Job Discussion Forums

[FGT]

I was about to write a response to the "random image without explanation" thread and then thought that that was not in the spirit of that thread. Hence this.

Golightly posted a photo with the title "res ipso loquitur", I thought I could work out what it meant but wanted to check so used the internet. The web threw up "res ipsa loquitur" = "the thing itself speaks" or "it speaks for itself" which is more or less what I thought. Maybe Golightly's version is better, I don't know.

I gave up learning Latin as soon as I could. I got fed up with teachers telling me "You're good at maths, you should be good at Latin" - Why?

I also found it extremely difficult to deal with TWO foreign languages. The first was Latin, the second was the terminology - "dative", "ablative" etc which all meant nothing to me.

Now I hear myself asking students "Why did you use present continuous in that sentence?", "Is it active or passive?" etc.

Am I making the same mistake my teachers did?

[Golightly]

res ipso loquitur means 'it speaks for itself' - a phrase whose meaning, while being vaguely aware of it, I only found out via an interview with Vic Reeves in the Guardian several years ago. It's rather like when I found out what QED actually stands for (Quod erat demonstrandum) - when I mentioned it to my (Wellington College - educated) mate, he put his pint to one side and said, 'everyone knows that!' That took several drinks and eventually some violence to disabuse him of this notion.
Meta-language, the stuff we use to describe the functions, confuses students. When I was learning Turkish, the book I was using started blethering on about dative and ablative cases, so I rendered the bugger unto the floor, and focused instead on what these actually do - basically, prepositions. These noncey notions are stolen directly from Latin grammar books, and don't necessarily hold true to the everyday experience of understanding and describing language as it is used.
The problem remains, however, of how to describe the language. obviously, direct translation works - but only to a limited extent, especially when referring to tenses, the use of the third person and the definite article (I'm talking about English-Turkish here). we need to use the metalanguage, but it is how we render that in the simplest, clearest terms possible that is important.

[yaramaz]

Ablative refers to your older sister and dative refers to what day it is, right?

[spiral78]

You guys in Turkey are having too much fun. Honest, I peek into this forum pretty often, because you've got a cool conversation going most of the time, and there's usually a lack of the cutthroat element that is a major feature of other forums. What is it? Some special element found only in Turkey, or a lack of elements found in other places?

This is just the kind of conversation I miss here at the Most Serious Technical University in Canada....
I suffered through four years of high school latin. I guess it helped me to label parts of speech as a language instructor 20 years later.

More closely on topic, I think we have to label language functions somehow, and many of my students (who are admittedly high level) are aces at labelling. But the 'official' terminology isn't functionally necessary...

[yaramaz]

My students are often amazing at labelling...they just can't use the language. i had one high school student a few years ago who explained to me in great detail in turkish when and where and how to use present perfect, and made brilliant time lines and a few lovely model sentences on the board, but couldn't/wouldn't string a basic short sentence together in English when speaking or when completing writing assignments.

[Baba Alex]

I have to label grammar all the time in my job. I'm always getting teachers calling me up and asking me what grammar an obscure (to them) sentence structure is. I usually make something up such as "Subjunctive, but in the idiomatic sense", keeps them happy.

The few times I do dare to venture into the classroom, apart from a few basic tense ideas, I avoid labels in favour of functions. For example, hypothetical conditional and real conditional workss better than 1 2 3 and mixed.(the students get the words in Turkish if it helps them understand the grammar) I once had a teacher offer a cup of tea by saying

"Were I to make you a cup of tea, would you drink it?"

Rather than being impressed with his use of inversions, I replied

"It would entirely depend on the circumstances good man, why don't you try and find out?"

[dagi]

Interesting to read your opinions about this! When I opened my Turkish course book and read "Dative" "Akkusative" "Nominative" etc. I was delighted, cause I thought "I know what this is! I can learn turkish!"

I guess it is because I am used to use all this terminology. My teacher made us change sentences from the plusquamperfect into the imperfect konditionalis and then on to the pr�teritum.

[dmb]

I spent 5 painful years learning Latin( I managed to get an O'Level-something must have worked.) When I came to Turkey, like Golighty, I picked up a book and read about the Turkish grammar. My descriptive knowledge of Latin did help me.
Similarly, our Turkish adult students have a descriptive knowledge(sort of). How many times have you heard simdi zaman, genel zamam etc in your classroom. If they know the terminology why not take advantage of it?

[lovelace]

Latin? At school? Are you guys are old, or posh?

[thrifty]

Care to explain dmb?

[FGT]

I can't speak for the rest, but I'd put up my hand to being both old and posh.

To dmb: I don't hear "simdi zaman", "genel zaman", I hear "simdiki zaman" and "genis zaman" and I know that these (Turkish tenses) do not exactly replicate English tenses so I fret about how best to illustrate the differences (or similarities) and using grammatical terminology (in my experience) doesn't help. We can assume by using formal terms that the precepts are the same but often we are mistaken.

I'm probably just jealous of your Latin "O" Level. I gave up Latin and transferred to a measly CSE in Classical Studies!

[molly farquharson]

i studied latin for 5 years in high school (we had grade 13, before someone gets snarky about it) and although the grammar stuff is fairly distant, the word roots have been very useful. i tell students that latin and greek roots are especially important because those were the languages used by educated people in the past and so the "big" words tend to come from those roots. and of course many have migrated into turkish. re the accusative, ablative etc. i found those irritating too when i started to study turkish and i am not sure that they are terms actually used in turkish grammar-- anyone know?

[dmb]

[Golightly]

37? Old enough, I would think. But then I would say that - it's my 39th today. and almost 14 years before the whiteboard, man and boy.

[Sheikh Inal Ovar]

... and how many to go