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| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 33 of 60 09 December 2010 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cainntear, do you think I should introduce the pattern with "dies" first? It is much more regular then, so I wouldn't have to fudge es --> das, and the ihn/ihm/ihr subpattern that you identified (because the vowel is always "e"). That way I teach the pattern without any complications. I can then introduce the definite article and because the main pattern has already been learned the subpattern would not be distracting. This would allow me to teach it as two patterns as you suggest. What do you think? What do *you* think, Andy E?
Also, if I'm honest with myself, the reason I introduced the fact that German nouns (mostly) add "n" in the dative plural before I was ready to teach it was an attempt to cheat...it simply has to be in any reasonable course on the German Cases, but I'm not sure how to teach it so that it sticks, any ideas? Edited by Random review on 10 December 2010 at 1:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Welltravelled Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5861 days ago 46 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 34 of 60 10 December 2010 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Thanks for posting this random review. I plan to use it in the future. It should cut out a lot of time with a grammar book!!
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 35 of 60 10 December 2010 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
I don't think it really makes any difference whether the variation is taught earlier or later.
Just run a few examples, and make sure you contrast with the non-ablative. IIRC, Solity identified that Thomas would give three or four practices of the new form before intersplicing it with the previous pattern for contrast. Now, I've not commented on lesson 7 yet.... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 36 of 60 10 December 2010 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
OK, so I'm probably going to be repeating myself quite a bit, but here goes with lesson 7...
This review makes things seem more complicated. The problem with MT's teaching is that as formalised rules they are too contorted and dense. The reason that this is not a bad thing is because MT rules are designed to direct the teaching, not as a reference work. Grammar tables are designed for paper, not for the human mind. Thomas teaches everything in parts and by application because the whole picture is too complicated to understand in one go -- it's composed of many independent parts and is therefore multidimensional in complexity. A grammar book is three-dimensional at best, and a spoken sentence is one dimensional. You cannot condense a multidimensional system into a one-dimensional explanation without losing a lot of information.
I'm not convinced of the need to label them. With the "weil situation", Thomas was breaking up inverting and non-inverting conjunctions, something that seems quite arbitrary to an English speaker. But here we've got something that already has its own logic, and the labels maneouver you into using a fixed jumping-off point, whereas you should be looking to be able to start with def.article+noun and go straight to indef.article+noun if you want, or any combination. I think it's logical enough to do in its own terms without constructing any new "situations".
As you'll no doubt have guessed, I'm going to tell you to leave the rules until you're ready to teach them. But also, the MT course started with "es ist gut", so surely our first rule, our "base form", is the so-called "predicative adjective" -- the "is" adjective. After all, it's something the student already knows. Further more, what are we adding "e" to if this is our base form? Establish the base "is" form, and then the e can be added to that. So practise "es ist gut" and start introducing new adjectives, and combine with several different persons and structures, including things like "I want to know if it is good", "I will eat it if it is good" etc. Then introduce the additional "e" as simply a way of making things easier to say. Start with an example that's difficult to say without the "e" and just explain that the "e" sound just helps the words flow better. If you can get an adjective ending in N and a noun starting in a G or C or similar, that's good because as English speakers, we can't pronounce NG or NK as anything other than an "ing"/"ink" sound -- we can't pronounce the two letters distinctly without a lot of effort. Even just "gut Mann" is quite clumsy, hence "gute Mann". So the "e" is required to keep the two words apart. Rule 3 seems a bit heavy, and I think you need to do more teaching-by-doing and give less info up front but I'm not sure on the ideal order.
You've made me think about what you're going to do. No - the point of all the lead-in before the first example is to get all the appropriate information in my mind. I won't be thinking about the next few examples, because I'll be trying to think two steps ahead.
That's a good lead in. But...
... I don't think you should tell me "dieses" -- I should already know it, so you should make me recall it from its meaning, so skip the line above and go straight to:
At this point you rely on them figuring out something from a consciously-presented rule, not from examples:
Instead I think this is where you should be introducing rule 4. Give them a few lead-in questions before the explanation. Rather than talking vaguely about "none of our other words, take about "a", "the", "this" and "that". Then you're explicitly and concisely tying the structure to the circumstances of use. Say that "The Germans don't want to lose any information, so what do they do with the endings? Well they can't just leave them where they are -- an ending isn't an ending if there's nothing before it -- so they put them in the first place they can: the adjective." (A couple of simple examples) Then give an example with two adjectives. This is where the "only needed once" rule can be elaborated, and can be reinforced by longer and longer strings of adjectives. Having done this, you can then integrate it with other determiners (articles, possessives, this, that etc) to show step by step that only one is needed. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 37 of 60 10 December 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Again some excellent points, which I will be taking on board, thanks. The problem with making the "only once needed" rule so explicit is that it DOES appear twice if there are two adjectives.
ich will ein gutes deutsches Bier *not* "ich will ein gut deutsches Bier". Edited by Random review on 10 December 2010 at 7:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 38 of 60 10 December 2010 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ah, I didn't realise.
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| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 39 of 60 10 December 2010 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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If you did not realise then that is my fault as the teacher (as MT would have insisted), but I think once all your points are integrated into the new draft we'll have something much less confusing. Will you be around to critique the next (should be penultimate) draft ,please? Hopefully it will be much tighter, and so would take less effort on your part.
By the way, I really like this:-
I'm afraid I still think it would be confusing to introduce the ihn/ihr/ihm subpattern at the same time as the main pattern, I think I will teach the main pattern first, using diese/dieses/dieser etc, and THEN introduce the subpattern, unless anyone has a better idea. Is it true what you said about the origin of the "e" in adjectives before nouns? In the absense of significant Old High German texts (yes the Lay of Hildebrand etc, but I meant significant in terms of a Corpus, not in terms of Literature value) I think it's as good an idea as we're going to get (it's so much easier with Spanish where the existence of a large Latin Corpus makes clear the evolution of forms like "el agua", which are traditionally explained as avoiding cacophany- pure nonsense b.t.w.) easy to understand, sigh. Edited by Random review on 10 December 2010 at 8:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 40 of 60 10 December 2010 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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What if I introduce the "no-ending" form as the base form, and then practice it, all as you suggest- then I could go on to say that in English you can MOVE adjectives before the noun, so "the beer is good" and "this is good beer" . Now in German you can also do this, but before an adjective can move away from the verb "to be" and in front of a noun, in German it has to have an ending to make it stick properly. I can then introduce and practice the "e" ending, before going on to "en", and then the "pronoun endings" using your point that I liked so much above. I can finally (by using this "linking" concept) say that you can chain adjectives on to each other like lego, leading to forms like "gutes deutsches Bier.
Ok, it's clumsy at the moment, but could be a promising avenue to explore. Edited by Random review on 10 December 2010 at 9:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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