V for Vendetta

[gubi-gubi]

I think its another escape to talk about Clinton attacking Iraq. If you go 1 term back you'll find another beginning and that was Bush sr. invading after the Kuwait thing. Go back further and you'll find the US government giving Sadam weapons to fight Iran. Go back even further and you'll find the US helping Saddam to get to power.

There's alot of history here.

I totally agree. Don't forget Bin Laden was on the CIA's payroll either. You can't arm the world then complain people use the weapons for bad things (what good things can you use gas for? Defense?). Sept 11th was used as a cheap excuse then if the war had been planned before.

Just ask him the question where are those wmd you PROMISED us were there. Look at some of his speeches before the war started, he's TELLING THE WORLD that their intel is correct. Not a doubt in his mind (or so it seems). That's lying to me.

He knew there wasn't any WMD's it's proven they planned to lie here:

[Andromeda18_]

I think I got most grammer rules down pretty good. I know the difference between they're/ their/ there. But that to and too thing I don't really get. Any easy way to help me remember the difference?

Let me try and help, although I do this in a very instinctive way.
'Too' means:

In addition; also: He's coming along too.
More than enough; excessively: She worries too much.
To a regrettable degree: My error was all too apparent.
Very; extremely; immensely: He's only too willing to be of service.
Informal. Indeed; so: You will too do it!

So basicaly you use 'too' either with the same meaning of 'as well/also' or to express an excess/extreme (though not necessarily with a negative connotation). In the sentence "She worries too much" 'too' is used to show she worries excessively. In "He's only too willing to be of service", the 'too' expresses an excessive willingness to be of service. So, whenever you don't know if you should use 'to' or 'too' in a sentence just pay attention to the sentence and see if either 'as well/also' or the idea of an excess would fit. If they do then you want to use 'too' and not 'to'.
'To' can either be used as a preposition or an adverb. Before a verb in the simple present always use 'to' and never 'too' (to eat, to sleep, etc).
Personaly, I recommend you pay attention to the 'too' instead, it's simpler. If you realize using 'too' doesn't make sense in a sentence then go with 'to'. Of course, like I said in the beginning, I do this instinctively so my explanation might so weird. I don't usually think about which one I should use.

[Elcoholic]

Ouch! Kinda confirms what I believed all the time. But it probably won't matter. Bush will say its not true (if he responds at all) and nothing will change in the US. In the UK however this could lead to consequences (as it should). I hope an independant commity gets to investigate this.

[Elcoholic]

Let me try and help, although I do this in a very instinctive way.
'Too' means:

In addition; also: He's coming along too.
More than enough; excessively: She worries too much.
To a regrettable degree: My error was all too apparent.
Very; extremely; immensely: He's only too willing to be of service.
Informal. Indeed; so: You will too do it!

So basicaly you use 'too' either with the same meaning of 'as well/also' or to express an excess/extreme (though not necessarily with a negative connotation). In the sentence "She worries too much" 'too' is used to show she worries excessively. In "He's only too willing to be of service", the 'too' expresses an excessive willingness to be of service. So, whenever you don't know if you should use 'to' or 'too' in a sentence just pay attention to the sentence and see if either 'as well/also' or the idea of an excess would fit. If they do then you want to use 'too' and not 'to'.
'To' can either be used as a preposition or an adverb. Before a verb in the simple present always use 'to' and never 'too' (to eat, to sleep, etc).
Personaly, I recommend you pay attention to the 'too' instead, it's simpler. If you realize using 'too' doesn't make sense in a sentence then go with 'to'. Of course, like I said in the beginning, I do this instinctively so my explanation might so weird. I don't usually think about which one I should use.

He thanks. That explains it just fine. Never thought you'd be the one to explain it. How come your so good at english anyway? I know some spanish people (not the same as portugese, I know) and they suck at english.

