The language of language: verbs 1.
Every field of study has it’s own language – languages are the same and unfortunately we trainers have the annoying habit (Unsitte) of using these words assuming (hier:voraussetzen) that everybody understands these words.
So let’s kick off 2018 with some little refreshers of common language jargon starting with verbs.
Verbs are those ‘do‘ words and we congugate them according to tense (Zeitform) etc. The‘ infinitive‘ aka main verb form e.g. ‘to go‘ changes to past tense form ‘went‘(2nd column in your dictionary) and the past participle form i.e. gone (3rd column in your dictionary).
There are also auxillary aka helping verbs (be, have, do etc), which help to form questions or make up the ‘short answer form‘ or question tags (aren’t you?, isn’t he?, don’t you? Etc).
As for the questions – I always present the 5 finger rule. Have your left hand in front of you (palm (Handinnenseite) towards you) –
- the thumb is any question words, (what etc),
- index finger (Ziegefinger) is the helping verb (be, have, do, did etc),
- the middle finger is the pronoun (aka person you, he, we etc).
- The 4th finger is usually the main form except for present participle (playing) for the present progressive (I’m playing footy now) or past participle (had, been) for PRESENT PERFECT (We’ve been together for 10 years) or PAST PERFECT (The train had already left by the time we arrived at the station)
- The little finger is the rest i.e. signal word(s) like every day, 2 days etc.Finally, to answer a closed question, i.e. a so-called YES / NO question, we usually use the auxillary verb – e.g
- Are you English? Yes, I am
- Do you like beer? Yes I do
- Did Liverpool beat Mancester City last weekend? Yes, they (f**king) did. ( sorry got a bit carried away (sich verrennen)
So here’s a little list to recap and help you build your own language of language list.
Verbs
Tense = Zeitform
Infinitive = main verb form
auxillary = helping verb
Hope it helped. Unfortunately, that was just the easy bit.