English and Languages

[Brady Yoon]

I'm usually pretty good in languages, but it seems like there's a lot of grammar rules in my English and Spanish classes. The thing I'm wondering is, why didn't the teachers teach us the grammar and the basics first? We can all count to a hundred, say simple things, but in our third year, people (including me), have trouble making sentences. And in English, there's so many rules that I have never even heard of before.

Recently, I learned that "It is her" is grammatically incorrect and "It is she" is correct. But I know my English teacher said "It is her.."

Is it just me, or should teaching of languages start with basic grammar, then proceed to details. It seems like it's the other way around at times..

[The Supreme Canuck]

That would make sense. Unfortunately, things are usually done in non-sensical ways.

[Nicolas]

That would be extremely boring as well, and difficult to practice.

[Evan]

English is a terrible language to learn as a second language or even as a first language . Every rule has exceptions. There is no consistency as it is a mishmash of German, French and a bit of just about everything else. Unlike most other languages when English needs a new word it often just steals the word from another language without translating. This makes the rules useless.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Perhaps it would be best to structure ESL courses that way, not courses aimed at children. They can't handle boredom.

Added: And you can legally make words up, too. Just slap a prefix or a suffix onto a word, and you're good to go!

[Normandy6644]

I always found that learning the grammar rules for another language helped me understand english grammar much better. Things like parts of speech and objects as well as various verb tenses all became much clearer.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Very true. French courses helped me with English. But now I've forgotten the French. #-o

[Gillianren]

I actually taught a friend grammar last school year. I found it easier to teach her rules than to correct the errors in the papers she had me proof for her.

so, okay. how did I do it? Schoolhouse Rock.

no, really! I played, for example, "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla," and then, we'd go over pronouns in more detail than can be managed in a three-minute cartoon. she had this little notebook that she wrote it all down in, so if she needed to refer to it, it was all in one place. is her grammar now perfect? oh, good lord, no. she's still got a tin ear for using contractions. but she knows how to identify a prepositional phrase and a complex-compound sentence, and isn't that more important?

I even taught her things I knew she probably already knew, because I'd rather be sure than get into compound sentences and discover that she didn't know what a conjunction was.

I'd offer to teach anyone else who wants to learn, but, well, you'd have to come to Olympia. I could probably work something out online, if anyone's interested.

[01101001]

I'm usually pretty good in languages, but it seems like there's a lot of grammar rules in my English and Spanish classes. The thing I'm wondering is, why didn't the teachers teach us the grammar and the basics first? We can all count to a hundred, say simple things, but in our third year, people (including me), have trouble making sentences. And in English, there's so many rules that I have never even heard of before.

My experience was similar Learning French as a second language, after English as a first. I had to learn a lot more about grammar. Maybe they taught it in English classes, but it was all second nature. Sure I remember English grammar lessons, but they just didn't have much impact. I didn't have to think about it much in English because it sort of came naturally. English grammar seemed to come from my subconscious -- probably because I learned it young. Good English just sounded right. Bad English sounded wrong. No problem.

When it came to French, suddenly I had to think about it. I needed to know terms to get a handle on it. I needed to know the tenses. I needed to understand the parts of speech.

Then I learned Japanese and Chinese and my French training, the learning about language, the learning of grammar, made them easier.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Alright. Here's my plan.

I'm going to learn the following:

French (Canadian)
Spanish
Portugese
Latin
Italian
German
Arabic
Old English
ASL

In no particular order. No joke, either.

Wish me luck.

[worzel]

Recently, I learned that "It is her" is grammatically incorrect and "It is she" is correct. But I know my English teacher said "It is her.."

That one's due to Latin I think, because "is" denotes equality rather than an action so both nouns are in the subjective case (nominative) rather than one being the object of the action (accusative). You could equally say "she is it" and would probably not like "her is it".

Because there is usually no inflection denoting the object or subject in English the personal pronouns are an exception, and this exception to the exception does seem odd at first.

[Evan]

Canuck,

I suggest you learn German first and then French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Old English in that order. Conversational German is relatively easy. The rules (yes it has real rules) have few exceptions and there aren't many guest words. The grammar can get complicated as it has formal and informal forms with four cases but you can get by without a perfect command of them. Plenty of Germans do.

The good thing is that each language you learn seems to make the next one easier.

[The Supreme Canuck]

That sounds about right, but I think French will come first. Not only is it a bit more useful for my location (on the Quebec border), but I've already learnt a bit. And then I forgot it. I'm sure it will come back...

The best part about the whole thing is that most of these languages are related. Even with my (very) rudimentary French, I can read some Spanish and Italian.

Thanks for the advise, though. The rest of the order sounds perfect.

[W.F. Tomba]

The predicate nominative is a nuisance and should be dropped, in my opinion. It's half obsolete anyway and at this point it exists only to trip up students and allow snobbish grammarians to pretend they're speaking Latin.

