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Comment by df41 | Hacker News Reader

Tell me about it. I still do not understand why you need to put am after I but is after he. Isn't it clear 'I is' is different from 'he is'? Another thing troubling me is whether to reply yes or no on questions like "didn't you agree?". I also think it would be nice for English to have more compound words like "sunflower". I am not even starting on the cultural part yet, since I am still studying the evolvement from illegal to undocumented.

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> Another thing troubling me is whether to reply yes or no on questions like "didn't you agree?"

Native English speakers often get confused by this one too. You can respond either yes or no in those situations as long as you specify the one you wanted afterwards.

    e.g. "Don't you agree?"

    "Yes, I agree" and "No, I agree" would both be acceptable.

I've heard of many situations where East Asian students of English cause confusion by answering "Yes. Yes, I don't agree." — which doesn't sound natural in English.

All of the different forms of "to be" come from different words in old languages. We get "am" and "is" from Latin, but I am not sure about the other tenses. Google says that all of the others are a collection of words "Indo-European," which indicates that it is some language from ancient times.

As for answering questions with a presumed answer, one of the best things to do is to restate the verb when you answer. "Didn't you agree with him?" "Yes, I agreed with him." This way, it is clear to everyone.

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