Conquering pesky grammar doubts

Anyone who has ever sat in an English class in an American school may have the same doubts and insecurities that I have when I write.  Now, when I speak, not so much.  After all, who has time to check their grammar on the fly? But composition is another matter.  It is so permanent. Someone centuries from now may read this post and criticize my use of English grammar!

I'm currently teaching a short course called "Myths of English Grammar."  I'm hoping that examining grammar not from a "gotcha" angle, but from a more pragmatic viewpoint, may be helpful to others. This week's session will focus on some common grammar myths described in the book Origins of the Specious:  Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language by Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman (2009).

(1) Splitting infinitives 

Is it proper for the Starship Enterprise "to boldly go" where no man has ever gone?  Yes, absolutely. English speakers have been splitting infinitives for a very long time, depending on meaning and style.

As a matter of fact,  the term "splitting infinitives" is misleading. In the phrase "to boldly go" the infinitive is just the word "go".  The "to" is identified as another part of speech (often as a preposition) which is sometimes used with infinitives and sometimes not.  An example is,
"The editor helped her write more clearly." So, just as in Latin, there are no English infinitives to split.  Whew! One more worry in life to check off my list.    

 (2)  Ending a sentence with a preposition

Do you get nervous when you reach the end of a sentence and all you have left to use is a preposition? Go right ahead.  It's quite all right to use a "terminal preposition."  Although Winston Churchill probably did not say "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put,"  the purported quote is a good example of the danger of following an outmoded rule rather than writing in clear English.

(3)  Beginning a sentence with a conjunction.

Does beginning a sentence with "and" give you a frisson of excitement as you defy your high school English teacher?  Although that teacher was probably trying to help you improve your writing style, there is nothing ungrammatical about beginning a sentence with a conjunction.  And, using a conjunction may actually help your writing by linking ideas. 

I was in a committee meeting recently participating in proof reading a document, and one member triumphed in all disagreements by saying, "There is a rule."  The rest of the committee bowed to the sanctity of  "the rule."   

My personality is to be a rule follower in all aspects of life . It takes hard evidence to convince me to be otherwise.  But many grammar rules are not really rules; they are myths. And myths are legendary, imaginary, and unverifiable.  

In the future , I hope to be a more discerning consumer of grammar information! And a little less up tight! 

    

Are you a grammar nerd?

Does the term "grammar nerd" describe the way you think about language correctness?  If you are unsure, you may want to test yourself on these signs from Grammarly (available on Facebook and Twitter).

As much as I hate to admit it, I checked off nine of the ten signs.  (I had to look up No. 6, "what an Oxford comma is," and yes, now I have an opinion about the Oxford comma - completely unnecessary.)  

The realization that I act like a grammar nerd clashes directly with my image of myself as a linguist, that is, a person interested in studying human speech.  Linguists scoff at those who spend their lives slavishly following what are known as prescriptive grammar rules. 

Prescriptive grammar rules are rules for the "proper" use of language.  They generally appear in written form in grammar textbooks, editing manuals, and can be heard coming from the mouths of English instructors and diligent parents of young children. A well-known grammar rule (broken every day by countless speakers) is, "Don't end a sentence with a preposition."

Linguists are interested in descriptive grammar rules that are explanations of real language everyday people use.  As a matter of fact, linguists find "errors" fascinating. They are interested in what people say and how they say it, not in order to correct it, but to learn more about how language works in the human brain.    Somehow that goal seems more worthy of my efforts than fretting about the use of a double negative, for example.  After all, how would the Rolling Stones sound if they belted out, "I can't get any satisfaction"?  A bit wimpy, I think

So even though I occasionally get a strong desire to dig down in my purse for a red pen and circle an "it's" used as a possessive (as in the incorrect *"The city had it's problems." Shocking, don't you think?), I will take a linguist's view and consider the usage interesting.  Let's investigate.  

In English, we use an apostrophe s to make a singular noun possessive.  We say "Mary's trombone, John's saxophone, and the child's trumpet."   Because our brains are constantly creating grammar from the language we use, a logical generalization of the possessive rule would be to put an apostrophe s on "it" to show that "it" owns something. The problem arises because "it" is a pronoun, not a noun, and belongs to the category of words like "his," "hers," and "theirs," which all indicate possession without the apostrophe. An added difficulty is that "it's" is already something else in the language - a contraction for "it is."  

