Dear Mom and (your name here) ,
Wow I can hardly believe a week has passed since I last wrote! But I guess that could be because it's only been 3 days... I actually do have some interesting things to share though. One of the most exciting things that happened this week is that I have started helping the missionaries teach English lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the church. Even though I have only gone these two times, I'm already really excited about it! It's fun to meet new people and it's also helping my Italian vocabulary. I'm assisting with the beginner's course, but I'm learning that it's actually hard to teach English! (For all those grammar nerds and wordy people in the family, I need a little bit of help. How do you explain when and when not to use "do"? Many foreigners to the English language think that you have to put "do" somewhere in every question, or invert everything single verb to ask a question. For example, I was asked if you can say "Do you are happy?" The answer is obvious to me that it's wrong, but when I tried to explain inversion and "Are you happy?", they wanted to know when to use "do" and when to invert the order of the subject and word. Is there a rule somethere that says when and when not to invert and when to use a helper such as "do" or "will"? Some kind of guide as to which verbs are inverted and which ones are left alone? I can tell them which phrases are right and which are wrong, but I'm not sure how to explain it. Anyway, any input y'all have would be appreciated.)
OnThursday after the lesson, I went to eat dinner with one of the people from the English course and some of the missionaries. Apparently, Catania is quite famous for its horse meat and some of the missionaries were in town from other areas so they wanted to try it. They were all incredulous when they found out that I had never eaten it, so I found myself at the restaurant with them trying horse meat for the first (and maybe last) time in my life. I have to say, it's actaully pretty good but I couldn't help but imagine poor Strawberry and Lady at Scott and Valerie's house, blissfully unaware that I was chomping down on one of their kind. Although to be honest, I have never thought of little Bully Bogeywart when I eat hamburgers. But maybe that's because I have a fear of cows and its almost like a small form of revenge every time I eat a scrumptious burger. Anyway, I hope Strawberry and Lady are doing well and won't hold a grudge against me for eating some long-lost relative of theirs.
My last bit of exciting news comes from yesterday. Despite being at school on a Saturday, at least one good thing came out of it. I got an 8 in my math interrogation! I won't take another page and a half to explain the grading system here and all the horrors of interrogation, but trust me, an 8 is a pretty darn good reason to celebrate. Also for the sake of space, I will try not to talk too much about arancini but I'll answer the questions. One of the really good ones is filled with rice, cheese, and little chunks of ham, but the typical arancino with the sauce, meat, peas, and rice is always a good fall-back if you can't decide. A lot of the smaller places that sell arancini only carry that type. They are normally about the size of a fist or maybe even a tiny bit bigger, but I would love to come try yours Karyn! I'd love to come anyway though, I think some of my niece-phews are forgetting who their favorite aunt is.
I've been downloading the pictures from my camera, but I still haven't reached the ones from the trip to Palermo and Agrigento yet so I will try to put them up sometime this week. I hope everything is going well with everyone and I love you all!
Carolina
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ReplyDeleteAren't you the girl who do give me the jaundiced look whenever I would offer you ham?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to give the grammar question my best shot: So far as word inversion, technically, so far as I know, inverting the subject and verb can correctly make anything a question, though many things sound archaic (Knowest thou not what I mean?). Basically, my best stab at an explanation is that, unless some version of the word "to be" (am, is, are, was, will be, has been, will have been, etc.) is the main (i.e. inverted) verb of the sentence, starting a question with do, does, or did is generally correct ("Does he have the book?", "Did he run in the race?" but "Is he reading the book?"). Note that when "to be" is used somewhere else in the sentence but is in a dependent clause, it does not replace "do" (e.g. "Do you have the book he was reading?"). If the student has some experience with English, "do" is used in the question only in cases where answering the question in the emphatic affirmative would employ the word "do" ("Do you have the book?" "Yes, I do have the book." but "Are you happy?" "Yes, I am happy."). The other situation in which you would not use "do" is when the main (or inverted) verb in the question is a participle (e.g. "Has he eaten?" "No, he has not eaten." but "Does he eat?" "Yes, he does eat.") Again, if the participle is only in a dependent clause, it does not remove the necessity of using "do" (e.g. "Has he ironed his shirt?" "Have you put on your shoes?" but "Did he wear the shirt he has ironed?" "Do you like the shoes I have put on?"). Finally, please note that in no case of which I'm aware is it ever necessary to both add a form of "do" and invert the word order. Just like how, in French, the phrase "Est-ce que" removes the necessity of subject-verb inversion, "do" performs the same function in English, except that, in English, the verb thus spared from inversion reverts to its infinitive form (minus the word "to") (e.g. "The dog needs a bath." becomes "Does the dog need a bath?" Notice that "need" drops all conjugation when coupled with "does", as the verb "to do" is conjugated instead.
ReplyDeleteI hope this helps. I also hope that there isn't some other situation I've forgotten. I'm pretty sure this covers at least 95% of the exceptions to starting with "do."
I remembered another set of situations that do not use do: Any case in which two or more verbs are used together and neither can take the infinitive with "to", the first verb (the conjugated one) is placed before the subject, and the remaining verbs are placed after the subject, but do is not necessary (e.g. "You would like to come." becomes "Would you like to come?" and "She couldn't have made a better choice." becomes "Couldn't she have made a better choice?"). Note that many of these verbs do not require conjugation (can, could, would, should, etc.). In cases where using the infinitive is optional, so is the choice between "do" and inversion (e.g. "He dares defy the king." or "He dares to defy the king." become either "Dares he defy the king?" or "Does he dare defy the king?" or "Does he dare to defy the king?", though it is my assumption based on precedent in other English phrases that the first and last versions of this question are more correct than the second).
ReplyDeleteI hope this helps, too.