Do you try and make your grammar "mesh"?

[Friederike in Persia]

Sorry for the weird title, but what I'm trying to ask is: " How much do you work at making the grammar in the various languages you're teaching aid one another?

E.G: in German one teaches a lot about nouns early on, since they get capitalized within a sentence as well. So when we did nouns in English my girls were well familiar with them. But that was just a bonus on the side, so to speak.

Now my oldest is doing Homer and the English grammar is really taking off, so I'm wondering if I should make a connection for her about objects taking cases in English, to the 4 cases she's working on all the time with German grammar at the moment. I'm not so sure how to go about that (was quite surprised to see nominativ and dativ show up in an English grammar book!) and it would take some effort on my side.

One last example: in Tajik direct objects take an object marker, which my children do without thinking. Should I try and exploit that, when talking about objects in their other languages? Again, I'd have to spend some time figuring it out myself.

So do you do this? Is it worth the effort?

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Yes I do this.

My son handled French (native language), English, Latin and Greek. We always do comparative grammar when we hit a new concept.

This year he's added Spanish (and dropped Greek), but for some reason, he no longer does it. I'm not sure if it's age-related, or if it's because his Spanish is a long distance class where I do not meddle. He missed on an exercise in the test. So we went over it, and it took all of two seconds by comparative grammar to make him understand. But he no longer does it automatically on his own.

 

What's your English grammar book? I've never seen references to cases in English before.

[In The Great White North]

There are cases in English and older books cover them. We're using Voyages in English that my mom used in 1941, and they are in there. I have an even older English grammar (1800's) that is organized just like the foreign language books, and analyzes grammar even more.

 

I don't try to align grammar, but it has worked out conveniently a lot. And we always relate it to the other languages.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Case is the grammatical function of a noun or pronoun. There are only three cases in modern English, they are subjective (he), objective (him) and possessive (his). They may seem more familiar in their old English form - nominative, accusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English. Yippee!

 

http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/casetext.htm

 

 

Is that it? That's barely worth saying English has cases. French has something very very similar, but never claims to have cases. Oh, what can I say. English is weird ;-)

[In The Great White North]

It is barely worth it, which is why it is frequently dropped. Really only useful for pronouns and diagramming.

[Friederike in Persia]

We use Classical Writing, Aesop and Homer. It was in there (the cases), within the context of diagramming objects. They didn't make a big deal out of it, it just surprised me. The grammar book we use alongside is super old: Harveys. I'm stunned how well natured my daughter puts up with it! Even though I love CW, it's pushing me right to my limits, with what I'm able to do in English (there's always this doubt nagging at the back of my mind about not being a native speaker), that's why I decided to go with their grammar recommendation, to not complicate things even more.

[Colleen in NS]

Sorry for the weird title, but what I'm trying to ask is: " How much do you work at making the grammar in the various languages you're teaching aid one another?

E.G: in German one teaches a lot about nouns early on, since they get capitalized within a sentence as well. So when we did nouns in English my girls were well familiar with them. But that was just a bonus on the side, so to speak.

Now my oldest is doing Homer and the English grammar is really taking off, so I'm wondering if I should make a connection for her about objects taking cases in English, to the 4 cases she's working on all the time with German grammar at the moment. I'm not so sure how to go about that (was quite surprised to see nominativ and dativ show up in an English grammar book!) and it would take some effort on my side.

One last example: in Tajik direct objects take an object marker, which my children do without thinking. Should I try and exploit that, when talking about objects in their other languages? Again, I'd have to spend some time figuring it out myself.

So do you do this? Is it worth the effort?

 

What an interesting thread!

 

Just yesterday, I was going through SYRWTLS to try and make up a study plan, similar to the plan I have weekly for LC2. I made flashcards for the sayings, then went through the first few pages and vocab list and made up cards for the parts of speech, and a couple of cards for grammar forms. Man, I studied 3 years of French and 1 year of Spanish in high school, and never ever studied this way before. I know no French now, and only a bit of Spanish phrases from having lived around Spanish speakers for a few years. So now I'm going the grammar route first, that I've learned in PL, LC1, and LC2.

