intuitive labels for verb conjugations

[Greg Thomson]

At 15:16 -0600 04-01-1999, Benjamin Rifkin wrote:
>  If they are asked if the verb is of the "-ish'" or
>"-esh'" type, their response is much more likely to correspond to their true
>understanding of the conjugation of the verb (and demonstrate to the
>instructor whether that understanding is accurate or not.)  Note that
>Alexander Lipson in his textbook,  _A Russian Course_ (Slavica, 1980, I
>believe), introduced (again, I believe he introduced this, but it could have
>appeared earlier), the notion of "-it" and "-et" verbs, rather than first
>and second conjugations.  This textbook is based on the one-stem system, by
>the way.
>
>Ben Rifkin

Ben, I know you said that you introduce this way of thinking after the
learners are already using lots of verbs, and J. Douglas Clayton rightly
pointed out the importance for an educated L2 Russian speaker to know how
to talk about Russian grammar. Nevertheless, except for strongly
linguistically oriented students who might enjoy something like Charles
Townsends two dozen conjugational patterns, I wonder why the 1st/2nd
declension issue should be a big deal. One time my wife asked me if verb
was spelled -et or -it on the end. I asked her how she would say the "they"
form, which I knew she would have no trouble saying. That was her
introduction to conjugations. (I.e., the issue seems to me to be mainly
important when you want to know how to spell something.) In practical terms
this doesn't seem like a very big deal _if someone is actually learning
Russian_. So whatever approach, if it is coming across to students as
complicated, confusing, or discouraging, then I wonder if they might be
better off spending less time learning about conjugations and more time
learning Russian. It appears that this is not an issue with you, Ben, from
what you said before, but for others who look on this whole area as a
challenge of some sort, I wonder exactly why there should be any challenge.
I think people who are learning Russian have frequent problems with the
stress placement on verbs, but rarely with the person endings (from my
observations of foreigners here). Now I again emphasize that I'm an
outsider to the world of academic RSL (or RKI as they say here), and I hope
my intrusions aren't considered rude, though as a guest in your world, I
probably am behaving fairly presumptuously, given the hundreds of thousands
of hours of teaching (and learning) experience you collectively share.

Regards,
Greg

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Greg Thomson, Ph.D. Candidate (gthomson at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca)
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