Archive for the ‘English Articles’ Category
You may have noticed that in addition to French, Spanish, and German lessons, I have also posted English lessons. English lessons are important for those learning English, but even more important (arguably) for the English student in pursuit of another language. While many foreign languages have advanced grammar structures that English lacks, others share quite a few things in common with it. Understanding your native language will help you to bridge gaps between languages and that will always lead to fluency.
While studying another language, you may come across words such as articles, tenses, moods, or aspects; these parts of language are not unique to English and they tend to work similarly in the romance languages. For example, English articles such as the and an work almost identically in French and Spanish, and being able to coherently communicate about the different parts of language allows you to converse clearly with other students of language. I find that as my knowledge of English grows, so too does my ability with other languages.
In short, it is important to understand your own language so that you can put clear names to concepts and separate them in your mind. When you begin to bridge concepts, such as definite articles in Spanish and English, you form connections that help your brain to realize that these are not truly different words, but different ways to convey the same concept. This realization helps to drive home fluency of another language and solidify it.
One of the most important things to learn about foreign language is the skill of listening for context clues. As a non-native speaker it will be quite difficult to comprehend full sentences when conversing with a native speaker.
A couple years ago, when I was visiting Paris with my mother and father, my mother and I wandered into one of the larger cemeteries in Paris (unfortunately, I cannot remember which) because she wanted to visit the grave of an author she remembered from her childhood. While I was proficient in the French language, I was not near fluent; when I asked for directions from a kind gentleman, I found that he spoke so quickly that I could not understand him! Luckily, I had learned to listen for context clues.
As the gentleman spoke I listened for words like, “right” and “left”, and I kept a good watch on his body language and hand gestures. Without these context clues, I would never have been able to navigate the cemetery (though, we still didn’t manage to locate the grave).
Most teachers of foreign language start out by teaching how to ask for directions, or perhaps asking questions about items in a store or things around the house. Though this is surely good practice, it is not preparation for actually being able to use the language in order to get around and actually converse with the native speakers.
One important thing to learn is that listening is important. Watch movies, listen to audio books, or even talk to fellow students in the language you’re learning; it is very important to actually listen. Teachers can teach you to speak well, but there is no sense in speaking if you cannot listen and understand the people you are speaking to.
As you browse the site, make sure to listen to audio I have provided; while I may not be a native speaker, I can give you an idea of what something should sound like. If you listen enough, then maybe you will be prepared when conversing with someone in another country.
Tags: Learn Language, tips
Aspect is often confused for tense; while tense describes the time at which an action occurred, aspect describes the way in which the action occurred despite the time of the action. In English, there are four different aspects: simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive. Each of these describes the manner in which in action is taking place. As this can be hard to describe, I will demonstrate with an example of each.
In the example below, please do not be confused by the presence of words such as ‘present’, ‘past’, or ‘future’; these are tenses, not aspects, and will be covered in another article. Those tenses are merely referenced for the sake of the example. Examples:
Present Simple: I sing.
The example above uses the ’simple’ aspect; it describes an action that is occurring presently, though it is a single action and not one that would be considered ongoing; essentially, it is more akin to describing a state of being rather than an action that is actively being taken.
Present Progressive: I am singing.
This example uses the ‘progressive’ aspect; it describes an ongoing action. Instead of describing a state of being, such as above, it describes what the subject is actively doing over a period of time. If you are currently taking an action that is not yet over but has already started, this is the correct aspect to use.
Present Perfect: I have sung.
This example utilizes the ‘perfect’ aspect; like the first example, this aspect tends to describe a state of being rather than an ongoing action. It is saying equally: “I have sung before”, as well as, “I have just sung.” While the latter seems to fall into the past tense, it does not. Despite the fact that the action has already taken place, it is describing a present state of being. (A past tense version would be the Past Perfect: “I had sung,” which tends to describe a state of being in past rather than present.)
Present Perfect Progressive: I have been singing.
The ‘perfect progressive’ aspect describes an ongoing action that has either recently completed or is still occurring. Again, while it seemingly describes an action in the past, it actually describes a present state of being. The subject here is not commenting that he or she has sung in the past, but rather that he or she has recently been singing and so the ongoing action has occurred until recently.
