The first foreign language course in college

mathmom
Wed, 28 May 2008 08:46:05 +0000

As one poster said, you can just look at another language as a one-for-one word-for-word equivalency.

Would that it were so easy, that’s exactly what you can’t do. Sometimes because the word simply doesn’t exist in English (think “doch” in German or “si” in French - it’s the word you use when some phrases a question in the negative and you are replying in the positive, such as “You’re not going to the store are you?” In English you say “Yes, I am”, but in many languages there is a different word for that particular yes.) Languages are also structurally different, requiring one to pay attention to how definite an action is (and therefore requiring subjunctive verbs) or the word order may be different, in German in subordinate clauses the verb gets thrown to the end of the sentence.