[Multilingual Monday] Same idea, different conjugation

[aadroma]

I'm, admittedly, fascinated when certain constructions end up requiring different verb conjugations in order to state the same thing. Different languages have different verb systems and handle concepts of time and completion in a different way. English, for example, traditionally is thought to have three "tenses" (telling "past", "present", "

Comments

[philbutrin]

here's an interesting article about some language idiosyncracies:

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609

[philbutrin]

oh, and here's another link you might enjoy:

http://www.sporcle.com/games/ZapRowsdower/foreign_language

[aadroma]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the links you've been providing; they've been GREAT. I promise some of them are fodder for future columns here.

So in essence you're helping me keep this part of my journal alive and well. (HUG)

[philbutrin]

well, it's been cool for me to have someone else on here to be able to share that stuff with :-)

[philbutrin]

here's another one you might like:

http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/more-on-the-hardest-languages-to-learn/

have you ever seen the movie 電車男?

i watched it today, and i quite enjoyed it. and the commentary track is really interesting... it gives a lot of insight into japanese culture.

[muckefuck]

Linguist Rick Harrison has a good introduction to various aspectual distinctions and Aktionsarten on this page. You can find a surprising number of these in the European languages, albeit expressed periphrastically rather than by inflecting the main verb. They seem to sneak under the radar in language teaching, so the only way I learned how to express the prospective or inchoative in languages like Catalan was by doing my own research. Korean in particular has a bewildering range of aspectual constructions; they are, in fact, the main reason why I despair of ever mastering that language.

[muckefuck]

It strikes me that you've left out one of the most common stumbling blocks for English-speakers learning other European languages and vice-versa: Present perfect for ongoing conditions vs. simple present/present progressive. How many times have we all heard a non-native speaker of English say something like, "I am living here since three years"?

Oh, and something I find a bit odd in Spanish is that, despite the rude vitality of its irrealis tenses, for matters of conjecture, it generally prefers the future. For instance, "¿Dónde estará tu novio?" "Estará en casa." "Where's your boyfriend (I wonder)?" "He's (probably) at home."

[aadroma]

Yeah, I never understood the "probability = future" thing, but really, how would YOU form the conditional in a concise manner with the verb conjugations on hand? The conditional just sounds odd, and the subjunctive by itself implies more a command than anything else.

Present perfect for ongoing conditions vs. simple present/present progressive

That's an EXCELLENT example. Why DON'T we say, "I am living here since three years?" Logically it would make sense (which isn't to say "I have lived here DOESN'T, mind you).

[muckefuck]

It's not like you're limited to choosing a synthetic tense. You could always do as English does and press a deontic modal into service, e.g. "He must be at home." In fact, this is exactly what you find in [normative] Catalan, i.e. "Deu estar a casa." (The use of the future in this context is commonly viewed as a castellanisme.)

[aadroma]

Ah, I didn't know this. I assume deu is a Catlan relative of deber?

I've READ deber used in this kind of probability but honestly? I've not HEARD it much.

[mcfires]

When I was taking Latin, the use of the subjunctive (which has almost completely disappeared in English) stumped me a little. Thoughts on expressing something in the subjunctive that doesn't really have an equivalent in English?