How the words we teach English language learners changed

Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by WalterBright on Sunday August 02, 2026 @05:39PM (#49148624)

Working with ESL people makes it clear that grammar isn't so important. One of my friends would say, instead of "go shopping", would say "make some shoppings". Instead of "it's time to go", he'd say "time for go". All words that started with 's' were pronounced 'ehs', as in "gas ehstation".

The other people at work soon picked those lines up, and we used them regularly amongst ourselves. I still use them decades later!

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by Thraway198 on Sunday August 02, 2026 @07:32PM (#49149472)

This is grammar from their native language. They dont know the English grammar, so they just assume it's the same as the one they understand. You just understand them via the context.

Older Europeans used to say 'AND NOW WE MAKE PARTY!"

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by kevin_thibedeau on Sunday August 02, 2026 @07:42PM (#49149534)

English is a fault tolerant language that is usually comprehensible with errors. That isn't generally applicable to all languages.

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by WalterBright on Monday August 03, 2026 @02:55PM (#49159951)

> That isn't generally applicable to all languages.

I'm skeptical of that claim.

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by ButlerianJihad on Sunday August 02, 2026 @07:00PM (#49149287)

But your friend was applying consistent rules of grammar from his mother tongue. Having learned some vocabulary, he would mentally form the phrases in his head, and then literally translate out the words and tenses.

Grammar was so important to him that he was adhering to the grammatical rules he knew. It would be interesting to know how he would perform with writing or typing instead of contemporaneous conversation.

"go" in particular is an irregular verb, and also one of the most versatile words in the English language. Having studied how to conjugate "go" in other languages, I do not envy anyone trying to conjugate or just use it in an English sentence!

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by WalterBright on Sunday August 02, 2026 @08:06PM (#49149705)

The point was I understood him perfectly despite the execrable grammar.

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by Thraway198 on Monday August 03, 2026 @05:10PM (#49161475)

That's cause you knew what he wanted to do, and there was no other possible meaning from "make some shopping."

If he just said "make shopping some" it would have been less clear.

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Re:How the words we teach English language learners changed by teddyh on Monday August 03, 2026 @12:26AM (#49151211)

Put volume!

— Trevor Noah, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtz0WZSNcPA#t=43s>

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