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Textbooks with a pinch of salt | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 1 of 21 14 December 2010 at 2:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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One of the things that has slowed me down in learning subtle aspects of Spanish (let's say the distinction between the preterite and the imperfect) is that when I have tried to figure out the distinction I have frequently come up against a certain brick wall. Basically I'd have an idea, and then have to reject it on the grounds that if it were true it would be possible to say X, where X is something my textbooks have led me to believe is wrong. Then later I would find examples of natives saying X and realise you CAN say X. Has anyone else had this annoying experience? Is it better to give NO rule at all rather than oversimplified rules for such things?
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| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5873 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 21 14 December 2010 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Reading novels will take care of most of this. Sure you need rules to sort things out in the beginning, but after that it's what you read and hear that counts.
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| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5300 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 3 of 21 14 December 2010 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've noticed something similar. My textbooks would say, "To express X, use tense A. But in Latin America they use tense B, and in certain parts of Spanish they use tense C."
As if one could use any tense they like :D I would note that down in my Spanish notes which I re-read once in a while. This makes me feel comfortable that I am AWARE of there being versions A, B and C, and it doesn't bother me anymore. But when I write/speak, I just stick with one version, usually the one that the textbook teachs, ie. A. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5439 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 4 of 21 14 December 2010 at 9:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Grammar rules are an attempt to bring conscious understanding to unconscious processes. As such, they are imperfect. But they are much better than nothing. They give you a place to start in making sense of a language. The important thing to realize is that the language isn't created from the rules; the rules are derived from the language. They are explanations, not laws. So don't worry about finding the perfect grammar rule. Worry about whether you need more information or a better explanation to understand what's going on with the language you're reading and hearing.
The more you read and hear with understanding, the more you will come to internalize the rules of the language as it actually works. This does not come from internalizing the consciously constructed rules in textbooks; it comes from internalizing the language itself. The consciously constructed rules are not the language. They're a crutch to allow you to know what to listen for and think about so that you can make sense of real language. But it's the exposure to language that makes sense to you that makes the difference in the end. Hypersport is right. At a certain point, it's activities like reading novels that will make the difference for you, especially with things like getting a handle on the past tenses. That way instead of trying to understand the language in the abstract, you can focus on understanding actual language as put down by actual native speakers. The true key to mastery is not a perfect understanding of grammar, but moving beyond grammar to what feels right because your exposure to language you understand has made it familiar to you at a deeper level. Grammar is just a tool to help you along the way. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 21 14 December 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I obviously didn't express myself very clearly when I asked this question. Of course I DO read novels, and obviously it DOES help as you say (I deliberately picked examples that are not currently confusing for me, the one I'm currently working on is por v para), but that's not my question. My point is that I believe I would have learned more quickly if I had basically ignored ALL rules on any point where the rules are not reasonably (let's say 95%) accurate and ONLY relied on native input. In Spanish this would mean Ser v Estar, Preterite v imperfect and por v para. In other words, although I agree with what you're saying, I think that far from being a tool vague grammar rules are an obstacle. THAT was my question. A case in point. When I lived in Spain my sister had a washing machine fitted. The guys who installed it started to take the old one to the door and I wanted to ask, "are you going to take it down for us?" My textbooks state that if you do something in someone's place you use "por". Normally I would have expected us to take it down ourselves, but it looked like they were going to do it instead, so (hey presto!): "¿van a bajarla por nosotros?" My question was not understood! I repeated my question and they looked at each other, eventually (after an embarrassing few seconds) one of them seemed to get it and answered yes. I guess I should probably have asked, "¿van a bajárnosla?" (can somebody confirm?) but my point is that this rule was simply worse than useless, and the fact that it often does work only makes it MORE confusing. Things like that are very disheartening. I have the feeling that if you can't give an accurate rule and are only giving vague guidelines you should at least say so.. Edited by Random review on 14 December 2010 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5122 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 6 of 21 14 December 2010 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
While "por" can mean "to" or "for", it might be helpful for your to think of "por" more in the sense of "by" or "because of". Taking that into consideration, surely you can see how what you said would be considered nonsensical. As for preterite/imperfect verb use, there are actually pretty clear rules for their use. And if you use one over the other, it completely changes the meaning of a word ("saber" comes to mind, but there are many others.) R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 7 of 21 14 December 2010 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Doesn't work because although it is reliable it leaves a great many uses of por unexplained. I am aware of por = "because of" and that it is reliable, I would say it is a useful rule, BUT I REPEAT, my question was about the UNreliable rules, and whether it is best to avoid them all together. Thanks to all for trying to help but I am not a beginner in Spanish and don't need to be helped with elementary Spanish Grammar. When I need help with my Spanish I use word reference.com, and if I were to use this Forum I'd use the appropriate room. I have my own method I am using for por v para (which is to bypass the textbooks all together and look at the literature on cognitive grammar), and was using the example for illustrative purposes- the point being that what I said fit my textbook rules perfectly, yet was clearly wrong. [/QUOTE]
Yes there are clear rules, and they have helped me a lot, but I found them in literature written in Spanish for ELE teachers and cognitive linguists; not in textbooks. The meaning changing thing is another example of a mere rule-of-thumb (and one, moreover, I have been aware of since I was a beginner) because there are examples where the verb DOESN'T change in English:- I *knew* what it was as soon as I saw it. (not "found out") I *knew* him for 5 years (not "met") etc Edited by Random review on 14 December 2010 at 9:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5439 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 8 of 21 15 December 2010 at 7:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
To come back to what I said earlier, rules give you a place to start in trying to make sense of a language. You, yourself, provide an example:
In other words, the rule gave you a framework to think about the language, and you were able to apply it to native speaker input in order to recognize that the broader rule was in need of refinement. I understand your frustration. Many's the time, when I was learning French, that I would find out something new, a light would go off and I would say, Why didn't anyone tell me this before? This was especially the case when I took French linguistics in grad school. And so when my French 201 or 202 students asked what was up with a tricky point about the subjunctive, or the distinction between the passé composé and the imparfait, I'd tell them. Sometimes, my students would get that same a-ha look. But an awful lot of the time, I'd find myself facing 20 blank stares. They hadn't soaked up enough French yet. They didn't have an intuitive grasp of what was going on with the language more generally, so what felt to me like a subtle refinement was to them the introduction of something completely new and different. Your stumbling block, it seems to me, is that you don't realize how far imperfect rules have brought you, when they've given you a mental framework of the language sufficient for you to do your own analysis of how the language really works and to work out on your own things the textbook writer wasn't sure you were ready for. This is cause for celebration, not frustration. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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