Books with English words but foreign syntax?

October 8, 2005 7:04 AM

Are there any books for learning a foreign language, that are written with English words but in the syntax and structure of the foreign language? Example: "When one this sentence into the German translate wanted, would one the fact exploit, that the word order and the punctuation already with the German conventions agree."

If such a book exists how helpful would it be in learning the structure of the language?

posted by anonymous to Writing & Language (14 answers total)

I don't think it will be very useful. Word order is just one of the simpler aspect of learning a language. The problem is that there are going to be many instances that you won't be able to translate word to word: idioms and expressions, words that have multiple meanings, split verbs, etc. I think that this method doesn't help you think in your target language, and it's not a very good habit to develop.

Personally I've had success learning languages with the Pimsleur method. Teaching yourself languages.
posted by Sharcho at 7:43 AM on October 8, 2005

why is this question anonymous??
posted by seawallrunner at 8:00 AM on October 8, 2005

Seawallrunner: War criminal seeks asylum.

It's not very useful, frankly. The word order, especially in German, is pretty easy to stick with in German because it just sounds right. However, the English instructions would be confusing and overlong.
posted by klangklangston at 8:10 AM on October 8, 2005

I don´t think that method would help much. Some things when learning a language are a matter of memorization. It is better to memorize it in the language than in english first. Ideally you should think in the language rather than translating what you want to say from english in the back of your mind. Needless to say learning a language is a lot of work.
posted by JJ86 at 8:56 AM on October 8, 2005

I learned five languages so far. I speak them with a varying degree of proficiency, from 'fluent' to 'good'.

I believe there are three main components to learning a foreign tongue: vocabulary, grammar and 'tone'. There's a musical element to a language that changes from language to language. Missing out on that tone means you have an 'accent'.

The anonymous poster wants a book that provides grammatical structure from one language into another. I respectfully suggest that learning a language in this fashion is counter-productive - why would you want to pollute one language with the constructs of another? Why would anyone want to write such a book?

The only way to learn a new language is to practice, practice, practice. I learned English last - and very late in life. French was my main language until I moved to Vancouver in 1990.

Watch TV in the new language that you want to learn. Read newspapers, magazines and books in that language. Speak to your friends only in that language. Make new friends that only speak that language. Write a diary in that language. Listen to music in that language.

Don't use the 'safety zone' of your current language to learn the constructs of another. Let your current language go. Immerse yourself in the new language (if only for a few hours a day) and see your progress soar.
posted by seawallrunner at 9:30 AM on October 8, 2005

To answer your first question, at least one such book exists. I used to own a copy of Caesar's Gallic Wars with the original Latin on one page, a literal word-for-word translation into English (which provided the "syntax and structure of the foreign language" you're seeking) superimposed over the Latin text, and an idiomatic translation into English on the opposite page.

I don't recall it being especially helpful, either in learning Latin structure or learning to translate it into idiomatic English.
posted by bac at 9:38 AM on October 8, 2005

Yeah, there are plenty of language instruction books that give you a passage of text, and in small print above each word is the "literal" translation. Reading those English words in order does not give you something idiomatic or grammatical; it's more of a crutch for the less-familiar words.

I suspect the reader is looking for a shortcut, but I actually think it's a long cut -- a roundabout, an impediment. If this is the first foreign language learned, it's unlikely that there would be any overall benefit, though I can see it being of use to someone who knows four or five to use it to think about structure and grammar. We just had a question about code-switching, and I think that's the issue here -- if you're learning the grammar or word order "in English", you're not learning it in the part of your brain where you store the information about the new language. It will just be that much more difficult to transfer this understanding to the new language when you learn its vocabulary.

(When I learned the Dvorak keyboard, I was amazed at how quickly I attained the ability to switch between keyboards -- and my typing rate on Sholes improved, to boot. But in the very beginning there was often confusion.)

Immersion is long recognized as the fastest and most effective way to learn a language.

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
posted by dhartung at 10:32 AM on October 8, 2005

I have a few Japanese books, like Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics, that have sentences in 4 rows. First, in Japanese, then transliterated, then translated (more or less) word-for-word, and finally translated to natural English. I found these books fascinating to browse and helpful for exploring new grammar structures. Then again, I think Japanese grammar is neat and it was worth it for me to study for its own sake.
posted by dmo at 11:20 AM on October 8, 2005

Not quite what you asked for, but you might be interested in English Grammar for Students of Spanish (versions also available for other languages). The idea is to present examples in English of all that crap about indirect prepositions and dangling split pluperfects so you can understand the finer grammar points in the foreign tongue. Read the customer reviews on the linked Amazon page, they describe it better than I'm able to.
posted by Wet Spot at 1:05 PM on October 8, 2005

In defense of Anonymous, I've often thought this sort of thing might be useful. It's difficult to immerse yourself in a language until you have a fairly substantial vocabulary built up. I'm studying Japanese at the moment, and even after a year, anything more complex than a streetsign is beyond me. Japanese newspapers, TV, manga are far, far too difficult to attempt yet.

But I live in Hawaii and have picked up a bit of local pidgen. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I discover I already know some bit of Japanese grammar because its identical to pidgen grammar. Japanese and English grammar have very little in common. Pidgen grammar has a lot of overlap with Japanese and English (and Chinese, and, etc.) by "design."

And here's the thing, once you get used to the "tone" of pidgen and a very small amount of new vocabulary, you can understand it in spite of the new grammatical patterns. It becomes very easy to internalize those new patterns because you can function in pidgen almost immediately without spending years acquiring vocabulary. Again, this is by "design" since no one actually studies pidgen.*

*Except for pedants who insist on calling it Hawaii Creole English.
posted by zanni at 4:57 PM on October 8, 2005

My query then would be: "Frank Oz about to retire, he is? Therefore Yoda of the Jedi, a new interpreter Lucas needs?"
posted by rob511 at 6:53 PM on October 8, 2005

The word order, especially in German, is pretty easy to stick with in German because it just sounds right.

How does it go in Latin?
posted by Wolof at 4:20 AM on October 9, 2005

This would be pretty much useless for languages that rely on noun declension to indicate case, rather than word order.
posted by solotoro at 8:08 AM on October 9, 2005

See this, from the halfbakery.
posted by yesster at 8:43 AM on October 9, 2005