Ya wanna learn (yourself) about ya wanna?

cheshire

cheshire

Senior Member
اليابان
Japanese
(1) A: Who do you want to [wanna] see?
B: I want to [wanna] see Mary.

(2) A: Who do you want to win?
B: I want Jane to win.

I read that "want to" in (2) can't be reduced to "wanna." Is it really true?
 
    • cheshire said:
    (1) A: Who do you want to [wanna] see?
    B: I want to [wanna] see Mary.

    (2) A: Who do you want to win?
    B: I want Jane to win.

    I read that "want to" in (2) can't be reduced to "wanna." Is it really true?
    Click to expand...
    "Wanna" is avoided by almost all people who write except when used in dialogue. Then it is used to show how people talk.

    "I don't wanna do it,", he said.

    "Wanna" and other forms like that are used in chat. We don't use them here.

    But you questions seems to be about what happens when "what" is split" from "to". So I'm a bit confused.

    Gaer
     
    cheshire, what you've said is correct.

    You can only reduce "want to" to "wanna" if the subject of the verb "want" and the subject of the verb following "want to" is the same.

    So, in the first example, the subject of "want" is "you", and the subject of "see" is "you". Same subjects, can reduce to "wanna".

    In the second example, the subject of "want" is "you" but the subject of "win" is "who". Different subjects, can't use "wanna".

    Note, though, as gaer mentioned, you would almost never write "wanna" - it's purely a spoken phenomenon.
     
    Snowman75 said:
    cheshire, what you've said is correct.

    You can only reduce "want to" to "wanna" if the subject of the verb "want" and the subject of the verb following "want to" is the same.

    So, in the first example, the subject of "want" is "you", and the subject of "see" is "you". Same subjects, can reduce to "wanna".

    In the second example, the subject of "want" is "you" but the subject of "win" is "who". Different subjects, can't use "wanna".

    Note, though, as gaer mentioned, you would almost never write "wanna" - it's purely a spoken phenomenon.
    Click to expand...
    Right, and in the second sentence, in dialague, it could be written:

    "I wanna see Jane win," he said.

    There are really not totally set rules about what is correct or incorrect when representing how people speak, but there are standard patterns used by most writers.

    This, for instance, is why "gonna" shows up more than "gunna", but both are possible.

    "I don't know what I'm gonna do," he said.
    "I don't know what I'm gunna do," he said.

    The second is much more unusual but is used sometimes to show a slight difference in regional pronunciation.

    Gaer
     
    panjandrum said:
    :eek:
    So there are RULES for when it is OK to use wanna.
    Click to expand...
    :D Well, for non-native speakers it's a rule. For native speakers, of course, like most rules, it is just a way of describing the way we actually speak.

    And the rule does exist, even if most native speakers don't realise it. If you were to ask a native English speaker the following question:

    "Who do you wanna win?"

    He will likely interpret it the same way as "What do you wanna win?". In other words, he will be expecting to win a person as a prize. Of course, in context, the intended meaning will be understood, but it will sound strange.
     
    panjandrum said:
    So there are RULES for when it is OK to use wanna.
    Click to expand...
    It's the handwriting on the wall, Panj!

    When I saw the guidelines of "wanna" set down, I mostly agreed with them, and had a similar epiphany as you, though I regarded it more with bemusement than dismay.

    Rules betoken an acceptance of sort, don't they.

    That said, I don't agree that "who'dja wanna win" means anything but a question about the outcome of the game. Unless it's a claiming race! In that case I wanna win the bay. The bobtail nag looks kinda lame.
    .
     
    foxfirebrand said:
    That said, I don't agree that "who'dja wanna win" means anything but a question about the outcome of the game. Unless it's a claiming race! In that case I wanna win the bay. The bobtail nag looks kinda lame.
    .
    Click to expand...
    :)
    It's really easy to "over-think" the way we speak.

    At best ways of describing speech with such inventions as "wanna", "gonna", etc. are only going to get close to the way people actually talk.

    I do think that certain ways of representing dialogue are more common than others, but you certainly won't find them in any book. I suspect authors pick up certain patterns from other authors, and over time we begin to accept certain inventions as standard in dialogue.

