Learning to speak Tlingit

[Scott DeLancey]

On Wed, 7 May 2008, Ted Moomaw wrote:

> I am okanogan from eastern Washington, I have worked at our lang. program
> 7-8 years, and it is my thought or perception that verb conjugation was
> thought of as to difficult, also tenses and possesives,  it is from my own
> experience in teaching that when you teach the conj. as part of your vocab
> people will be able to communicate, w/out conj. there is no communication.
> xwistsmxikn

I completely agree with this.  People have trouble memorizing the
conjugations of Spanish or German, and nowadays language teachers
agree that that's too hard for most people, and not the way to teach
the language.  And in so many Native languages (definitely both Tlingit
and Salish!) the verb is so incredibly more complicated than in
European languages, there's just no way in the world anybody is
going to memorize that.  You have to teach one form at a time--
teach folks how to say what they're trying to say at the moment,
or for that lesson.

Scott DeLancey