Please help me to read this English sentence:

[Chess]

Originally Posted by avicus

However, it is true that F.Scott Fitzgerald is a difficult author to understand, even to native English speakers. This is because of his writing style which uses long sentences with convoluted sentence structure.

If you're looking for other 20th century English novelists who may be slightly easier to understand, I suggest Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck.

I agree to that statement, Ernest Hemingway is a lot easier to understand, Jane Austen is also quite a good author too, and her writing style is also effective for studying purposes.

[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by Koir

This would be similiar to the above two sentences, except the group being observed and categorized has at least one subgroup sharing the same nationality (Asian).

This is a more general observation compared to Sentence 1, and encompasses all individuals of Asian nationality. It describes all Asians as sharing the same trait of high intelligence.

This sentence is different from both previous sentences as it is only referring to one individual of Asian nationality, and describing that individual's high intelligence level.

Koir, thanks as always!

[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by koolk

Hey,

Let me explain a few items. There are multiple ways to understand his writings.

The Great Gatsby does use a lot of conversational speech, but this is early 20th century narrative. The language is more formal and long sentences are common from Fitzgerald. The book is excellent and made for students around 14-21 yrs old in advanced english classes. The book does not use difficult words, but it uses a lot of similes and symbolisms. Fitzgerald is not direct when he conveys his message, which is the difficult part.

i.e.
Curious Natures = "interesting things"

I didn’t see this at all.

The adjective curious is something Nick is eager to learn about. Natures is referring to the wilderness; trees, mountains, rivers. This is a simile. Nick does not literally learn about interesting places. Nick says interesting things open up to him. He learns about interesting things (could reference places, people, secrets, gossip, etc).

I didn’t think Nick was interested in listening to gossip or secrets of other people.

Abnormal mind

In these few sentences, he called most of the people he met as either
1. Boring
2. Has interesting information
3. Abnormal

I thought that Nick didn’t like the people he mentioned.
I didn’t understand that he was interested in listening to some of them.

Most Asians are smart. (50-99% of Asians)
The Asians are smart. (50-99% of Asians)
Asians are smart (50-99% of Asians)

Do you mean these three have the same meaning?

Did you want books in the early 20th Century? Or books in the same grade level? Or books that explain the story of The Great Gatsby?

I want some books that analyze the sentences of The Great Gatsby. If any.

Thank you for your kind explanation!

[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by avicus

If you're looking for other 20th century English novelists who may be slightly easier to understand, I suggest Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck.

What’s the difference in English between 20th and 21th century?
I just thought that Fitzgerald was modern enough.
If I write English in his way, if it was possible to me, would I sound like very old?

[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by Caerula

Hello, hello, it´s been a few weeks since my last posting.

@YuriTokoro: I apologize for me not answering your last post, but I´m currently very busy at work.
But I´ll be back as soon as the school vaction begins.

Bye!

Don’t worry.
Good luck!

[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by Chess

I agree to that statement, Ernest Hemingway is a lot easier to understand, Jane Austen is also quite a good author too, and her writing style is also effective for studying purposes.

I have read Pride and Prejudice, but it was a translated version.
I thought her style was too old and no one would say things like the characters in the story. The translator may have been too old.
Do you speak like people in the story?

[koolk]

Hey Yuri,

Here are my responses to your questions.

I thought that Nick didn’t like the people he mentioned.
I didn’t understand that he was interested in listening to some of them.

There is another meaning for that sentence. This sentence is too early in the novel to know how Nick feels about the people. This 2nd meaning could be the one that Nick is referring to.

Another meaning:
Curious Natures could refer to interesting wild animals. Nick could imply that these people are similar to watching monkeys in the jungle or at the zoo. Nick could feel that he is better then these animals and sometimes finds them interesting.

Do you speak like people in the story?

The people in The Great Gatsby are high rich society. Most of us do not speak like that. We speak exactly the way we write in this forum, simple and direct.