The English language is constantly changing.  It is like shifting sand beneath our feet.  Who knows if in the future so many English speakers will decide that they want to use *"it's" to show possession that it will become the standard form.  It may make some of us nervous, but it could happen, you know!    

Is there an easy way to learn a foreign language?

Is learning a foreign language on your to-do list?  If so, would you like to discover an easy way to learn that language?  Despite many claims that appear on the Internet, I am convinced there is no easy way to learn another language.  My apologies for the discouraging answer!

Some learning methods may be more pleasant than others, but easy, as in 'minimum effort required,' I don't think so.  Now if we could take a time machine back to our childhood and be raised in a multilingual environment...

But some of us are well over 21 years of age and want or need to learn a foreign language.  I discovered I was not the only person pondering this issue when I read a recent question posted on Quora. "What are the best ways to learn a language as an adult?" Quora is a question and answer website where creating, answering and editing are done by the Quora community. Quora has a wide range of topics and is available online and with apps for mobile devices.

A Quora participant,  David Bailey, wrote a detailed answer to the question of learning a language as an adult, describing how he achieved enough French fluency in 17 days to have a conversation with a French speaker in a Paris coffee shop and receive a compliment on his language skills.  David had racked up 700 upvotes on Quora.  I was intrigued and read on.

As I understand it, David, who was already a fluent speaker of Spanish, spent 17 days visiting a friend in a small village in France, during which time he carried out a self-imposed language learning regime. Here are some of the main components of his daily study plan.

(1) David immersed himself in French.  The friend he was visiting and her friends only spoke to him in French.

(2) He spent from 1.5 - 2 hours each morning writing out verb tables in longhand.

Amazing self-discipline!

(3)  He listened to a purchased language learning program on his mp3 player.

(4)  He ran every day and listened to French music on his run through the French countryside.  (Sound idyllic, doesn't it?)

(5) He participated in playful activities in French, like darts or Boules, with French friends.

(6) He read easy children's books in French.

(7) He spent about an hour every day writing essays about himself which he asked his friend to check for errors.  He commented that essays helped him have ready answers about himself when he was getting acquainted with others.

(8)  He memorized French filler words that gave him time to think about what he was going to say and increased his confidence.

I must admit I was impressed with David Bailey's language learning plan, especially because of the self-discipline required to carry it out. The inspiration I received was not about following David's specific activities (I'm getting a picture of me running through the French countryside!), but tailoring a language study plan to my own liking and then, the difficult part, sticking to it.  Life has so many distractions!

A responder to David Bailey, Philip Jones, wrote of his own language learning achievement, "In the end it was a case of getting down to some serious study and then going out and talking to people." And David, who now speaks five languages (all learned after age 21) and does business in three countries, says, ..."who says adults can't learn."

Encouraging words, n'est-ce pas? 

Please note:  Language Lover's blog will be on vacation until October 28th!

Cognates - Friend or Foe?

One of the first challenges of a new language is learning the vocabulary, especially at the beginning stages of study.  We grasp anything that will help our brains remember new words. That's where cognates (words that are similar in two languages) enter the picture.  

Definition of Cognate

Cognates are generally friends to the language learner, allowing us to immediately understand the meaning of words and remember them for future use.  Cognates are great for soothing jangled nerves of language learners. 

You can immediately get the meaning in Spanish of these words because they are cognates of English words.

absurdo

magnífico

secreto

declaración

 Let's try some English cognates in French.

admiration

cigarette

dialogue

pirate

Here are some Portuguese-English cognate words.

animal

hospital

moral

eternidade

Irish-English cognates are a little more difficult to find, but thankfully I have come upon several playing around with the beta version of Irish on Duolingo.

pasta

dinnéar

tae

péarla

But be careful with cognates!

The cognate story is not all rosy.  Sometimes there are words in two different languages that look like cognates but are what have been labeled 'false friends'.  These words only appear to have the same meaning, but in actuality they have very different meanings. Beginning language learners are sometimes led astray by these false friends and, as a consequence, make some pretty strange statements.

The classic language goof made by Spanish learners (very common in beginning Spanish classrooms), is thinking that embarazada in Spanish means 'embarrassed' in English. Many a poor student has unknowlingly announced to the class that he or she is pregnant.  The correct Spanish translation for 'embarrassed'  would be avergonzada.  False friends, indeed.

Here is an example of false friends in Spanish and Portuguese that would often confuse my beginning Portuguese students.  The Portuguese word acordar means 'to wake up', but in Spanish acordar means 'remember'. The correct translation would be the Spanish despertar.  