Aspect can be very difficult for native English speakers to grasp because it seems to be so firmly tied to each tense. In reality, aspect affects each of the tenses we use, but it describes only the action, not the time at which it took place. In another article I will explain tense and how it works with aspect to create a full description of scene in the past, present, or future.
For further reading: Grammatical Aspect at Wikipedia.
As always, comments are welcome.
Tags: Learn English
Grammatical articles tend to cause a lot of trouble for beginning students of foreign language; I will give a brief explanation of their purpose in the English language. Grammatical articles in English are broken up into four types: definite, indefinite, partitive, and zero. They are described below.
Definite Articles
I will start by explaining that the word the is a definite article; it is definite because it refers to a specific object. Example:
The car is red.
In that sentence, the definite article ‘the’ tells us that a specific car is red, not an unspecified or otherwise random car. This is important to note because definite articles serve the same purpose in the Romance languages. However, unlike the Romance languages, English nouns are genderless; in French, for example, a noun will either be masculine or feminine and thus tied to a specific definite article. In English, we only have one definite article and it is ‘the’.
Indefinite Articles
I will start by explaining that indefinite articles in English are ‘a’ or ‘an’; these are called indefinite because they do not refer to a specific object. Example:
A car is red.
An elephant is gray.
The emphasized words above are indefinite articles; they do not refer to a specific car or elephant. Instead, they refer to seemingly random objects or are generalizations about the objects. You might interpret ‘An elephant is gray,’ to mean that generally, elephants are gray. In foreign language, an indefinite article is sometimes modified by the gender of the noun it is referring to. I will go into specifics for each language in separate articles.
Partitive Articles
In English, we do not have a specific word for partitive articles. Partitive articles are used to describe only a part of something or to describe something that is not broken into parts. Example:
Would you like some water?
Do you have any money?
Both of these provide the same functionality as a partitive article; they do not reference specific amounts of specific water or money. In many foreign languages there are specific words for partitive articles and there are specific rules that govern them.
Zero Articles
A zero article is actually the lack of an article. It is used for broad generalizations or comparisons. Example:
Dogs are my favorite animals.
Cats are cleaner than Dogs.
As you can see, there is no article present in either of those sentences, so we take them as general statements instead of referencing specific objects.
As always, comments are welcome; this topic may seem simple but I do not want anyone to be left in the dark, so please write if you are having trouble.
Tags: Learn English
Conjugation is widely regarded as one of the biggest hurdles for a beginning student of foreign language despite the fact that people use it daily without thinking. Literally, conjugation means “to join”; for our purposes, conjugation means “joining the subject and verb.” After writing Learn French: Lesson 2, I realized that a general article on conjugation would serve a student far better than a snippet here and there.
Conjugation in English
As most of my readers are familiar with the English language, I will use English verbs to demonstrate conjugation. For this, I feel that it is necessary to back up and diagram a sentence; this ensures that everyone is on the same level of understanding basic parts of English grammar. Consider the following sentence:
I like books.
That is a very simple sentence; let’s break this down into the basics:
As you can see, that sentence contains the verb “to like”; “to like” is called the infinitive form of the verb; when conjugating the verb, the word “to” is dropped and the second word “like” is changed to match the subject. Here’s a table of all possible present tense conjugations of “to like”:
- We like
- You-all like
- They like
It is clear from the example above that the verb “to like” only changes when the subject is “he”. Now we will examine another verb: “to be”. In English we use use the verb “to be” to describe the state of nouns. For example, in the sentence, “The table is brown”, the verb “to be” is conjugated to the form “is”. Let’s examine all possible forms of “to be”:
- We are
- You-all are
- They are
That probably looks awfully familiar; we tend to conjugate “to be” without even thinking that we have done so. As you can see, conjugation is not so difficult when we put it in terms of English. Some languages do have forms we are not used to, such as a differing plural ‘You’ form, but once you realize that subject-verb agreement is the same in many other languages then things become less daunting.
Beyond the Basics
What I’ve covered here is admittedly basic when it comes to conjugation; if you feel unsure after reading this then please comment and I will gladly help in any way possible. That being said, I did not explain tenses or modes or how they affect conjugation because this differs greatly between languages.
Tags: Learn English