{"id":187,"date":"2013-11-09T17:07:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T15:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/?p=187"},"modified":"2014-03-28T10:38:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T08:38:36","slug":"teacher-teach-thyself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/?p=187","title":{"rendered":"Teacher, teach thyself"},"content":{"rendered":"

When an English speaker starts to learn Spanish, the hard sounds are the r<\/i> as in perro<\/i> and arroz<\/i>, the j<\/i> as in jam\u00f3n<\/i> and ejemplo,<\/i> and the g<\/i> as in Sergio and Gij\u00f3n. The sounds are a bit guttural, though not as hard as say the ich<\/i> in High German. A bit of practice (eaten with ham\u00f3<\/i>n <\/i>in <\/i>Hih\u00f3n por ehemplo<\/i>) <\/i>helps. When you finally get anywhere near native, it\u2019s like a gold star from your teacher. Diez puntos<\/i> as they say in Spain.\"HelloThankyou\"<\/a>For the Spanish learning English, the trouble spots are in reverse: the hard j<\/i> and g<\/i> as in John and Gibraltar. The s<\/i> and sh<\/i> sounds also get mixed up, where a kid\u2019s tongue twister is great practice: \u201cshe sells sea shells by the sea shore<\/strong>.\u201d For those of us learning Spanish, try these trabalenguas<\/i> (tongue twisters): \u201ctres tristes tigres<\/i><\/strong>\u201d (three sad tigers) and \u201cel perro de San Roque no tiene rabo<\/i><\/strong>\u201d (St. Roque\u2019s dog hasn\u2019t got a tail). Say them fast for full effect.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there are language rules, but they seem as much fun as a cavity filling. Knowing the three verb types in Spanish, though, is essential, as in habl-ar<\/i>, com-er<\/i>, and viv-ir<\/i><\/b> with the regular \u2013ar, \u2013er, and \u2013ir groupings<\/b>, from which the first-, second-, and third-person singular and plural follows by stripping off the ending and adding o\/as\/a\/amos\/\u00e1is\/an, o\/es\/e\/emos\/\u00e9is\/en, or o\/es\/e\/imos\/\u00eds\/en. Fortunately, Spanish is not as inflected as German or Latin\u2014no different verb endings for each of the six cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, and ablative).*<\/p>\n

English is notorious for being full of irregular verbs but again thankfully isn\u2019t as inflected as German or Latin. There is a rule to help Spanish speakers with their English past participles though, which can have only the three sounded endings \/t, \/d, or \/id as in baked, joined, or ended<\/b>. The \/t and \/d endings are hard to distinguish even for native English speakers (Does baked<\/i> end with a \/t sound or a \/d sound?). But all the \/id-sounded endings are from verbs that end with either a letter d<\/i> or t<\/i> as in bend<\/b>ed<\/i> or slant<\/b>ed<\/i>. Easy peasy.**<\/p>\n

Of course, the mind doesn\u2019t work through each rule when learning a new language, for example, which of the two main English past tenses to use (or three in Spanish and French). I ate (simple past) or I have eaten (present perfect) come naturally in time.*** There\u2019s just no beating practice, practice, practice. And most will get the meaning if you speak earnestly, apologize, and smile profusely.<\/p>\n

In the end, it doesn\u2019t matter a jota<\/i> whether John F. Kennedy said \u201cI am a jelly donut\u201d in his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate on June 26, 1961 in support of Berliners everywhere. (Some think Ich bin Berliner<\/i> is correct and Ich bin ein<\/b> Berliner<\/i> is not, since the article is not needed and ein Berliner<\/i> is a jelly donut.****)<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo thousand years ago, the proudest boast was <\/i>civis romanus sum [“I am a Roman citizen”]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner!”… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!”<\/i><\/p>\n

Nor does it matter a jot if I keep messing up my verb endings for a while. I\u2019m hoping I have a few more months before anyone figures out I\u2019m not passing through.<\/p>\n

* Mark Twain: \u201cI would rather decline two German beers than one German noun. For an interesting discussion on some thorny German grammar, see The Awful German Language, or, “Deutsche Sprache, Schwere Sprache<\/a>” in My Year Abroad<\/i>, January 15, 2008.<\/h5>\n
** For a pronunciation list of regular English past tense verbs<\/b>, check out AzarGrammar<\/a> (Teachers Helping Teachers). Here\u2019s a nice ProProfs<\/a> quiz as well.<\/h5>\n
*** In Spanish: the pret\u00e9rito<\/i><\/b> imperfecto<\/b><\/i> [yo com\u00eda<\/i>] is the simple past [I ate] and the pret\u00e9rito<\/i><\/b> perfecto<\/b><\/i> [yo he comido<\/i>] is the present perfect [I have eaten<\/i>]. In French: l\u2019imparfait<\/i><\/b> [je mangeais<\/i>] is the simple past [I ate] and the pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/i><\/b> [j’ai mang\u00e9<\/i>] is the present perfect [I have eaten]. The pret\u00e9rito<\/i><\/b> indefinido<\/b><\/i> has no English equivalent. I don\u2019t know if that helps, but it\u2019s nice to know that in Asturias, most people use the simple past.<\/h5>\n
**** For an interesting article, see John F. Kennedy\u2019s Statement \u201cIch Bin Ein Berliner\u201d was Not Interpreted as \u201cI am a Jelly-Filled Doughnut<\/a>\u201d Daven Hiskey, Today I Found Out<\/i>, April 25, 2012. Note that Kennedy used the popular Low-German dialect for I, that is, Ish<\/i> (as spoken in the nothern “low” lands) rather than the Berliner dialect Ick<\/i> or the standard High-German Ich<\/i> (as spoken in the Alps or “high” lands).<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When an English speaker starts to learn Spanish, the hard sounds are the r as in perro and arroz, the j as in jam\u00f3n and ejemplo, and the g as in Sergio and Gij\u00f3n. The sounds are a bit guttural, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[16,4,15],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain","tag-grammar","tag-language","tag-pronunciation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkwhite.ie\/caracolas\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}