What’s the difference in English between 20th and 21th century?
I just thought that Fitzgerald was modern enough.
If I write English in his way, if it was possible to me, would I sound like very old?

English is not different between 20th and 21st Century. Fitzgerald wrote about rich people in this book, so they talk like rich people. You would sound very educated if you write English that way.

Most Asians are smart. (50-99% of Asians)
The Asians are smart. (50-99% of Asians)
Asians are smart (50-99% of Asians)  

Do you mean these three have the same meaning?

Same meaning.

[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by koolk

There is another meaning for that sentence. This sentence is too early in the novel to know how Nick feels about the people. This 2nd meaning could be the one that Nick is referring to.

Another meaning:
Curious Natures could refer to interesting wild animals. Nick could imply that these people are similar to watching monkeys in the jungle or at the zoo. Nick could feel that he is better then these animals and sometimes finds them interesting.

Hi, koolk.
I see. He sometimes watched people just like watching animals and he felt it interesting. This is understandable.

English is not different between 20th and 21st Century. Fitzgerald wrote about rich people in this book, so they talk like rich people. You would sound very educated if you write English that way.

Thank you very much for helping!

[YuriTokoro]

Hi.
Could someone correct my English?

"Binbohgami - The God of Poverty"

Binboh means poverty and kami(gami is from kami) means god. It is considered that people who are possessed by binbohgami fall into poverty. There used to be some events about the god, but most of them are fading away.
When I was a kid, I was told that sharpening both sides of a pencil attracts bingohgami.
Nowadays, if a company which you just join became bankrupt suddenly, and this situation was repeated several occasions, you would be called binbohgami as a joke.
There is a twin god of binbohgami which is called fukunokami. This god is considered to bring good luck.
And there is another god called yakubyohgami. This god brings plague.

Frankly speaking, I don’t understand why monotheistic religion can have only one god because Japan has many gods here. The Japanese word kami is usually translated as god, but kami might be somehow different in concept from your god.

Thank you.

Binbōgami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YouTube - まんが日本昔ばなし：貧乏神と福の神

[Koir]

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

Hi.
Could someone correct my English?

"Binbohgami - The God of Poverty"

Binboh means poverty and kami(gami is from kami) means god. It is considered that people who are possessed by binbohgami fall into poverty. There used to be some events held for the god, but most of them are fading away.
When I was a kid, I was told that sharpening both sides of a pencil attracts binbohgami.
Nowadays, if a company which you just joined went bankrupt suddenly, and this situation was repeated on several occasions, you would be called binbohgami as a joke.
There is a twin god of binbohgami which is called fukunokami. This god is considered to bring good luck.
And there is another god called yakubyohgami. This god brings plague.

Frankly speaking, I don’t understand why monotheistic religion can have only one god because Japan has many gods here. The Japanese word kami is usually translated as god, but kami might be somehow different in concept from your god.

Thank you.

Binbōgami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YouTube - まんが日本昔ばなし：貧乏神と福の神

Informative as always, Yuri. I had thought sharpening both ends of a pencil was odd as well as impractical to use afterwards. Now I know of another meaning for it!

Bolded sections are the revisions I made:

1) Changed "about" to "held" to show that the events were done involving the god of poverty. This may be my bias, as I believe religious events for a god were done as if the god was taking an active part in the proceedings.

2) Changed "join" to the past tense form "joined" as the action described happened in the past. Also changed "became" to "went" to show the act if becoming bankrupt was a result of actions taken (in this case, unluckily joining the company before the bankruptcy happened).

3) Added "on" to "repeated several occasions" to make the prepositional phrase "on several occasions" which modifies the verb phrase "was repeated". This reads smoother and gives the reader context to the action being described in the sentence.

As for monotheistic religions versus kami, I think it's more comforting to have only one god that can be praised or cursed depending on a person's life situations. Makes for less confusion maybe?