From the grammar book to your mouth (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

From the grammar book to your mouth
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago
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4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 49 of 58

16 February 2012 at 6:03pm | IP Logged

By everyone:) Even the native speakers don't claim it's a super hard language:)

@LaughingChimp, reread this too:)

I can do the grammar excercises, I am not stupid. I read the rule, answer the questions in the book, and mostly get the answers right. The problem is that this does not translate into me being able to use these structures correctly, because that is not the way my brain is wired. I need to hear the structures used repeatedly in real speech, in order to get it.

I'm just saying that in Finnish I was able to learn the grammar this way. Because it's more regular than Russian.
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PillowRock
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United States
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 50 of 58

16 February 2012 at 6:10pm | IP Logged

mrwarper wrote:

How much grammatical terminology do you think I knew when I was 8?
Time for fancy labels like 'direct object' didn't come until maybe 5 years later, way after we had started any L2

Here is where I think that you and I are having our basic disconnect.

My experience was that "8 years old" had absolutely no relevance to learning a foreign language.

When I was in school there was absolutely no opportunity to learn any L2 until high school (starting at about age 14; though most wouldn't take a language until a couple years later than that, if at all). That's after a fair amount of basic grammar had been introduced in English. So a fair amount of the basic explanations about how the language worked was along the lines of "which pronoun you use depends on whether it the subject or object of the sentence"; and when the students already understand that, it does speed things up compared to all of the pattern matching required to figure things out without that kind of frame of reference.

Edited by PillowRock on 16 February 2012 at 6:34pm
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Serpent
Octoglot
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serpent-849.livejour
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Message 51 of 58

16 February 2012 at 6:26pm | IP Logged

That's because you're a native speaker of English :)

I think an important distinction for this thread is what exactly to call a grammar book. Nobody really claims that you can learn to use the grammar from a reference book, without any additional materials, whether exercises, SRS or exposure. Not even Esperanto grammar.

On the other hand, it's possible to learn to use the grammar correctly by going through a grammar book with a lot of exercises.
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PillowRock
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United States
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 52 of 58

16 February 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

PillowRock wrote:

Also, business interactions need to be sufficiently "proper" (whatever that means in a given language and culture) so as to avoid driving away business by giving the impression of being unprofessional and / or uneducated.

True, dialects and accents are probably the last things where discrimination is still acceptable.

PillowRock wrote:

There's no reason that one necessarily needs to stop saying things like "He be learnin' me to talk gooder" with family and friends. However, if one hopes for much chance of economic upward mobility, it would behoove them to learn to use the "standard" grammar rules as well.

Don't you think that English would become a richer language if it allowed the additional tenses from Ebonics?

First of all, the two statements above strike me as being inseparable.

Secondly, I've never noticed any additional tenses in Ebonics, just alternate conjugations of tenses that also exist in "standard" English. However, I think that such things as confusing the meaning of "learn" and "teach" and of "borrow" and "loan" just creates the possibility of ambiguity in the listener's mind.

Edited by PillowRock on 16 February 2012 at 6:42pm
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
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Message 53 of 58

16 February 2012 at 6:53pm | IP Logged

But there are plenty of ergative verbs in English, it doesn't create any ambiguity in the
language. So confusing teach and learn, loan and borrow does not add any problems.
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LaughingChimp
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Czech Republic
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Speaks: Czech*

Message 54 of 58

16 February 2012 at 7:23pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

@LaughingChimp, reread this too:)

I don't understand why, that's the part I wanted you to read.

PillowRock wrote:

So a fair amount of the basic explanations about how the language worked was along the lines of "which pronoun you use depends on whether it the subject or object of the sentence"; and when the students already understand that, it does speed things up compared to all of the pattern matching required to figure things out without that kind of frame of reference.

Sadly you are wrong, this method is horribly ineffective, it doesn't speed things up, quite the opposite. It's been known for at least fifty years that this method is completely useless, I don't understand why would anyone want to learn that way.

PillowRock wrote:

Secondly, I've never noticed any additional tenses in Ebonics, just alternate conjugations of tenses that also exist in "standard" English.

Seriously? You gave one as an example. "he be doing" does not exist in standard English.

PillowRock wrote:

However, I think that such things as confusing the meaning of "learn" and "teach" and of "borrow" and "loan" just creates the possibility of ambiguity in the listener's mind.

This may be from nonnative speakers. In many languages these words are not separate, because the distinction is made using grammar.
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PillowRock
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United States
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 55 of 58

16 February 2012 at 8:51pm | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

PillowRock wrote:

Secondly, I've never noticed any additional tenses in Ebonics, just alternate conjugations of tenses that also exist in "standard" English.

Seriously? You gave one as an example. "he be doing" does not exist in standard English.

That's not a different tense. It's the same tense as "he is doing", just a different conjugation of it.

If you think that those two are genuinely different tenses, could you please explain to me what you think the difference in meaning is?

Edited by PillowRock on 16 February 2012 at 8:59pm
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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago
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Message 56 of 58

16 February 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

Serpent wrote:

@LaughingChimp, reread this too:)

I don't understand why, that's the part I wanted you to read.

PillowRock wrote:

If one really understands it the terms, it does speed up understanding (of the rules). It doesn't necessarily speed up acquisition, true.

Which brings us to the first post. Have you seen my note about what we mean by grammar book? Cristin never said she expected to read the rules and be able to use them, especially in natural speech rather than exercises. So when you said this:

LaughingChimp wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Does any of you have any good ways of getting the grammar out from the grammar book and into your mouth, preferably via your brain?

There is no way to do that. Possibly some autists could do that, but not a normal person. Don't worry, your aproach is correct, once you learn to say enough sentences correctly you will eventually start geting the grammar behind them.

...it sounded like you mean you don't believe in exercises. Fine, but depending on the language they CAN be useful, and it doesn't have to be Esperanto. Maybe it's not that useful for Russian, so I'm not saying Cristin is doing anything wrong.

And also, I think Cristin already understands the Russian grammar. The problem is spontaneous usage. It's the same with me and my Romance languages.
In fact I'd argue that a normal, intelligent person should be able to understand formal descriptions. If s/he just hates them that's a different matter.

Edited by Serpent on 16 February 2012 at 9:04pm

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