I visited a website and found someone write her writing in English ( her second language )
She used " gift " as a verb like " I gifted my husband with a sweatshirt.", but some native speakers corrected it saying " we don’t use gift as a verb “.
I know " gift " is used as a noun and also like " you’re a gifted painter.”.
Is it possible to use " gift " as a verb ? Or is it old-fashioned ?
In english gift is never used as a verb. Instead the verb “to give” or “gave” is used instead.
Hope that helps.
Darius
I found that Japanese English dictionaries have “to gift someone with something” as a formal usage. but if you say so, they must be wrong. Thank you for your help.
The word “gift” is used a verb, although not very often. There is a tendency in all languages for the usage of words to evolve. In English there is tendency today for nouns to be used as verbs. There are many examples, but I cannot think of one now.
I’m not sure how this works in English, but in Portuguese I had recently an interesting experience: I read a book from an author from Mozambique and although I could understand it, most of the Portuguese usage was very strange to me. If anyone would have asked me about some its expressions out of context, I would for sure had said those expressions didn’t exist or were wrong…
The same for old books. I can read books from the XIX century but, again, if some of their expressions are picked out of context, most contemporary natives will say they never heard of them…
Thank you, Steve ! I flipped through Oxford dictionary and it said " used, especially in journalism", so I guess it must be rare to use in a daily conversation.
anapaula,
I have been there. When I ( or other Japanese people) say " I learned this English phrase today “, some native speakers answer " I’ve never heard of it.” So I wonder many books publised here have old information and old-fashioned phrases.
Aha! You see, Steve, why I think old literature is not very beneficial for language students… I think it is likely to them to get confused, and to use a rather odd language style… I stay with contemporary material, instead…
Ana,
The language is a whole, it includes modern slang and archaic expressions. If I am interested in Tolstoi, if reading Tolstoi is my motive for learning Russian, that is a powerful learning factor. If someone else is attracted to modern movies with lots of slang that is their motivation. The brain starts to figure out what words are the most useful to achieve each person’s goals (after a few mistakes of course). But mistakes are good!!
I do not feel that I need to nail down every expression. And I also do not favour too much slang. I spoke the other day to someone who spoke quite fluent English but spoiled if (at least for me) by using the word “cool” every minute.
Steve,
in this sense, of personal objective, you are right. If the goal of some people is to be able to cope with ancient literature, they will need to learn ancient vocabulary.
I’m not a fan of slangs either. For me, slangs used badly sound kind of ridiculous, but if someone want to understand natives, being able to cope with a good amount of slangs and idioms is absolutely needed. In my case, I can understand classes, podcasts, news, but can’t understand movies because of my lack of slang vocabulary…
Maybe I’m too focused on my own goals in the language, which are directed toward modern, but clean usage. The other day, someone told me that I talk in English as it is written, and this sounds a little unnatural…
About the “cool” guy, I’m following an iTunes course from Stanford, and the teacher, which I suppose is a native, speaks “cool” every single minute too… the funny thing is that it is starting to sound natural to me, and I don’t know if I’m not using this now and then unconciously…
The way i see it, slang usually has resemblance phonetically (especially internet slang) to the word is replaces or a similar word, therefore your learning by listening and reading method should accommodate for this by listening out for sounds in words as you do as a child learning your first language. However I’m currently trying to learn Portuguese and listen to alot of Portuguese radio and try watch Portuguese TV and news and (in news especially) very little slang is spoken, so I am yet to come across it as a problem.
“the word it replaces”
Is there any chance of an “edit button” in these forums?