 

Anyway, as I was making up these cards for Spanish, I was also trying to figure out here and there what pieces of Spanish grammar would be parallel to what we've learned in Latin so far, so that I could make the cards in the same format. This exercise alone helped me make some connections in my mind, so I can show my kids. Then, I went through some English grammar rule/definition flashcards I'd halfheartedly used alongside R&S, and thought, "Hey, maybe I can reorganize the English ones to be parallel to the Latin and Spanish, so we can see the connections!" So, I re-sorted the English ones into parts of speech (not vocab, obviously, but rules pertaining to these p.o.s.) and tried to figure out what rules/definitions we've had so far in R&S and FLL would fit into categories. So far, so good. I also made up grammar forms cards (like pronouns in their cases) and put them in the pronoun cards pile.

 

I'm thinking that whatever is organized on flashcards to go through bit by bit each day, and whatever I can make parallel, will reinforce each other in the three languages. And I thought I was crazy until I read your post here! Thanks! And thanks to Cleo for posting that link about the cases in English - it's a relief. Latin has been hard, but I'm determined to push through. But it seems that English and Spanish will be much easier after doing Latin.

[Matryoshka]

I don't try to necessarily line up the three languages so we're learning the same concept a the same time, as that would be unwieldy, but when I'm teaching a concept that's illustrated more clearly in another language, I can't help pointing it out - that's how it ended up hard-wired in my brain and I have a hard time teaching it without referencing the other languages.

 

The one kid in my Spanish class who is not mine and speaks not a word of German sometimes has to hear me explain how a concept works not just in Spanish or English but in German... well, I'm reaching 2/3 of the class at least...

 

Works for vocabulary sometimes too. Trying to explain the difference between saber/conocer as related to English "to know" is hard. But saber = wissen and conocer = kennen is easy as pie.

[Friederike in Persia]

but I use to think it's 'cheating' to give them a word in another language, when exlaining something they didn't know. So I'd go to reasonable length to explain a word in German, even though it would have been faster to just tell them the English word (if they knew that one already).

I guess I don't want them to feel that one language is 'better' than another and that I retreat to that one when the going gets harder.

Back to grammar. I think what I'll try to do is to draw parallels for them, where they are obvious to me, to reinforce the concept and not worry too much about the balance of their languages. (English is right there at the top anyway :glare::))

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

but I use to think it's 'cheating' to give them a word in another language, when explaining something they didn't know. So I'd go to reasonable length to explain a word in German, even though it would have been faster to just tell them the English word (if they knew that one already).

 

 

We don't consider it 'cheating' because we go through all our languages each time, to see how a concept is used. Our most successful case was when we checked out how possession was expressed in Latin/English/Spanish/French

And those explanations are always done in French, which is their mother tongue after all. French will always be favoured in our household for political reasons, I guess.

[Nan in Mass]

We did a tiny bit of English grammar, and then I switched to just doing Latin grammar. Our Latin book was written for US school children, so all the grammar is explained from the beginning. When I need to explain grammar in French (obvious correlation there LOL) or in English (a bit more complicated), I just use the same terms we learned in Latin. Nominative, accusative, dative, and genative show up regularly in our conversations about English writing, so we must have cases. I don't know any English grammar at all, since the only grammar I had in school was either in French or Greek, so using the Latin terms works well. At least they are English words. The first set of grammar terms I learned were in French, and the terms were French ones. I still usually say imperfet (but I don't know how to spell it) when I mean imperfect. I haven't tried to mesh the grammars at all because the Latin grammar came first. We started trying to learn languages through immersion late. My biggest problem is going back and trying to fill in some French grammar for my youngest so he has some idea of how to write in the language and speaks more grammatically.

-Nan

-Nan

[Colleen in NS]

Nominative, accusative, dative, and genative show up regularly in our conversations about English writing, so we must have cases.

 

I think you might be right! We've done English and Latin grammar for a few years and right now we're on R&S 5 and LC2. I've noticed in R&S 5 that some of the Latin case words are appearing, like nominative for predicate nominative (noun). I also noticed the other day that in English we group subject pronouns together, object pronouns together, and possessive pronouns together. So then I went from those English pronouns over to the Latin case names, and thought that English subject pronouns = nominative case, English object pronouns = accusative and maybe ablative and dative (?) cases, and English possessive pronouns = genitive case. But I'm still puzzling this through, so I'm not sure.

[Matryoshka]

This is the way I've lined up the approximate case parallels, but pronouns are really the only place you see any change in English:

 

Nominative = subject case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they)

Accusative = direct object (me, you, him, her, it, us, them)

Dative = indirect object (me, you, him, her, it us, them)

Genitive = possessive (mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs)

 

Some verbs don't take objects, which is why you get nominative case in the predicate after them (predicate nominative). Although we differentiate between direct and indirect objects in parsing or diagramming, the pronouns only have one object form for both. I know in German some prepositions take one object case or the other, but in English they're just all lumped as object pronouns (objects of the preposition).

