General / Off-Topic Thinking of doing a few 'grammar' lessons...

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
I'm a 'mother-tongue' English teacher in Sicily. One of the advantages of that has been learning grammar, because Italians love grammar. Their education system, rightly or wrongly, focuses on it.

The British Education system (and others) not so much, even well educated people, even writers don't really know grammar as well as they might.

Would people be interested in a series running through grammar?
 

Surfinjo

Surfinjo
Many languages are obscessed with grammer and pronouciation.

English, is a common mans language, Developed through common speech by commonors. It was only in the 18th century that the upper classes made any real attempt to interfere, lay down rules and regulate it. Needless to say, their attempts were and are a disaster.

English is correct when it is understood. So customs such as grammer and spelling are less important. It has made English the most popular and widely spokne language in the world. We are on the threashold of a turely international language.

Long may rules be neglected.
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Surfinjo said:
Many languages are obscessed with grammer and pronouciation.

English, is a common mans language, Developed through common speech by commonors. It was only in the 18th century that the upper classes made any real attempt to interfere, lay down rules and regulate it. Needless to say, their attempts were and are a disaster.

English is correct when it is understood. So customs such as grammer and spelling are less important. It has made English the most popular and widely spokne language in the world. We are on the threashold of a turely international language.

Long may rules be neglected.
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Be that as it may, there are rules. And knowing the basics helps. I know the history of the English language pretty well as well as the upper classes interfering. The main problem with English grammar is not that it's there. It is, the secret is to pull the grammar out of the usage rather than impose upon it from above. And the rules work pretty well.

One of the problems for foreigners learning the language is the present perfect 'I have been to Rome'. Which is usually equated with one of their own grammar forms pretty badly (passato prossimo in the case of Italian) and it doesn't work. But if you learn /how/ it's used and what it's used for (finished actions in the past with an non-finished time or a habitual action when you're saying how long it's been for 'I've lived here for years') it's easy as long as you don't translate.

The main problem with English grammar is that Latin grammar was used as a model and it's a bad fit.
 

Geers

Geers
Surfinjo said:
Many languages are obscessed with grammer and pronouciation.

English, is a common mans language, Developed through common speech by commonors. It was only in the 18th century that the upper classes made any real attempt to interfere, lay down rules and regulate it. Needless to say, their attempts were and are a disaster.

English is correct when it is understood. So customs such as grammer and spelling are less important. It has made English the most popular and widely spokne language in the world. We are on the threashold of a turely international language.

Long may rules be neglected.
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rool hoo nede dum tingz aanywae.

Want to know what that means? Well too bad! I thought you liked anarchy!
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
SeregDuin said:
What'd you say 'bout my gramma?
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That's actually perfectly fine grammar, it's internally consistent at least and follows what I call QuASVO (Question word, Auxiliary Subject Object) interrogative rules.

My point isn't so much that people don't use grammar well. Most of us do, most of the time. And the times we don't it's usually trivial. Homophone errors (they're, their, there <--- same pronunciation, different spelling) aren't really what I'm talking about. It's more a case of teaching what the grammar is, for years I wanted to know what people were talking about when they mentioned a non-defining relative clause or what exactly is the second conditional? Spelling errors are easy to make and I still have my odd strange errors, like I have to look up bureacra beauroac byurocrassi every bloody time.

Teaching English, I learned to love it.
 
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Alien

Alien
JeffRyan said:
My point isn't so much that people don't use grammar well. Most of us do, most of the time. And the times we don't it's usually trivial. Homophone errors (they're, their, there <--- same pronunciation, different spelling) aren't really what I'm talking about. It's more a case of teaching what the grammar is, for years I wanted to know what people were talking about when they mentioned a non-defining relative clause or what exactly is the second conditional? Spelling errors are easy to make and I still have my odd strange errors, like I have to look up bureacra beauroac byurocrassi every bloody time.

Teaching English, I learned to love it.
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Unless I'm mistaken, you want to help people learn a level grammar above that which most people get wrong. Something like "non-defining relative clause or what exactly is the second conditional?" is way above most people's understanding (including mine), and maybe it would be a good idea to start with the basics, or as Maria in The Sound Of Music sang "Let's start at the very beginning, that's a very good place to start". You want to teach people how to play lead rock solo on the guitar, without teaching them basic chords first, to use learning the guitar as an analogy.
 

Joe Spivey

Joe Spivey
Alien said:
Unless I'm mistaken, you want to help people learn a level grammar above that which most people get wrong. Something like "non-defining relative clause or what exactly is the second conditional?" is way above most people's understanding (including mine), and maybe it would be a good idea to start with the basics, or as Maria in The Sound Of Music sang "Let's start at the very beginning, that's a very good place to start". You want to teach people how to play lead rock solo on the guitar, without teaching them basic chords first, to use learning the guitar as an analogy.
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Grammar seems scary because it uses complicated-sounding and unusual terms to describe the things we write and say every day. For example I had to look up 'non-defining relative clause' and 'second conditional' but when I saw the examples and explanations it was quite easy to understand.
 

Cmdr Andy B

Cmdr Andy B
Alien said:
Unless I'm mistaken, you want to help people learn a level grammar above that which most people get wrong. Something like "non-defining relative clause or what exactly is the second conditional?" is way above most people's understanding (including mine), and maybe it would be a good idea to start with the basics, or as Maria in The Sound Of Music sang "Let's start at the very beginning, that's a very good place to start". You want to teach people how to play lead rock solo on the guitar, without teaching them basic chords first, to use learning the guitar as an analogy.
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starting with the basics is always a great idea, i managed to totally miss out on grammar and punctuation when i was at school and never really got the hang of it afterwards. the only reason my spelling has improved since then is spellcheck; you have to love modern technology. ;)
 

Surfinjo

Surfinjo
Joe Spivey said:
Grammar seems scary because it uses complicated-sounding and unusual terms to describe the things we write and say every day. For example I had to look up 'non-defining relative clause' and 'second conditional' but when I saw the examples and explanations it was quite easy to understand.
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Grammer seems to be pointless and pedantic because it obscesses with trivilaities such as Boldly Go and Go Boldly.

We get the meaning. It's not important. :cool:
 

ianw

I
Surfinjo said:
Grammer seems to be pointless and pedantic because it obscesses with trivilaities such as Boldly Go and Go Boldly.

We get the meaning. It's not important. :cool:
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Deliberately miss-spelling to make a point looks like grandstanding just as much as picking on errors does..
 

Ulysses_W

Ulysses_W
From what I've heard over the last few decades, the English language is evolving at breakneck speed, and not necessarily in a good way. I'm not sure that grammar will have much of a place in the language if it carries on the way it is.

That said, I hope I'm wrong, and I'd be up for some grammar lessons in any case.

+1 Jeff.
 

Martlet

M
Sign on my local Chinese last week "Close. We do refurbish". I understood this, the joy of English is its flexibility.
 

ianw

I
Martlet said:
Sign on my local Chinese last week "Close. We do refurbish". I understood this, the joy of English is its flexibility.
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Reminds me of the woman in a Chinese takeaway in Hendon about 30 years ago who used to ask as she handed over the food "You want fork?" which sounded more like an invitation to the pants party than an enquiry about plastic cutlery..
 
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