So yeah, I have not written much because well, not a lot has been happening. Classes started. My classes should be good. My schedule is good. The students said funny things. Whatever
( Read more... )
Koreans love to break everything down to a science. hahaha
... I don't understand how there's 12 tenses :v I tried with "to go" but all I got was "go", "went", and "going". I'm not sure if "gone" counts. Oh yeah, and "goes". I'm still seven short of reaching the magic number of 12.
There are two tenses in English: present and past. "gone" is the past participle form and "going" is present participle. Perfect (to have + past participle) and progressive (to be + present participle) are manifestations of aspect not tense. Tense is only concerned with whether an action is happening at the moment at which an utterance occurs or before it. Aspect indicates the completeness or continuation of an action (usually in relation to another act.) But Korean doesn't like using aspect (했었다 is an example of aspect in Korean) so Koreans just lump everything together.
It frustrates me because it makes something that is already vague, confusing, and difficult, almost impossible. Why make it harder?
Can't blame the Koreans for this one--we were taught the traditional twelve-tense system in grade school. In fact, we had double that number, because passive conjugations were taught as "tenses" as well (even though "passive" is neither a tense nor an aspect but a mood). My favourite was always the future perfect progressive passive, "I will have been being shot". One predicate, five verbs!
I realize that it is not a Korean problem but the 12-tense system makes things SO much more confusing. For native speakers it is not a problem because grammar usually just is a matter of describing a system they already intuitively know, but separating aspect and tense (and mood) makes it so much easier to understand, functionally, how to use the language. What is frustrating is that Korean English teachers are most resistant to separating aspect from tense because "that's not what we were taught."
I LOVE future perfect progressive passive. I like to write those sentences on the board in advanced classes and ask, "Is this sentence correct?" The students usually just stare as they try and parse it.
What's amazing to me is how readily we accepted the definitions we were taught even though even a cursory examination of the way we actually spoke in the course of a day would've shown how wrongheaded they were. It was literally only two days ago that I realised the present perfect, like all non-past tenses in English, can be used with future reference. And, again, this is not some obscure exception or deprecated argot, but utterly straightforward standard usage, e.g. "When you've been here for then years, then you can tell me I'm doing my job wrong, but not before then."
One of the things I love about ESL is my students ask me about things I never think about ("why is I, as in first person singular, capitalized?" "Is the word 'barely' negative?") and then I have to go find an answer and end up learning about English.
One of the things I tell my classes about aspect it that tense is only about whether something happened before the moment of the utterance or not (thereby lumping present and non-past together.) Aspect is usually, or most often, about the time relationship between different phrases within a sentence. In your example the present perfect clause is in a subordinate clause and at he moment that the conditions of that clause become perfect, then the main clause becomes valid. There is a time relationship between the two clauses. That is why I think it is so important to separate them: aspect is about time relationships between the constituent parts, tense is only concerned with whether an action has already happened or not
... I don't understand how there's 12 tenses :v
I tried with "to go" but all I got was "go", "went", and "going".
I'm not sure if "gone" counts. Oh yeah, and "goes".
I'm still seven short of reaching the magic number of 12.
Reply
It frustrates me because it makes something that is already vague, confusing, and difficult, almost impossible. Why make it harder?
Reply
Reply
I LOVE future perfect progressive passive. I like to write those sentences on the board in advanced classes and ask, "Is this sentence correct?" The students usually just stare as they try and parse it.
Reply
Reply
One of the things I tell my classes about aspect it that tense is only about whether something happened before the moment of the utterance or not (thereby lumping present and non-past together.) Aspect is usually, or most often, about the time relationship between different phrases within a sentence. In your example the present perfect clause is in a subordinate clause and at he moment that the conditions of that clause become perfect, then the main clause becomes valid. There is a time relationship between the two clauses. That is why I think it is so important to separate them: aspect is about time relationships between the constituent parts, tense is only concerned with whether an action has already happened or not
Reply
Leave a comment