[Andromeda18_]

Yes, the Spanish do suck at speaking English. It's so bad it hurts! I think that happens because they dub everything over there, while over here only cartoons are dubbed. Listening to and dealing with english from a very young age is, in my opinion, the best way to learn it well. My mom started teaching me english when I was very young, plus back then even cartoons weren't dubbed which I'm certain really helped. When at the age of 10 I began learning English at school I was like a sponge absorbing everything I was was taught. Then at 13 I enrolled in an English institute where I was taught the language by British teachers. I was already at an advanced level back then so after 3 years I was done with it. To tell you the truth I was bored out of my mind there but the good thing is I now have a Cambridge diploma. I can even be an English teacher if I want.
I also think being a Portuguese native speaker helps. Portuguese is, in terms of grammar, a very difficult language, plus it's very rich in sounds. It might not look like it but it really makes learning other languages easier, at least to me (particularly Japanese, I kid you not). There's this test (don't remember the name) that assesses how good non-native English speakers are at speaking the language and the Portuguese rank 5th or 6th, the Dutch are the best. When a Portuguese sets his/her mind on learning English he/she can be quite good at it, even if only a small percentage of the population actually speaks it (we have lots of old people over here).

[evilomar]

He thanks. That explains it just fine. Never thought you'd be the one to explain it. How come your so good at english anyway? I know some spanish people (not the same as portugese, I know) and they suck at english.

I know some English people that suck at speaking Spanish LOL. I think its a matter of what age you get exposed to the language. I grew up in Peru, but came to the US when I was eight. I sound like I come from the midwestern states, not at all like I grew up in KY. I've always heard that English is the hardest language to learn, but Mandarin and Japanese have to be up there. My girlfriend is going to Japan for three weeks and we are both trying to learn Japanese.

[Andromeda18_]

I know some English people that suck at speaking Spanish LOL. I think its a matter of what age you get exposed to the language.

That's certainly true. Research has shown that children up to the age of 11 learn languages much better. So much so they don't even need to formaly study a language if they begin learning it early enough.
You're also right about English speakers sucking at speaking Spanish. It's not that hard to understand why, really. English is a Germanic language while Spanish is a Romance language, they belong to different language families. It's only normal that one who speaks a language from one family has a hard time learning a language from another family. This is even more evident when an English speaker tries to speak Portuguese. Seriously, it's actually amusing! Phonetically, Portuguese is an extremely rich language. It has a more complex vowel structure than Spanish. Just like French, Portuguese has a set of nasal vowels, and also features several nasal dipthongs and drawling of unstressed vowels. Ask an English speaker to say something like 'pão' (bread) or 'confusão' (confusion) and there's no way in hell he'll be able to do it properly. There are Englishman who've been living here for decades and still can't get it right.
Portuguese grammar follows fairly similar patterns to those of Spanish, although it retains Latin grammar forms that are already lost in Spanish, but pronunciation makes it very distinctive. I believe that's why it is said that a Portuguese speaker can understand spoken Spanish better than the other way around. I've experienced it first hand.

I don't quite agree with you when you say English is the hardest language to learn. Again, learning a language from a different family than our own language is harder than learning a language from the same family, but as far as grammar goes English is a very logical language (the same can be said of Spanish and Portuguese), plus when it comes to phonetics English isn't particularly complex. This is one of the many reasons why English is considered the international language and is so widely spoken by non-natives.

There's no such thing as the 'hardest language', since it's all very relative, but perhaps Mandarin is the hardest to learn of them all.
The world's greatest polyglot, Ziad Fazah said "Mandarin was the hardest language to learn because of the vast number of idiograms.". Perhaps this is the reason why people think Japanese is hard to learn, but apart from all the characters one has to memorize, it is in many ways a very simple language. It lacks things that make European languages difficult like articles, gender, etc, and it also has very simple rules of conjugation. If Japanese could get rid of kanji, it would likely be a very simple language all-round.

My girlfriend is going to Japan for three weeks and we are both trying to learn Japanese.

You're not going with her?

[Schultz]

You're also right about English speakers sucking at speaking Spanish. It's not that hard to understand why, really. English is a Germanic language while Spanish is a Romance language, they belong to different language families.

just curious what is a Germanic language? (i am actually learning stuff here)

I don't quite agree with you when you say English is the hardest language to learn. Again, learning a language from a different family than our own language is harder than learning a language from the same family, but as far as grammar goes English is a very logical language (the same can be said of Spanish and Portuguese), plus when it comes to phonetics English it's not particularly complex. This is one of the many reasons why English is considered the international language and is so widely spoken by non-natives.

