This thread reminds of the time a young brother and I worked not-at-homes on a Monday evening. It was awful. Everyone was at home. We had to talk to them all. Fortunately, none of them were the least bit interested.
ChrisVance
JoinedPosts by ChrisVance
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35
Pack your bags - we're going on a GUILT TRIP!
by Scully inhttp://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=35901&site=3 .
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=35828&site=3 .
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=35861&site=3 .
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ChrisVance
The worst one I ever observed was at a district convention. A boy about six years old told his mother that he had a headache. She told me to sit quiet and pray and if he really loved jehovah his headache would go away. Good grief!
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In memorial of my cat...
by Tashawaa ini lost someone very special to me.
my cat.. she was 12 years old.
she was the friendliest, most loving, cat i had ever owned.
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ChrisVance
Sorry for your loss. I love my kitties too and know it would be hard to lose them. Take care.
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21 Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn
by Larry in21 reasons why the english language is so hard to learn:.
1) the bandage was wound around the wound.. 2) the farm was used to produce produce.. 3) the dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.. 4) we must polish the polish furniture.. 5) he could lead if he would get the lead out.. 6) the soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.. 7) since there is no time like the present, he thought it was.
time to present the present.. 8) a bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.. 9) when shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.. 10) i did not object to the object.. 11) the insurance was invalid for the invalid.. 12) there was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.. 13) they were too close to the door to close it.. 14) the buck does funny things when the does are present.. 15) a seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.. 16) to help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.. 17) the wind was too strong to wind the sail.. 18) after a number of injections my jaw got number.. 19) upon seeing the tear in the painting i shed a tear.. 20) i had to subject the subject to a series of tests.. 21) how can i intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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ChrisVance
SNG -
Applied Linguistics? Sounds fascinating! What applications do you study for it?
For this program I?ve had to sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, child language acquistion, a class which included semantics, phonology, syntax, and morphology among other things, literacy, several investigation classes. I?ve also taken syntax, Spanish linguistics, and educational technology. I?m going to do my thesis on family literacy. I?m about half done with the program/
I've often marveled at the level of intrasentence agreement in Latin-based languages.
I find it frustrating, especially when I don?t know if the noun is masculine or feminine
Take for example the following Spanish sentence:
Also, in English there is subject-verb agreement, but only in the present tense. For example, we must say:
She goes to school. (verb matches the singular subject "she")
Have you ever noticed how many learners of English have problems with this one. Imagine if every tense, mood, person and number required a change. As you say:
Whereas in Spanish (and other Latin-based languages), there is much more complex subject-verb agreement, and for every tense and mood!
So yeah, I think English is pretty gramatically simple compared to that. But if you think English is simple, Japanese would blow you away: no subject-verb agreement, no gender on nouns, no plurals (with a couple exceptions), only two basic tenses, and explicit markers indicating the function of each grammatical piece in a sentence. If only they didn't have their extraordinarily complex writing system, it'd be awesome!
Actually, one things linguists love to study is this type of language where there's an explicit marker for grammatical function. Seems to me that would be very difficult, like the verb tense, mood, number and person markers in romance languages. In english we're used to using order to indicate the grammatical function.
BTW, do you live in Seattle? I've lived in Olympia for about 22 years, while I was a dub, and in Seattle for 10 years, after I left the dubs.
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21 Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn
by Larry in21 reasons why the english language is so hard to learn:.
1) the bandage was wound around the wound.. 2) the farm was used to produce produce.. 3) the dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.. 4) we must polish the polish furniture.. 5) he could lead if he would get the lead out.. 6) the soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.. 7) since there is no time like the present, he thought it was.
time to present the present.. 8) a bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.. 9) when shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.. 10) i did not object to the object.. 11) the insurance was invalid for the invalid.. 12) there was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.. 13) they were too close to the door to close it.. 14) the buck does funny things when the does are present.. 15) a seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.. 16) to help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.. 17) the wind was too strong to wind the sail.. 18) after a number of injections my jaw got number.. 19) upon seeing the tear in the painting i shed a tear.. 20) i had to subject the subject to a series of tests.. 21) how can i intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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ChrisVance
I'm living in Mexico doing my master's in applied linguistics. Compared to what myauntfanny said about German Spanish is easy. Although Spanish is considered the easiest language for English speakers to learn, it is very dificult. The verbs are much more complicated than English. There is "gender" to think about every time you open your mouth even though is has no communicative value unless you're speaking about people or animals. The same situation exists with "it" that exists with German but with less possibilities. Then there's the subjunctive. It doesn't really exist in English, but every time you open your mouth in Spanish you must think, "Does the subjunctive apply here?" and if it does, is it present or past?
I teach English in Mexico and although the students have a problems with the pronunciation, which is much harder than English, English is easy. Why do you think so many people learn it as a second language? One reason is that it's so easy.
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Phoenix, AZ -- Valley of the Sun -- Any PHX people?
by [email protected] inphoenix, az -- valley of the sun -- any phx people?
lookin' for locals.
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ChrisVance
I'm in Phoenix. I sent you an e-mail.
I got the following message.
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Delivery to the following recipients failed.
[email protected] -
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Phoenix, AZ -- Valley of the Sun -- Any PHX people?
by [email protected] inphoenix, az -- valley of the sun -- any phx people?
lookin' for locals.
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ChrisVance
I'm in Phoenix. I sent you an e-mail.
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Most hated WT publication
by Nosferatu inwhat is the wt publication you hated the most?
why did you hate it?
for me, it was probably that damn pink great teacher book.
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ChrisVance
All scripture inspired of god and beneficial
Not only is it extremely boring, but we must have gone over 18 times while I was a dub. It was usually the basis for the instruction talk. How do we know the bible's inspired. Because it says so silly.
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Are you Gay
by butterfly ini "came out" a few years ago, after living straight for 30 years.
tried to deny all those years that i was a lesbian.
but even if i didnt act on it...i still was.
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ChrisVance
Valis, Another week of classes and then two weeks to finish three final papers. What ever possessed me to work on a master's degree in my old age? I'm 54 fer gawd's sake. I mean for atheism's sake.
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Are you Gay
by butterfly ini "came out" a few years ago, after living straight for 30 years.
tried to deny all those years that i was a lesbian.
but even if i didnt act on it...i still was.
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ChrisVance
Hi butterbly, yes, I'm gay, but I'm afraid I won't be much help as I'm an atheist. After I left the dubs, about 12 years ago, I still believed in god, but after seriously thinking about it, I decided god was just a concept created by men.
I haven't posted for a long time because I'm in Mexico working on my Master's degree. They're working me to death. I'm suffering from end of the semester syndrome. Regards to all, Christopher