Hi All,
So I was wondering where I might find some good beginning sentences for my language. There might not be a corpus anywhere (thought if there is that'd be awesome), so I thought I'd open the floor to the extensive minds here. I'd like sentences preferably without animals, so that I can work on deriving words from word-roots. I'd prefer stuff with 'plain' and 'everyday' vocabulary.
Some examples might be:
The man went to the shop.
The boy saw the woman.
Or if y'all have any textbooks of foreign languages handy, could you lift out some 'introductory' phrases?
Easy Beginning Sentences
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- cuneiform
- Posts: 189
- Joined: 01 Jan 2017 14:03
Re: Easy Beginning Sentences
Masako,
Thanks for that list. I'd seen it elsewhere before, but glad to have it refreshed. It's super helpful for pinpointing the finery of grammar, but I was more so looking for simple sentences in order to expand my vocabulary (instead of just thinking up words willy-nilly). The 650 word-game might be a good place to start though (albeit, again these are isolated words and not sentences)
Thanks for that list. I'd seen it elsewhere before, but glad to have it refreshed. It's super helpful for pinpointing the finery of grammar, but I was more so looking for simple sentences in order to expand my vocabulary (instead of just thinking up words willy-nilly). The 650 word-game might be a good place to start though (albeit, again these are isolated words and not sentences)
Re: Easy Beginning Sentences
If building vocabulary is your goal, I would recommend that you subscribe to a news outlet twitter feed or RSS, and each day pick one or two stories to translate. I guarantee you'll have new vocabulary and new grammatical structures to deal with on an almost daily basis.
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Re: Easy Beginning Sentences
I date myself, but when I was in high school and resources were limited, the Berlitz "teach yourself" series was a nice springboard (I got my mitts on the German and Italian editions). Foreign language pedagogical methods have certainly changed since then, but I think there's an abundance of the simple sentences you may be seeking.holbuzvala wrote:Or if y'all have any textbooks of foreign languages handy, could you lift out some 'introductory' phrases?
In the 90s, I latched on to the Lonely Planet language series. Obviously aimed at tourists and not meant to systematically get you to basic conversational proficiency, it nonetheless had simple sentences and touristy-concern sentences, but also stuff you might strike up an actual conversation about with someone on a train. I had the Western Europe, Mediterranean, North Europe, and Central Europe editions, all formatted almost exactly the same (sentence-per-sentence) way (so you could see how different languages handled it), so I just translated the greater "it" edition, and it filled in lots of vocabulary and grammar holes.
☯ 道可道,非常道
☯ 名可名,非常名
☯ 名可名,非常名