I think why most people say english is the hardest is because of the weird rules and some weird words. I mean english is not a phenetical language.
you have things like
to, too, two which all pronounced the same but mean different things
which, witch
dessert (leave), desert (food), and dessert (sand).
basically read these why people think it is.

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
   
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
   
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
   
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
   
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
   
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
   
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
   
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
   
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
   
10. I did not object to the object.
    
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
    
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
    
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
    
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
    
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
    
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
    
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
    
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
    
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
    
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
    
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
    

and then i found this quick comment
The history of English is complicated, is because it incorporates spelling patterns from several different languages. Look to Irish American Vernacular English for examples

[Cidien]

I totally agree. Don't forget Bin Laden was on the CIA's payroll either. You can't arm the world then complain people use the weapons for bad things.

So you're saying when they make me a cop to fight "bad guys" and give me a gun it's entirely their fault for giving me a gun if I got on a rampage and shoot people with it?

And english is both awesome and sucks at the same time lol. I think there seems to be a lot you can do with english you can't do with many languages but it can be so confusing sometimes. Also elcoholic if you care you should try to learn the differences between your and you're. Noticed in your last post you used your when you meant to use you're. Easy way to remember using that one. Youre is a conjunction. If you can replace it with the words you are then it works.

[gubi-gubi]

So you're saying when they make me a cop to fight "bad guys" and give me a gun it's entirely their fault for giving me a gun if I got on a rampage and shoot people with it?

So Saddams a good guy who needs chemical weapons to fight bad guys?

[Andromeda18_]

just curious what is a Germanic language? (i am actually learning stuff here)

I believe this exlains it quite well:

The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European language family. The largest Germanic languages are English and German, with ca. 340 and 120 million native speakers, respectively.

Other significant languages include a number of Low Germanic languages (including Dutch, Afrikaans) and the Scandinavian languages (principally Danish, Norwegian and Swedish). The SIL Ethnologue lists 53 different Germanic languages and dialects.

Their common ancestor is Common Germanic, probably spoken in the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe. Common Germanic, and all its descendants, is characterised by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law. Early Germanic dialects enter history with the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire from the 2nd century.

I think why most people say english is the hardest is because of the weird rules and some weird words. I mean english is not a phenetical language.
you have things like
to, too, two which all pronounced the same but mean different things
which, witch
dessert (leave), desert (food), and dessert (sand).
basically read these why people think it is.

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
   
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
   
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
   
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
   
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
   
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
   
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
   
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
   
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
   
10. I did not object to the object.
    
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
    
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
    
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
    
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
    
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
    
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
    
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
    
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
    
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
    
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
    
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
    

and then i found this quick comment
The history of English is complicated, is because it incorporates spelling patterns from several different languages. Look to Irish American Vernacular English for examples

I'm familiar with those, you can find them all over the net. They're actually quite amusing. I suppose every language has it's own crazy rules. It's related to words in English while in Portuguese it's related to interpretation. Even we native speakers tend to say it's a tricky language because one sentence might have several meanings. But in my opinion, and this is only an opinion, that's not what makes a language hard to learn. I mean, this sort of thing is too advanced for beginners to tackle and those who are already good at speaking the language won't really have a lot of trouble getting used to it. There are languages out there that are far more difficult to learn than English, or Portuguese or Spanish. Finnish has a reputation for being difficult to understand and learn. Mostly because there are few languages closely related to it, making the vocabulary unfamiliar. Also, most people I know that speak German say it was rather hard to learn.

I might be a little biased about all this because I really like English and don't find it hard at all, never have really. I love the way it sounds. Songs sound better when sung in English, though I think Japanese also fits songs very well. I don't like to hear people sing in Portuguese very much, the sound is too stiff. Well, there is one good thing about speaking Portuguese, at least to me, it makes learning how to speak Japanese quite easy! If I read a Japanese word (written in Romanji) the Portuguese way I'll most likely get it right. We pronounce the vowels, in their pure form, in exactly the same way. Actually, while the Japanese only pronounce vowels like that, we Portuguese have other ways of pronouncing them but that's easy to remember. There are a few other exceptions of course, like the sounds 'shi' and 'chi' (in Portuguese 'chi' sounds like 'shi'), but this is also easy to memorize. Plus, speaking Portuguese makes learning other Romance languages a whole lot easier. The same is also true for English speakers trying to learn other Germanic languages.

