English for the Vietnamese 2

HO DANG LAM GI? TAMEN ZAI GAN SHENME? WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

I am trying to fulfill my promise I gave to that girl at the reception desk in Vietnam’s Nha Trang hotel Tropicana, namely, to explain how we should learn another language.

To begin with, I am sure that it’s impossible to explain anything while teaching if you do not have any idea about the language your students use as their mother tongue.

What I mean is that if you teach English to the Chinese you should know at least a little of the Chinese structures, if you teach Russian to the Vietnamese you also should know a little of the Vietnamese structures.

Otherwise you will never reach anything.

What is essential in teaching a foreign language?

Any instructor or a trainer should be able to combine exactly a form and its meaning in at least two languages – the target language and the native language of the students.

Sometimes it is useful to combine three languages if your students previously studied it. The more, the better. However not too much, we should not overdo the things.

The grammatical words I combined in the headline are the equivalents – the Vietnamese DANG, the Chinese ZAI and the English ING.

Why?

Because now we are considering only one fact in the English grammar concerning the PROCESS.

When grammarians interpret this PROCESS with ING, they always try to emphasize that something is happening now, at the moment of speech.

Do you really believe in that?

What is really that “NOW”?

Well, for instance, I say that “I am taking a course in Vietnamese this week”, what do I mean by using the “ING”? Do I mean any “now”? And what is my “now”?

When I ask someone a question like “Are you still reading my book?”, do I mean that this someone is holding my book exactly now? May be that someone put that book away for a while and now is doing something else? However the process of reading has not been finished yet?

So what is the essential meaning of this ING?

Sometimes “NOW”, but not necessarily.

If you learn an isolated structure, it will not be quite clear for you.

If you learn a structure in opposition to another structure, it will be more clear.

By the way, when we are acquiring our mother tongue, either Russian or Vietnamese, we always use oppositions in our meanings, that is natural.

Any PROCESS is opposed to RESULT.

So, if we organize our process in English to results, than it will be easier to understand it.

Instead of single separate phrases like “Are you still packing the bag?”, “Are you still reading my book?”, “Are you still checking my homework”, “Are you still writing your composition?” and the like, we can combine these questions with other structures expressing either result, or no result.

For example:

Are you still packing the bag?
Yes, I am.

This exchange means that the process has not been finished yet.

Or:
Are you still packing the bag?
No, I am not. I have already packed it.

What does it mean? It means that the process has been finished.

Or:
Have you packed our bag yet?
Not yet, I am still packing it.

What does it mean? It means that the process has not been finished yet.

So what is the main meaning of the English ING contrasted to the Vietnamese DANG? Does the English ING mean that the process is happening exactly NOW?

No, the main meaning is that the process has not been finished yet and this meaning can be clearly seen only in opposition to HAVE + V + ED.

This is just the best way to learn any language, when you learn it in oppositions.

If the girl (If I am not mistaken, her name is Thuiy) at the reception desk in Tropicana Hotel in Nha Trang city will read this article and understand in what patterns and how to train her English, she will surely succeed in mastering this language.

Anyway, I will continue my explanation and extend my methods in the next article.

To be continued in my next article English – Vietnamese 3.

Instructor/ Trainer Alexander Khodovets