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How many words do you know in your native language?
what is the meaning of these words and would you mind to explain it to me?
But I'm not sure whether i spell correct or wrong
1 adrenocorticotropic
2 anthropomorphosis
3 floccinaucinihilipilification
4 Antidisestablishmentarianism
And I want to ask you american people a question,'cause all of your native language is english,
My question is that do you guys know all word in english?
I mean when you are looking up your dictionaries, how many words do you understnad? 70% 90% or 100%? because it's so hard for me to understand all english words, plus,it's impossible for me to memorize all words in english so that i'm curious about that actually how many words do you guys understand in your native language?
Last edited by Rapper; 02-19-2009 at 11:26 AM.
How many words do you know in your native language?
good point
I would say ˙70 %
It 's because in our daily life, so many words that we don't need to use so that with the time goes by, most of us don't know what is the meaning of those words especially those ancient chinese words
How do you even know those words?
adrenocorticotropic is some sort of hormone
anthropomorphosis is something like human characteristics, features blah blah blah
floccinaucinihilipilification ... pfft. who cares.
Antidisestablishmentarianism is some stupid politcal or social view or something like that
THat's all you pretty much need to know. perfect explination
Americans don't speak English, they speak American English. You'll find that there are many different dialects of English, although most of the major words are common to every dialect - colloquialisms (everyday phrasing) can differ greatly in meaning depending on the country the English speaker is from.
As for your words, the only one in even semi-common useage would be anthropomorph-ic/-osis, but you'd only hear it rarely. People very occasionally talk about the word "Antidisestablishmentarianism" because it is one of the longer words in the dictionary, but few people know what it means. It refers to "people opposed to proposals to remove the Church of England's status as the state church of England [in the 1800s]". Google is your friend.
Don't listen to the guy who can't spell "explanation".
Technically, I wouldn't call American English vs Australian English dialects, because someone who speaks one would almost universally understand the other. Same with Spain Spanish vs Mexican Spanish. Maybe vulgar latin vs the latin of nobilities a few hundred years ago would qualify as dialects, but then again, maybe you'd just call them separate languages too. I don't think there's much difference between the notion of dialect and a separate language.
Oh,,thanks
I will write it down on my notebook
Last edited by Rapper; 02-19-2009 at 11:26 AM.
Thanks for you detailed explanation about my question
And yes I know there are many different dialects of English But I think that the major difference among those dialects is "accent"
And as for one of your oponions that American english is different from British english, As i mentioned, this is all about "accent" maybe some words are different meaning as well, but most of the words between American english and British english is actually same
Anyway, thanks
you're welcome. sincerely I don't know where you stole those words from, and I bet you can't and won't ever pronounce them during the rest of your life, though your life is likely to be even longer than turtles.Thanks for you detailed explanation about my question
And yes I know there are many different dialects of English But I think that the major difference among those dialects is "accent"
And as for one of your oponions that American english is different from British english, As i mentioned, this is all about "accent" maybe some words are different meaning as well, but most of the words between American english and British english is actually same
Anyway, thanks
the difference between american and british english is ignorable, we speak it in different ways though. but none of us use those words in our usual lives, and we never use them in our articles unless we work on relating areas, and none of us has the addiction to post weird words on any kind of forum except those insane guys who have problems with their heads.
Keep it up, friend, I would feel extremely frustrated if you stop embarrassing yourself.
Even though Rogue is very rude, he's right about this point. These are not words that are going to come up in every day conversation. Your English is pretty good Rapper. Just keep practicing.
Hi my best friend on spurstalk
Where have you been these days and how is it going?
Yes I know these words are not going to come up in every day conversation and the reason why I ask you guys this question is just because of my homework, my professor offers these 4 words for me and requests me that I need to find out what do these words mean, so i posted a thread here
Anyway, so good to see you
Figuring out what the long words mean is easier if you have a grasp of the parts.
English words, especially scientific ones, tend to use greek roots.
Without looking them up
1 adrenocorticotropic
adreno- having to do with the adrenaline/glandular system
cort- having to do with the immune system
cotropic- area?? (as in Tropic of Cancer) border??
My best guess is that this is an adjective meaning:
"something that is part of the human immune system's glands"
2 anthropomorphosis
Anthro-- human
morphic-- to change
osis-- process of (this is a way of denoting/indicating a gerund, i.e word that isn't a noun into a noun, in this case making an adjective into a noun.
This is the noun form that means:
Process of making or imbuing (giving to) inanimate/non-human objects human characteristics, i.e. in cartoons when a mouse talks, or walks around on it's hind legs, or drives a car.
3 floccinaucinihilipilification
Damned if I know
-ification indicates another gerund, meaning this word is a noun.
-nihil - is to nullfy/destroy/kill as is annihilate. If memory serves it means something akin to "nothing" in greek.
My best guess, without looking it up:
Some biological process, involving the death or destruction of something, whatever a "flocci" is.
4 Antidisestablishmentarianism
anti- against or opposite
dis- apart or outside
-ism dentotes that the world is a noun, generally an idea or philosophy
establishment a common word for the established order.
This would would then mean "against the idea of seperating one's self from society".
Just break it down into it's component parts.
Perfect, you are so fantastic for explainning it so detailed to me!!!!