 

There's a lot more to it, of course, in other languages where adjectives, articles, and nouns(!) decline, but that's the bit that I can carry back over to English. I've never taken Latin, so I am blissfully ignorant as to what the ablative case may be or how it might fit in. Anyone want to illuminate me? :D

[Colleen in NS]

This is the way I've lined up the approximate case parallels, but pronouns are really the only place you see any change in English:

 

Nominative = subject case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they)

Accusative = direct object (me, you, him, her, it, us, them)

Dative = indirect object (me, you, him, her, it us, them)

Genitive = possessive (mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs)

 

Some verbs don't take objects, which is why you get nominative case in the predicate after them (predicate nominative). Although we differentiate between direct and indirect objects in parsing or diagramming, the pronouns only have one object form for both. I know in German some prepositions take one object case or the other, but in English they're just all lumped as object pronouns (objects of the preposition).

 

There's a lot more to it, of course, in other languages where adjectives, articles, and nouns(!) decline, but that's the bit that I can carry back over to English. I've never taken Latin, so I am blissfully ignorant as to what the ablative case may be or how it might fit in. Anyone want to illuminate me? :D

 

According to my Latin books, the ablative is for prepositional objects. And I haven't figured out yet why this is different from genitive, which is described in my Latin books as possessive "of" phrases.

 

I'm becoming a grammar geek. :D

 

Did you see the thread on the General Board called President Obama's words diagramed, or something like that? It's fascinating!

[Matryoshka]

According to my Latin books, the ablative is for prepositional objects.

 

Ah. German doesn't differentiate prepositional objects - prepositions just take accusative or dative (just like English has lumped all three object types together). But wait, do all prepositions in Latin take the ablative case? That would actually be easier than having to memorize which preposition takes which case - that's a bit of a pain. Although I have no desire to decline the nouns like Latin does. Yikes. :D

 

But I love all this comparative grammar!

[Colleen in NS]

But wait, do all prepositions in Latin take the ablative case?

 

I don't think so because ablative is prep. objects (by/with/from are the samples given) and genitive is possesive "of" phrases. Then there's a whole deal about some prepositions using the accusative case and some using the ablative case, and it has something to do with forward motion vs. no motion, and I don't get it. Just when I think I do, the book exercises prove me wrong and then my brain hurts. :D I'll probably figure it out as we keep going through Latin, though. Or maybe something in English or Spanish grammar will clue me in, then I can cross reference again. :D

[Laura Corin]

Not formally, but where I can see a useful parallel I might mention it. Usually such a discussion is followed by, "And thank goodness Chinese doesn't have that." You've got to love a language that barely has tenses and usually leaves understanding of singular/plural to context.

 

For example:

 

"Yesterday, I go to the shops with my child [could be children, depends on context]" is perfectly good grammar in Mandarin.

 

Laura

[ElizabethB]

I didn't really understand Grammar in English until I read "English Grammar for Students of German." It's a series, you can get it for French, Latin, Spanish, and a few others.

 

For me, it was really helpful to see the same concept side by side in two languages.

[Nan in Mass]

English relies heavily on word order to show cases. The usual word order in English is:

Jo gave Mary Tom's dog.

Nom. verb dat. gen. acc.

If you switch the order, the meaning switches, like:

Mary gave Tom Jo's dog.

If you have something like this:

The dog of Tom was given by Jo to Mary. (passive - "by Jo" is the ablative)

Or:

Jo gave the dog of Tom to Mary.

Nom. verb. acc. gen. dat.

you have to add in prepositions to mark the cases.

 

The genative is marked either by the 's ending or "of".

 

Pronouns change case by changing word:

First person singular:

Nom - I

Acc - me

Dat - to me or word order

Gen - my or of me

Abl - by me

 

Then there is: Who gave whose book to whom?

 

Does that help a bit?

-Nan

[Colleen in NS]

English relies heavily on word order to show cases. The usual word order in English is:

Jo gave Mary Tom's dog.

Nom. verb dat. gen. acc.

If you switch the order, the meaning switches, like:

Mary gave Tom Jo's dog.

