If it doesn't help, then change it!

If it doesn't help, then change it!

A perfect example of changing weird terminology.

Grammar should help, not hinder. So should its rules. So should the jargon. One of the terms many students find confusing is 'past participle'. It would make sense if it referred only to the past, but it doesn't.

English is often simpler than other languages. Take the definite article, for example. In English, there is only one: the. Other languages are not so lucky. There are two forms in Dutch, six in Italian, and in German you almost lose count. In this case, students of English can count their blessings.

Some grammatical terms are self-explanatory, but especially the ones taken from Latin can appear alien. For instance, what should students think when they hear the term 'pluperfect'? The Latin term 'plusquam perfectum' doesn't explain anything except where that strange name came from. Luckily, 'past perfect' offers an alternative.

Still, that doesn't explain the term 'perfect' and the confusion doesn't stop there. 'Present perfect' is not about action in the present time. 'Past perfect' might as well mean 'beyond excellent', for all beginners know. And even though some things may have been better in the past, they most certainly weren't perfect.

Let's go back to the term 'past participle' and why it's confusing. For starters, 'participle' is alien jargon that doesn't ring a bell to most students. Next, the term 'past' isn't exactly helpful, as a 'past participle' can also appear in future tenses. The Little Prince was so right when he said that words are the source of misunderstandings.

The word 'participle' is relatively harmless, though. It doesn't mean anything to students, so they can accept that it's just grammar lingo for how a verb appears in different shapes, like playing and played. The word 'past' is the real problem because students think they know what it refers to.

The most confusing bit is that this 'past participle' is the standard ingredient of perfect tenses. Add the fact that many irregular verbs show a marked difference between their past and perfect forms, like went and gone, and the chaos is complete.

So why call it a 'past participle'? There's a linguistic explanation, of course, but the average language learner couldn't care less. As it's a key ingredient of perfect tense forms, the logical thing would be to call it a perfect participle. Some languages do just that - Dutch, for instance - and it makes perfect sense.

There's little hope that official linguistic terminology will change overnight and become crystal clear all of a sudden. The good news is that language learning doesn't need most of the jargon anyway. 

What's more, the grammar lingo we do use with our students doesn't always have to be official. It should help, not hinder. If it doesn't work, we should change it. The alternative term 'perfect participle' is a perfect example.


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GrammarBob's continuing mission: to boldly go where no grammar has gone before and make essential English grammar easy for all.

David Lewis

Academic Manager, STAR Exeter

4 年

While I 100% agree with the sentiment here, I do have a couple of quibbles. So, agreed, the grammatical terminology isn't useful in that it doesn't help the learner understand the actual usage - while the past simple is usually about the past, the most common forms being irregular doesn't make it simple. The present simple can refer to the past, the present or the future, often all at the same time. At the same time, these are just names. Calling me 'David' is useful if you want me to reply, but it doesn't give you any great understanding of who I am. I think most students can accept grammatical terms on this basis - they are just names to apply to certain words in certain circumstances. My other thought is, while it's great to simplify things for students, what happens when they want to do independent study and are suddenly confronted by unknown terminology? My personal solution to this is start from getting students to notice and think about the meaning of patterns of language, and once they've tried to work it out together, we can add the names as reference points. The English Verb by Michael Lewis (no relation, just another label!), is a classic EFL text which confronts the issue raised. Interestingly, published in 1986 and we're no nearer a naming solution! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1380956.The_English_Verb

Kesar Patel

Pune Lead and VP-OMOTEC School Operations

4 年

I have been an advocator of not using official definitions in grammar to teach Students. I just delete the formal jargon and focus on the functional part. This wonderful article of yours is actually echoing my thoughts. Thanks for sharing it. I'm resharing it for my students!

Elizabeth Fleming Law degree, MBA

Business and Business English Instructor, Lawyer

4 年

I am taking a course in grammar now from Seneca College (Canada) online. It is part of a program to get certified to teach adults in Canada. I am old enough to have been taught grammar in school which is good but I am also old enough that I had a steep learning curve for the Seneca College online learning system which is bad.

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Craig Burrows

Development Editor | English Language Teacher | Content Developer | PGCE-qualified Secondary MFL Teacher

4 年

Jargon doesn't help someone speak a language. Using it does. I always try to simplify grammar as much as possible so learners don't get obsessed with thinking about rules instead of actually speaking and writing.

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Lynne Friedman

Unlocking #ESL Fluency & Accent Reduction at Lunchroom English Project | Unlock ?? your #English!

4 年

Nice post, Leon Lentz. Why not just go over the 3 columns like this?: I) Base form, II) Past form, and III) the form used with Perfect tenses, Passive, and often as adjectives. I agree with simplification. My clients are perfectly happy with "Third Column" as a grammar term. They can learn the jargon later if they're interested.

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