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Tackle Grammar

Lesson 20 from: Learn a Language

Matthew Youlden

Tackle Grammar

Lesson 20 from: Learn a Language

Matthew Youlden

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Lesson Info

20. Tackle Grammar

Next Lesson: Grammar Exercise

Lesson Info

Tackle Grammar

Now that we've tackled the writing system, we're going to look at a very, very important topic, and it's also generally a topic that many people hate. I was thinking of ST trying to find a nicer word, but I think a lot of people simply hate the notion of grammar. Now this might surprise you. It might know I actually love Gramma. I think grammar is, as we seen English and British Inglis the best things in sliced bread, even though there are better things in sliced bread such as Grandma and a few other things. Now the great thing about Gramma is on. The most important thing about Rama on we're talking about grammar and syntax here is that if we don't understand grammar, then essentially we don't understand the language. There is no way we're going to ever be able to master language if we're not able to comprehend why grammar works the way it does. So my first tip is to become best friends with grammar and to stop seeing it as a dirty word because it isn't. Grammar wants to be loved, and ...

he wants to use the right way. What happens if we don't use Graham on the right way where we get the language. Wrong room. We'll see how we do that in English as well. Because grammar essentially is the foundation of any language without grammar than a language will not work because you can't you have toe have a structure behind it. And even if you were to create an artificial language, that would still be a grammar involved. Even in the case of Esperon told there is grow other is a grammar involved. Now, if we understand grammar, we can also not only understand the language itself, we're learning what we can also understand our language as well. So it will also, especially if we're learning languages that are related to each other. If we were to look at, say, for example on, we have one of the sheets that we have a look. Class is a list of languages of the world languages, and there we can see which languages are related to each other. Now, essentially, if we look at, for example, the Romance languages which will be looking at in the short while where we have the French language Spanish language, Catalan, Rumanian, Italian, these are all languages that are related to each other and all derive from Latin. So they've all got similar grammar because they all came from one language, which was Latin, which had the grammar. In the case of the Germanic languages as well, most languages there are some language isolates that are so far we do not know where the how they came to be and if they're related to any other languages and the gases that they were related to other languages. But they unfortunately died out, for example, in the case of Basque, which is a language spoken in Spain in front, where Basque is the only known living survivor off a language family that died out, said, if not know, even centuries millennia ago. Now, if we're going to learn a language where we decide to learn French are Russian, then once we've earnest of Russian grammar, we can easily go on in no time at all toe, learn Ukrainian talons, living toe, learn Serbian because the essential blocks of the language in Russian are going to be very similar to those in any other Slavic language, simply because off the way the language is built up Now, I'd like us to take a few minutes. Andi, think about Grandma in our own language because I think a lot of us think that we don't need grammar in English because we're English speakers. It's not something that we need to be familiar with. Well, actually, we do. Now. I'll give you a good example on. I'd like you to see. This is, however, from a British ex British perspective. I could have done it. Does that make sense in English, Jimmy? Yes. Should be. I could have done exactly now in British English, maybe in American English as well. You will see this quite a lot, especially in British English. Could anyone maybe think? Why? Christine, It's from the sounds, of course. Yeah, How if we say this quickly? We were talking about rhythm in the previous lesson on, If we say those two words together, it sounds like What would you say? Christine? Christine, if you were to say, if you would say you were to say these two words together, how would you pronounce that could ever cut off and in English, in British English. This changes two of something almost off, depending on the region. So you'll hear people that will say I called off donate and we know that this is wrong not because of the pronunciation, because the pronunciation is actually more or less the same, but is because of the grammar, because he wouldn't say I should off done it. You might pronounce it like that and you wouldn't say I ah, I have off donate because it doesn't make sense. You you've done it. I have done it. There's no reason they see their proposition. We don't need a proposition in this in this in this sequence. Now we're not taught this necessarily in score. I know in certain schools, in certain school systems in the English speaking world, there's less of an emphasis on grammar. And I think actually, the first thing that we should be doing in school, apart from building sandcastles is actually learning the building blocks of our own language because it, well, preparers and it will help was much, much later on to understand why our language works the way it does. And if we think about our language in that way, then it surely must be exactly the same for other languages. And this is something that we do when we usually learn another language such as Arabic or Spanish. The first thing that you always told is Don't forget the grammar. Ah, forget the grammar is the worst part ever and it's no is active the best part because it's the way we really understand why we speak the way we do and why English is the way it is now if you analyze our own language that we need to be going up. But we need to think off what things, what ideas we need to be looking at, because what makes up grammar, what makes up our language Now we have already the 1st 1 here if we analyze our own language, and that would be a tense and a conjugation now. And these might sound really fancy words for concepts that are actually really, really simple to understand. So we have a verb, and here we're talking about us. What sometimes we refer to in at least in British English is a doing. Word is something that you do and the best verb to do something is todo winning. This. Every verb starts with a two to be toe have toe like to eat toe hate toe like grammar. Now, if we conjugating a verb, we know that it's no always do do, do, do, do do do English is quite lucky in the sense that at least modern English that for most pronouns personal pronouns you and only need one fall apart from and the president titles third person Exactly. So it's always I do you do. But he she it does. And we usually added the sound s But sometimes you spell it within a so, for example, goals he goes But he likes she