If you have something like this:

The dog of Tom was given by Jo to Mary. (passive - "by Jo" is the ablative)

Or:

Jo gave the dog of Tom to Mary.

Nom. verb. acc. gen. dat.

you have to add in prepositions to mark the cases.

 

The genative is marked either by the 's ending or "of".

 

Pronouns change case by changing word:

First person singular:

Nom - I

Acc - me

Dat - to me or word order

Gen - my or of me

Abl - by me

 

Then there is: Who gave whose book to whom?

 

Does that help a bit?

-Nan

 

Yes. And I cannot believe you said you don't know English grammar! I tried to make that first person singular chart today, but couldn't figure it out. And now you've gone and posted it. This is so fun!

Edited February 20, 2009 by Colleen in NS

[Friederike in Persia]

And I thought I was getting good at English grammar :D.

How deluded was I? :lol:

I'll just keep going with Homer and Harvey and one day I might be able to post stuff like you do!

[Matryoshka]

The genative is marked either by the 's ending or "of".

 

Pronouns change case by changing word:

First person singular:

Nom - I

Acc - me

Dat - to me or word order

Gen - my or of me

Abl - by me

 

Cool explanation, especially the points about word order! The only thing that I'd quibble with is that in English the nouns or pronouns showing possession do behave themselves and stay in genitive (posessive) case even when marked by "of" -at least it sounds totally wrong to me otherwise :) - so it'd be

 

"Jo gave that old dog of Tom's to Mary" (rather than "of Tom")

"Could you wash that blue shirt of mine?" (rather than "of me")

"That cat of yours is really mean."

"I've never much liked that silly hat of his."

 

Still trying to wrap my head around ablative, since no language I speak uses it - I think that's why it's so useful to do this kind of comparative grammar - in some languages it is not at all apparent why a certain concept is even useful - where in other languages it becomes very obvious why it's important. I don't think I would ever have understood transitive vs. intransitive verbs or why I should care except that in German you use a different helping verb with one kind vs. the other.

[Colleen in NS]

I can't keep up anymore. My brain is twisting in circles. You people are so SMART!! I'm going to come back to this thread when I can concentrate on it, uninterrupted.:D But this is so very cool to me right now.

[Nan in Mass]

The ablative is just the person who does the action when you are using the passive mood. It is marked by "by".

 

I ate the corn. Active mood.

The corn was eaten by me. Passive mood.

"by me" is the ablative.

 

And in your examples about the genative, you didn't use the word "the", you used "that". For some reason, that changes whether you have to use the apostrophe s or mine instead of my. It has to do with whether you are talking about a specific dog or just any dog. So here, I've switched from the to a to demonstrate better.

 

I used a dog's brush. (general brush, general dog)

I used the brush of a dog.

I used that brush of the dog's. (specific brush, specific dog)

I used that brush of Larry's.

 

I can't tell whether we really need the 's on Larry or whether it is a laziness.

 

-Nan

[cathmom]

This thread reminds me of the presentation I did in Spanish comparing Spanish and German in college!

[Nan in Mass]

I DON'T know any English grammar. All I'm doing is pointing out correlations between Latin and English that either my Latin book pointed out, or that I noticed by myself. Honestly, I have no idea how these things really work in English, which is considerably more complicated than Latin, as far as I can tell. The ONLY advantage that I have is that I can tell when things "sound right". I haven't found that I regretted not having English grammar. The only time I've needed it was when I tried to make up a language when I was a teenager, and when I needed to explain why my children's punctuation wasn't right. And most of that need went away when I learned how to use semicolons LOL. Yes, it is very handy to have a set of grammar terms in common with my children, but the Latin terms works fine for that. I guess I also use it to help my children untangle their overly complicated written sentences, but I also know that if I left them alone, they would eventually learn to simplify them. The overly-complicated-ness is just a learning stage between "I see the apple. The apple is big." and "Standing under the tree, with its boughs weighted down with autumn bounty, I looked forward with anticipation to the first crisp bite." Ok - that is a horrid example, but you get the idea, I hope. It is to explain why its doesn't have an apostrophy that I need Latin terms like genative.

 

Colleen, I have written in some English translations to some of the grammar charts at the back of our Latin book for my children (who then complained that it just made things more complicated - ug). When I have a moment, I'll type them up for you in case they are helpful.