    Beyond that, I think it's pretty much "anything goes".

    Gaer
     
    Both of these are FINE, if you are talking to a FRIEND or a child. ONLY A would be FINE if you were talking formally.
    A: Who do you want to see win? (Technically, WHO here should be WHOM, but who gives a flip?)
    B: I wanna see Mary win.

    Both of these are FINE, too, if you are speaking informally. If you are speaking formally, stick with A (and if you want to impress the weird grammarians of the world, use WHOM, because it is an object, not a subject pronoun).
    A: Who do you want to win? (Again, technically, should be WHOM)
    B: Who d'ya wanna see win?
     
    Here is how many Americans say HAVE YOU EATEN?

    Jeet. (In other words, Did you eat becomes Did'ya eat, then to ja eet, then to jeet. Now, we Americans deny things like this, but that only because we don't want to look uneducated to our Cockney-speaking friends in London.
     
    padredeocho said:
    Here is how many Americans say HAVE YOU EATEN?
    Click to expand...
    What does jeet have to do with have yetyet? And by the way, I've heard those toffy-nosed swells across the pond say "et" too, in case you're oh-deeing on lah-di-dah envy.
    .
     
    cheshire said:
    Interesting!
    Panjandrum, why so?
    Click to expand...
    I find it strange that there are now rules for the use of wanna, which is in itself a breach of the rules of English.
    As FFB said, "It's the handwriting on the wall."

    Hey, I'm gonna be a wanna rebel.
    Who do you wanna win?
    I wanna see Jane win.

    Perfectly acceptable in wannaworld.
     
    panjandrum said:
    I find it strange that there are now rules for the use of wanna, which is in itself a breach of the rules of English.
    As FFB said, "It's the handwriting on the wall."

    Hey, I'm gonna be a wanna rebel.
    Who do you wanna win?
    I wanna see Jane win.

    Perfectly acceptable in wannaworld.
    Click to expand...
    I'm really not clear about where this discussion is heading. When you talk about "a breach of the rules of English", what do you mean?

    I don't see that "words" such as "wanna" or "gonna" have anything to do with rules. They reflect the way people speak, and they also reflect what happens when people speak quickly. I try very hard to avoid "sloppy" speech. I have to teach small children and people who do not speak English as their first language. In addition, I teach music, which has a specialized vocabulary, so I have to be especially clear about how I explain things.

    But I know without any doubt that I say "wanna" and "gonna" from time to time. Does that put me in "wannaworld too"?

    I think the tone of this discussion is becoming incredibly condescending and arrogant.

    Gaer
     
    cheshire said:
    I read that "want to" in (2) can't be reduced to "wanna." Is it really true?
    Click to expand...

    This is tough for me to answer since I can convince myself of anything right now. For me, part of the problem is I generally drop t's after n's anyway (e.g. in "twenty" or "winter") in casual speech, so I probably still say "wanna" (although this isn't the best possible representation of what I say), but saying the t sounds very natural in (2) while it sounds more awkward in (1). I'm thinking that maybe the two "wanna"s are different, but I can't observe myself speaking casually. It's a really interesting point though.

    panjandrum said:
    I find it strange that there are now rules for the use of wanna, which is in itself a breach of the rules of English.
    Click to expand...

    Part of the problem here is the double meaning of rules. One meaning is, like gaer and Snowman75 said, to describe the way people actually speak, since our use of our language is rule-based even if we're not consciously aware of them. The other meaning refers to the rules that tell what is "correct" English, although in the end they're just the rules that describe the way our linguistic "betters" speak/spoke.

    I'll add my question about "want to" and "wanna" here too because I was always under the impression that all North American speakers said some version of "wanna" in normal speech (other varieties of English seem to do different things to their t's). Does any North American pronounce a t in "want to" a sentence like "I want to go" unless they're trying to speak very formally?
     
    Many English students who study Spanish and other languages, forget that we have a second person familiar, just like Spanish does with tú.

