Can I Use "Would" In Present Tense?

Ya, can I? Some say I can, some say I can only use "would" in past tense. I need answer!

Note to self: must research this one. In the meantime, I may able to find the answer here. Speaking of "may", can I use its past tense "might" in the present tense as well?

Are They Caught Driving Without A Licence?

... or are they caught driving without licences?

Not to self: find out how to shift between singular or plural.

Donkey Comes Second

Which one is the correct expression, I and my friend or my friend and I? If you ever come across this dilemma in your writing, just remember that the donkey comes second.

Who is the donkey? I'm afraid that's you. So, you must come second. It's my friend and I.

Is Research Singular Or Plural?

Research is singular. It's plural is researches. Hence the sentence "Research debunks 'out of Taiwan' migration theory".

How do I know this? Because the New York Times says so. If NY Times says researches, then it must be the plural of research. The Times can't be wrong.

Should The Noun That Follows The Word "Some" Be Plural?

I've heard people use the expression "some people" in reference to a particular person. So, on the same note, can I say "some bloggers" in reference to only one person?

And another thing, should the noun after the word "all" must always be plural? If that is so, then the phrase "people are advised to postpone all travel" will be wrong? Should it be "all travels" instead?

How Pure Is The English Language?

Here's how it is not:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

By James D. Nicoll.

Uniformised vs Standardised

Ok, nevermind the spelling. It's British. The American spelling is "uniformized and standardized".

I've had a sleepless night over the word "uniformised" which I've used to translate the Malay word "diseragamkan". Seragam in Malay is "uniform", so diseragamkan is to make create a uniformity of someting, hence my translation "uniformised".

The Malay phrase in question is... "harga akan diseragamkan di semua kawasan", which I translated "the price of goods will be uniformised in all areas".

But my superior said the correct translation should be "standardised". So the correct translation should be "the price of goods will be standardised in all areas". I kind of agreeing with him. The term is definitely more commonly used, at least in Malaysia.

But to me, standardised has the meaning of having achieve a certain level of quality while uniformised is just about making things looking the same. Had my English was better, I would have argued with him.

But no. I had better learn first.

When In Doubt, Don't Simply Leave It Out

Consult thesaurus.com or Merriam-Webster. Both online.

Phasal Verbs

I find this installment of BBC Learning English, very enlightening. It's about Phrasal Verbs, titled "Face Up To Phrasal".

It has 12 episodes of Fred and Betty battling it our with their "phrasal" ammunition.

Word Has It That...

In not too distant future, I'm going to see a movement, a vertical movement as well as a horizontal one.

A vertical movement because I'll be moving up the rank and vertical movement because I'll be moving from where I sit at the moment to another section of the office.

I've heard about this long ago and in fact, had made known my reluctance to take up the position. So the management knows my stand on the matter but if they decide to proceed with the appointment, I think I'm going to accept it and stick my neck out.

I mean, I can't be writing a letter to reject the appointment. Can I? That would be preposterous.

You might wonder why I'm reluctant to take up the post. Well, because it has something to do with English. Anyone who take up the position must be competent in the language first, and have a good management skills second.

I know I can learn fast and improve my command of the language up to the level required for the post, but not this fast. Not within the next few weeks.

I need at least one full year of intensive learning to be able to become competent in the language.

But I think if the letter is out, like I said, I'm going to accept the post, and then from there, I'm going to learn as fast and as intensive as I can.

I might as well jump into the pond and learn how to swim.

If Feet Is The Plural Of Foot, Why Must They Set Their Foot And Not Their Feet?

Here is the answer. It's call plural noun forms. And set their foot is wrong. It should be set their feet. They've never set their feet on land.

Sixty Per Cent Knowledge, The Rest Is Guesswork And Research

Sixty per cent knowledge, 10 per cent guesswork, another 30 per cent research. That's the amount of competency I could muster when I do translation job.

The ratio needed for good English translators would be 90, 0, 10. Guesswork must be set at zero because you must never allow second-guessing to creep in the translated copy. You must be very sure of the grammar and the choice of words.

Fell Is A Present Tense, Its Past Tense Is Felled

"Fell" is one of the words that confuses me a lot because it has two meaning but both related to something moving from top to below.

Fell is the past tense of fall but it is also a present tense with the meaning "to chop down trees". The past tense of fell is felled. Won't be too confusing for those who learn English from the beginning.

Ah, English!

Buy Books On Amazon

Hi, in case you were suddenly overcome by a strong feeling that you must buy a particular book while reading this blog, here's an Amazon.com search link where you can enter the title book you are looking for and order online. At Amazon.com, you can have the option of buying new, or used ones at a very low price.

