Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 October 11

= October 11 =

Japanese Question: 抑揚がない?
In the margin of the results from an oral exam my Japanese professor wrote, concerning my Japanese:

イントネーションに気をつけて

よくようがない時が多い

I understand the first part means I should be careful about my intonations, but I'm unsure about the second sentence.

Is this a compliment meaning, "There are many times when you seem to have no accent (while speaking Japanese)",

or does it mean, more likely given the context,

"There are many times when (your Japanese) lacks (the correct) intonation/accent"?

If a native speaker would answer, I would greatly appreciate it. (I'm leaving for Fall Break, otherwise I would just ask my Japanese professor). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.239.177.28 (talk) 06:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The correct interpretation is the second one. Oda Mari (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Oda Mari. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.23.131 (talk) 13:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Condolezza Rice
What languages does she speak? Vltava 68 (talk  contribs ) 06:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * She appears to be fluent in Bushese. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) kwami (talk) 06:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In the past she has claimed to be fluent in Russian, but when she was interviewed by a Russian talk radio show she had to speak English, and when a caller asked her in Russian if she wanted to become president one day, she misunderstood the question and said "Da, da" until the host repeated the question and she said "President? Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet". So all she actually said in Russian herself was da and nyet. —Angr 08:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Президент (prezident) is a Russian word, so let's give her marks for that one, too. :)  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:16, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It appears that to be fluent in Bushese means a person can say they are fluent in Russian and get away with it until they are out of the country. ;) Julia Rossi (talk) 07:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Without taking a political stance here, we all know that sometimes the media asserts that people have claimed certain skills when in fact they've never made such claims. As I understand it, she's said she "speaks" Russian, French and Spanish.  That doesn't necessarily means she speaks any of these languages fluently, or fluently enough to get by in a live interview.  I claim to "speak Russian" too, but in such a situation, I'd probably be just as lost as Condy was.  My claim means that I can conduct a low-level conversation at slower than normal speed, using simple words and structures.  Whenever I watch a Russian movie on TV, I need the subtitles just as much as anyone else, because without them I can only catch one out of five words, sometimes less.  Normal conversational Russian (and most other languages) is a whole new ball game compared with the formal language we're taught in college.  --  JackofOz (talk) 19:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't Bushese the language of the Bushmen (wink) ?

Ř
How in the world is this Czech letter pronounced? I can't quite get it... Vltava 68 (talk  contribs ) 06:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Make a trill, then hold it while you raise the body of your tongue until you get something like a (French J) sound. Or perhaps you could make a  sequence, then move the two sounds closer and closer until they overlap. If you pronounce Dvořák as "Dvoržák", then shift the syllable break from  to  so that you can say "ržák" on its own, then you're pretty darn close. kwami (talk) 06:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What is a trill? 203.188.92.70 (talk) 07:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The regular Czech R. Or a Spanish rr. kwami (talk) 07:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * See Trill consonant. --ColinFine (talk)


 * The Guinness Book of Records says: "The rarest sound is probably ř, termed a rolled post-alveolar fricative, which occurs in very few languages and is the last sound mastered by Czech children". If that's true, you'd need special training from a native speaker, and lots of practice, and with the best will in the world, you won't master it from any answers we could give here.  I worked with a Czech lady once, and I asked her to help me get it.  I'm very good with making unfamiliar sounds and mimicking foreign accents, but no matter how hard I tried, over a period of years, I could never make the exact sound she was making.    You can get close, which is probably close enough for general use.  But if you're wanting to pronounce it as a native does, you may have your work cut out for you.  (It may be best to go back to your childhood and start there.)  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Not even all Czechs can pronounce the letter correctly. The best way to think of Ř is a zh made at the same time as a Spanish r. -- 76.190.138.251 (talk) 04:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I read here that even Václav Havel has problems with this letter. 203.188.92.70 (talk) 09:40, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I would have expected that we'd have an article on the sound. Hmm... what title should it have? Steewi (talk) 22:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * We have an article on the letter Ř. --  JackofOz (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Could one of you add a stub class or whatsoever it's called thing there? 203.188.92.70 (talk) 09:30, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you mean ř? It is added there already. --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 09:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think he means it should be marked as a stub, but Ř is about the letter, not about the sound, so I wonder how much more info you could add there. There is a one-paragraph section about Raised alveolar non-sonorant trill in Alveolar trill though. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 13:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

"I had a question which answer is likely to vary from person to person"
Which of the following is correct "I had a question which answer is likely to vary from person to person", "I had a question whose answer is likely to vary from person to person" or something else?


 * "I had a question, the answer of which is likely to vary from person to person" or "I had a question; its answer will likely vary from person to person" both seem (IMO) better. "I had a question; likely its answer will vary from person to person" seems better yet. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I at least am more likely to say "the answer to a question" than "the answer of a question", so I'd say "I had a question, the answer to which is likely to vary from person to person" or "...a question to which the answer is...". —Angr 17:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Definitely: 'I had a question, the answer to which is likely to vary from person to person'. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 17:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * See: Relative pronouns. Who / whose is used when the antecedent is human, which is used in the context of animals and things.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * A strong vote here for "... whose answer....". "Whose" can be used in this context for an inanimate antecedent, and gives a smoother sentence. (P.S. see lots of discussions of the subject.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that "whose" can be the genitive of "which" as well as the genitive of "who", but in this case, I think "to which" is more natural. —Angr 18:46, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * And I say it's less natural. But that's a matter of personal style.  (Or to put it another way, it's a point of variation whose preferred choice is likely to vary from person to person.)  In any case I hope everyone agrees that the original version with "which" is wrong. --Anonymous, 21:41 UTC, October 11, 2008.
 * I agree with Anonymous: I like AndrewWTaylor's best, and Angr's second; and "...a question which answer..." is ungrammatical. The others are grammatical but I dislike them all.  Some people (possibly a British-American thing?) dislike the use of "likely" as a standalone adverb, as in Finlay's second and third suggestions. jnestorius(talk) 23:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Is the whole sentence meant to be reporting something that's in the past now? I know the focus has been on the which/whose issue, but there may be more to it than that.  Juxtaposing "I had a question" with ".. answer is likely ..", sounds a little odd to my ears.  I'd use either "I have a question ... answer is likely" or "I had a question ... answer was likely".  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)