A common error of French learners is another case of a false friend.  Assiter in French does not mean what an English speaker would expect, which would be 'to assist'.  Instead, assister means 'to attend'. Aider is the French word for 'to assist'. 

And here are some false friends I just learned about in Irish, which I know will be very useful! Mná means 'women' on restroom doors.  (Might look like 'man' to someone in a hurry!)  Fir, which means 'men', indicates the men's restroom, not a type of tree.  

So will cognates play the role of friends or foes in your language study?  Maybe we need to regard them as we do our human friends, enjoy them, but with a touch of caution! 

Do you speak a dialect?

Is the language you speak a dialect?  I'll bet the majority of us would say, "No, I speak real language." After all, the version of the language we speak serves our communication needs quite well, day in and day out.

From a linguistic viewpoint, the answer to the above question is, "Yes, I speak a dialect, because everyone speaks a dialect." Some linguists even claim that the term 'dialect' should be substituted for 'language'.

But the term 'dialect' has acquired a  bad reputation through the years.  It carries a whiff of something unpleasant, unacceptable, substandard, uneducated, lower class.  You get the picture. So it is easy to see why we may be reluctant to admit that we speak a dialect.

The definition of a dialect has nothing to do with language itself, and everything to do with society. In most societies, one dialect (version) of a language becomes what is known as the 'standard language.'  Ah, that term feels much better, doesn't it?  Generally, a dialect becomes the standard language/dialect because it is spoken by those individuals with power, influence and money.

Linguists often quote a translation of an observation in Yiddish that " A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."  In other words, if a certain dialect has power behind it, it will be recognized as a language.  Conversely, a dialect without power will remain a dialect.  All dialects have an equal ability to convey what their speakers want to say.

Standard language/dialect is associated with formal oral communication and also with writing.

It is usually found in the media, textbooks, classrooms of all levels, and second language instruction. Standard language is often associated with the variety of language spoken in the capital cities of countries, since they are generally centers of government, education, and banking.  So we have some language snobbery occurring - Parisians versus Canadians, residents of Madrid versus those of Mexico City, Londoners versus Scots, Washingtonians versus Texans.

Some Scottish dialects

A popular example comes to mind to demonstrate dialectal differences. How do you express plural 'you'?  In Standard English, there is not a separate word for plural 'you'.  Sometimes just saying 'you' doesn't express the plural meaning that I need.   Being a Texan, I find 'y'all'  useful. Other English speakers in the United States have invented other creative words for plural 'you', like 'youse', 'you-uns', and the current choice of many young wait staffers, 'you guys'.  Here is a short article giving more 'you' plural options.  From Y'all To Youse, 8 English Ways to Make "You" Plural

Now comes decision time.  Should a person speak their own regional dialect or the standard dialect.?The answer will be a personal one, depending on factors such as audience,  communication style, and  intended communication.  If I speak to my family with the same language that I would use teaching a university course, my family would think that I am putting on airs.  And if I were to teach a class using my Texas drawl, I might have a few critical students.

As for me, 'y'all' will continue to serve me in my everyday conversations.  But when I am receiving my award for the Nobel Prize for Literature, I may decide 'you' is a more efficacious choice to thank the panel members.  I doubt if that will be one of my worries for a while!

    

Languages and Imagination

Language learning has gotten a bad rap through the years!   Unpleasant images spring up of long vocabulary lists and verb conjugations to be mastered before we were even allowed to order a coke in another language.

It was like a Jane Fonda exercise video telling us we had to "feel the burn" in order to acquire another language.

I survived traditional language instruction in school because I enjoyed learning languages, no matter how they were taught.   But as an adult, I have freedom to choose my own language learning path.

Nowadays language learning is much more sociable.  We are encouraged to use language for real communication with others.

But the reality of language study is that sometimes we don't have anyone to communicate with in the language we want to practice. It still often remains a solitary activity.  So I have been trying to fire up my imagination to liven up language study time.

I usually spend about an hour a day on Duolingo, practicing four languages.  Sometimes Duolingo asks for a translation into English and at other times a translation from English.  With each translation, I try to conjure up a scenario in which I would use the sentence.  Memory experts tell us we need to connect new information to an image that will help us recall it.  And that picture in our minds can be nonsensical, funny, outrageous, or pleasurable.

My idea for creating scenarios began, I believe, with my husband Wayne's Spanish study.  The sentence in question was "El gato no cabe en la puerta."   (The cat doesn't fit in the door.)  I imagined something like Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire cat, trying to come across the threshold with a big grin on its face.

