Re: Verb specificity (Was: Re: Natural Order of Events)

2009/1/28 Paul Kershaw <ptkershaw@...>

> ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela.cg@...>
> > It's a very important difference between how French and English approach
> > actions. Aren't people in French class taught it?
> > --
> > Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> In my high school French class (Michigan), I was taught to say "go by foot"
> etc., but it wasn't explained why, and we were taught and allowed to use
> "marcher" instead. (Ditto the other means of transportation, but as high
> schoolers talking about ourselves, we did a lot of walking. :D)
>
You are only allowed to use "marcher" as well as other verbs of means of
motion, when you are focussing on the manner of the motion rather than the
destination or origin. As a consequence, you *can't* use destination or
origin complements with such verbs.

For instance, a sentence like "I'm walking to the station" could only be "je
vais à la gare à pied". Something like "je marche à la gare", while not
totally wrong, would feel more like a very awkward way to say "je marche
dans la gare": "I'm walking about in the station".

Note that you can say: "je marche vers la gare", but that means "I'm walking
in the direction of the station". It only indicates a direction, not a
destination. That's because once you use "marcher", you are focussing on the
manner of motion. You can specify it more clearly by indicating where you
are moving, or in which general direction, but since you are focussing on
the action of moving itself, you cannot indicate a destination anymore.


>
> In US language classes, though, I've never been aware of much emphasis on
> linguistic nuance. Language teaching is (or was, at least, when I was in
> school) treated like a code system. "Chat" means "cat," "chien" means "dog";
> to speak French (or any other language), it largely suffices to know the
> code. The exceptions that stand out are an emphasis on translating the
> English progressive into simple present, Spanish having two verbs for "to
> be," and the use of clitics instead of possessive pronouns for reflexive
> acts ("je me lave les mains"; lit., *"I wash myself the
> hands"). Most differences are taught as idioms (the French have hunger, they
> aren't hungry; etc.).
>
The first years of English study here in France are like that as well. But
you also get actual grammar lessons, which can get quite intricate once you
reach a certain level (4th or 5th year, I don't remember exactly anymore).
Not that it's that much more effective though. I'm the only one of my high
school classes who can still speak and write English. We get lots of
language education at school, but no way to practise it. So it cannot work
either.


>
> I'm reminded of a recent discussion on a list for English learners of
> German, where someone asked for the difference between "Entschuldigung" and
> "Es tut mir Leid" because they were taught that both mean "I'm sorry," but
> they weren't taught the contexts for each. Such is the danger of
> code-focussed education.
>
French foreign language education is also mostly code-focussed. But since we
are used to receiving grammar classes for our native language, we don't see
it as strange that we should do the same for foreign languages.


>
> Since my linguistic training, it has seemed to me that language pedagogy in
> this country feels that students can't handle linguistic notions easily.
> Personally, I think every high schooler should have to take a semester of
> linguistics prior to starting their language courses.
>
>
That would be great. Just the basics, like learning that a language and its
written form are two separate things, would already help a lot.
-- 
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.

http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/

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