How to Learn Any Language 9
Now let the adult mind enter and make peace. Obviously, no language tries to be hard just to keep you out. Whatever rules you find perplexing in your target language, that language came by them naturally and organically. Grammar does change, but so slowly you’ll never have to worry about it. Approach the grammar with a smile and your hand extended. That which you understand, take and keep. That which is confusing, return to again and again. That which seems impossible, return to again and again and again, until it becomes merely confusing. It will ultimately become clear. Meanwhile, however, you will be speeding ahead in your command of the language as you keep returning to those stubborn fortresses of grammatical resistance.
I can honestly say I came to like the study of grammar. Once you finally approach grammar with the right attitude, it becomes both a map that shows you the pathways through a language and a rocket that takes you there faster.
A paleontologist can find lifetime fascination with a fossil a child might ignore, kick, or toss into the lake just to hear the splash. Likewise, the grammar of various languages throws off some laughs and insights nonlinguists never get a chance to marvel at.
In German, for example, a woman doesn’t achieve feminine gender until she gets married. The word for “girl” (Mädchen) and “miss” (Fräulein) are both neuter gender. In Russian, the past tense of verbs acts like an adjective; it doesn’t shift forms according to person and number as verbs normally do, but shift according to gender and number as adjectives do. In Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish the definite article (“the”) follows the noun and is attached to it. Therefore, “a field” in Norwegian is en mark. “The field,”, however, is marken. Romanian and Albanian, completely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, do the same thing.
In Finnish, the word for “not” is a verb. (At least it behaves like a verb.) Finnish, alone in all the world, has an inflecting negative. In every other language in which verbs conjugate, the form of the verb changes according to person and number, whether the verb is positive or negative. Thus, in Spanish the verb meaning “to want” goes yo quiero, tu quieres, el quiere. If you wish to say “I don’t want”, you keep the verb forms the same and throw the word for “not”, no, in front of it (yo no quiero, tu no quieres, el no quiere).
In Finnish, and this is pure believe-it-or-not to anyone who’s looked at a lot of different languages, it’s the word for not that does the changing! Thus, “I want,” “you want,” “he wants” in Finnish goes, (minä) haluan, (sinä) haluat, (hän) halua. In the negative, however, the verb for “want” becomes halua in all persons and the word for “not” changes from person to person. Thus, “I don’t want,” “you don’t want,” “he doesn’t want” becomes (minä) en halua, (sinä) et halua, (hän) ei halua.
I think my most impossible to top discovery is the fact that in Hindi and Urdu “tomorrow” and “yesterday” are translated by the same word. Once, a Pakistani cab driver actually seemed irked that I found that to be at all strange. “We have verb tenses to tell us which is which” was his testy explanation.
American feminists have mounted crusades to convert sexist terms that have over the years insinuated themselves deep into the language. We’ve all abandoned chairman, for example, for the cumbersome but less provocative chairperson, manhole for maintenance hole, and so on.
It’s strange that the most blazing example of language sexism has gone unreformed, even though it occurs in some countries with active and successful feminist movements.
Maybe it’s because, unlike manhole, this sexism is more than just a word or a term. It’s gone through the bone into the marrow, through the words of the language into the grammar.
You may remember it from Spanish 1. You may have gotten it right on the tests and not thought of it since. I refer to the Romance language “gender surrender” from feminine to masculine.
Let’s say two women are having lunch. If you want to refer to them in Spanish, the word is ellas, the feminine “they” or “them.” If they should be joined by a man, however, the ellas becomes ellos, masculine for “they” or “them.” And no matter how many more women show up and crowd around the table, the Spanish language can never put that humpty dumpty ellas back into play – unless the lone man leaves!
Theoretically, a million women can be rallying in the main square of the capital. The newspapers will report that ellas rallied, made demands, did thus and so. If, however, one man wanders into the square to join in, the proper pronoun is ellos! And that same rule goes for French, Italian, Portugese, Romanian, and a few other languages.
You may never come to love grammar, but work with it. Although sometimes annoying and thick in disguise, it’s your friend.
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[分享]How to Learn Any Language 9