 

-Nan

[Colleen in NS]

I DON'T know any English grammar. All I'm doing is pointing out correlations between Latin and English that either my Latin book pointed out, or that I noticed by myself. Honestly, I have no idea how these things really work in English, which is considerably more complicated than Latin, as far as I can tell. The ONLY advantage that I have is that I can tell when things "sound right". I haven't found that I regretted not having English grammar. The only time I've needed it was when I tried to make up a language when I was a teenager, and when I needed to explain why my children's punctuation wasn't right. And most of that need went away when I learned how to use semicolons LOL. Yes, it is very handy to have a set of grammar terms in common with my children, but the Latin terms works fine for that. I guess I also use it to help my children untangle their overly complicated written sentences, but I also know that if I left them alone, they would eventually learn to simplify them. The overly-complicated-ness is just a learning stage between "I see the apple. The apple is big." and "Standing under the tree, with its boughs weighted down with autumn bounty, I looked forward with anticipation to the first crisp bite." Ok - that is a horrid example, but you get the idea, I hope. It is to explain why its doesn't have an apostrophy that I need Latin terms like genative.

 

Colleen, I have written in some English translations to some of the grammar charts at the back of our Latin book for my children (who then complained that it just made things more complicated - ug). When I have a moment, I'll type them up for you in case they are helpful.

 

-Nan

 

:svengo: You understand English grammar way more than I do! But I can see how you practically went about figuring out what you know and why you did.

 

Sure, I'd love to see your grammar charts, thanks!

[Nan in Mass]

These have been helpful to me. I have no idea if they are correct, but they seem to work.

 

Participles end in "ing" in English.

 

Often, we want to put two ideas together in a sentence. If the ideas are of equal importance, you connect them with a conjugation like "and". (Tom went to the store and Peggy baked cookies.) If one idea modifies the other (adds details or conditions or something), then you have a main clause and a subordinate clause. (After Tom went to the store, Peggy baked cookies.) There are a number of ways of indicating a subordinate clause in Latin. You can use the ablative absolute, which often involves a participle: Tom (abl) having gone (participle in the abl) to the store, Peggy baked cookies. Or you can use a conjunction or something: Tom went (active) to the store and Peggy baked (active) cookies. Or you can use the subjunctive: Tom went (subjunctive) to the store Peggy baked (active) cookies. Or you can use a relative clause: Peggy, who now had butter, baked cookies. I try not to translate, but if I have to, I try to translate literally. In English, we use "that" a lot, or an implied "that". This makes the switch from English to Latin and back difficult. So, I often find sentences like this: Peggy, who now had the having-been-bought-by-Tom (abl.) butter, baked cookies. Or: The having-just-hugged-his-brother Jo felt warm and fuzzy.

 

Some charts:

 

Personal pronouns

ego I

mei my

mihi to me

me me

me by me

 

tu you

tui your

tibi to you

te you

te by you

 

is he

eius his

ei to him

eum him

eo by him

 

ea she

eius her

ei to her

eam her

ea by her

 

id it

eius its (not the lack of apostrophie - just like hers isn't her's - it's is it is)

ei to her

id it

eo by it

 

nos we

nostri/nostrum our

nobis to us

nos us

nobis by us

 

vos etc. looks like you above

 

ei they

eorum their

eis to them

eos them

eis by them

 

eae etc. looks like ei they

 

ea etc. looks like ei they

 

reflexive pronoun

 

blank (no nom.)

sui of himself

sibi to himself

se himself

se by himself

 

blank (no plural nom)

sui of themselves

sibi to themselves

se themselves

se by themselves

 

Relative pronoun

 

qui who

cuius of whom

cui to whom

quem whom

quo by whom

 

(the other boxes in this chart (fem neut and plurals) look the same)

 

Hope this is helpful. Hopefully I got it all correct typing it in. As I said, these are my own observations, and might not be correct.

 

-Nan

[Colleen in NS]

These have been helpful to me. I have no idea if they are correct, but they seem to work.

 

Participles end in "ing" in English.

