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From: Lee Sau Dan on 18 Dec 2005 00:54
>>>>> "JosephKK" == JosephKK <joseph2k(a)lanset.com> writes:

JosephKK> Peter T. Breuer wrote:
>> <snip> Peter
JosephKK> Actually English is one of the most difficult languages
JosephKK> to learn either a first language or a second language.
JosephKK> Mandarin and Russian are also difficult. Spanish and
JosephKK> Greek are both much easier. I wish i knew enough to
JosephKK> address pre-columbian languages, african langauges or
JosephKK> bharati languages as well.

Why don't you address Malay-Indonesian -- which is still alive and
spoken by millions -- first? And Arabic? Swahili? Japanese?


--
Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
From: blmblm on 18 Dec 2005 10:48
In article <87wti3rmba.fsf(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de>,
Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>>>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> writes:
>
> >> People whose first language is German seem to say "since
> >> several years [ this has been happening ]," where a native
> >> speaker would say "for several years."
>
> Peter> That's indeed german usage. The "seit" ("since") fixes the
> Peter> startpoint for the rest of the clause.
>
>The problem is although most Germans know that "seit"->"since", seldom
>of them know also that "seit"->"for" in that particular case. So,
>they blindly replace their "seit" with "since" in all cases, leading
>to the mistake.

Exactly. Part of what I think makes learning a language difficult
is realizing that the words in one language don't map one-to-one onto
the words in another language. I don't know that the idea is so
difficult (though it's something that might not occur to someone
who grew up monolingual, until it's pointed out), but knowing which
words it applies to is one more thing that has to be learned, and
I don't think it's always trivial to explain .... hm, to use your
example, when "seit->since" and when "seit->for".

In a way it's a little like learning new vocabulary in one's own
language, I suppose. A dictionary might say that two words are
synonyms, but careful speakers/writers might know that there are
subtle distinctions of meaning that make them not interchangeable.

Either way, I guess my point is that relying on dictionaries to
choose one's words isn't really adequate, but the only alternative
I can think of involves a lot of reading/listening, and some
writing/speaking to an audience willing and able to correct
suboptimal usage.

>And since this mistake is made so often by their
>fellows, they don't feel it's wrong. Another common German-made
>mistake is saying "I am big/small" instead of "I am tall/short".
>Again, this mistake spreads among them like a plague, because their
>fellows feel it's 100% OK to say it that way.

"Feel it's okay" or "don't know any better"? I can easily imagine
that it's the latter -- i.e., a matter of ignorance rather than
attitude.

This points out the pitfalls of learning a language by osmosis
from people who don't know it well themselves. (That, by the way,
is probably how a lot of the native-speaker mistakes spread.)

--
| B. L. Massingill
| ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
From: blmblm on 18 Dec 2005 11:30
In article <8764pnt15p.fsf(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de>,
Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>>>>>> "blmblm" == blmblm <blmblm(a)myrealbox.com> writes:
>
> blmblm> Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but you sound a bit defensive
> blmblm> here, so -- I don't mean this as a put-down of non-native
> blmblm> speakers. It's just that in my experience there's a class
> blmblm> of "mistakes" -- call them "unidiomatic usage" -- that are
> blmblm> commonly made by people who learn a language as adults,
> blmblm> but rarely if ever made by people who learn the same
> blmblm> language as children.
>
>Can you give any examples for English?

Re-read the paragraph below, please. I thought I had been doing
exactly that.

Another example is the "seit->since" versus "seit->for" confusion
mentioned in another subthread.

> blmblm> The examples I've noticed: People whose native language is
> blmblm> Russian or Chinese often are shaky about articles. At
> blmblm> least one person I know whose native language is Chinese
> blmblm> has trouble with singular/plural, and he claims it's
> blmblm> because Chinese doesn't really make that distinction.
> blmblm> (You'll be able to confirm whether I'm remembering this
> blmblm> right.) I think he also has trouble with verb tenses,
> blmblm> which you mention later.
>
>And how come I don't have such problems NOW?

You've told us that you've put some extra time and attention into
learning to speak and write English well. Don't you think that has
something to do with it?

I'm not saying that no one whose first language is Chinese can ever
master this stuff. I'm saying, though, that based on my experience
it can be a problem for some such people. I think it probably helps
to have started out early, as you did. I think it also probably
helps to make an extra effort, as you do.

To try an example that I know less about but that might raise
fewer hackles: I have heard that English speakers trying to learn
Chinese often have real problems with -- "tones"? i.e., there's
some aspect of the spoken language that English doesn't really have
and that apparently is hard for English speakers to master. I have
heard that in consequence they are apt to make mistakes that result
in their meaning being garbled. Maybe that's the equivalent of
what I'm talking about.

[ snip ]

>Most people in Hong Kong speak Cantonese (which has no articles at
>all) all the time but learnt English in school. They don't seem to
>have too much problems using the articles. And many of them can
>handle tense and plural marker pretty well -- mistakes are only
>occasional.

If most of them started out at a young age, as you did, I claim
that this doesn't tell us much about people who learn new languages
as adults. In the one case it's more "learning by immersion", while
in the other it's, um, something else. You talk more about this
later, so I'll say more below.

Well, maybe it's just that I'm giving too much weight to a few
examples from my own experience. I mentioned a Chinese acquaintance
who sometimes has trouble with tenses and plurals. I also once knew
a young woman from Russia who seemed to have trouble with articles.
I guess it's easier to notice when people *do* make mistakes than
when they don't. But what caught my attention was that these were
mistakes that I could not imagine a native speaker making, and I find
that interesting.

