A language learners’ forum

aaleks wrote:I keep watching lectures from The Polyglot Gathering. Today I watched this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ_hXML4nWg
Tim Morley - “Don’t say ‘quite’!” and “The Joy of Phrasal Verbs” [EN] - PG 2017

If I had to learn phrasal verbs that way - by memorizing them from a textbook - I would've quitted a long time ago . But I guess that it's probably how most people learn them. Especially if they need a fast result. Learning all those verbs from exposure, as I've done, probably is more time consuming.

Arnaud wrote:In my view, there is a lot of similarities between the english and russian verb systems: these so-called english "phrasal verbs" are built with the same logic as the russian verbs: russian uses prefixes where english uses these "post-verbal" particles (away, back, on, off, etc). All that gives an infinity of nuances that don't exist in french, imho.

In french, all that is less clear, a part of the information has been lost when the latin language was simplified to become the different romance languages, and the "average" native speaker often doesn't see anymore the "particles" that are included in the verbs: we only see the roots (exemple: porter, reporter, déporter, apporter, remporter, emporter, supporter, exporter, importer, but if you ask a native speaker to explain what does mean these re-, dé-, a-, rem-, em-, su-, ex-, im- prefixes, you can wait for a long time: people have more an intuitive feeling based on massive use of these prefixes than a clear knowledge of their signification).

French people are also more inclined to use "figurative" forms like "s'en aller" or "y aller" instead of "partir" for exemple. There is also some nuances difficult to graps for students of french like the difference between: "arriver" and "venir" (often I hear russian students who can't tell the difference between the two because they have only one verb for that idea: a motion verb built on the prefix при-): so you hear things like "Je suis arrivé au bureau en métro" intead of "je suis venu au bureau en métro".

aaleks wrote:I guess it's about time to make something like a 2017 summary. I'm unsure if it's the right word but I can't come up with anything better .
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