I'm worn out from a long day of teaching and slogging around in the cold rain, so I'll let Mark Twain do the talking for me tonight. I stumbled upon this essay quite unexpectedly (my host sister asked me for some poetry recommendations, and the internet is a wonderful way to find all sorts of somewhat-related articles and cultural productions), and it sums up a lot of my experience in learning a foreign language, and I'm sure my poor students, troopers that they are, would agree that verbs are the roughest part speech. Here are the first two paragraphs of Twain's "Italian with Grammar."
I found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful
language with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I presently
found that to such a parson a grammar could be of use at times.
It is because, if he does not know the WERE'S and the WAS'S and the
MAYBE'S and the HAS-BEENS'S apart, confusions and uncertainties
can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to happen next
week when the truth is that it has already happened week before last.
Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry showed
me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded
and straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed
the hands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that
had no permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always
dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.
Further examination, further inquiry, further reflection,
confirmed this judgment, and established beyond peradventure the
fact that the Verb was the storm-center. This discovery made plain
the right and wise course to pursue in order to acquire certainty
and exactness in understanding the statements which the newspaper
was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I must catch a Verb and
tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot its eccentricities,
I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently foresee and
forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely to try
upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main
shifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.
I found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful
language with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I presently
found that to such a parson a grammar could be of use at times.
It is because, if he does not know the WERE'S and the WAS'S and the
MAYBE'S and the HAS-BEENS'S apart, confusions and uncertainties
can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to happen next
week when the truth is that it has already happened week before last.
Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry showed
me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded
and straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed
the hands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that
had no permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always
dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.
Further examination, further inquiry, further reflection,
confirmed this judgment, and established beyond peradventure the
fact that the Verb was the storm-center. This discovery made plain
the right and wise course to pursue in order to acquire certainty
and exactness in understanding the statements which the newspaper
was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I must catch a Verb and
tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot its eccentricities,
I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently foresee and
forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely to try
upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main
shifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.
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