[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report

[Dylan]

On Tuesday 26 November 2002 17:04, Dave Cridland [Home] wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:20:48 -0000
>
> "Daniel Andersson" <daniel at septum.org> wrote:
> > yepp, and the even scarier bit is that i'm swedish and i sort-of often
> > find myself writing (and sometimes speaking) better and more correct
> > english than british people
>
> Ah, but that is, I think, a known factor - people who learn a foreign
> language usually tend to speak it more correctly then a native speaker.

The form of a language taught to foreign learners is usually the socially 
preferred form (for English, we might call it 'BBC' English) and is usually 
more formal - think of foreigners' problems with idiomatic or metaphorical 
expressions. This leads to the native speaker percieving the foreigner's 
speech as somehow "better".

>
> Learning the grammer of your own native language is significantly
> harder, I think, than learning the grammer of a foreign one.

Children generally manage to learn the core by the age of 3 to 5, with little 
if any direct coaching...

> I've no
> idea how many irregular verbs there are in English, although I'm told
> there are more than Spanish, for instance.>
> On the other hand, I know how to form verbs in Spanish (or used to,
> anyway), but tend to have to struggle a bit to remember which
> classification a verb fits in. Whereas in English I don't have to think
> about it, even though we have, apparently, many more irregular verbs to
> deal with anyway.

Depends how you count them. Actually, the only ones which don't fit the 
general rules are: BE, HAVE, GET and DO. The other 'irregular' verbs simply 
have patterns which are so subtle and complex there's no point consciously 
learning them (unless, like me, you're a theoretical linguistics geek.)

Dylan

-- 
"Sweet moderation
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