Email me at jmayhew at ku dot edu
"The very existence of poetry should make us laugh. What is it all about? What is it for?"
--Kenneth Koch
“El subtítulo ‘Modelo para armar’ podría llevar a creer que las
diferentes partes del relato, separadas por blancos, se proponen como piezas permutables.”
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27 feb 2007
A very advanced student wrote "*requiso" instead of "requirió" for the past tense of the verb "requerir," to require. This is actually a pretty interesting error, because he was construing the verb as "re + querer" and then applying a rule that says that verbs formed with an irregular verb plus a prefix will usually have the same irregularity. What's interesting is that errors tend to regularize rather than irregularize, so this particular one goes against the usual pattern.
Whenever I am tempted to lack empathy for someone learning English I have but to recall my struggles with irregular verbs in Spanish and remind myself that English makes Spanish look like the most logical language in the world.
ResponderEliminarMost interesting that in English we get "require" from quaerere, which has more to do with seeking, questing, questioning and asking whereas in Spanish querer is its own word - to want. Seems likely then that the Spanish word could be some adulteration of the English, since desiring and requesting are such different actions...