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> the way a language structures the world for you in the way its vocab influences the way you think in concepts You can even see it in this article :) "Learn

by ajuc 2y ago

> the way a language structures the world for you in the way its vocab influences the way you think in concepts You can even see it in this article :) "Learn only 4 tenses. Past for one time events, past continuous, present, future. These are enough to go by and explain yourself." Some lanuages don't even have 4 tenses. Polish has 3. And Past Continuous isn't a thing, we have aspects instead. BTW I don't intend to criticize the author, they're far more of a polyglot than I am (I only speak 4 languages, and only 2 well). It's just funny how we take some things for granted.

SamBam 2y ago
I think that the author's intent can be meaningful understood without the implication that they don't know about other languages. I think a reasonable interpretation of the statement is "learn how to use verbs such that you can talk about doing something now, doing something in the future, having done something and continuing to do it, and having some something and since stopped doing it." In every language humans are capable of expressing those distinct concepts. But boy, that was an awful lot wordier than the way the author put it.
enkid 2y ago
Some languages are tenseless.
betaby 2y ago
> Polish has 3. Native speakers of slavic languages tend to believe that there are three tenses. Try asking that someone who learned it as a second language and you'll realize that native french/english speakers think that slavic languages have 6+ tenses to them. Aspekt dokonany i niedokonany basically doubles number of tenses.
- XajniN 2y ago
  Serbo-Croatian has 4 past tenses, plus the aspect that applies to two of them.
  - ajuc 2y ago
    Polish technically has past perfect, but I've never heard it used in real life and most Poles wouldn't know what it is if you used it :)
n_plus_1_acc 2y ago
In some analyses, english only has two (past and present).

by ajuc 2y ago

SamBam 2y ago

I think that the author's intent can be meaningful understood without the implication that they don't know about other languages. I think a reasonable interpretation of the statement is "learn how to use verbs such that you can talk about doing something now, doing something in the future, having done something and continuing to do it, and having some something and since stopped doing it." In every language humans are capable of expressing those distinct concepts. But boy, that was an awful lot wordier than the way the author put it.

enkid 2y ago

Some languages are tenseless.

betaby 2y ago

> Polish has 3. Native speakers of slavic languages tend to believe that there are three tenses. Try asking that someone who learned it as a second language and you'll realize that native french/english speakers think that slavic languages have 6+ tenses to them. Aspekt dokonany i niedokonany basically doubles number of tenses.

XajniN 2y ago
Serbo-Croatian has 4 past tenses, plus the aspect that applies to two of them.
- ajuc 2y ago
  Polish technically has past perfect, but I've never heard it used in real life and most Poles wouldn't know what it is if you used it :)

n_plus_1_acc 2y ago

In some analyses, english only has two (past and present).