendation.

In addition to “Learning English” try adding “Acquiring English” as one of your learning methods

Native speakers “Acquired English” because of their environment and this method will benefit learners of English as much as is possible.

If you listen and read the writings of native speakers, you will discover that for many of us, our grammar is not very good but we still get the message across.

By comparison, many ESL/EFL students are good in grammar but it has to be balanced with using what you know at every opportunity.

Assessing which part of speech words are is important, but just as important is overcoming the fear of making mistakes.

In my opinion, an effective method to develop your listening, speaking, and comprehension skills are found in the “Using Songs and Music to Learn English” on my profile page or any method of using good contemporary music.

I say this because understanding the message of the songs will bridge the gap to understanding a native speaker.

Anyway, that’s my recommendation and here’s another one.

Think, speak, and write, in English. The old saying “use it or lose it” is true in any endeavor.

Thanks for taking the time to communicate your thoughts.

Thank you Mr. Alston for your great efforts and helpful lessons.

I have just experienced a great journey through the lesson from the very beginning to the latest comment, and I really enjoyed every bit and every tip of it.

However, I got disappointed and confused at myself, because I’ve been learning a lot and writing down notes since so long, and yet still need to translate some sentences to grasp the meaning behind the unfamiliar words. I wonder if I would be ever, in the near future, able to understand a native speaker without any outer help!

Thank you again mr. Alston. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this.

Unless it is double jeopardy.

Anja and S&W you both are correct in your assessment. The suspects’ mis-use of the past tense “was” caused the detectives to take note, and the DNA that was found in the victim’s car linked him to the crime.

It goes to show that there is no such thing as the “perfect crime,” especially when words give us away. No one can tame the tongue and “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks!”

I was impressed by this story from which  i got a conclusion “If you can’t use tense properly then stay away from crime.

The story demonstrates once again the logical role grammar assumes as one of various supporting cornerstones for communication. Well-targeted, it would have saved his neck ;)

Lesson on the Misuse of a Grammar Tense that connects a suspect with a terrible crime

Recently in California there was a news report of a family who was missing and it was reported to the police. Therefore the police started a search to locate the family with no success.

However, some years later an off-road motorcyclist discovered them buried in the desert. Upon this discovery the police questioned the deceased business partner.

Upon questioning, the business partner made the statement that he “was one of my best friends.”  The homicide detective and his partner noticed his use of the word “was” in referring to the individual.

In other words, he spoke of him in the past tense which implied that he knew he was dead, because he did it! If he didn’t know this fact, he would have said, “he IS my friend” in the present tense rather than WAS in the past tense.

You can see from this example how important the use of words can be!

You’re welcome Anja.  You’re so right concerning the relationship between language and culture.  I thought it significant enough to start a forum on it and invite you and others to read the information that was posted.  Here’s the link:

http://www.englishbaby.com/lessons/6488/member_submitted/culture_forum

Thank you Alston.

Your explanation and/or the effort to clarify this term is very much appreciated.

Working with words and the language of a nation opens doors to their culture!

I love it ;)

“It’s all uphill from here” meaning:

Hello Anja this is a good question. In the US it commonly means the situation is going to be difficult.  Literally you can equate it with going up a hill which takes more effort to achieve the goal of reaching the top of the hill.

The (a) answer is somewhat correct although commonly it means the way forward is going to be difficult.  The main point of using this phrase is to communicate the difficulty or “rough road” that is expected, not necessarily predicting the worst to come.

Please free for any additional feedback on this topic.

Thanks for your “fun” compliment! :)

Hello Alston,

I’ve recently came across this very interesting phrase and thought this might be a good example that English cannot be understood literally, as you already explained in point 4.

So the question is, does “it’s all uphill from here” mean that

a) the worst has yet to come or

b) is it a positive notion of a negative path the speaker has been on up till now?

This is really tricky or even confusing for German students as in the German language the word uphill itself is commonly used to describe someones recovery after suffering from health-issues. 

This shows again how cultural differences influence the understanding of a language. In the above example, such “false friends” could cause a lot of speculation between a non-native speaker and a native speaker. 

Thanks for providing all of us with always interesting facts about the English language :)

It’s so much fun to learn with you , Alston!

Hello Everyone, during your English reading and vocabulary building, make a note of the words that have prefixes and suffixes from the list below. Then compare the actual word meaning with the meaning that is included in the prefixes/suffixes list.

You will see that the meanings are pretty close. 

You’re welcome.