Friday, July 24, 2009
The Natural Linguist
I'm trying to learn a language. Guess which one?
Nope, not Arabic. I've come to Qatar and started to learn Spanish.
Now I'm not a natural linguist. That's an understatement. I am a terrible linguist. I did 5 years of French at school and I think I could probably order a sandwich if I was about to starve to death, but only if you wanted cheese.
Spanish was clearly never going to be easy.
My first lesson was ok: Hola, Adios, Si, No. No problemos!
My second lesson went quickly downhill as I realised there were male and female words, like in French, but even worse, they're not the same! In French, car (voiture) is female, in Spanish, car (coche) is male. I think they've done it to spite me.
And if you think that's bad, in French dog (chien) is male. In Spanish you have to go and find out what sex the dog is before you can talk about it....which does seem a little impractical, and must hold conversations back somewhat.
So, anyway, I've perservered with the el's and la's and even with the ser's and estar's (why they need 2 different words for 'to be' i have no idea), but this week I had a lesson with a new teacher.
This guy can only just be out of short trousers, but after approxiately 2 minutes, he made me feel completely inadequate. Inadequate not only with my terrible language skills, but also with my schooling.
Apparently "Conditional Tense" should mean something to me, as should "Present Subjunctive", "Indirect Discourse" and "Subordinate phrase".
I know what a verb is, does that help?
...and it's not just me. The same teacher has 4 other students learning Spanish, from various parts of England, and none of us know any grammar.
No wonder I got an 'A' in my GCSE English Exam, we didn't need to know anything.
Comments:
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Most probably you have an analytical brain which is good at physics, mathematics, but hates to deal with words,verbs and grammar like it is the case for me. It took me years to learn English and after 4 years, I gave up for german...Just don't bother:))
# posted by 
: 3:41 AM
: 3:41 AM
You "gave up for german"??! Do you that there's an English saying: Life's too short to learn German.
I kid you not...
I kid you not...
Speaking of German and English...
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v'.
During the fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivum vil find it esi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
~Redneck
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The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v'.
During the fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivum vil find it esi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
~Redneck
# posted by : 9:58 PM
: 9:58 PM << Home
