Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2004-06-24 10:52 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2004-06-24 10:52 pm
(no subject)
Something like this should be available for every foreign language. Only thing I'd like better for that one would be a short list of articles, prepositions, and other 'little words,' and we'd be in business.
It's like the no-shit bare-bones guide to basic Swedish--pronouns, verb conjugation or lack thereof, definite/indefinite, tenses, plurals, comparisons, adjective endings. Rudimentary pronunciation. No "Hi, my name is _____," no scattering it out over idiotic "lessons." No vocabulary besides what's needed to illustrate his points. If you want fucking vocabulary, buy a dictionary. I love it.
I never understood why in school we weren't taught any form of past tense until our second year of the language. That goes for French, German, Russian, and (from what I can tell of my friends who have taken it) Spanish. It's really stupid--past tense is one of the more important aspects of a language, and putting off essential grammar until second year is teaching things out of order. Same goes with cases: dative has been in both German and Russian left till the end of first year, and there are always a few that aren't taught till second. If I had my way the first couple of months or even the first year would be a crash course in essential grammar concepts, plus a basic vocabulary, and then get into the more detailed vocabulary and nitty-gritty grammar.
Okay. Rant on school foreign language classes is OVER. But now I wanna write a no-shit bare-bones guide to basic German. (Or perhaps basic English. God knows most of the population of the Internet could use it.)
It's like the no-shit bare-bones guide to basic Swedish--pronouns, verb conjugation or lack thereof, definite/indefinite, tenses, plurals, comparisons, adjective endings. Rudimentary pronunciation. No "Hi, my name is _____," no scattering it out over idiotic "lessons." No vocabulary besides what's needed to illustrate his points. If you want fucking vocabulary, buy a dictionary. I love it.
I never understood why in school we weren't taught any form of past tense until our second year of the language. That goes for French, German, Russian, and (from what I can tell of my friends who have taken it) Spanish. It's really stupid--past tense is one of the more important aspects of a language, and putting off essential grammar until second year is teaching things out of order. Same goes with cases: dative has been in both German and Russian left till the end of first year, and there are always a few that aren't taught till second. If I had my way the first couple of months or even the first year would be a crash course in essential grammar concepts, plus a basic vocabulary, and then get into the more detailed vocabulary and nitty-gritty grammar.
Okay. Rant on school foreign language classes is OVER. But now I wanna write a no-shit bare-bones guide to basic German. (Or perhaps basic English. God knows most of the population of the Internet could use it.)