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

----- 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)

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.).

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.

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.

-- Paul

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