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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > I īm a bit confused, help me please..
I īm a bit confused, help me please..
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bird1
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I īm a bit confused, help me please..
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Hi friends,
I have a question. If you can help me, I will be happy.
� There isn īt much water in the bottle.
Does this sentence mean: īThere is some water in the bottle � or � There is a little water in the bottle. �
Your ideas please..
Thanks... |
26 Dec 2009
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manonski (f)
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It means that there isn īt a lot of water left in the bottle. |
26 Dec 2009
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aleafff
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Not much means a little . Accordingly � īthere is a little water in the bottle � � is the correct one. |
26 Dec 2009
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conqueror_mko
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şişede įok su yok = şişede az su var ya da şişede įok su kalmadı şeklinde de d�şünebilirsin olayı |
26 Dec 2009
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Lana.
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Conqueror,
please use English only in the forum.
Turkish is a beautiful language, no doubt, but only yourself and the author of the post understand it, which leaves the rest of us feeling stupid.
If you want to explain the matter in the language understandable to you both, please send the user a private message.
Thank you. |
26 Dec 2009
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abaza
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It is simply means a little and it has no relation with some. Interference in meaning may be due to mother tongue interference. |
26 Dec 2009
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SueThom
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It does mean that there is a little bit of water in the bottle, but there is a strong inference on the part of the speaker warning the listener to lower their expectation of how much water is there. Another way to put it would be to say "there is only a little water in the bottle".
I would expect that in the context of an ongoing conversation this would be made clear. For example, the listener might have commented on how thirsty s/he was and asked the speaker for a drink of water from the bottle, perhaps expecting the bottle to be full or almost full. Then the speaker responded, "There isn īt much water in the bottle." In essence, in this case, the underlying message would be, "Yes, you may have a drink, but I īm warning you that there is only a little bit of water left and it likely isn īt enough to quench your thirst."
You may be familiar with the concept of the difference between saying "the glass is half empty" and "the glass is half full" -- it īs a way of conveying the positive and negative ways the same situation can be viewed. "There isn īt much" is emphasizing the negative viewpoint.
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26 Dec 2009
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