19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>
ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5226 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French
| Message 9 of 19 01 April 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged |
Are there two questions being conflated here? 1. What's the best grammar of a language? 2. What's the best grammar of a language for a non-speaker trying to learn it?
At any rate, I often look for the second one of those when I start a language. For y'all's reference, I do so by going to Amazon, searching for, say, "Turkish Grammar" and look for the one with the highest rating (with a non-negligible amount of votes).
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| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4666 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali
| Message 10 of 19 01 April 2014 at 8:18pm | IP Logged |
For Brazilian Portuguese:
Modern Portuguese (Reference Grammar) by Mario Perini, Yale University Press
For Spanish:
A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish by John Butt and Carmen Benjamin (Routledge)
For Swedish:
Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge Comprehensive Grammars) by Holmes, Philip and Hinchliffe, Ian
For Vietnamese:
Vietnamese by Nguyen Inh Hoa, Published by John Benjamins Publishing Co
For Mandarin:
Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Arnold Concise Grammars) by Wen-Hua Teng
For Japanese:
Japanese: A Comprehensive Grammar (Comprehensive Grammars) by Stefan Kaiser, Yasuko Ichikawa, Noriko Kobayashi and Hilofumi Yamamoto
For Bengali:
Bengali: A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge Comprehensive Grammars) by Hanne-Ruth Thompson
For Hindi:
Hindi by Yamuna Kachru (John Benjamins Publishing)
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 11 of 19 02 April 2014 at 12:33am | IP Logged |
ScottScheule wrote:
Are there two questions being conflated here? 1. What's the best grammar of a language? 2. What's the best grammar of a language for a non-speaker trying to learn it? |
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This is a relevant question. I have never found anything more comprehensive and precise than Grevisse for French, but with all its details about obscure constructions and all its examples from long dead and somewhat excentric autors like Gide and Malraux, utter lack of modern Spoken French examples and its outdated grammatical analyses it shouldn't be use by newbees. But this is signaled already by its being in French. But having said that I have to recant, because my preferred French grammar by Knud Togeby was written in Danish, but extended and republished in French.
I'm very cautious about pointing out 'the best' grammar for learners in specific languages - in all likelyhood I haven't seen the very best ones. But if I see a Routledge grammar on the shelf in a bookstore I generally grab it.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 12 of 19 02 April 2014 at 6:41am | IP Logged |
I interpreted the question as being not about "which grammar is the best", but "which is the standard grammar", i.e. the one most cited and referenced by natives.
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| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4860 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish
| Message 13 of 19 02 April 2014 at 11:40am | IP Logged |
For German I have "DUDEN - Die Grammatik". Seems to include everything I could ever
possibly need.
I agree with Chung that for Finnish "Iso suomen kielioppi" seems to be the most
comprehensive grammar out there. However, it's so massive that I have opted to use a much
thinner book ("Suomen kielioppi" by Pirkko Leino) for reference.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 14 of 19 02 April 2014 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
I'm generally wary of one-stop solutions. If I have a specific question (for example, whether "think positive" is correct), I google and look for pages dedicated to this specific issue. Pages that show the viewpoints from multiple grammars, give a lot of examples and help me form my own opinion instead of prescribing it without showing significant evidence. Pages made by people who are passionate about this particular bit of language.
As I said, google is usually the best place to start, and wikipedia can be good too. But if I could use one site and only one, it would probably be about.com.
And if I happen to have no Internet access even from my phone, then grammar won't be the biggest thing to worry about.
Edited by Serpent on 02 April 2014 at 12:21pm
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| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian
| Message 15 of 19 02 April 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged |
For Spanish:
RAE - Nueva gramática de la lengua española.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 16 of 19 02 April 2014 at 1:21pm | IP Logged |
Icelandic:
Bruno Kress: Isländische Grammatik
This is the best grammar for Icelandic which is available, but unfortunately it's out of print and only available in German.
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