Hi anyone,
Because I sometimes notice some usages that are far too difficult to be pronounced, I would like to ask whether or not there are some usages which are not used in conversational English
Take this only, for instance,
I saw the girl whose beauty took my breath away.
I saw a girl, the beauty of whom took my breath away.
Secondly: Is there any free way to practice on the English conversation at this forum?
Congratulations on your clear English!
The first sentence, I see no problem with, except that ‘the girl’ refers to a girl that has already been referred to in the conversation. So probably the sentence used would be: I saw a girl whose beauty took my breath away.
‘The beauty of whom’ in the second sentence, would be better rendered as ‘whose’, both in written and spoken English. This is not because the sentence would be too difficult to pronounce, but because the other words are what we would often describe as ‘clumsy’. This simply means that there are more words present than are necessary to convey the meaning.
I have an example of what a non-native speaker of English did tell me about English being hard to pronounce. She never says ‘on the fifth floor’ or ‘on the sixth floor’, but always ‘on level five’ or ‘on level six’! Native speakers who try to say ‘sixth floor’, often actually say ‘six floor’. This, of course, is not correct gramatically, but just happens when people are not carefully speaking each consonant.
Another example, told to me by a linguist of excellent repute: A handbag (a bag used for carrying personal items), often becomes ‘hanbag’ or even ‘hambag’ (a bag for storing ham). The intended meaning is still, of course, ‘handbag’. Again, this happens because saying ‘handbag’ requires care in pronunciation. So, pronunciation is difficult at times, even for native speakers.
If you find someone to talk to for free, you could do so. However, many people using this site want to practice with a native speaker of English. Not so many people want to practice with a native speaker of Arabic or some other language. As a result, swaps are not usually possible.
I would like firstly to thank you very much for your kind comments and secondly to say to you that I want to speak to any native English speaker. However, I hate in my life the"swap" word because I think that a real leader is one who helps other people without any barter or in return.
For me, I would like to help any creature in this universe as much as I can and never ask in return for my help.
Peace,
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@Imy ahem I’ll let you find the irony in your above post about teaching others English…
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I hope I understood what you meant. Thus, I would like to say to you as much as I have understood. I want to speak to any native English speaker in English only and I don’t want them to speak to me in Arabic, otherwise they want to practise with me.
I meant that I can help as much as I can in my language.
However, I am awfully afraid because I don’t think I agree with the principle"Most people learning English are only willing to take, never to give"
If native speakers don’t want to help those who have an interest to learn their language, then who will help them.
Acooperator… There are plenty of people that would be willing to help you out through the tutoring system if you can find a way to either earn or buy points. I know many people have an interest in Arabic, so you could quite possibly earn a great deal of points by making Arabic lessons and releasing them to the LingQ community - they wouldn’t necessarily have to be long.
Don’t pay Imyirtseshem any mind - he isn’t exactly in a position to lecture about or bargain his English skills, because the difference between accept and except still escapes him.
Good luck with your English!
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Acooperator, I must say that your written English is excellent. I appreciate your active participation here at our forum, as well as that of everyone else.
You must recognize that we all have our personalities. For example, I would not ask as many questions about the language as you do. Imy is sometimes a little quick off the mark in casting aspersions on others. I won’t even get into some of the other dooobious characters here, and as to me, I think Amir probably nailed my personality in his imitation video.
But we are all happy to chime in here on the forum, take our lumps and come back for more, and there are no grudges.
BTW, I was told today, by an Irishman, that Irish Alzheimer’s means forgetting everything except your grudges!
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Imyirtseshem:Refuse to speak Arabic with me, I’ll refuse to speak English with you. All’s fair in love and language learning. 
If you have a look at my last post, you will see that I have said, “…I don’t want them to speak to me in Arabic, otherwise they want to practise with me” otherwise they want to practise with me in my language.
I think our GOD made for every peoples their own language. So that learning any language is not more than facilitating the communication between people of different nations.
Z33Dubyah
Don’t pay Imyirtseshem any mind - he isn’t exactly in a position to lecture about or bargain his English skills, because the difference between accept and except still escapes him.
For me, however, I would never despair from learning any language even if I hadn’t found any person want to speak to me in that language
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food fighting? without moi??? how dare ya!!
@tmp Perdónanos! Me acordaré incluirte la próxima vez, jaja
¿Por qué cambió la conversación en español?
Creo que en español es la cuarta lengua en el mundo. Sin embargo. Inglés es el primero, el francés es el segundo y el tercero es el alemán.
@Acooperator “¿Por qué cambió la conversación en español?”
creo que se debe a que un muy molesto hispanoparlante nativo entro a la conversacion xD
“Creo que en español es la cuarta lengua en el mundo.”
depende bajo que parametros especificos le estemos calificando, y a las estadisticas de quien le queramos dar mayor credito… normalmente yo le creeria a ethnologue
por otra parte, supongo que si dices que el idioma ingles es el primero, estas hablando de una lista en que se les califica por una especie de indice de “mayor influencia en el mundo” y, si ese es el caso, no puedo evitar estar mas que completamente de acuerdo en ello
p.d. mi post 200? yuuuupiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 
“I saw the girl whose beauty took my breath away.
I saw a girl, the beauty of whom took my breath away.”
This is a tough one. The first one is definitely right because you used the genitive case (whose) to refer to possession (the girl’s beauty).
In the second sentence, it seems you are still referring to possession but using the old accusative/dative case (whom). It sounds funny to me. I didn’t get a lot of grammar training in using “whom” because it’s been dropping out of the English language for decades. I am not sure if it sounds funny because it’s rarely used that way anymore or whether it’s grammatically wrong because it’s the wrong case.
Compare to this sentence: “That girl is the beauty of whom I spoke.” In this case, the girl=the beauty. “Who did you speak about (of)?” Answer: the girl=the beauty. Case=dative.
“I saw the girl whom I love.” Case=accusative