    To want
    You want a good career, and I undestand that, but acting is not the answer.
    Ya wanna a good career, and I undestand that, but acting is not the answer.

    This form has become so commonly used, that it really should be taught to anybody learning English. My students use this form more than the first form I gave.
     
    I do not speak Spanish, so I do not know the level of familiarity of the Spanish tù. However, if it is comparable to the French tu, then I absolutely disagree.

    Ya wanna is certainly not comparable in formality or level to the French tu, which is perfectly acceptable in writing, and which does not result in a low estimation of your education. Ya wanna looks, in my opinion, absolutely dreadful, although I think it is fine in very casual speech.
     
    Your students say, "Ya wanna a good career", with the second "a" in there? Or was that a typo? With the second "a", it sounds like a thick Italian accent in English.

    I don't think that "you want a" and "ya wanna" are different conjugations at all. One is simply more casual-sounding because the consonants are slurred.
     
    JamesM said:
    Your students say, "Ya wanna a good career", with the second "a" in there? Or was that a typo? With the second "a", it sounds like a thick Italian accent in English.

    I don't think that "you want a" and "ya wanna" are different conjugations at all. One is simply more casual-sounding because the consonants are slurred.
    Click to expand...

    They would drop the "a" and just say, Ya wanna good career. I can't imaging them saying, Ya wanna a good career. The second a defeats the purpose of the slur.
     
    It is most certainly not written in any of the novels I read, and most of them were recently released. It is a relaxed style of speech, not an alternate conjugation.
     
    Brioche said:
    The person who says "wanna" is likely to truncate the "who do you", too.

    Who'dja wanna win?
    Click to expand...
    In ESOL teaching we were encouraged to teach our students 'Who'dja wanna win?' on the grounds that that is what they were mostly likely to hear, and so they could pass for native New Zealanders, bizarre as most of them were Chinese and intending to return there!
     
    Victoria32 said:
    In ESOL teaching we were encouraged to teach our students 'Who'dja wanna win?' on the grounds that that is what they were mostly likely to hear, and so they could pass for native New Zealanders, bizarre as most of them were Chinese and intending to return there!
    Click to expand...

    Yes, I totally agree! And I think it hurts those learning English not to be taught this.
    They are taught "Do you want to eat?"
    and they hear "D'ya wanna eat?"

    To deny this is like denying the sun in the sky.
     
    Can you give a few published examples? Maybe it's written this way in teen novels, but I find it hard to imagine it being common for a character in a novel, unless the author was doing it purposely as part of the characterization.
     
    To me, you want a and ya wanna are just different orthographical representations of the same thing. The latter conveys a little bit more dialectal flavor. There is no difference in the formality of the pronoun.

    I don't make any sort of distinction such as calling friends ya and strangers you.
     
    padredeocho said:
    Yes, I totally agree! And I think it hurts those learning English not to be taught this.
    They are taught "Do you want to eat?"
    and they hear "D'ya wanna eat?"

    To deny this is like denying the sun in the sky.
    Click to expand...
    I think it is a matter of survival to learn to understand the way people speak. I love to hear people speak clearly and carefully in any language, and I especially appreciate it in German or Spanish, but if you can only understand someone who speaks clearly, you are left out of most conversations.

    However, I don't think there is anything wrong with this?

    Native speaker: "D'ya wanna eat?"
    Person learning: "Yes, I do want to eat. What do you want?/Where do you want to go?"

    I think it's always best for a person learning a language to use the correct forms, at least for a long time, because often when people learning attempt to mimic the speach patterns of natives, the result is not cool but embarrassing. Not always, but sometimes. :)

    Gaer
     
    padredeocho said:
    Yes, I totally agree! And I think it hurts those learning English not to be taught this.
    They are taught "Do you want to eat?"
    and they hear "D'ya wanna eat?"

    To deny this is like denying the sun in the sky.
    Click to expand...
    I would have been happier about it, if they had been (my students) intending to stay in an English speaking country, but most were getting an English qualification so they would better job prospects in China or Korea. For immigrants, yes, you have a point...

