[Magdalen] Do's and Don'ts.

[Jay Weigel]

All languages have things like that when moving into English. The one that
never failed to amuse me was when taking report from my Indian co-workers
who were mostly native Malayalam speakers, "So I called the doctor, and he
told.." instead of "he said".

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> My partner, being a native Spanish speaker does well with English,  but
> he does have some hang ups that make him seem less smart than he is.
> I teeter between helping and hindering his irregular English verb  problem,
> and have almost concluded any attempts at improvement of these hang  ups is
> fruitless.
>
> The most prominent of these English verb hang ups is the hard working
> English verb, to do.  He doesn't get the third person singular  ending.
> So it's "he/she/it don't".
>
> On one occasion, when I tried a low-key correction of this he  surprised
> me by asking what about the second person singular of this verb.
>
> I had to explain that it is "Thou dost" but that form is archaic.   His
> response was, "Well it isn't in Spanish".
>
> Then there is the confusion between the verbs "to stand" and "to  stay".
>
> He routinely says, "I stood there for three hours waiting for the  nurse
> to call me".  Of course he means he "stayed there for three  hours...."
>
> Old habits die hard.
>
> He is, however, having fun correcting some of his friends who say,  "Seeing
> the
> dead rat made me nauseous", meaning, technically, "Seeing the dead  rat
> made me nauseating". when the correct word is:  "Seeing the  dead
> rat made me nauseated."
>
>
>
> David Strang.
>