The shape of language
The grammar and vocabulary are surface structures of how languages function.
The throwing jelly at a wall approach to language learning I've found has a lot of merit.
This involves an intense process of a week or so, trying to figure out the shape of a language structure.
The learner is exposed to lots of grammatical structures that reach well beyond what would be called beginner's level.
Through structured phrases and comparing them to the student's own native tongue, they start to develop a working knowledge of how each distinctively functions in time, place and expression.
It's a try before you buy strategy, a preview of how well someone will adapt to a new language.
Let's consider the kind of question we could encounter on a given day:
Why didn't you want to go with me last night?
A plausible but quite involved response could be:
I didn't want to go with you because it was late, I hadn't eaten anything all day and anyway, I'm tired of that place.
The interlocutor had given four pieces of information:
- She didn't want to go out
- It was late
- She hadn't eaten anything
- She is tired of that place
What it conveys is a scene, of a hungry person who was reluctant to go out.
We can imagine them looking at their watch when the friend first asked them out, seeing the hour, the lack of enthusiasm about the venue, feeling their stomach rumble.
In English, there is a definite logical flow of events and feelings that come from the sentiments expressed.
Now let's compare that to a German translation.
🇩🇪 Ich wollte nicht mitdir, weil es schon spät war, ich den ganzen Tag nichts gegessen hatte und ich diesen Leben sowieso satt habe.
The flow is the same:
- 🇩🇪 Sie wollten nicht gehen
- 🇩🇪 Es war schon spät
- 🇩🇪 Sie hatte noch nichts gegessen.
- 🇩🇪 Sie hat diesen Laden satt.
Unlike German however, English is not influenced by the placement of verbs in a sentence.
This makes sentence construction much more straightforward since English speakers can plug and play the components.
What about a Romance language, such as Spanish:
🇪🇸 No quería ir contigo porque era tarde, no había comido nada en todo el día y, de todos modos, estoy harta de ese sitio.
Again, the same flow is maintained.
- 🇪🇸 No quería salir
- 🇪🇸 Era tarde
- 🇪🇸 No había comido nada
- 🇪🇸 Está harta de ese sitio
While the order of verbs doesn't change, Spanish often drops pronouns such as she which neither English or German can do.
The verb ending makes the first person unambigious but not in the third person he or she.
If context doesn't clarify gender, then él or ella can be prepended for he or she.
What these examples suggest is that languages such as German and Spanish require a higher cognition load than English when forming complex, or compound sentences.
This is particularly revealing when changing noun selection mid-sentence.
The long path/track on the right is full of potholes because it is old.
Both German and Spanish have different genders for path and track.
In German:
🇩🇪 Der Weg auf der rechten Seite ist voller großer Schlaglöcher, weil er alt ist.
🇩🇪 Die Strecke auf der rechten Seite ist voller großer Schlaglöcher, weil sie alt ist.
The gender difference of Weg or Strecke for path or track, must be preserved in memory until the end of the sentence.
Unlike it in English, German has a specific form for neuter words rather than being non-specific.
In Spanish:
🇪🇸 El largo camino de la derecha está lleno de baches porque es viejo.
🇪🇸 La larga senda de la derecha está llena de baches porque es vieja.
Every adjective attached to the noun camino or senda for path and track, are affected by their gender change.
Without these overheads to concern itself, English is free to change nouns without a mental tax.
From a sentence-building perspective, English has a much more rigid structure than languages like German or Spanish.
It is closer to German with respect to a slot-based system, in the way components fall into place.
German complicates this system through the influence of each component relative to each other.
The choice of gender for nouns then compound this for parts of speech selection.
Spanish might give the impression it is a slot-based system, but verb conjugations are disruptive to sentence construction.
Giving an instruction, a direct command and one based on time in English is very similar:
I need them to go with you then meet us tomorrow at the airport.
Go with them and then meet with us tomorrow at the airport.
After you go with them, don't meet with us tomorrow at the airport.
There is no signal whether go, meet and you refer to one or more people in either case.
A clarifier would be to use you all but it doesn't affect the verb use.
While German also uses modal verbs, there is a definite separation of usage between the three forms above.
The sentences are completely transformed by formality and pronoun use in ways that English is unaffected.
German verb rules have very different effects.
🇩🇪 Sie müssen mit dir mitkommen und uns dann morgen am Flughafen treffen.
🇩🇪 Gehen Sie mit ihnen mit und treffen Sie uns morgen am Flughafen!
🇩🇪 Nachdem du mit ihnen mitgegangen bist, triff dich morgen nicht am Flughafen mit uns."
With Spanish, an instruction or a direct order triggers the mood form, the subjunctive.
This is little used in English or German, but essential to Spanish.
The subjunctive is not applied to a time-based command.
However, the negative command no te reúnas is different to its affirmative form.
🇪🇸 Necesito que vayan contigo y que luego se reúnan con nosotros mañana en el aeropuerto.
🇪🇸 Ve con ellos y luego reúnete con nosotros mañana en el aeropuerto.
🇪🇸 Después de ir con ellos, no te reúnas con nosotros mañana en el aeropuerto.
German and Spanish need much awareness of context before transforming sentences.
Expressing Emotion
Their parts of speech placement might use different slots, but the intention is directed by need with no verb influence.
The Spanish equivalent of need is necesito and it triggers a mood tense, the subjunctive.
🇪🇸 Necesito que vayan contigo y que luego se reúnan con nosotros mañana en el aeropuerto.
Whenever the speaker or writer wants to express an instruction or imperative, the subjunctive is used.
This also carries through to personal thoughts about a future situation:
It's a good idea that you go with them then meet us tomorrow at the airport.
🇪🇸 Sería buena idea que fueras con ellos y te reunieras con nosotros mañana en el aeropuerto.
This also triggers the German subjunctive, which didn't happen for instruction or imperatives:
🇩🇪 Es wäre eine gute Idee, wenn du mit ihnen mitgehen und uns morgen am Flughafen treffen würdest.
The verb go in English is also the subjunctive, but it looks like the indicative.
Hence in English, we use the subjunctive without even knowing or having to think about it.
Why The Language Shape Matters
It's straightforward to build up language learning confidence with sentences like the following.
The food is hot and I drink water.
🇩🇪 Das Essen ist heiß, und ich trinke Wasser.
🇪🇸 La comida está caliente y bebo agua.
They permit students to spend more time memorising vocabulary, but it is at the cost of understanding the language structure.
Other than pronounciation, gender and plural associations, vocabulary is static but grammar is fluid.
If more time is spent focusing on the shape of a language at the beginning of learning, the appliction of vocabulary is vastly increased.
My Personal Language Shaping Journey
Two weeks ago, I started learning Italian.
I focussed on very little vocabulary, but rather the structure of sentence building.
Phrases like the ones demonstrated previously, were built up, increasing in complexity and structural variation.
Not everything has stuck, a lot of grammatical jelly has been thrown at a wall but much still remains.
It's left an indellible shape of how Italian works, enough to build upon for conversation and writing.
The structures I remember are far beyond beginner's level.
This is learning a language at 30 thousand feet, before diving in for real conversational practice.