loves she wants. And apart from that, in the present tense is always the same. Case is always the same. It's do unless we have a really irregular verb like to be So we have I, um you are. And then once again he she But here again, it still ends in s. It is so we know this is well in English. It's something that we understand and we understand that we have to conjugating wishes well in order for the language to make sense because I know you can't say you is even though in slang girl of people that simply say you a czar. I is. But if we want to speak the language properly, then we will say I am and not I is now this. Why would this be any different for any other language? But he doesn't have to be a daunting task. It has to be something that we simply as we do in English, realize and memorize that when we speak that we have to say this in the right way. Now, another thing that we certainly don't have any in English, at least concerning when we think of modern grammar is something that I've written here is case I'm when we speak about cases, then we're essentially talking about many things because a case can be depending on the language, anything it can be. What we would use in English is an object. So for example, then, man, now the money is the man. It's a person is a human being, and this is what we call in certain language is the nominative case because it's I. I am, for example, it's a state of mind. I am the man. But if, for example, we say I see the man then automatically here you're the subject because you're the man and here you're the object. So it's the perspective that we have on things. So if you're your you're the person that seeing something and you're seeing something and in this case in English, we don't change anything. But in German, you would say Damn on its been Dammann, which would to change too. H. Zia Dane Money Not much has changed. Apart from the article, dare becomes Dean because it's the object is the diarrhea is the immediate object that we have and therefore it's what you call in German. The accuse it of case is where your lets you can imagine it is you're pointing to something and we can point at something. And this is where it becomes accuse. It'd now we do actually in English So therefore still have this. We also saw yesterday Sorry. In the previous lesson concerning Dutch, where we have something called a generative in Dutch. Not anymore. In Germany, we do we saw yesterday the previous in the previous lesson. Sorry, the word or the the sentence social or G desole abdomens. So Letterman all verbs in German ending in n or e n. And this is similar to the word learning if you think about it. And we saw in the previous lesson that it literally means psychology off the learning. Now the German richer off is fun, but in this case we can turn it into a generative, and it becomes is not from the word von. It's fun. It's from actually from dust and dust becomes Dez Now this might sound too much to take in at the moment, but the idea is simply that we do have it in English. Is the word off or another cat? Actually marker for the genetic case in English is How would I say, for example, if I say it's not mine, however, but this is my marker. If with a substitute my for me, Matthew, how would we say this is Marca without saying my Phyllis hes all if you use my name Matthews Matthews, huh? So it's not. You can say this is the marker of Matthew, but most of us wouldn't say that. We just say Matthews marker, even though it's not might. But to show possession we had an apostrophe in an S, and that is an accent. Actually, the A a very good example off the generative case in English. But we don't necessarily learning as this. We learn a simply is a possessive or it's something that the notes possession and therefore we have to add an apostrophe and s to a proper now. Oh, yeah, the girls. The girl's bag. Now another thing. We just gets a bit more complex because this can actually in other languages, you don't have propositions. You just simply have the case so you can have the house. And then, in another case in the house, to the house, Father house by the house, through the house with the house at the house There's something we didn't have up to 20 of these. But all we have to realize here is that this is simply another way are expressing a concept that we have in English in one word. And the more we practice this, the better the not only the better, but the simpler it becomes, because essentially all we're doing is transferring a concept that we have in English to a concept that we have in the other language and understanding white works. First of all in our language, so and why it works in it doesn't work as such in in the language that we're learning now, quickly go through an example in English. But I've also stated here another thing which would be Declan Nations in propositions. We've already just briefly looked at propositions so we can go into the first example which is here in English. I gave the apple to the child. Does it sound right? Yeah. I mean, it's a standard sentence. We have the subject. We have the verb. There's no I gifts. We have two objects here. We have two objects. We have a direct object on an indirect object and the direct object. What giving? We're giving some what? We're giving an apple. We have an apple on giving an apple. And in order to show who were giving an apple to now we have toe add to the child. Now, the question is, if we say this as a verb noun apple on an object, even can we say the following sentences in English, The apple to the child I give No, uh, it doesn't make sense. It I mean, it doesn't sound right. The apples of the child comma. I guess you could do something that you could probably find in poet and poet in poetry can be really poetic. The apple to the child I give my Squire Exactly, and we'll be looking. But it will be looking at your delayed because Yoda is very, very important. This one would probably more you I apple the child to give. Although maybe it's the 1st 1 as well. But simply we can't use this because it doesn't make sense. But in other languages, because we have this structure where we know that you have this word in a case and this word in a you can change the order, you can simply change the order.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Exercise 1 - Pronunciation
Exercise 2 - Tongue Twisters
List Of Major Languages
My First 50 Words
Music Listening Exercise
Learn 400 Words
7 Must-Do Bilingual Activities
Easy Verbal Noun Exercise
My Language Calendar
Reading and Writing Bilingual Techniques
Language Workbook for Beginners
Language Skills Workbook
Bonus Video: Time to Ployglot
Bonus Video: Why Learn a Language?
Bonus Video: Myths About Learning
Bonus Video: Reasons For Raising A Child Bilingually
Bonus Video: What is Bilingualism?
Bonus Video: Getting Started: Take the First Steps
My Language Calendar
Reading and Writing Bilingual Techniques
Language Workbook for Beginners
Language Skills Workbook

Ratings and Reviews

Cris Merton
 

Matthew has a beautiful voice! It's so easy to listen to him and this lends a great deal of authority to his already clear and lucid content. Bravo!

Student Work

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