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What is correct current usage? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 17 04 December 2014 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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While working with my tutor for Spanish I have become more aware, and even alarmed, of how difficult
it is to know what is current usage. For example, we were looking at a list of proverbs and the tutor pointed out that most were not actually used much. One had actually fallen out of favour because water shortages in Mexico had made the proverb non grata. When I see lists of idioms, I wonder which one are actually used today. When we are correcting my writing, there is often a question of what is appropriate usage or phrasing. Sometime I think that the people I write to must think that my Spanish is a bit odd because it contains a lot of rare words that I enjoy using. Luckily, my tutor corrects the most important mistakes. Dictionaries and grammar books rarely give enough detailed information on proper usage. The only solution seems to be careful attention to actual usage and help of a native tutor. I wonder if other people have the same experience. Edited by s_allard on 04 December 2014 at 5:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 17 04 December 2014 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I once had a homework where I had to explain a few proverbs, among other things. I googled one of them and the first result was a pdf of my textbook...
In general I just approach them from the opposite side. I learn proverbs and idioms when I come across them. I think they're overrated in modern language teaching. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 17 04 December 2014 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, this is what happens when you look at lists of proverbs. They're always stale and ridiculous. Almost three years ago, I made the mistake of downloading an "Intermediate French" Anki deck that full of expressions like vendre la mèche "let the cat out of the bag"/"spill the beans." But honestly, I've read a few million words of French in a range of different registers, and it's actually a fairly rare expression these days. One good approach is to work with lots of native media: Popular stuff, current stuff, and classics that everybody knows, plus some things which are of personal interest. Then, the worst-case scenario is that you'll pick up an oddball expression from Les Revenants or Le Trône de fer or something, and use it in daily conversation. But native speakers pick up weird expressions from popular TV shows all the time, so who cares? For example, I remember somebody talking about a "petit robot" in French at some point, and I spontaneously started signing, "Je suis Nono, le petit robot, l'ami d'Ulysse." That's certainly not current, but it's totally appropriate for my generation, and everybody had a good laugh at the ridiculously dated cultural reference. Way more fun than lists of proverbs… Edited by emk on 04 December 2014 at 5:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 17 04 December 2014 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the Spanish-speaking world, not only is there the problem of currency in usage but which country's proverbs and idioms are you going to use? With 20 Spanish-speaking countries and 350 million people it can be a daunting task. A well known proverb/idiom in the Caribbean can be completely unknown in Argentina and Mexico.
As emk says, reading widely and often helps. Twitter is a wonderful source of current usage-depending on whom you may follow. I sometimes use twitter as my search engine for usage confirmation. Twitter is certainly current. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5227 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 5 of 17 04 December 2014 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't mind using quaint idioms. At worst, I'll sound like a Texan in London. Sure, my expressions won't be the same as the locals, my pronunciation will make them smile, but they'll understand me fine. Yeah, that's right, I use a definite article with hospital--deal with it, poms.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 17 04 December 2014 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know I sometimes criticise "more input solves everything" advice, but I think this is one case where it really applies. Reading and hearing a lot of modern content and real conversations gives you a good sense for it. Not perfect, but often good enough.
Of course, it's more difficult for regional variations. I don't have much of a clue about expressions in Canadian French, or Spanish anywhere outside of Spain. In Italian it can be tricky because usage varies so much between different parts of the country: someone from one area will tell me firmly that a phrase is incorrect yet I'll hear people from another area use it. Again I think you'd just need plenty varied input, and remember that even native speakers get it wrong in other areas. In English I've used expressions that seemed normal to me but got me strange looks from Americans or Australians. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5227 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 7 of 17 04 December 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I take different approaches to different languages. Spanish has such a wide footprint, and its dialects diverge enough, that if you could achieve perfect up-to-date fluency in a particular dialect you still would sound odd in all the others. So what are my options? Here are some:
1. Pick a particular dialect and stick to it. Pros: with enough work, you'll sound pretty native in that particular dialect. Cons: you'll still sound odd in the other dialects. 2. Learn multiple dialects. Pros: you'll sound good in multiple dialects. Cons: extra work. 3. Learn the prestige dialect. Pros: you'll sound posh, and everyone will understand you. Cons: you'll still sound odd. 4. Learn some amalgam of everything. Pros: you can pick and choose as it pleases you. Cons: you'll sound odd. With Spanish, I've opted for four. I don't feel like mastering each dialect, nor do I want to limit myself to one in particular, prestige or otherwise. If I find a saying used only in Guatemala but one which I find particular delightful, I use that expression. My Uruguayan friend refers to heavy rain as "Caen piguinos de punta." I doubt most people use that, but I ilke it, so I do. At the same time, I prefer Peninsular pronunciation. I use the vosotros conjugation, even though that's archaic in the Western Hemisphere. I can recognize voseo but I don't bother with it. I'm well aware I probably sound a bit off to every native Spanish speaker, but at the same time, I have little trouble reading news and literature from the entire Spanish speaking world, and people seem to understand me fine. Plus, I seriously doubt that I have enough linguistic talent that I could ever get to a point where I didn't sound odd in a chosen dialect. With Latin, I aim for the prestige dialect of the Latin Golden Age, as used by Cicero. That would have sounded odd, maybe even stuffy, to most Latin speakers, who used the Vulgar dialect, but I like it. (Plus Vulgar Latin was seldom recorded, so it's not an option.) I can understand Medieval Latin, but I don't use it for speaking. I'm not saying these are the best ways of doing these things. Indeed, I'm saying this is a subjective and somewhat arbitrary choice. But that doesn't mean it's wrong to make those subjective and arbitrary choices. Edited by ScottScheule on 04 December 2014 at 9:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 17 04 December 2014 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||
I often resort to asking my friends or checking online forums on language usage since native tutors in my target languages are typically not an option where I live. In Slovak, I can sometimes also get hints pretty quickly about current usage by looking at example sentences of entries in a couple of monolingual dictionaries. On a related note, I irregularly pick up slang or colloquial elements by seeing something unfamiliar in a post or comment on Facebook, and if it's Finnish, Hungarian or Polish then looking it up on Urbaani Sanakirja, Népszótár or Miejski.pl respectively. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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