No Promo Experiment

I run multiple blogs. Including this one, I have altogether seven active blogs, four of them, with their own domain dotcom names, are hosted on Bluehost, which I don't hesitate to recommend to anyone wanting to have their blogs or websites hosted.

Of the seven blogs,. perhaps this is the only blog that I made no effort to promote, not even submitting to blog directories.

This is meant to be a personal blog which chronicle my experience in learning English and I don't mind if it has only three readers -- me, myself and I -- because I do learn a lot form blogging here.

I shall keep on doing this and let this blog takes the life of its own -- ops, I almost put it as taking its own life -- and if someone does come by, I can only say one thing, thank you for the visit and hope you would come back again if not every day, then every week.

Note: this post is not proofread properly so you might find an intolerable number of grammar mistakes and the weakness in the flow between the paragraphs.

Resigned and Relinquished

Sometimes there are no two ways to learn English other than to use it. And use it often and to try and use it correctly each time. Only then can self-taught English users move forward.

My written English is way better than my spoken English because I seldom speak in the language English. I think a lot in that language though and use the language in its written form more than I use the Malay language.

So you would find me struggling to construct a sentence when you speak to me in English because I keep on correcting the way I speak English and my mind would not be able to process the correction fast enough to make the conversation meaningful.

This is one area I intend to improve on.

Even in its written form I find it hard to express myself in English but at least in writing, I can always hit the backspace or delete keys on the keyboard and type in the new words or correct the tense.

So come to think of it, there no other way to learn English other than to learn how to use it.

Take the word relinquish for instance. I know what relinquish is as opposed to resign. But I have not used the word for maybe three years that I entirely forget that I know the word. So today I had used the word resign instead because no matter how hard I squeeze my brain, the word just don't come by.

Which brings us to my point -- that in order to learn English, you just need to use it as often as possible either actively -- by writing and talking in English, or passively -- by listening, thinking and reading in English.

First Translation Job

Several weeks ago I posted an offer to do free Malay-English and English-Malay translations. Well, guess what, there was finally a taker, a guy who wanted me to translate a blog comment.

The original text was a mix of English and Malay but written in a very colloquial way. Most of the sentences had no proper construction, so I had problems digesting the train of thoughts, something which I must establish first before I could reproduced them in a coherent manner.

Anyway, I've done the translation and emailed it back to the sender, free-of-charge. I'm not sure how he would rate my translation. I hoped it was okay.

I hope also that the guy would at least drop me a note about what he thought of the translation.

My offer still stands. If you want my free translation service, just email me at jaxonsblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Rooting For Grassroots

My senior told me, if you are referring to the root of the grass, then it's grassroot, and if there are many roots, it's grassroots.

However if you are using the term in reference to people, then it must never be grassroot. It should be grassroots.



Hence, he has the support of the grassroots; or if you want to use the term without the letter s, then it must be grassroot leaders or grassroot members. Hence, he has the support of grassroot members.

I think he is both right and wrong. He is wrong about the grassroot being the reference for the root of the grass. I think if I was indeed referring to the root, shouldn't I be writing it as grass root or grass roots, with the spacing in between instead?

The fact that the term is spelled as one word itself is already an evidence that I was not referring to the actual root. No?

Note to self: must research some answer on this. Until and unless I get the definite answer, it would be best that I heed the advice of my senior.

Thinking In English And The Asian Way Of Saying Things

It was another day at work yesterday until my superior came over to my desk in the afternoon and whispered to me to take a look at one of the translations I did earlier in the morning.

"This is very Asian way of saying things," she told me.

The paragraph in question is about a man being struck by lightning at so and so time. I had translated the paragraph literally from the Malay copy without changing the structure of the sentence.

In the original copy, the paragraph was: "Dalam kejadian pada pukul 7 petang itu, Ali, 27, sedang bermain bola bersama rakan-rakan apabila kejadian itu berlaku," -- which itself is already a badly written copy.

So I translated it thus, "In the 7pm incident, Ali, 27, was playing with several friends when the lightning struck."

My superior said the better way of translating the paragraph would be: "Ali, 27, was playing with several friends when the lightning struck at 7pm." I kind of agreeing with her. It does sound better this way.

By the way, in case you want to know the story, the man died in the incident. And according to eye witnesses, the weather was fine at that time. The picture above, taken by yours truly, is for illustration purposes only.

Translation: Pandai Berkata-Kata

Dia pandai berkata-kata: he has a glib tongue; he is a person who is so glib with his tongue.

Antonym -- Lidah kelu: tongue-tied, inarticulate, quiet.