Slavo

1 - Undoubtedly, I'm grateful for that.
2 - Yes, I'm Polish. Let say, that we got different thinking about reality and time space than anglosaxon's nations have. We divide time just into Past Tenses, Present Tense <now>, and Future Tense.

Those Past tenses are smth like
Past Completed and smth like Past Continous)
We compare your Past Simple with our Past Tense,
Your Past Continous with smth comparable to it.


Your Present Perfect is difficult to understand cos it's smth between the Past Tense and Present Tense. There's always some element of the Present in that tense.


BTW, it's as difficult to understand for me as difference between 'you' in single, and 'you' in plural for the English or Americans. That's why some ppl write (you all - as plural conterpart to our Polish form 'wy'). Maybe, understanding of Present Perfect is even much harder.


3 - I think I'll have many questions. Maybe not so long as those posted last time. They are sufficient, believe me.

THX

chinoise

Hi, Slavo,

First of all, I'm Chinese. In Chinese, we have present perfect tense, so it's easy for me to understand its English equivalent. The present perfect tense emphasizes the completion of an action and experience, up to the present moment. e.g.

Have you finished? Have you had any experience?

As you the diff btw singular and plural you, there's the distinction in Chinese between the sing and pl form, but I have no problem with the English "you". There's no need to distinguish the single and plural you, since when you use "you", as I'm addressing you right now, the "you" understands whom I'm speaking to.

For your information, there's no conjugation of verbs in Chinese, and we have no distinction between him/her, he/she in speaking. For diff tenses we just add words like now, past, before to distinguish the time.

Slavo

OOOPS! What a mistake. I'm really sorry but I didn't know that. I've got a quetion. Where can I find the nationality of the members here? How did you find out that I'm the Polish?

You wrote smth about adding words like now, past, b4.
Thats the same way how we distinguish S.Past and Pres. Perf. To me both of them are past tenses, rather than Present. If I wanna sign that smth have just happened, I add word 'just' to our Past Tense. I think there's a big similarity.

The 'you' issue. I didn't mean I have a problem to say in both ways 'you'. It's not a problem to 'reduce' your language. The problem is in the distiction of smth what in your own lg is the same thing. I mean, it may be hard to the English to understand when say smth and when smth else
(polish you in plural and in single which are two diff words)


I've got a friend in the UK, and he agreed that may be confusing when you say to 1 particular person in a group 'you should came for a party'.
In that case, whole group may feel that they are invited.


I'm not sure my prepositions so it doesn't have to be "FOR a party". Just don't know what.

Greetings from POL&

chinoise

This is how I found out:

Hi y'all! My name is Sławek.
I'm 20 yo. As you can see I came from Poland. If you have never been there (especially to Kraków), you should regret. Anyway, I'm a new one on this forum, so I'm...

Chinoise is the french word for chinese female, whereas Slavo means Slavic people, right?

In chinese, just means a past immediate action, so it's present perfect, unlike an action happened a longer time ago. "You singular" is 你 whereas "you plural" is 你們.

In English, if you're asking one person in a group to a party, you can address that person's name or ask that person aside, to avoid misunderstanding.

For prepositions you can always check with an advanced learner's dictionary. It's the most difficult part in English, even with native speakers.

Have a nice day from Hong Kong.

Slavo

:D, OK I know I'm stupid. Don't have 2 emphasize that.
I thought I can check it somewhere. Anyway. Let leave that 'you' thing.
I just mentioned that for a fun. There's nothing hard in that at all.

So ur a girl. What a suprise. And no, SLAVO it's just my nickname, but you are clever.
I think that Chinese are similar 2 Japanese, I mean you are considered as hard-working nations.

You know, in the next thread we may talk about culture diff between the West and the Orient. I found out many interesting things like diff meaning of eye-contact. In the West culture countries if you look ppl in the eyes you are considered that you are polite and you are focused on the speaker. At the same time, in Japan if you look ppl in the eyes you show the invasion or challange. What do you think about that?


For us, the hardest is to master CONDITIONALS (if...)

TNX 4 ALL

chinoise

Hi, Slavo,

I never hinted and thought that you're stupid, you're way too sensitive. I just thought that you forgot what you'd written.

In Hong Kong, looking into someone's eye means polite and honest too. If you don't look into someone's eye, esp when you meet a policeman, he'll suspect you and check your ID card. Btw, I've been to Japan, I think it's the same there, meaning polite and honest. Any more cultural question?

Slavo

First of all I got huge distance to myself, and that what I've done is called auto-irony. And I know you didn't mean to underline that.
Second of all, are you sure about that eye-contact issue? I cannot check this out by myself now, by that's what they teach me about.

Next issue: colors (or British spelling colours)

West:

White : angle, wedding dress (symbol - purity)
Black : crow, night, death, magic (sybol - evil, misfortune)

Far East:

White: funeral dress (misfortune, mourning) \ possiblitity of making a big mistake saying: What a nice white dress you have.

Red: wedding dress (happiness)


My teacher of Linguistics could tell you more. I do not have so vast knownledge. Any suggestions?