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Which to learn first

fra Alkanadi,2015 9 1

Meldinger: 9

Språk: English

Alkanadi (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 1 07:49:52

I notice that when people learn another language, they seem to stick with the one that they learned first. For example, they will use the present tense because they learned it first.

For example:
Yesterday, I going to mall
Tomorrow, I going to mall

I know a Sri Lankan who always says things like:
Before, cooling weather

Likewise, you can find people who use the other tenses in the wrong way because that was the tense they learned first.

Which tense is the best to start with in order to make it easiest on them later on?

I was thinking that the past tense is better because we talk about the past so much in language. The past tense is used for more practical communication.

MrMosier (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 1 13:46:14

Alkanadi:I notice that when people learn another language, they seem to stick with the one that they learned first. For example, they will use the present tense because they learned it first.

For example:
Yesterday, I going to mall
Tomorrow, I going to mall

I know a Sri Lankan who always says things like:
Before, cooling weather

Likewise, you can find people who use the other tenses in the wrong way because that was the tense they learned first.

Which tense is the best to start with in order to make it easiest on them later on?

I was thinking that the past tense is better because we talk about the past so much in language. The past tense is used for more practical communication.
Well, in Russian it would certainly be easier but in the Romance languages definitely not.
But that's the great thing about Esperanto: one can learn the past, present, AND future with much less effort than the present tense of just one group of verbs in other languages!
Compare parolAS, parolIS, parolOS with the Russian chitayu, chitayesh', chitayet, chitayem, chitayete, chitayut. And that's just one out of over 40 different paradigms of forming the present/future tense in the language!

Tempodivalse (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 1 17:07:32

The best choice is to learn to use all the tenses correctly. You won't get far if you can only use one tense - you can speak a very broken English with no tenses and putting everything in the infinitive (or Russian, for that matter - though it sounds even worse!).

Fortunately, in Esperanto most of the time this is accomplished by changing a single vowel - in contrast to Slavic languages where you have to worry about aspect, or Italian where you need to consider historicity, etc.

Alkanadi (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 2 06:47:33

Tempodivalse:The best choice is to learn to use all the tenses correctly.
I hope that people would learn them all correctly. However, which one do you think is the best to start with?

Tempodivalse (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 2 13:35:00

Alkanadi:
Tempodivalse:The best choice is to learn to use all the tenses correctly.
I hope that people would learn them all correctly. However, which one do you think is the best to start with?
In English, probably the simple tenses. Future tense in particular is dead easy - add "will" before the verb; remember to add "-s" to third person singular of simple present; and just slog through the 200+ irregular simple past verbs (you'll have to get around to them sooner or later).

In Esperanto, I don't see a problem with presenting the full 3 tenses immediately, there is really not much to grasp.

sudanglo (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 3 10:10:29

-is (finished) ; -as (actual or always); -os (prospective).

Learning time, 20 seconds.

Mi amis ŝin, mi amas ŝin, mi amos ŝin.

Armand6 (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 3 16:52:46

sudanglo:Learning time, 20 seconds.
Plus hours of drilling to teach them pay attention to the ending (they will use random tenses when reading, as they tend to overlook the ending).

Tempodivalse (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 3 17:00:58

Armand6:
sudanglo:Learning time, 20 seconds.
Plus hours of drilling to teach them pay attention to the ending (they will use random tenses when reading, as they tend to overlook the ending).
Elhana, do you have evidence to support this claim? I have not seen any non-IndoEuropean Esperantist, even a beginner, fail to see or use the correct vowel endings once initially familiarised with them.

Also, one does not "use" tenses while passively absorbing/comprehending the language, such as in reading - one either understands or fails to understand them.

A more conceptually challenging ending might be -us, which can be confusing because it is tenseless, and has to be used in both parts of the proposition "if...then".

Armand6 (Å vise profilen) 2015 9 3 17:28:13

Tempodivalse:Esperantist, even a beginner, fail to see or use the correct vowel endings once initially familiarised with them.

Also, one does not "use" tenses while passively
Look at any Esperanto-by-mail list, there are plenty of examples of this error. People obviously do use tenses when translating.

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