How to Learn Any Language 35

How to Learn Any Language 35

Back to Basics

“Send the manager to this table immediately,” demanded the diner in the restaurant. When the manager appeared, the diner railed, “This is the worst vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the manager. “That’s not vanilla ice cream. That’s butter pecan.”
“Oh,” said the customer, suddenly placated. “For butter pecan, it’s okay.”
This chapter on the basics of grammar should be read in that spirit.
“French verb changes are inaudible through the singular of the present tense.”
“The Spanish auxiliary verb ‘to have’ is completely different from the verb ‘to have’ implying possession.”
“The Scandinavian languages, Romanian, and Albanian are among the languages that place the definitive article after the noun.”
“Chinese has no case endings or verb inflections, and adjectives do not have to agree with nouns.”
Do you understand all of the above, or most of it? If so, you don’t need this chapter, though some of it may come as a welcome refresher. This chapter is offered as catch-up for all of you who didn’t pay attention in English class. Now you want to learn another language and you realise suddenly that your teacher was right, you were wrong, and here you are unable to understand the English you need to take command of another language.
I, like you, sat smugly through grade school English convinced that ignorance of all those silly terms that went zipping by me would never interfere with any of my future endeavours. Nothing reforms the student who’s apathetic towards English like a sudden desire to learn other languages. I could have learned foreign languages more easily from the outset had I sat down to learn just these bare bones I serve you now.
What follows is a rundown of some of the terms you’ll need to know to advance easily through another language. The synopsis may be misprioritised and incomplete, but on the other hand it is friendly, nonjudgmental, brief, blunt, and, I hope, helpful.

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