Conversation unit 06- I am studying MediaGlyphs

Texts

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

• 06.1
  []
  She is Mary. She is Italian

  {}
  She can write MediaGlyphs. She can speak English

  [] [{}]
  Both her parents do not speak foreign languages

  []
  They only speak Italian

• 06.2
  [] []
  This is her sister. She is a cook, she works in Rome

  
  She cannot speak English

  {}
  She is studying MediaGlyphs

• 06.3
  [] ==
  She is Rose, she is French

  
  She came from Paris

  
  She speaks English very well

  
  She can also speak Italian and Spanish

    日本  
  She is now studying Japanese

• 06.4
  == {}
  Rose, you can write MediaGlyphic very well!

  {}
  Oh no! Not that well. I can only write few MediaGlyphs

  [] []
  Where is your teacher from?

    México  
  S/He's Mexican

  
  Can s/he also speak English?

  
  Yes, s/he speaks English very well

• 06.5
  [{}]
  What foreign languages do you also speak?

    日本   {}
  I can only speak Japanese. I am now studying MediaGlyphs

  
  Me too (I'm also studying [them])

• NOTES
  
  Like English -ing, this grammatical marker indicates that an action is or was in progress.

  
  "only, solely". Pay attention to its position before the verb "to be able to". It would be wrong to write placing it after, directly translating, for example, the English "I can only speak Italian". Instead this sentence is written like (translating literally from MG) "I only can speak italia-language".

  
  Literally "not true!", this is a polite way to respond to a compliment.

  
  The "complement of degree". The sentence, literally: "he/she English speaks DEGREE_MARKER very good". Pay attention to this particular construction, a way to create adverbial sentences in MG (and Chinese): Subject + Object + Verb + DEGREE_MARKER + Adjective.

  
  Another example of the complement of degree, this time with an intransitive verb. When there is no Object, the structure is "Subject + Verb + DEGREE_MARKER + Adhective": "you run DEGREE_MARKER fast" -> "you run quickly". The negative is formed placing the negative particle in front of the adjective: "you run DEGREE_MARKER not fast" -> "you doesn't run quickly".

• DIFFERENCES WITH CHINESE
  
  

  
  Never "zai4" as prefix but instead "zhe5" as suffix, to indicate progressive action
   
   
  

  First appearance: Sun Aug 18 00:08:26 CEST 2002 - | - Last modified: Fri Dec 11 17:17:38 CET 2009