Different Languages, Different Structures
It has been so long since my last update, I have been very busy with new classes at my school. The Juku has started and is very easy this year. I kept good notes on my lesson plans from last year so I am teaching the same topics as I was. The kids are great and motivated.
This post was inspired by something that drives anyone learning Japanese or English (or any language) as a second language insane. That is the different usages of certain types of words. One such example came this week. The students were filling out and info gap sheet where they had to ask the name, age, job, marital status, and how many family members in their family etc. When it came to the marriage question, a very common mistake came up. "Do you married?" instead of the correct "Are you married?” Anyone who knows Japanese knows that the question would be 結婚してる which is the grammatical structure in Japanese for present progressive (-ing). If you were to translate literally it would “Are you marrying?” which of course sounds strange in English. In Japanese, I am sure if you say “結婚ですか？“ it would also sound very strange. I am sure in either case, the meaning of what you want to say can be understood.
I always explain to students that they use as a verb form where as in English, it is an adjective form. Are you married? Or single?
It is quite confusing. Japanese also use these forms when saying “I am angry”. “（私）怒っているよ！”
The situation gets even more complicated when talking about verb tenses so I won’t even go into that.
I was lucky because a lot of my Japanese was picked up through listening to many people and then trying to use what I heard which is the best way anyway. I would hear something over and over and over and then I would think “Ok, I am going to try and use that if I can.” Sometimes it worked great, but others I fell flat on my face and got puzzled look from the person I was talking to. At any rate, there a few things to think about and I will close by saying.
You only learn to use a language by using it.
If you use a new language, you will make mistakes.
Therefore, we can conclude you can not learn a new language without mistakes, but you will learn from making mistakes.
At least that’s how I feel about it.
This post was inspired by something that drives anyone learning Japanese or English (or any language) as a second language insane. That is the different usages of certain types of words. One such example came this week. The students were filling out and info gap sheet where they had to ask the name, age, job, marital status, and how many family members in their family etc. When it came to the marriage question, a very common mistake came up. "Do you married?" instead of the correct "Are you married?” Anyone who knows Japanese knows that the question would be 結婚してる which is the grammatical structure in Japanese for present progressive (-ing). If you were to translate literally it would “Are you marrying?” which of course sounds strange in English. In Japanese, I am sure if you say “結婚ですか？“ it would also sound very strange. I am sure in either case, the meaning of what you want to say can be understood.
I always explain to students that they use as a verb form where as in English, it is an adjective form. Are you married? Or single?
It is quite confusing. Japanese also use these forms when saying “I am angry”. “（私）怒っているよ！”
The situation gets even more complicated when talking about verb tenses so I won’t even go into that.
I was lucky because a lot of my Japanese was picked up through listening to many people and then trying to use what I heard which is the best way anyway. I would hear something over and over and over and then I would think “Ok, I am going to try and use that if I can.” Sometimes it worked great, but others I fell flat on my face and got puzzled look from the person I was talking to. At any rate, there a few things to think about and I will close by saying.
You only learn to use a language by using it.
If you use a new language, you will make mistakes.
Therefore, we can conclude you can not learn a new language without mistakes, but you will learn from making mistakes.
At least that’s how I feel about it.
Labels: common mistakes, grammar
posted by Floyd at
4:41 AM
1 Comments:
Good for people to know.
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