Re: Why can't daddy?

"Claudio" == Claudio Grondi <claudio.grondi@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Claudio> As it was the case in the past at school and apparently
Claudio> (according to you) it is still the case, I am not able to
Claudio> learn and grasp the grammar stuff. I have to rely on my
Claudio> feeling and this gets much better when I am living some
Claudio> weeks/months in the corresponding country having some
Claudio> long discussions with native speakers everyday. My
Claudio> English, being at its top condition after my longer (six
Claudio> weeks) visit to USA many years ago
...

I have the same experience, too. And that does not only happen to L2,
but also L1. After staying abroad for a year, I find that my
Cantonese is not as fluent as I did when I went home for vacation for
a few weeks. When I speak, many words pop up in my mind in German
(because I was staying in Germany), esp. when talking about life in
Germany. The tongues had been tuned to the German sounds so that I
can mispronounce Cantonese words if I spoke too fast. And more
importantly, people are starting to use brand new slangs which I'm not
familiar with. (I have been listening to HK radio over the Internet,
so I'm not too out-of-date in terms of slangs.)

Of course, the situation improved a lot after a few days.


Claudio> has got in between damaged by taking part in many
Claudio> scientific European meetings, where people from all
Claudio> European countries were speaking "European English" (the
Claudio> worst case for my ears and the feeling for the language
Claudio> are French people speaking bad English).

In general, I find that people from eastern and northern Europe speak
pretty good English. People from Romance languages speak it with a
very strange accent. I have the same experience with you for French
people. (e.g. they pronounce "suppose" just like it is in French!)
But the Italians are no better. (One Italian I know usually pronounce
"is" as "isa", with the "a" being the schwa sound. And that can
confuse with "is-a" (as in "A rectangle _is a_ square", which is often
used in computer science for modelling abstract ideas.)


Claudio> - especially I know, that I have a problem with writing
Claudio> conditional sentences in English, so if you will be so
Claudio> kind to try to explain to me the problems I have with it
Claudio> in a way I become able to memorize it in spite of my
Claudio> aversion to grammar I will sure appreciate your effort
Claudio> (also on other problems I have and I am not aware of).

At school, the textbooks gives 4 recipes:

1) IF/WHEN <present tense>, (THEN) <present tense>:

e.g. When it rains, the ground becomes wet.

This form shows rules. Some that is considered always true,
without exceptions.


2) IF <present tense>, (THEN) <future tense>:

e.g. If it rains (tomorrow), I'll cancel the picnic.

This form shows future plans. It is likely to happen, but there
is still chance that it doesn't hold. (e.g. if it really rains
tomorrow, I may still go picnic anyway.)


3) IF <subjunctive>, then <subjunctive>

e.g. If I were a bird, I would fly around the world to see many things.

This expresses some wish, which is basically impossible to come true.


4) IF <subjunctive perfect>, <subjunctive perfect>

e.g. Had I not brought an umbrella, I would have been all wet.

This form is usually used to talk about a past situation. The
things there were possible to occur, but it didn't. As we cannot
change history now, and those things didn't happen, you need to use
subjunctive. (So, in the above example, I'm implying that I DID
bring an umbrella, and hence I WAS NOT wet.)


Note that in the example in (4), I have used inversion. It is not
uncommon in writing to see inversion instead of the use of "if" or
"when" for cases (3) and (4). This technique can be exploited to
avoid having several sentences in a row all starting with "if".



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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