I think it would be interesting to have some threads on grammar points, or areas of the structure of different languages that cause trouble. I would like to see them in the target language. People can then import them and study them.
There has been a discussion on the Russian language forum about the continuous form in English. I will start a thread on that subject in the English forum.
If you have questions or wish to start a thread on any points of usage in any of the languages we offer, why not do so on the relevant language forum.
Let’s see what we get. It may even be worthwhile for native speakers to record these and put them in our libraries.
There are times when articles are more important than some people might think when they study a second language. Let’s look at the following pairs of sentences: “She wants to buy paper.” “She wants to buy a paper.” “He is standing in front of the bus.” “He is standing in the front of the bus.” Or how about, “He needs change.” “He needs a change.” These are only a few sentences among many that undergo big changes in meaning depending on their article usage or lack thereof. I’m dying to add one more to this list. “He wants to buy a pot,” versus “He wants to buy pot!”
Rick. There are many languages with no articles. I personally think that articles are not that important, and particularly hard for people to get right, if their native language has no articles. (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, to name a few.)
In any case it would be best if we can get these living grammar posts onto the post for that language, i.e. in t his case the English language Forum. Bear in mind that this is the Open Forum.
There are many opportunities to ask for explanations in whatever language we want, on this Open Forum, or on the various language Forums, or via google for that matter.
I am proposing a specific series of discussions on usage, in the target language, as content that learners can import and study. This enables learners to save words and phrases (examples) from the various explanations that will appear in the target language.
This does not replace explanations that students may seek here, or on the web, or in their own books. This has a different pedagogical purpose, one in line with the LingQ learning method.
