I wonder what the ideal language course would be like. One of the things I'd certainly like to see is a course built around lots of little poems of the highest quality (or the most inspiring verses from longer poems). It would be easy to find the motivation to memorise them, and they'd be full of useful phrases which you can adapt to your own uses. I read through a Serbo-Croat language course many years ago, but most of what I learned has faded now because I could find nothing to read to maintain it afterwards. The part that stuck really strongly though was the poem it included near the start, and I've never forgotten it:-
Mala kuc´a kamena,
Sa tri mala prozora,
Zeleni im kapci,
I krov sav od plamena,
A na krovu vrapci.
Little house of stone,
With three little windows.
Green are their shutters,
And the roof is aflame,
But on the roof (there are) sparrows.
I can think of no better way to learn vocabulary and grammar than that. If you happen upon anything as beautiful as this poem in any language you've been learning, please share it here.
3
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
1 comment
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I kind of see what you're saying, although generally speaking, understanding poems is something I would regard as needing fluency, not learning. One exception might be songs.
bingst
Level 8
Jan 22, 2019
1
Good poetry can be written simply and with ordinary words, so you'd select verses appropriately. The important thing is to find good ones with important grammatical rules tied up in them so that those rules can be learned the most natural way; by learning the example phrases. No one wants to memorise texts like "This is a book. That is a pencil. The book is open. The pencil is sharp. The pencil is on top of the book." You can find language courses that are filled with the most boring sentences in the world, and there's no motivation to memorise any of them, so those courses are less effective than they could be.
You're right about songs - good songs contain exactly the right kind of poetry and provide an even better incentive to memorise the words, so suitable verses from songs would also qualify for the ideal kind of language course I have in mind. Copyright issues may be the reason such courses don't exist, but that's something that should be possible to overcome.
Recent Visitors 7
SilviaPark
Charlottesville,
bingst
NW GA But Would Rather Be In,
David_Cooper
UK
CeliaVL
UK
misternatureboy
West Sacramento,
Photos
Posted by David_CooperBrazil's native language groups
Posted by David_CooperI like language maps - if you find any, please share them here.
Posted by JettyWhen a word has more than one meaning. 🤣
Posted by David_CooperTest your French
Posted by JettyIneptocracy
Posted by JettyI wonder if this works in any other language, though, in Chinese, for example.
Posted by JettyWait! You don't pronounce the L?! 😂
Posted by David_CooperI've often seen these in English, but doubtless the rest of the world does them too.
Posted by David_CooperShrödinger's cat
Posted by misternatureboyAnybody else using Duolingo to study another language? Estoy estudiando español.
Posted by EquusDanceJust read a fascinating article on the origins of language.