that B1 section is explained incorrectly. See my above post. Also, as my first post mentioned, the english language sometimes contradicts or confuses itself. I take it you got that little section from google? did you read the rest of it? So my post is actually correct. English is not a simple language, even for native speakers.
It bothers me, but for a different reason. I think this is rarely an unintentional grammatical error — it's more of an intentional exaggeration. The speaker is aware that they only have a single issue and know to use the plural, but exaggerate to avoid further discussion. What bothers me isn't the grammar because it isn't typically done out of ignorance or negligence. What bothers me is that the person I'm interacting with feels the need to lie rather than having a frank discussion with me.
yeah, that's what I'm trying to ask since I often use it when translating (because there's no detail about the gender).
Reason and plan is quantifiable iirc, need context to clarify it. As long as the context didn't said only one reason/plan, not really a problem
I didn't, but I don't need to because I'm familiar with the word. Did you check Merriam Webster/Collins/ Oxford — they'll tell you the same thing. They can refer to a single person of undefined gender. Yes, I have. A long time ago. I've matured since then. Talking like that puts off immediate short-term discomfort, but leads to greater long-term discomfort. Wait am I missing something? How were you correct? You were completely wrong.
Not for a single person - it refers to a group of people. But people sometimes use it to refer to a single person anway, because English simply doesn't have a singular gender neutral pronoun. English says you pick between 'he' or 'she' and just #dealwithit. Gotta make do with what we got. (I see some people quoting the dictionary. Not surprising, really, but that's a recent-ish amendment made precisely because people have been using the word the wrong way, intentionally, for quite awhile. This is how language changes.)
There is no singular gender neutral pronoun, as far as I know, so in modern language they use they to refer to it even though it's singular. I remember back then "he" was used but, well, you can guess what happened.
Language is something that is constantly evolving as it gets used. Incorrect grammar is one of my pet peeves but some rules are so widely violated that they can be pretty much considered to be obsolete and many other "incorrect" ways of using words or variations of words have become commonly accepted (usually with a slightly different meaning than before). Sometimes accepting and adapting to new changes is the way to go
'They' is the singular gender-neutral pronoun. Unless you're several hundred years old 'he' did, and does still, refer to men only (if you are hundreds of years old dm me because I definitely want in on that long-life action). Using 'they' as a singular isn't a recent invention to facilitate new gender norms or feminist movements. It's been used for hundreds of years to: (a).Control the information you share. E.g Me in my teens avoiding telling my very Christian mother I spent the night at a girl's house. "Where were you last night?" -- "Out for dinner with a friend." "What did you two have?" -- "I had a steak they had a burger" (b). Talk about people in general but don't want to get bogged down in their gender i.e., a singular gender-neutral pronoun. E.g Say you're talking about lying. You want to give an example, but saying "When a woman lies to her husband, she" would raise objections like "men lie too" -- taking the attention away from your main point. Rather than having to say, 'When a man or woman lies to his or her wife or husband, he or she ...". you say, "when a person lies their spouse, they ...". You could also use, "When one lies to one's spouse, one ..." , but it's out of use and sometimes sounds pretentious. So yeah, 'they' is a thing and has been a thing since before either of us were born -- unless you're...
When I use a plural in my speech, I'm probably thinking about the future when I make the statement. I might not have multiple reasons and plans now, but I can find/make more in the future. It's a contextual thing, I think.
nope my mother language have no specific plural form so I not really care unless it is legal document or formal situation it mix of various wait most language are like that, with more than 10 tenses I really think those who think english is simple either good at language learning or not particular interested toward language beside practical use on most case it is foreigner who learn language who have better interest toward a language grammar compared with native speaker on general
English is really simple as is Japanese, sure it has a lot of irregular verbs and stuff but you can mostly go by what sounds right unless you have poor language comprehension. In Japanese you can say things like "Me get stuff", such is it's simplistic syntax as is Chinese as well but they have nightmarish kanji and tones to pronounce thus making it one of the most difficult languages. My language - Croatian has 7 grammatical cases which Germans and Italians have only ~4, English, Japanese and Chinese have 0. I think there isn't a single foreigner that can speek proper Croatian even after 5 years of living here (which is basically the same as Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegro's...)
Part of what makes a language simple is how similar it is to your native language. Saying "English is really simple ..." is only true for those who speak something similar. If you're talking about learning tenses alone then, yes learning more tenses is obviously more difficult than learning fewer. However, if you're talking about learning the language in general then no, Croatian isn't as Difficult as Japanese or Chinese. The difficulty in Croatian has to do with memory i.e., learning new words, but with a more similar structure to English. With Chinese, you're training your mouth to form new shapes that it hasn't made before. With Japanese, you're learning a different structure. To give a shallow illustration. Croatian is learning how to write 7000 words instead of 1000. Difficult. Chinese is like learning how to write with your non-dominant hand i.e., left if you're right-handed and vice-versa. Very Difficult Japanese is like learning to write a sentence backwards. Very Difficult Is it harder to learn how to add a new word into a sentence or to start writing a sentence from the last word you want to use coming back to the first word? That's the difference between structure and tenses. It comes down to habit. For English speakers, Croatian is about adding the use of those tenses. Chinese and Japanese go against speaking habits and patterns that speakers have had since they were 1 year old. So first you have to break a life-long habit then learn something new. Imagine having to first beat drug addiction or giving up sugar (or nofap) then having to learn Croatian.