tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16693931.post163624040767864597..comments2024-02-12T17:31:58.684+01:00Comments on Jonstraveladventures: MemorandaAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11667852535983804885noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16693931.post-214814244890730782008-05-28T17:07:00.000+02:002008-05-28T17:07:00.000+02:00I noticed people's ignorance with English grammar ...I noticed people's ignorance with English grammar especially now that I'm studying Japanese in English. One of the students simply didn't know what a transitive verb is, which to me is quite surprising because transitive and intransitive verbs are very different in Italian.<BR/><BR/>Reading newspaper is in my opinion one of the best way to learn a language, but the problem is: you need to be interested in what you're reading. Instead of newspaper you could try Spanish magazine if you were not particularly into Spanish politics.<BR/><BR/>The Vatican newspaper is "L'Osservatore Romano" which is written in Italian and translated in many other languages, among those is obviously English. Documents from the Vatican are written in Latin, and then translated in "vulgar" languages -- http://www.vatican.va/latin/latin_index.html<BR/><BR/>Did you study Latin in school?Lucahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07493787495591870529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16693931.post-70685815082012956352008-05-26T02:09:00.000+02:002008-05-26T02:09:00.000+02:00That's a good idea, and essentially what I've been...That's a good idea, and essentially what I've been doing with some books and plays (plays are particularly good because the grammar is closest to normal speech). Newspapers are a good idea because the vocabulary is dense and the grammar is often complicated.<BR/><BR/>Are there newspapers in Latin coming out of the Vatican? <BR/><BR/>The idea of English students learning English grammar has sadly past into the midsts of time. Most kids now wouldn't have the faintest idea what an adverb is, for instance. This makes learning foreign languages a bit of a struggle because they have to learn English first!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11667852535983804885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16693931.post-42260689541426044752008-05-26T01:54:00.000+02:002008-05-26T01:54:00.000+02:00To be honest the grammatical structure I miss the ...To be honest the grammatical structure I miss the most from Italian is the subjunctive.<BR/>I don't know Spanish, but I guess the grammatical structure is pretty similar to Italian. My suggestion to learn Spanish would be to "read" Spanish newspapers. What I mean is to take an article and look up for any word you don't know, and try to analyze the sentences, that is why they use that tense instead of another, what's the subject, the object and so on. I know it's tremendously tedious. We do it in school when learning Italian (and Latin) grammar, and actually it's tremendously helpful.Lucahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07493787495591870529noreply@blogger.com