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Re:English is weirdly different from other languages by Mediterraneo10 on Thursday June 01, 2017 @05:27PM (#14464959)
> Right, but usually (except in a few corner cases) this is done with separate helping words (e.g. in English: "to cook up" v. "to cook")

No, there are a large number of languages around the world that mark aspect with affixes, apophony or root suppletism just like Russian. I can only assume your knowledge is limited to a small handful of probably mainly IE languages. I strongly recommend looking at an introduction to aspect whose examples are drawn from a wide range of linguistic typologies such as the Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect.

Re:English is weirdly different from other languages by kafkaesq on Thursday June 01, 2017 @06:42PM (#14465589)
Your background knowledge is impressive, but this is way off topic.

Recall I was simply attempting to explain why Russian verbs are sometimes confusing to foreign speakers. My quantification of the distinctiveness of the Russian system may not have been quite correct -- but it was completely ancillary to the broader point I was making.

Re:English is weirdly different from other languages by kafkaesq on Thursday June 01, 2017 @09:33PM (#14466766)
Your background knowledge is impressive,

This sounds a bit obnoxious, actually. I should have said something like "Your clarification is very helpful, and your points are perfectly valid."