    That being said, I was hired as a tutor by my Italian student because I sound British, and having lived in the UK, that is the sound he wanted - although I was conspicuously unsuccessful in instilling it in him, as he was a lazy beggar... I also speak very precisely, you will never catch me saying 'do you wanna' unless I am singing (loudly and tunelessly) a song by Franz Ferdinand! (Scots by the way.)
     
    modus.irrealis said:
    I'll add my question about "want to" and "wanna" here too because I was always under the impression that all North American speakers said some version of "wanna" in normal speech (other varieties of English seem to do different things to their t's). Does any North American pronounce a t in "want to" a sentence like "I want to go" unless they're trying to speak very formally?
    Click to expand...
    It's not a matter of formality. It's a matter of clarity. When I say "want to", I'm not being formal. I'm speaking more slowly and more carefully.

    There are clear differences in the way speech is contracted in BE and AE, and even that is a gross simplification.

    Here is one example I've noticed from careful listening.

    "I don't like that at all."

    AE: a'DALL
    BE: d'TOLE

    In this case the "t" is clearly articulated in BE. I don't think you can make a blanket statement, but in general I think "t" is pronounced much more consistently in BE.

    Gaer
     
    Well, us North Americans are less formal. Not only in English, but in Spanish, too. Americans typically say something like this, "Are ya gunna go?" We all know that Are you going to go? is the preferred way to say it, but we often say it the first way. In fact, it may be the norm. The Mexicans, also North Americans, say pa'ca for para aca, meaning right here. The mother tongues are just too long-winded for us simple folks across the pond.
     
    (3) Do you expect all of the books you want to be available in the library?
    I also read that "want to" in (3) can't be shortened to "wanna." Is it true?

    (4) Who do you want to succeed?
    (x) If the sentence is about whom "you" wants to take over, "want to" can be shortened to "wanna."
    (y) If the sentence is about who it is that "you" wants to be successful, it can't be shortened to "wanna."
    Is it really true?
     
    cheshire said:
    (3) Do you expect all of the books you want to be available in the library?
    I also read that "want to" in (3) can't be shortened to "wanna." Is it true?

    (4) Who do you want to succeed?
    (x) If the sentence is about whom "you" wants to take over, "want to" can be shortened to "wanna."
    (y) If the sentence is about who it is that "you" wants to be successful, it can't be shortened to "wanna."
    Is it really true?
    Click to expand...
    (3) I'm almost positive I would say "want to" because I would also make a slight break after want…
    (4) I would say "want to succeed".

    But I am very reluctant to use rules to analyze what is happening, because I fear it would get far too complicated. In the end, native speakers pronounce things as they do for no other reason than habit, and there are SO many factors.

    I would recommend that if you need rules to figure out how to use "wanna" in an idiomatic way, you would be far better off sticking to "want to". That is why I suggested that it is necessary to understand speech contractions or informal usage, but it is not necessary to use them.

    Gaer
     
    Can we just be clear that for those who wish to learn normally acceptable English, and who wish to pass exams in English, this usage is wrong.
    In the UK, ya wanna will also mark the speaker as a careless, and probably uneducated, speaker.

    It is also considered wrong in these forums.
     
    gaer said:
    It's not a matter of formality. It's a matter of clarity. When I say "want to", I'm not being formal. I'm speaking more slowly and more carefully.
    Click to expand...

    I think I worded my question badly, but you still answered what I should have asked. It still sounds less natural if I say "want to" with a t sound, but now I think I should pay more attention to the speech around me, to see if I'm just ignoring the t's that are there. I'm not sure what you mean by clarity, though. How is the "wanna" pronunciation less clear?

    I've never really understood this issue, since I pronounce "want to" as "wanna" anyway, especially in say a novel's dialogues (wheneve an author uses "wanna," it seems to me to just be a cheap way to make me think less of a character because the spelling is wrong). It's not like the rest of English spelling adequately represents how the language is pronounced.