> blmblm> Native speakers "just know" when to use these little
> blmblm> words.
> >> They have to learn it.
>
> blmblm> Sure. But they don't learn it by studying rules. I'm
> blmblm> fairly sure about this: I think I also use articles
> blmblm> properly, but I certainly don't have in my head a list of
> blmblm> explicit rules about when to use them -- the right usage
> blmblm> just "sounds right" to me. I think this is how childhood
> blmblm> language acquisition works -- whatever usage you hear a
> blmblm> lot as a child comes to "sound right". So there's some
> blmblm> kind of mental model in the back of the brain (built by
> blmblm> some process that's outside the person's conscious
> blmblm> awareness or maybe control), but it's not a set of
> blmblm> explicit rules. When I hear people talk about rules for
> blmblm> when to use articles, they seem like contrived attempts to
> blmblm> turn this mental model into a checklist.
>
>I learnt English as a foreign language.

Starting at about age five, right? I know you said you learned it
in school, but surely at age five you were learning in a way that
approximates how people learn a first language, rather than being
taught grammar rules?

>And after having read a lot
>of English books, there are also sentences and usages that "sound
>right" and others that "sound wrong". That's just the _linguistic
>sense_ that has developed in my brain. No need to resort to
>prescriptive rules to tell whether an article should be used here, or
>the subjective should be used there. Just a sense. I can tell you
>such linguistic sense can be learnt -- even as an adult. (That's why
>some people advocate immersion teaching. You can only develop that
>linguistic sense of a language after extensive exposure.)

I don't think you can really use yourself as an example here, unless
with a language you only began learning as an adult.

However, I suspect that you are correct in saying that with enough
practice one can develop this sense of what "sounds right" as an
adult. It might take more time and effort than most people are
willing to invest, but I won't say it's impossible.

>Of course, when I read a sentence composed by a classmate and found it
>wrong, I could just tell him it's wrong without giving him a
>comprehensible reason. Just that "I feel it wrong" or "that 'sounds'
>incorrect" won't be satisfactory. Further, I have to let him know why
>my suggested corrections would "sound right". In this case, my
>knowledge of the grammar rules and terminologies helps. It
>complements my linguistic sense and enables me to "explain" to the
>classmate why that sentence was wrong. (This is why I think native
>speakers aren't automatically good language teachers. They lack a
>devise for them to 'explain' to their students _how_ their native
>language works. The linguistic sense in their brain is a subconcious
>knowledge, and cannot be used to 'explain' things. They can play an
>advisory role, though.)

Good points.

One advantage I think people learning a language as an adult have
over those learning it as a child is that they *can* be aware of
the underlying structure and rules, while also realizing that to
become fluent they will need a lot of practice. So they might be
less likely to learn native-speaker mistakes (the "me and him went
to the store" example I used in another post).

I think I might have less trouble with Spanish now simply because I'm
more aware of the issues we've been talking about here. It would
be interesting to try, anyway -- if only there were more hours in
the week, or my brain provided more usable cycles, or something.

[ snip ]

--
| B. L. Massingill
| ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
From: blmblm on 18 Dec 2005 11:39
In article <87slsrrlwr.fsf(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de>,
Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>>>>>> "blmblm" == blmblm <blmblm(a)myrealbox.com> writes:
>
> blmblm> This all matches my recollections of things I've read
> blmblm> about language acquisition in children. I'm especially
> blmblm> intrigued by the claims that if you don't learn as a child
> blmblm> to hear a distinction between two sounds, it may not be
> blmblm> possible to correct this later.
>
>That's claim is certainly wrong. And it is exploited by those adults
>who are too lazy to learn a new language.

Could be, but my recollection is that this claim was from a
report in the popular press of research done by -- linguists?
psychologists? some variety of academics anyway. Others in this
thread have mentioned similar things, so I think I'm remembering
more or less correctly. Of course the reports in the popular press
could have been inaccurate, or the research could simply be wrong.

Then again, I don't think one example (that you were able to learn
German as an adult, despite its having new sounds) necessarily
contradicts a claim that it "may not be possible to correct this
later." "May not be possible" != "impossible in all circumstances
and with all people", IMO.

"Too lazy", though -- oh, stop it. People don't all choose to do
the same things with their time and energy, and why should they?

[ snip ]

--
| B. L. Massingill
| ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
From: blmblm on 18 Dec 2005 11:52
In article <sd3e73-sjp.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>,
Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
>In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote:
>> In article <3skd73-t1h.ln1(a)news.it.uc3m.es>,
>> Peter T. Breuer <ptb(a)oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
>>>In comp.os.linux.misc blmblm(a)myrealbox.com wrote:
>>>> I frequently hear foreign speakers say "I have a doubt about
>>>> [ whatever ]," where a native speaker would say "I have a question."
>>>
>>>That's spanish. Spanish only, as far as I know. It seems to be a polite
>>>circumlocution, inviting the responder to sooth away the doubt (I am
>>>tempted to answer "well, see a spirtual advisor").
>
>> Hm .... I might not have explained that one well. This happens in
>
>You state it fine - you don't seem to understand my explanation,
>however (which puzzles me).

It does? After our apparent near-total inability to communicate in
other parts of this thread? or maybe you don't pay much attention
to the identities and posting histories of other participants --
not that you necessarily should.

>> "I have a doubt about Fortran. Does it always pass parameters
>> by reference?" Or "I have a doubt about bash. How do I search
>> for something in the command history?" I'm making these up rather
>> than attempting to remember and quote, but I'm pretty sure they're
>> representative.
>
>So what is your question? You stated that before, and I explained!

I wasn't sure that you understood that I had in mind examples of
requests for information, to which "sooth away the doubt" just doesn't
seem to me to apply. Maybe you pick up on something behind "How do
I search for something in the command history?" that's eluding me.

[ snip ]

--
| B. L. Massingill
| ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
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