 

Often, we want to put two ideas together in a sentence. If the ideas are of equal importance, you connect them with a conjugation like "and". (Tom went to the store and Peggy baked cookies.) If one idea modifies the other (adds details or conditions or something), then you have a main clause and a subordinate clause. (After Tom went to the store, Peggy baked cookies.) There are a number of ways of indicating a subordinate clause in Latin. You can use the ablative absolute, which often involves a participle: Tom (abl) having gone (participle in the abl) to the store, Peggy baked cookies. Or you can use a conjunction or something: Tom went (active) to the store and Peggy baked (active) cookies. Or you can use the subjunctive: Tom went (subjunctive) to the store Peggy baked (active) cookies. Or you can use a relative clause: Peggy, who now had butter, baked cookies. I try not to translate, but if I have to, I try to translate literally. In English, we use "that" a lot, or an implied "that". This makes the switch from English to Latin and back difficult. So, I often find sentences like this: Peggy, who now had the having-been-bought-by-Tom (abl.) butter, baked cookies. Or: The having-just-hugged-his-brother Jo felt warm and fuzzy.

 

Some charts:

 

Personal pronouns

ego I

mei my

mihi to me

me me

me by me

 

tu you

tui your

tibi to you

te you

te by you

 

is he

eius his

ei to him

eum him

eo by him

 

ea she

eius her

ei to her

eam her

ea by her

 

id it

eius its (not the lack of apostrophie - just like hers isn't her's - it's is it is)

ei to her

id it

eo by it

 

nos we

nostri/nostrum our

nobis to us

nos us

nobis by us

 

vos etc. looks like you above

 

ei they

eorum their

eis to them

eos them

eis by them

 

eae etc. looks like ei they

 

ea etc. looks like ei they

 

reflexive pronoun

 

blank (no nom.)

sui of himself

sibi to himself

se himself

se by himself

 

blank (no plural nom)

sui of themselves

sibi to themselves

se themselves

se by themselves

 

Relative pronoun

 

qui who

cuius of whom

cui to whom

quem whom

quo by whom

 

(the other boxes in this chart (fem neut and plurals) look the same)

 

Hope this is helpful. Hopefully I got it all correct typing it in. As I said, these are my own observations, and might not be correct.

 

-Nan

 

WOW!!!!!!!!!! With these charts, you just solved a huge puzzle for me!! Even if some of your observations might not be correct (and I haven't got a clue - I don't even know yet what reflexive and relative pronouns are - though I assume we'll get to them in R&S), you've just given my brain a new pattern to work on - new understanding, new grid for viewing English and maybe Spanish grammar! I think I'm starting to get now why some people study Latin grammar and don't bother with English (though I still will, because I'm too insecure not to yet). Thank you so much!

[Nan in Mass]

My Latin book taught me to think about things in terms of "modifiers". Usually, the main of a sentence is modified by other words and phrases. Adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify verbs, and then there can be phrases that serve to modify nouns and verbs. A relative pronoun is the "who" in Peggy, who wanted to make cookies, had to buy butter. The whole bit "who wanted to make cookies" works like an adjective to modify the noun Peggy. Who stands in that bit of the sentence. Since it is standing in for a noun that would be in the nominative in the sentence bit, the relative pronoun has to be in the nominative. Another example: Peggy, to whom Tom had given the butter, made cookies. This time the relative pronoun is in the dative because "to whom" substitutes for Peggy in the dative in the sentence bit. Do you see? Anyway, if you think in terms of this bit modifying that bit, the whole problem of grammar gets easier. The other useful thing my book says to do is to pay attention to what function a word has in a sentence. For example, bake is usually a verb, right? But in this sentence

Peggy, baking cookies, was hot.

"baking cookies" is modifying Peggy, right? So it is being an adjective. We turn verbs into adjectives and nouns in English by adding an ing. You can turn a adjective into an adverb by adding ly. If you want to use happy (an adjective) to modify a verb, you add ly. If you want to use happy as a noun, you add ness. Happiness nice. Anyway, if you pay attention to what sort the word usually is, and how it is being used in this sentence, it is helpful.

 

I'm beginning to think I made the right decision to just use Latin grammar GRIN.

Good luck!

-Nan

[Colleen in NS]

My Latin book taught me to think about things in terms of "modifiers". I'm starting to understand this the further we go.

 

Do you see? YES!! Thank you!

 

if you pay attention to what sort the word usually is, and how it is being used in this sentence, it is helpful. I'm starting to see this, too, the further we go. Never would have dreamed I'd become a grammar geek. But it's part of what is helping me so much to form clear thinking in more areas of my life. For ex.: last night I was talking with some friends, and one friend started talking and explaining some deep spiritual concepts to me that he'd gotten from years of Bible study, and I could follow most of what he was saying this time, and actually have an intelligent back and forth conversation instead of being passive!!!! Very exciting stuff for me.

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