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SOV Languages | ||
Tags: Syntax | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| hodget17 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4481 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi | Message 1 of 11 26 April 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been learning Hindi for a couple of months now, and am very slowly coming to terms
with the SOV word order. Often I find myself listening so intently for the verb at the end of the sentence, that I start forgetting what has been said before. Just wondering, for anyone out there who's learned/is learning a SOV language, how long did it take you to become comfortable with the structure? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6470 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 27 April 2012 at 12:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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I actually found that syntax more logical than SVO. I don't know why really, but somehow it makes more sense to
me. Though the SOV's I've dealt with have mostly been dead, and thus on paper, Japanese and German subordinate clauses being the exception. I think you should not try to search for the verb but rather understand the words as they're said. Even if I an English text in SOV write, you understand will. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4514 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 3 of 11 27 April 2012 at 12:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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Dutch isn't a 100% SOV language, but it has SOV order in subordinate clauses. It took me
a while to get used to this, mostly because I wasn't studying very systematically and didn't even realize it was happening until embarrassingly far in. Once I did, though, things started clicking fast. The key for me was to expose myself to more native source material and actively brainwash myself all the while into thinking that SOV word order in relative clauses was the only possible way for things to be. In terms of output, SOV word order can actually be very handy - it gives you a smidgen more time to fine-tune your choice of verb at the end of a sentence. And because the verb comes last, it can sometimes surprise or emphasize in a way that doesn't come so easily in SVO languages like English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4512 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 4 of 11 27 April 2012 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's actually pretty funny in Japanese. I'm a German, and we can arrange words in order to articulate different nuances pretty freely, compared to English. Thus, my brain is already "formatted" to formulate things like this, even if it sometimes makes odd nuances if put this way in German.
Übrigens find ich es anstrengend, zu Fuß zur Schule zu gehen. Zur Schule zu gehen, finde ich zu Fuß übrigens anstrengend. Zur Schule zu Fuß zu gehen, finde ich übrigens anstrengend. Zu Fuß zur Schule zu gehen finde ich übrigens anstrengend. This is the same thing putting emphasis on different parts of the sentence. You'd use them in different situations and can probably swap out one for another in some or many cases. It's very much possible for me as a German native to restructure everything like this, the odd feeling vanished all by itself at some point. No idea what to tell an English native. Hmm.. all those grammar guides name Yoda as a useful reference ;) Edited by atama warui on 27 April 2012 at 3:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5619 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 11 27 April 2012 at 4:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Sounds like Yoda Edited by ChiaBrain on 27 April 2012 at 4:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5577 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 27 April 2012 at 5:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Like atama_warui (still disagree with the screen name) I'm used to relatively flexible word order, enhanced by having studied of Latin previously.
But even though I can rearrange the order and nuance of parts of a sentence easily, I still need to be able to identify them correctly to fit them in the right compartments, which are in a different order depending on the language. When listening to a language I comprehend reasonably well I transform the sounds into a kind of concept (word meaning plus grammatical function) that's embedded into a web of meaningful links, which is updated with every new word I hear. To achieve that, I need to internalize sentence patterns, expressions and connotations. There is this one Japanese actor/idol who I like a lot, but he has the awful habit of mumbling his verbs to the point of becoming completely unrecognizable. I used to find it very hard to listen to him because I often couldn't make any sense of what he was saying. But one day I listened to an interview with him and suddenly realized that my mind was filling in the gaps; it guessed at the most likely verb and then used the vowels in his mumbling to check if the guess should have been correct. That was the very moment when I became aware of this unconscious skill, and realized that it shows how well I've internalized the material. Nowadays I test my progress by listening to target language audio against background noise, which I put just loud enough that I still can understand German or English with some effort. If I can't understand the target language dialogue that way, I'll review it until I can. (Unless I'm too lazy for it, but that's a completely different story.) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ojorolla Diglot Groupie France Joined 4776 days ago 90 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 7 of 11 27 April 2012 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think in the SOV order in Korean, and in the SVO order in English.
In other words, I'm not comfortable if I try to think in the SOV order in English, although my native tongue is an SOV one. I think it will become easier easier as you memorize more patterns and sentence fragments in your target language. You just have to get used to it, link a bit more brain cells together. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4845 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 8 of 11 27 April 2012 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not exactly. Yoda supposedly uses Japanese syntax. That's what I've been told for years. He doesn't really do that, though. His sentences are usually OSV. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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