Thread: ''What happened''

Marcus, I learn languages by "osmosis" rather than by memorizing rules, I try to replicate the language learning of a child learning his mother tongue. As an adult I have the additional tool of knowing about grammatical rules, but I use that tool to explain to myself certain characteristics of the language which I nevertheless try to adopt as natural rather than as the result of conscious thinking. I have read hundreds of English language novels and other books, had countless conversations in speaking and writing and have probably seen or heard and therefore now can mimick just about every imaginable sentence structure there is. If things like a non-stressed "what did happen?" never turn up, then I never get an impetus to use that form. When I notice forms like "what did happen?" then I try to glean from the context what this form achieves in addition to a simple "what happened?". Usually there will be a dialogue, for example:

A: But that's not what happened!
B: Alright, so what did happen then, in your words?

And I simply understand from such examples sooner or later that the form with "did" adds emphasis.

If you approach a language only through rules and translation, then you never achieve real access to the language. It's like using only half your brain for the language. The left hemispere processes the foreign language, applying rules and translations, then transfers the syntactic content thus transformed into the native language to the right hemisphere which harvests the semantic content; and the semantic content of the reply from the right hemisphere is clothed in the native language first in the left, then again transformed by applying the set of known rules and translations, and hopefully comes out correctly. That's like an interpreted computer language: slow.

What you need to aim for is a direct connection between the syntactic processes in the left hemisphere to the semantic in the right hemisphere without a detour through your native language. Only then you will really be able to think in the target language, and then you will really know the language. This is more like a compiled language, and it is fast.

I'm still a couple of years at least from reaching that point in Russian, but I am quite content that I will, eventually.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

Marcus, I learn languages by "osmosis" rather than by memorizing rules, I try to replicate the language learning of a child learning his mother tongue. As an adult I have the additional tool of knowing about grammatical rules, but I use that tool to explain to myself certain characteristics of the language which I nevertheless try to adopt as natural rather than as the result of conscious thinking. I have read hundreds of English language novels and other books, had countless conversations in speaking and writing and have probably seen or heard and therefore now can mimick just about every imaginable sentence structure there is. If things like a non-stressed "what did happen?" never turn up, then I never get an impetus to use that form. When I notice forms like "what did happen?" then I try to glean from the context what this form achieves in addition to a simple "what happened?". Usually there will be a dialogue, for example:

A: But that's not what happened!
B: Alright, so what did happen then, in your words?

And I simply understand from such examples sooner or later that the form with "did" adds emphasis.

If you approach a language only through rules and translation, then you never achieve real access to the language. It's like using only half your brain for the language. The left hemispere processes the foreign language, applying rules and translations, then transfers the syntactic content thus transformed into the native language to the right hemisphere which harvests the semantic content; and the semantic content of the reply from the right hemisphere is clothed in the native language first in the left, then again transformed by applying the set of known rules and translations, and hopefully comes out correctly. That's like an interpreted computer language: slow.

What you need to aim for is a direct connection between the syntactic processes in the left hemisphere to the semantic in the right hemisphere without a detour through your native language. Only then you will really be able to think in the target language, and then you will really know the language. This is more like a compiled language, and it is fast.

I'm still a couple of years at least from reaching that point in Russian, but I am quite content that I will, eventually.

I agree that exposure is absolutely necessary to learn the language. But grammar is also needed, I think. Probably it would have taken too long time before I would have undestood how questions are formed in English. (I' m not sure if the last sentence is correct).
bitpicker, did you pick up endings of Russian cases, for example, or their without learning them and then looked them up in a grammar book just for interest? And grammar is one of the most interesting parts of learning languages.

Originally Posted by Marcus

I agree that exposure is absolutely necessary to learn the language. But grammar is also needed, I think. Probably it would have taken too long time before I would have understood (better: too long for me to understand) how questions are formed in English. (I' m not sure if the last sentence is correct).
bitpicker, did you pick up endings of Russian cases, for example, on their own without learning them and then looked them up in a grammar book just for interest? And grammar is one of the most interesting parts of learning languages.

I did read a couple of grammar books front to back early on, and I still refer to them, read them again chapter-wise and even have some books on special linguistic topics such as particles, phonetics and contractions. But I read those books in order to find out what lies ahead of me. I never sit down with a declension table and try to memorize it. And I still use such tables to look up the correct form if I am not sure about it when writing Russian. Some cases come more naturally to me than others. But I do find already that some phrases and constructs come to mind immediately from thought image to Russian when I need them. I don't have to think a single word in German when I compose a post like this one in English, and neither do I have to think about meaning when I read English. I'll be satisfied when I have reached that level in Russian.

I agree that grammar is interesting; but it is a tool to work with the language. If you're a carpenter, then what you should care about is the wood, not the saw and the hammer. The language as it is being used is the wood, the grammar is the saw and hammer.