First Spanish Lesson

[pne]

Sister Mercsak was offering Spanish lessons starting in July so I thought I'd have a look and see.

I must say I was a bit disappointed. There didn't seem to be much structure or explanation and she rushed through various seemingly unrelated subjects. She also started off with the verb llamarse, which she called llamar and said meant heißen (i.e. "to be named"). This, of course, causes confusion when people wonder why one has to say yo me llamo rather than simply yo llamo.

She also tried to transfer the German four-case system (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative) to Spanish when she taught pronouns (e.g. yo, mi, a mi, me; tú, tu, a ti, te). And I think she's not quite sure in Spanish orthography, especially the placement of accents; there were a few weird things such as "articúlos" which she then "corrected" to "articulós", or "llamán" and "llamais".

All in all, I found it rather disappointing, even if it's free. Next to me was Sister Bruns, who knew no Spanish at all besides ¡Olé! and un poco; she was struggling to find out what the heck was going on as Sister Mercsak dashed from the alphabet to ser and estar (where she didn't explain the difference even when asked by another student, except briefly to say that estar is used when you're at a place) to pronouns, got sidetracked into an example with yo te lo doy a ti and the conjugation of dar, and so on.

On the whole, I felt some of the shortcomings were due to the typical problems of a native speaker attempting to explain his language when he doesn't have a firm grasp of the rules but just "speaks it"; part was just not-so-good presentation.

On the one hand, I'm not sure whether I want to come back next week; on the other hand, it whet my appetite a bit and I might consider taking a course in Spanish at the Volkshochschule (community college?).

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

The worst thing seems to be her explanation of the pronouns where "me" can actually be accusative and dative, where "mí" is used after prepositions, where "me ... a mí" can again be accusative or dative and where "mi" can't really be considered the genetive cause they're all sorts of other possessive forms ("mis, mío, mía...") and where "yo" can so often be left out where it can't in German. Well, I guess you knew all of that, just had to make it clear to myself how wrong she actually was. Seems like people should really stay away from her classes.

I find it quite surprising that she didn't know where to place her accents, cause as a native speaker she ought to know where to stress a word.

Anyway, I made similar experiences in a Chinese class at a Volksschule. The teacher, also a native speaker, didn't know the first thing about Chinese grammar or about Pinyin (in fact, she didn't even know such a system existed and she wondered why they would spell words so strangely in a book for Germans).

[pne.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess you knew all of that, just had to make it clear to myself how wrong she actually was.

Most, but not all, of it, yeah. Thanks for the explanation.

I think genitive forms of pronouns are very seldomly used, anyway (and as you say, possessive pronouns aren't really the same thing).

In German, for example, I can think of constructions of "Wir gedachten seiner", where "seiner" is the genitive case of "er", but there are very few verbs or prepositions that take the genitive case so it's unusual (and one of the few prepositions that does take the genitive, "wegen", usually goes like "meinetwegen" rather than "wegen meiner").

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

About the possessive pronouns:

Would it make sense in English to consider "my/mine" as the genetive of "I"? I can't think of an example where "me/mine" is used differently than the genetive of a noun, such as "the boy's".


(Oh yeah, most grammars talk about direct/indirect objects in Spanish rather than about accusative and dative cases.)

possessive pronouns vs genitive form of pronouns

[pne.livejournal.com]

Would it make sense in English to consider "my/mine" as the genetive of "I"?

I'm not sure, but I think not.

I can't think of an example where "me/mine" is used differently than the genetive of a noun, such as "the boy's".

Well, for a start, you'd have to explain why there are two words ("my" and "mine") rather than one, especially since the difference depends on syntax and not simply context (as in the difference a/an).

A friend of the boy's --> A friend of mine
The boy's friend --> My friend
This book is Tom's and this one is Harry's, but that one is mine

The sentences are parallel (IMO), yet two different pronouns are used.