/soapbox

Brady, I have found that college-level foreign language courses do tend to start with basic grammar, while lower-level courses tend to begin with vocabulary and conversational speech. I too prefer the grammar-oriented approach, but many people may feel otherwise. I have always had a facility for grammar and languages anyway; perhaps you are the same way.

People I have met who have studied English as a second language have mostly said that it's easy. There are a lot of irregularities, but the rules themselves are very simple and the exceptions can simply be memorized. Of course, it may all depend on what your first language is. I've talked to a lot of francophones, who probably find English grammar easy because it's mainly simplified French grammar.

[Normandy6644]

I learned Spanish in high school, and am pretty close to fluent now. Around the same time I studied German, and am now reasonably conversational. I know minimal French, and now I'm learning Italian (my girlfriend and her family are all from Italy). Learning one romance language definitely helps with others. Italian is coming very easily to me simply because of my background with Spanish.

[dvb]

I wouldn't mind learning German myself. Would it be safe to say that German is the easiest language to learn for someone who speaks English as a first language?

I've never really learned English grammar myself, and I'm sure I'm not perfect at it either. However, it has always seemed to come natural to me as 01101001 mentioned earlier. I don't know why it sounds right, it just does. 8-[

Edit: Fixed :P

[The Supreme Canuck]

[Nitpick]

You'll want a comma after your "however."



[/Nitpick]

(Come on, how could I not say it? This is a grammar thread!)

[Evan]

Ha! The "rules" in English are riddled with exceptions like "i before e except after c unless sounding like a as in neighbour and weigh". Then you have sufficient.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yeah, I remember having to write a VB program for computing class a few years ago that fixes words like that. That was tedious.

[W.F. Tomba]

Ha! The "rules" in English are riddled with exceptions like "i before e except after c unless sounding like a as in neighbour and weigh". Then you have sufficient.

That's not grammar; that's spelling. English spelling is a train wreck, but the grammar is rather simple and elegant.

[worzel]

The predicate nominative is a nuisance and should be dropped, in my opinion. It's half obsolete anyway and at this point it exists only to trip up students and allow snobbish grammarians to pretend they're speaking Latin.

Ali G would agree

[Evan]

grammer witout speling isnt much gud.

[W.F. Tomba]

grammer witout speling isnt much gud.

Shur it is. I unnerstud ya jus fine. Mite not luk to gud on yer rezoomay, but thatz wut spel-chekers ar for!

[Grendl]

This is probably one of the most beautifully written threads.

LMBO!

:-#

[Normandy6644]

I wouldn't mind learning German myself. Would it be safe to say that German is the easiest language to learn for someone who speaks English as a first language?

Parts of it. Some of the past participles are reminiscent of their English counterparts. Example:

bringen - to bring
gebracht - brought

sprechen - to speak
gesprochen - spoke

There are many others. German does get very complicated when it comes to what are called "declensions." Basically articles changes depending on what role a word is playing in the sentence, i.e., direct or indirect object. There are four "cases" that have to be learned. As an example;

English: the dog
German: der Hund

English: I saw the dog.
German: Ich habe den Hund gesehen.

English: I gave the dog a toy.
German: Ich habe dem Hund ein Spielzeug gegeben.

Note two things. The word for "the" changed in German (der, den, dem), and the verb was conjugated with an auxilliary verb (haben - to have) and the participle at the end of the sentence. That's just how German works. Also, with the articles, there are three genders and they all have to be learned (there is some overlapping).

Wow, didn't mean to turn this into a German lesson, but I hope it illustrates some of the differences from English.

[W.F. Tomba]

I wouldn't mind learning German myself. Would it be safe to say that German is the easiest language to learn for someone who speaks English as a first language?

I think French would be easier. The grammar is fairly similar (particularly the lack of noun declensions) and there are an enormous number of cognates because English has borrowed more heavily from French than from any other language.

[Gillianren]

I'm a native English speaker. (no kidding, right?) I took Spanish in high school. and then . . . then . . . Gaelic. boy, you want to complain about problems in English spelling? not only that, but there is literally no word for "to have" in Gaelic, which led my class to speculate on the real cause of the problems between the Irish and the English.

unfortunately, since I've no real cause to use either these days, they're both fading into the dim recesses of my brain.

[AGN Fuel]

Given my father was an English Master for over 2 decades, learning English for me was no problem - every birthday card I gave him was returned red-inked and given a mark out of 20! Gradually it sank in! :wink:

Gillianren - I am with you on the Gaelic, which I studied briefly some 15 years ago. Some of the pronunciations still cause me to wake in a cold sweat.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Hmm. Gaelic sounds interesting. And I've always had a place in my heart for Gaelic music... consider it on my list.

[paulie jay]

I wouldn't mind learning German myself. Would it be safe to say that German is the easiest language to learn for someone who speaks English as a first language?

I know that Indonesian is an extremely easy language to master for an English speaking person.