English present perfect no longer taught? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

English present perfect no longer taught?
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation \| English
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

26 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Superking
Diglot
Groupie
United States
polyglutwastaken.blo
Joined 6644 days ago
87 posts - 194 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Mandarin

Message 25 of 26

29 March 2012 at 3:09pm | IP Logged

The language isn't falling apart at all, in fact.

Many people decry the degradation of the English language, but I'll go even one large step further in my rebuttal of that: No language has ever degraded, nor ever will degrade. Linguistic change is neither positive nor negative, it is simply a reaction to and reflection of the needs of a particular linguistic community.

BartoG has an excellent point. For every 1 irregular participle form (let's say, "taken") there are probably 10 regular ones ("read, bought, taught, talked, decried, camped, lived, revelled, walked, relaxed", and I could easily think of 100 more). So in fact, you can spin this one of two ways: You can either say that people are being lazy and not learning the correct way to say participles like written, gone, etc. OR you can say that people are regularizing the English language and making it more efficient. I'm not sure the second is true, at least in the sense that it's intentional, but I KNOW the first isn't true.
3 persons have voted this message useful

egill
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5697 days ago
418 posts - 791 votes

Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

Message 26 of 26

29 March 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged

BartoG wrote:

...
But since it's not formal, they're transcribing what they would say, not editing it to
submit as homework. In other words, the language isn't falling apart any faster now than
it has been. It's just that the internet as conversational meaning has given us visual
evidence of what we probably turned out when most casual chatter was spoken.
...

This is a really great point. I think I've always assumed this on some level, but
never explicated it nor seen it expressed so succinctly. Looking back on it, this
perspective seems natural and almost self-evident.
1 person has voted this message useful

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