    In this case the "t" is clearly articulated in BE. I don't think you can make a blanket statement, but in general I think "t" is pronounced much more consistently in BE.
    Click to expand...
    That's generally been my impression as well, but you're right about making generalizations.
     
    gaer said:
    [...]I would recommend that if you need rules to figure out how to use "wanna" in an idiomatic way, you would be far better off sticking to "want to". That is why I suggested that it is necessary to understand speech contractions or informal usage, but it is not necessary to use them.
    Click to expand...
    Different parts of the world, different parts of the country, will abbreviate and truncate in pronunciation in different ways.
    An attempt to describe this once for all is not going to succeed.
    On the other hand, all of these forms are relaxed versions of the standard forms of English speech and pronunciation that most of us recognise.
     
    panjandrum said:
    Dyoo wanna banana?
    Click to expand...
    I'm not a froot kinda guy-- you're the orang-man, after all. But I'll take a juicy young vole if you've got one on the hoof. Nothin canned or frozen.
    .
     
    padredeocho said:
    Ya wanna may look dreadful, but let's face it, it is in all the sitcoms, and virtually every novel these days.
    Click to expand...

    I don't disagree that it should be explained in the same way as gonna and ain't, but as common day-to-day speech for some native English speakers. Gonna is becoming more and more common for BE speakers but ya wanna is definitely something which hasn't crossed the Atlantic to the same extent - yet. As for it being an informal second person - absolutely not. Is ya'all going to become an informal second person plural? I cannot remember ya wanna in any novels except as part of a dialogue, and dialogue can contain all sorts of regional day-to-day expressions. Can we leave it in the sitcoms please.
     
    Kelly B said:
    I do not speak Spanish, so I do not know the level of familiarity of the Spanish tù. However, if it is comparable to the French tu, then I absolutely disagree.

    Ya wanna is certainly not comparable in formality or level to the French tu, which is perfectly acceptable in writing, and which does not result in a low estimation of your education. Ya wanna looks, in my opinion, absolutely dreadful, although I think it is fine in very casual speech.
    Click to expand...

    We have the form tu in Italian, that is the usual way to address friends or relatives and it's perfectly acceptable in writing as well as the French tu. It's not a slang or a sign of bad English like "ya wanna", but just a speaking informal register .
     
    The original premiss is wrong. We don't have a second person familiar in English, except in the archaic 'thou' and 'thee'. 'Ya wanna' is just a diminutive, and nothing at all to do with the familiar.
     
    There are, I suppose, two fundamental ways to learn the vernacular language of any particular place or cultural group.
    The first is to be born into it.
    The second is to learn the learn the base language from which it derives and to discover - best by observation - how that base language is relaxed into the vernacular.

    If yous wants to learn yourselves my vernacular, yous should of went to my school. (Spelling standardised:) )
     
    padredeocho said:
    Many English students who study Spanish and other languages, forget that we have a second person familiar, just like Spanish does with tú.

    To want
    You want a good career, and I undestand that, but acting is not the answer.
    Ya wanna a good career, and I undestand that, but acting is not the answer.

    This form has become so commonly used, that it really should be taught to anybody learning English. My students use this form more than the first form I gave.
    Click to expand...
    I am not sure if you are saying that "ya" is a familiar person or if you are saying that only the verb "want" has one in "ya wanna".

    If you are saying that "ya" is anywhere near comparable to the Latin languages "tu" then I disagree. In any English sentence an unstressed vowel is likely to become a schwa. If you have the paradigm "you" + verb and the stress of the sentence falls on the verb then the "you" will be relatively unstressed and the vowel will become the schwa, or at least tend towards it, which is represented by "ya". This would happen in the speech from the Queen to the primeminster to president to window cleaner to car salesman.

    If you are saying that "wanna" is familiar, then I'd agree with that. It is representative of a relaxed style of speech, and would be unlikely to do you favours in a job interview for example. But this has nothing to do with being a verb form. In relaxed speech, and particularly American speech (or so I thought) you often swallow the "t" in a "nt" combination - innernet, innernational etc. One of those words is a noun the other an adjective, so the phenomenon is familiar, yes, a special verb form? No.

    If you wanted to claim that we are seeing the emergence of a plural verb form in "y'all" or "youse" then I'd agree with that, though.
     
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