In Duolingo  Portuguese, I am at a Level 14, so I find lots of interesting sentences for imagining. "Please, give me another chance" was the latest.     I am driving my red Lamborghini a bit too fast up the beautiful Douro River Valley of Portugal when a handsome young policeman pulls me over.  I bat my eyelashes at him and say, Por favor, me dê outra chance.  Well, a girl can dream.

My Level 12 Duolingo Spanish provides me with pithy comments like, "That is going to resolve itself."  I'm in the plaza at Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, admiring the cathedral.

A bedraggled female pilgrim begins telling me her trials and tribulations on the Way of St. James. She has met her soul mate, but he has taken up with a hippy actress from California. I assure her with Eso se va a resolver solo,  not even believing it myself.  Ah, el amor!

As I try to use imagination with my other two languages, French (Level 6) and Irish (Level 5), I have to work a bit harder. I'm on a train in France, and it is dinner time.  I'm not much of a meat eater, but I would rather eat chicken than beef, so I ask a young teenager in the dining car (who perhaps won't make fun of my American accent), Tu manges du poulet? (Are you eating chicken?)  I won't even try to imagine his response.

Irish (Level 5) has been a true challenge. At this stage of learning, my Irish knowledge is mostly nouns.  I am in Dublin, Ireland, and a robbery occurs in the pub where I have dropped by for a pint and some lively music.

 

A handsome Irish policeman is taking notes on the incident.  "Who were the robbers, ma'm?" he asks politely.  Bean agus fear  (a woman and a man), I reply.  "Thanks, darlin'," he replies with a wide grin. 

So, as you can see, I have been having a really entertaining time learning other languages.  I hope you have as well!

Brain training through languages

A few of the many world languages

I  just completed my daily hour's language practice on Duolingo, and my brain is tired - which is a good thing. Recently the media have been touting the importance of keeping one's brain active throughout life. Since I am a self-confessed language nerd, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and exercise my little grey cells by learning different languages.  Here is my brain/language training daily routine.

Great advice!

Spanish.  I begin each Duolingo session with the Spanish language for a brain warm up.  Since I have been working on acquiring Spanish since I was a child, I can generally breeze through the Spanish lesson. I sense that I have a 'Spanish brain' somewhere in my mind, and after a few responses in Spanish, I can enter into that other brain and put my responses on automatic.  Quick responses are great for communication in Spanish, but not so effective for brain training, since I don't have to do much hard thinking.

Serenity Prayer in Portuguese (much needed by language learners!)

Portuguese.  I choose Portuguese next because it takes effort to keep Spanish and Portuguese separate in my mind.  They are sister languages, both descended from Latin, and are certainly similar, but they also have significant differences in vocabulary, grammar, and especially pronunciation.  I can move from automatic responses to getting my brain cells firing. 

In my last Duolingo session, I lost a heart by translating 'pocket' as bolsillo in Spanish rather than the Portuguese bolso; I also lost another heart by choosing the Portuguese word leva for 'wear', making a parallel with Spanish llevar.  Portuguese expresses 'wear' with either the verbs veste or usa.  Thank goodness I didn't lose my third heart and have to start the lesson over. 

French calendar.

French.    French is next on my practice list.  I have studied French several times in my life but with large gaps of time in between study, so my grammar is still pretty well intact, but my vocabulary is fairly minimal. And I won't even mention my pronunciation.  So anything I can get correct in French is a bonus.  My brain moves out of the Spanish/Portuguese area (which I'd be willing to bet they share) and into a new French space.  I don't mix up French with Spanish or Portuguese, but I do mix it up with English.  I lost one heart by writing French dauphin as English dolphin.

Irish cities.  Good opportunity for language practice!

Irish.    And now that my brain is thinking linguistically, I tackle Irish.  Oh my.  Almost every sentence looks and sounds like a mystery to me.  No meaning comes through automatically to give me a hint.  I have to analyze every word separately.  The nouns I have to check for singular or plural endings and definite and indefinite articles.  The verbs I need to check for position in the sentence and for endings which specify the subjects.  And I love it!  When I am doing Irish, I am completely absorbed in the thought process. It is a mini-vacation from ordinary life.

So if you would like to challenge your mind and enjoy learning about other languages and cultures,  a regime of language learning may be for you.  Now if I could just get into a physical routine for my body.....   

Just about my speed!