On Sat, 8 Jan 2000 18:35:26 -0000, "Rick McGreal"
<tri...@transport-tycoon.co.uk> wrote:
Bill Hayles <bill...@ctv.es> wrote in message
news:
38790d75.27166726@enews.newsguy.com...
Snip-Snip
I learnt Spanish by declension and conjugation. Given a Spanish
infinitive, I can probably give you the gerund or the past participle.
Whether I know what the verb means is another matter!
I must admit that altho' I'm not totally thick I have NO IDEA what you just
said......Maybe its just me........I can do maths well......Languages I just
have no ability with B-(
(Anybody not interested just press "next" - you won't upset me!
No, it's not just you, and, no, I know you're not thick. It's simply
that such concepts are no longer taught. Many would argue that they
don't need to be, but my attitude is that if you've been taught how
languages are constructed it makes it much easier to learn how to speak
and write them correctly.
To take the example I mentioned, I could drone on about it being
"similar to", but "different from", and you may well know I'm right, but
do you know *why* I'm right?
It's because in English, nouns have six cases - nominative, vocative,
accusative, genitive, dative and ablative.
Take the sentence:
Rick took the book of Eddie from the table and gave it to Bill.
"Rick" is the nominative - the instigator of the action.
"book" and "it" are both accusative - the receivers of the action.
"Eddie" is genitive - the owner of something
"Bill" is dative - a receiver of something
"table" is ablative - a donor of something.
The vocative is an address of a noun, such as "Rick! Come here". Rick
is vocative.
Coming back to "similar to" and "different from", similar is drawing a
comparison bringing to nouns closer together. Therefore it must call
the noun in the dative. Different is making two nouns further apart, and
must take the ablative, hence "different from".
FWIW, the genitive preposition is "of", but in English we use the form
"Eddie's book" to mean "the book of Eddie". "To" and "for" are the main
dative prepositions, and "by", "with" and "from" the main ablative ones.
I learnt all this in my first year at secondary school. The best age to
learn - as you get older, I promise you it gets harder to adsorb new
information!
People will argue that it doesn't matter, but using the correct
preposition to call the correct case can only improve the clarity of the
speech or writing. This (as far as I'm concerned) is in direct contrast
to whether the correct spelling is "centre" or "center", or "program" or
"programme". Whichever you use, your meaning is unambiguous. I'm not
nearly as pedantic about spelling as I am grammar!
I am well known as a pedant when it comes to matters of grammar.
What....Like you hang on clothes and look glitsy? (Sorry couldn't resist)
I think you mean "pendant".
My wife gets REALLY annoyed with people that don't know the difference
between 'there', they're' and 'their'
I've known her to have to leave the room.......I feel she has a problem.....
If it annoys her that much, then maybe she has. Things have to be kept
in perspective.
We (me) learn't English in, what I believe, was a terrible manner...We very
rarely read books in school, it was always text books, not real story
books.....I escaped school with a 'D'. And I don't believe anybody in my
class got higher than a 'C' Shame really
We were taught two separate subjects. English Language and English
Literature. The former was the correct use of the language, the latter,
essentially books. There were five forty five minute sessions of English
Language a week, and two of English Literature.
The standard of literacy in this group is first class, which is just one
of the many factors which make it a pleasure to read it.
Even with the way that a few of us clip sentences? I must admit that I have
a horrible tendency to put dots in to space out breathing gaps.......Like
this B-)
We all do that, myself included. We get our meaning across clearly and
concisely. Isn't that the object of the exercise?
I don't think its a case of 'Not being taught' but a case of not having the
time in the curicculum (sp?) to properly teach certain things...
Thinking back, we had seven forty five minute lessons a day. One was
always English Language, one always Maths, and one our chosen foreign
language. One was a science subject, one history or geography, and
everything else, including games and PE had to be squeezed into the
other two.
My last year was the year that the new G.C.S.E.s were dragged in....And as a
result most of the people I wan't toi school with, lost out because there
was NO set standard to go by...No body knew what to teach us at the
time.......Most of the stuff we learn't wasn't in the test papers and a lot
of the questions were stuff we just skipped over.....
There have been too many changes to the curriculum in the last twenty
years. It can't make teachers lives any easier.
From Benitachell, Alicante, Spain
Bill Hayles
bill...@ctv.es
Not by me, but by the person you