Then or than?

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My english is not very good because my lack of practise, so that's why I read a lot and specially in this forums; one of the rules here is that you have to try to write the best you can. I remember that "then" is translated to spanish as "entonces", is an adjetive: and "then" the music stoped; "than" is a preposition that it is used to compare things: this is better "than" that. I read in lots of post something like "this is better THEN that" so I wonder if is correct of is just people like me who make mistakes because is not our natural language (or are, like me, learnig).

 

I've always used the words the way you initially described as well, and taken "better then that" as a bad mistake in grammar. But I have to admit that I've seen so many native English speakers use that form of speech that I have my doubts as well.

An answer to this life-defining dilemma would be most appreciated.

 

And my post was because a post from you, Foradasthar, but then I realized that you are from Finland, that's why I searched for native English posts and found many of those "then".
Maybe is a silly question, but I am trying to improve my english and I try to write the best I can, so as I think here most of the people write their best I take for granted that is correct.

 

"Than" is the preposition used to compare things ("my beer is bigger than your beer"), "then" is the adverb that means something happened after something else ("he took his clothes off, then she screamed and ran away") or during a certain denoted period ("what was he doing then?", "the then president"). It can also mean "so", like "What is it then?" or "Then why are you still here?" etc.

 

Great example

 

I concur with Chevalier's well composed answer. It is a very basic concept and those of us for whom English is a first language should be ashamed if we ever get it wrong. But it must be quite confusing for people who are trying to learn English. Well done for getting it right, Sydax.

 

'You're telling me I didn't post since 2003? Then why is my post account bigger now than it was then?'

 

Much appreciated. I knew my instincts couldn't be wrong. Afterall my linquistic ear has always been better then that of the average person.

 

From what I have seen of previous posts your English is very good and the same for the other people that do not speak English as their primary language. It always makes me cringe when native English speakers have to resort to crude slang and great numbers of spelling and grammer errors.

 

I think they are making a mistake and you're right about the preposition and adjective classification. Even those who speak English as their primary language will use "then" in place of "than" simply because when you say "than" quickly it sometimes sounds like "then".

Oh, and just to help - no offence is implied here - your first sentence "My english is not very good because my lack of practise, so that's why I read a lot and specially in this forums" was slightly incorrect. It should be "My English is not very good because of my lack of practice, so that's why I read a lot “ and “especially in this forum” OR “especially in these forums” OR yet again “especially on these message boards”. Use the word “this” when referring to singular and use “these” when referring to plural. Hope it helps

 

O well. I barely know what plural and singular means. I have a vague idea what a preposition is, and the only 3 rules in English grammar that i need to remember are:

1. Nationalities are written in caps.

2. The prepositions 'a' and 'an' depend on wether the first letter in the next word is *pronounced* with a vowel or not. Examples: "a UFO", "an unidentified flying object"

3. Something so useless I don't even remember it anymore.

When I went to highschool, I remember asking my English teacher what kind of scores I could expect to get from the exams as I didn't know or want to know the first thing about grammar. It was well known you see that the exams had many questions in them that simply asked you to present a sentence according to some sort of grammar-specific formula. So if you didn't know the rules, then you couldn't understand the question even if you actually knew the answer. She said I could get an 8 if I did real good (scores were from 4 to 10, 4 being the worst and 10 being the best). Got all straight 10's throughout the 3 years in highschool of course.

Or hmm, actually I did get one 9:er there due to lack of interest in one of the courses. Anyway, the point is that I've never had a good memory for little details like specific formulas, numbers, words etc. And as such I've always hated them and avoided them. The only thing I've got going for me in Finnish, Swedish and English is my 'ear' and instinct. I just write whatever sounds ok. And if something sounds a bit dubious, I'll find a way to go around it altogether.

 

*points at Foradasthar* Same for me... believe me, when I took a single Latin class I had no idea WTF the teacher was talking baout 90% of the time

 

Plural is more than one 'thing' whereas singular is one thing.

Apple - singular
Apples - plural

 

Or

people - singular
peoples - plural

 

That's a dodgy one, Darkthrone. "People" in itself is plural for "person". "People" being singular refers to one group of persons – such as identifying “The American people” whereas an example of “Peoples” as plural would be “The American and British peoples”. An example of another oddity is “sheep” since it is both a plural and a singular – there is no such word as “sheeps”.

 

That was a joke you know. Or an 'exaggeration to give an idea of just how much I care about the names of the rules in general grammar' (ones that I can really only name in my mothertongue, so I can't give a proper example here).

Singular and plural are actual words that you need in a normal conversation. Not knowing those is worse than not knowing the difference between a monologue and a dialogue.

Thanks for the kind thought anyway, heh.

[ November 02, 2004, 14:54: Message edited by: Foradasthar ]

 

Foradasthar, check your second post, first line, last word...
@Abomination: I appreciate your help, I don't see any offence by correcting/teaching something; I suppose to know english very well, I practised english since I was 3 untill 20, my family (my father and his father) talked to me in enlish all the time, but I didn't keep the "training" and I didn't study english anymore since then, still, I remember it well enough to keep a conversation but I still don't know some of the basic "rules".
By the way, thanks for the lessons

 

@ Sydax:
Wonder why I have the winking smiley there?

You all a humour very bad yes have.

Seriously though, I know it's hard to say wether someone's joking or not when you can't see their real expressions. Especially since you don't know the person in real life.

Sometimes I wonder wether someone is actually testing me and my vanity in pointing out "mistakes" I so obviously put there for fun. Just to see if my ego is weak enough to actually force me to respond in an attempt to save my own self-image. It's a funny thing, you know. One that I'm sure the people of SP specifically are familiar with.

Reminds me of that time I criticized the fake picture of Jar-Jar Binks in LoTR:TT, and my joke was missed. It was surprisingly difficult for me to not clarify it afterwards. Not many people really can take the reputation of a dumb person, despite the advantage that comes from it. Our egos are just too great for it it seems. Though one could rightfully argue that in a normal situation, being thought dumb is far more harmful than not. Oh, how problematic this life of ours is..

Oh and yes, I admit defeat in responding to that. Despite my rather renewed way of viewing life and people, I can't let things like that go unanswered.

 

@Sydax - If I could speak Spanish as well as you type English, I'd get along with my in-laws a whole lot better. Or at least I'd know when they were bad-mouthing me.

On the topic of "then" or "than", the above posters are correct and it annoys me to no end when supposedly native speakers can't be bothered to type better than they speak. You can be sure that when they speak they are most likely getting it wrong then as well.

 

Believe it or not, my grammar is very good. My biggest problem when typing is that, because I'm a very slow, hunt-'n-peck typist, my brain is usually 5 or 6 words ahead of my fingers, and so I often end up typing something other that what I thought I was fish sticks in Europe. ( )

Anyway, another useful rule:
'i' before 'e' except after 'c'. And except in 'freight'. Or 'leisure'. Or 'neither'. Or 'weight'. Or 'feign'. Or...