Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 December 23

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December 23

Long time no see, 好久不见

I'm wondering about the etymology of "long time no see" and its Chinese analogue 好久不见. When I was in college and hadn't yet learned Chinese a professor of mine (who was Chinese) told me that "long time no see" is Chinese-style English and was directly translated from 好久不见. Later, when I first visited China, another told me that 好久不见 is a direct translation of "long time no see". Personally, I treat both of them as chunks and don't have any strong intuition about which one is more what (although the fact that "long time no see" lacks inflection does make it look a little more plausible that it came from Chinese to English and not vice versa). I notice that everyone commenting in this thread on [the for once not useless] Baidu Zhidao also says it came from Chinese to English (particularly useful is salt_anonymous' comment that it was coined by Chinese-English bilinguals in Hong Kong and then spread through HK films and culture, although I'm not sure if it's accurate since I don't know how early "long time no see" is attested)...of course, that's not really a reliable source, so I figured I'd drop by a more reliable unreliable source and see! rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:18, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Our article long time no see appears to be wondering too (just in case you hadn't seen the article yet). ---Sluzzelin talk 00:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't even tried looking (I should know better by now!). Thanks for the pointer. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

As that article mentions, if it did come from Chinese, the route was more likely through pidgin language usage rather than fluent bilinguals in the ordinary sense... AnonMoos (talk) 00:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Fluent bilinguals can also coin pidgin-like phrases for fun.

My view is that the English phrase almost certainly came from the Chinese phrase (assuming there *is* a direct transmission). The Chinese phrase is a natural construction, and 好久不X, where X is a verb, is a natural and frequently seen form. I googled "好久不", and apart from "好久不见" some of the top results showed 好久不来 ("have not come here for a long time"), 好久不回家 ("have not been home for a long time"), 好久不读书 ("have not read a book for a long time"), and 好久不玩了 ("have not played for a long time"). All of these sound like fully natural expressions and no more and no less natural than 好久不见. There are also similar constructions that use 没 instead of 不, or 才 instead to express a slightly different idea.

By contrast, "long time no see" does not sound natural in English, and is likely to be a sui generis borrowing. For example, and replacing "see" with any other verb would sound rather odd - to translate the other phrases quoted above, "long time no come", "long time no go home", "long time no read" or "long time no play" all sound quite odd. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:38, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Where could I evaluate my English vocabulary on a Website ?

Hello you English speakers all over the world. Please excuse my broken English, I'm French. To evaluate my French vocabulary I used this Website [1], it seems to be a good one. Do such Websites existe to evaluate one's vocabulary in English? Thank you very much for your informations. Joël DESHAIES-Rheims-France---80.236.119.185 (talk) 14:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

FreeRice is a good vocabulary game. There's also VocabTest, which provides SAT-type vocabulary tests. Lexicografía (talk) 14:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Note well that with the SAT (our big test, important like the BAC) kind of vocabulary, there will be lots of words that you won't run into in normal conversation. If you don't know what "raillery" or "poltroon" is (I found those on one of the sites given above), that's alright, because I don't either, and I can honestly say that I have never seen those words before. English is my mother tongue. If you open a word list and don't know any of the words, just know that that may be that the list is designed to be extremely difficult for native speakers of English, and it's not a reflection of your English. I think that the second link at least is divided into levels; I recommend starting at the early levels (and you seem fairly advanced, by your writing style) and work up. I would not recommend starting at the hardest levels. Falconus^{p t c} 06:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, the abyssum website doesn't want to open on my computer. Do you have any other suggestions for what might be a good place for me to evaluate my French? Merci! Falconus^{p t c} 06:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC) Nevermind, it did open. Falconus^{p t c} 06:37, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

...too or ..., too

Which is more correct:

I am going to the store too.

I am going to the store, too.

Or are both equally correct and it's a matter of style? Thanks. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:23, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I think its just a matter of style. If its a quote of spoken words, you would use the comma to indicate a pause in speech. --Jayron32 16:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

It might depend on what you are trying to say. "Sally is going to the store; I am going to the store too" or "I am going to the bank. I am going to the store, too". That's how I would punctuate in those cases, I may be wrong. --LarryMac | Talk 16:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Larry, is the comma on the bank example from the slight feeling of repetitiveness (I know that's not the perfect word to describe it) since both acts are you instead of some variety as in the first example of Sally and you? Thanks. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I "hear" it as a symptom of a change in stress. In Larry's first case, I is stressed and the rest flows evenly; in the second, the stress on store causes a small glitch in timing. —Tamfang (talk) 00:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I would always put the comma in, as I would always pause, there. StuRat (talk) 17:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

A comma is usually preferred in that position, but it is a matter of style, and omitting the comma is not necessarily incorrect. Marco polo (talk) 23:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I would never use a comma there. (Ridiculously small sample of Australian English.) HiLo48 (talk) 23:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I always put the comma in in regular writing, but in speech I don't always pause—and in instant messaging I might sometimes omit the comma, I'm not sure. (In Larry's examples, I distinguish those by stress rather than pausing.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)