So you're saying when they make me a cop to fight "bad guys" and give me a gun it's entirely their fault for giving me a gun if I got on a rampage and shoot people with it?

And english is both awesome and sucks at the same time lol. I think there seems to be a lot you can do with english you can't do with many languages but it can be so confusing sometimes. Also elcoholic if you care you should try to learn the differences between your and you're. Noticed in your last post you used your when you meant to use you're. Easy way to remember using that one. Youre is a conjunction. If you can replace it with the words you are then it works.

You know, I sometimes make that mistake as well but not because i don't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're'. It's because I know the difference between them that I usually correct that mistake when I proof read my posts before posting them. I suppose I'm just so concentrated on my writing that I write the word based on the way it sounds on my head and not on its meaning. The funny thing is that I don't make this mistake when it comes to 'to' and 'too' but make it with 'its' and 'it's'. I wonder why...

[Schultz]

I'm familiar with those, you can find them all over the net. They're actually quite amusing. I suppose every language has it's own crazy rules. It's related to words in English while in Portuguese it's related to interpretation. Even we native speakers tend to say it's a tricky language because one sentence might have several meanings. But in my opinion, and this is only an opinion, that's not what makes a language hard to learn. I mean, this sort of thing is too advanced for beginners to tackle and those who are already good at speaking the language won't really have a lot of trouble getting used to it. There are languages out there that are far more difficult to learn than English, or Portuguese or Spanish. Finnish has a reputation for being difficult to understand and learn. Mostly because there are few languages closely related to it, making the vocabulary unfamiliar. Also, most people I know that speak German say it was rather hard to learn.

Well truthfully i have actually experiance this issue when talking to some Japanese people. Was trying to find out what the Japanese title of Kiki's deliverly service was in Japanese. I kept saying a girl that is a Witch but it took me a while because they were used to Which instead. Only when i said Magic did they understand cause actually the term for witch in Japanese is Magica.

I might be a little biased about all this because I really like English and don't find it hard at all, never have really. I love the way it sounds. Songs sound better when sung in English, though I think Japanese also fits songs very well. I don't like to hear people sing in Portuguese very much, the sound is too stiff. Well, there is one good thing about speaking Portuguese, at least to me, it makes learning how to speak Japanese quite easy! If I read a Japanese word (written in Romanji) the Portuguese way I'll most likely get it right. We pronounce the vowels, in their pure form, in exactly the same way. Actually, while the Japanese only pronounce vowels like that, we Portuguese have other ways of pronouncing them but that's easy to remember. There are a few other exceptions of course, like the sounds 'shi' and 'chi' (in Portuguese 'chi' sounds like 'shi'), but this is also easy to memorize. Plus, speaking Portuguese makes learning other Romance languages a whole lot easier. The same is also true for English speakers trying to learn other Germanic languages.

I will attest to that. I found it alot easier to learn German when i was in Jr High then when i took a french class.. Man did i hate french.

[Elcoholic]

And english is both awesome and sucks at the same time lol. I think there seems to be a lot you can do with english you can't do with many languages but it can be so confusing sometimes. Also elcoholic if you care you should try to learn the differences between your and you're. Noticed in your last post you used your when you meant to use you're. Easy way to remember using that one. Youre is a conjunction. If you can replace it with the words you are then it works.

Nah, that's one of the things I understand but when typing alot it can slip through. You'll find me doing it right more often than wrong. Thanks for pointing it out though.

(btw, this thread is the king of all off topic threads!)

[evilomar]

You're not going with her?

No, she gets to go for free, she got accepted into some teaching program. Being a teacher has its perks sometimes, guess it makes up for their shitty wages they make. If I go I wouldn't get to spend any time with her. So we decided after we go to Peru, we will go to Japan the following year.

[Schultz]

Nah, that's one of the things I understand but when typing alot it can slip through. You'll find me doing it right more often than wrong. Thanks for pointing it out though.

(btw, this thread is the king of all off topic threads!)

lol i was kinda thinking the same thing.. (And i just added to annother way its gone off topic) but to say back in topic.. i still have yet to see this movie.