I appreciate you for that, I must copy it all in order to hand in my homework to my professor
1 adrenocorticotropic
-cort is not exactly "immune system", but rather denotes "steroid"Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH or corticotropin) is a polypeptide tropic hormone produced and secreted by the anterior pituitary gland. It is an important component of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and is often produced in response to biological stress (along with corticotropin-releasing hormone from the hypothalamus). Its principal effects are increased production of androgens and, as its name suggests, cortisol from the adrenal cortex.
My guess is that this steroid serves some function in the immune system tho'.
2 anthropomorphosis
3 floccinaucinihilipilificationAn`thro`po`mor´pho`sis
n. 1. Transformation into the form of a human being
4 antidisestablishmentarianismRare. the estimation of something as valueless (encountered mainly as an example of one of the longest words in the English language).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Origin:
1735–45; < L floccī + naucī + nihilī + pilī all meaning “of little or no value, trifling” + -fication
Main Entry: antidisestablishmentarianism
Part of Speech: n
Definition: originally, opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England, now opposition to the belief that there should no longer be an official church in a country
Example: When people are asked for the longest word they know, they often say antidisestablishmentarianism.
----------------------------------
Pretty much got at least some part of each word right, if not the entire meaning.
In each case, though, understanding the parts of the words, and the origin (greak, latin, etc) got me closer to understanding the word. If the words were used in context, that would provide another part of understanding an unfamiliar word.
Here is one that most english speakers don't know:
Coffee- origin of this word is arabic, "Qaf"
Arabic denotes possession by adding an "i" (long "e") at the end.
So if you were to ask an arabic speaker holding a cup of Qaf what it was, he/she would say "Qafi", meaning "My Qaf".
If you weren't really up on the specifics of the language, you would then write a letter back to your friends in England/Europe about "Coffee", and not "Coff", as I would guess was done.
I would not quite do that, as all of that was simply from my memory. I am good, but not quite perfect.Perfect, you are so fantastic for explainning it so detailed to me!!!!
I appreciate you for that, I must copy it all in order to hand in my homework to my professor
Your best bet is to try and break the parts of the words up and look them up in some kind of reference book, but you get the idea as to how to figure out what a word means by using the component parts.
English is part of the Germanic family of European languages, but borrows heavily from Latin for a lot of reasons.
In Europe, the first real widespread written language was Latin, from the old Roman Empire.
Latin itself borrowed a lot of words from Greek, when Greece was the most advanced portion of Western civilization.
Over time and centuries ago, Latin was the commonly accepted language of Christianity and was studied by anybody who wanted to learn to read and write.
It then became the language of science, especially since the language "died" with the Roman empire and quit changing, due to lack of living speakers. Living languages like modern American change constantly.
So when you see words that look long or unusual, they are most likely from either Latin or Greek.
Wow, well said, and this is my first time to hear something about that but good for me though
BTW, your saying style is like a teacher
Anyway, thanks once again
Spain Spanish??
What the is that?
People in Spain speak Spanish. Although, there are regional dialects in Spain as well. There's Galician, Catalonioan, etc.
People in Mexico speak a dialect of Spanish. There are many variations of Spanish.
Germans have the same thing. There's High German, which most Germans speak, but there's also Bavarian and a couple of other dialects.
The Chinese have this as well. Mandarin Chinese seems to be the most popular dialect, but I believe there's well over 100 dialects in Chinese.
Are you saying Galician and Catalan are dialects of Spanish? If so, I don't think you could consider those dialects of the type of Spanish spoken in Spain. I would consider those specific languages.
As to Mexican Spanish....The northern way of speaking in my opinion, is the best sounding.
Half wrong half right
Yes Mandarin Chinese is by far the most popular and important language in China nowadays, but how come i say you're "half wrong half right" is that because there are more than 3000 dialects in China nowadays
But all of us know Mandarin despite of accent difference,like you american english, Boston accent, NY accent, southern accent whatever, However, actually to our Chinese, what dialect do we speak is depending on what province do we live in, each province has its own dialect, but as i mentioned,Mandarin definitely dominites all part of China, all of us can speak it, But usually there are just 6 major dialects in China, besides those 6 dialects, other dialects jsut belong to very few part of Chinese people
PS:" one dialect called Cantonese, this is the most signifficant dialect in China except Mandarin . accroding to the lateset report from the news, there are more than 30 million people in the world who speak Cantonese as thier first language or second language.
Last edited by Rapper; 02-19-2009 at 12:49 PM.
I did say there was well over 1000 dialects of Chinese. So, I was right.
They are not "specifc languages", they are dialects.
German has hundreds of dialects. Many of them are dying or dead, but High German should be distinguished between Modern High German and Old High German.
Remember that Germany, before 1860 or so, was composed of 200-300 little to medium sized kingdoms, a result of both the Black plague and the Protestant reformation wars, both of wich destroyed the bulk of the German population, and any social development of that country/society with it.
"Spain Spanish" is actually referred to as "Castillian Spanish".
The differences between the language spoken in Spain and the language spoken in Mexico are very analogous to the differences between American English and British English.
Most Mexicans (to my knowledge) think that Spaniards speak Spanish in an effete, gy kind of way, just like Americans view hoity-toity British English speakers.
Oh sorry for my negect
so yes, you're right
But I got to admire you for your good sense and knowledge in Chinese language, 'cause just a few american people know about that
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