tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post115539831810797516..comments2024-02-28T05:25:12.859-05:00Comments on English, Jack: No future tense? Nonsense!Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02870575277556244419noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-17736609739239411192013-03-26T05:52:19.584-05:002013-03-26T05:52:19.584-05:00Good article, but some of these comments are a bit...Good article, but some of these comments are a bit scary... Ignorance is one thing, wilful ignorance is quite another. The idea that we should teach students things we know to be untrue because they're 'simpler' (which they're not) is absurd. Mind you, when a commenter reveals in their first line that they don't know the difference between tense, form and aspect, I suppose there's not much point reading further.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-3872565999212050372012-11-27T07:44:00.722-05:002012-11-27T07:44:00.722-05:00Sorry, John. There's not future tense at all: ...Sorry, John. There's not future tense at all: no "future simple", not "future perfect", no "future progressive", no future anything. For more reading, see:<br /><br />http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005471.html<br />http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=897Bretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02870575277556244419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-11148169887226663882012-11-27T07:00:02.536-05:002012-11-27T07:00:02.536-05:00Another thought has occurred to me. There is a fut...Another thought has occurred to me. There is a future perfect. Can we have a future perfect without a future? I can't see how this is possible. I'm still, though, for returning the idea of tense to its origin in time - the alternative is a tangent that could confuse people.John Baldhttp://johnbald.typepad.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-2216457169553057252012-11-25T17:49:35.189-05:002012-11-25T17:49:35.189-05:00This may be duplicated. The reasoning in this arti...This may be duplicated. The reasoning in this article is profoundly wrong. A tense is a systematic way of indicating time, and English has such systems. The attempt to separate tense from time is sophistry. Grammar is based on usage, and English usage has several forms of future tense.John Baldhttp://johnbald.typepad.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-68080515863621578152012-09-28T06:03:02.758-05:002012-09-28T06:03:02.758-05:00Thanks for your comment, Kumaraditya. I think we o...Thanks for your comment, Kumaraditya. I think we often underestimate children. Many of us think that what we learned when we were young is the best for young people because it was hard for us to adapt to new ideas. When the new ideas are presented first, often there's no increase in confusion at all, and often there's a reduction since things are more coherent and there's no need to learn a new system later.Bretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02870575277556244419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-69209721013432672722012-09-28T02:37:18.127-05:002012-09-28T02:37:18.127-05:00What you said is quite true. But this should be to...What you said is quite true. But this should be to college and university level students. Elementary school students cannot understand that "grammar" is about form (tense) and "semantics" is about meaning (time) - they will end up in confusion. I think for everyday use, let there be three tenses. If someone wants to be a linguist / learn TG grammar - let him read about two tenses.Adihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07145924569304049803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-30377246694274989052010-10-29T15:04:55.706-05:002010-10-29T15:04:55.706-05:00I'm a TEFL teacher and I've never really u...I'm a TEFL teacher and I've never really understood this argument. For a start we teach four future tenses, or forms, or aspects if you prefer: Simple, Continuous, Perfect and Perfect Continuous. But this argument only seems to refer to Future Simple, and to me would just confuse students, and I'm glad to say doesn't appear in any of the standard (British) course books we use.<br /><br />It also looks at English as though it had no connection to any other languages. As I understand it the argument is twofold.<br /><br />Firstly we do not have a single form, but four - 'will', 'going to', Present Continuous and Present Simple (for timetabled events). Yet both French and Spanish use 'going to' and the Present Simple for the future, but they don't seem to get their knickers in a twist about it.<br /><br />Secondly 'will' is a modal, therefore it cannot be a tense (although this apparently doesn't apply to Future Continuous and Perfect). German also uses a modal but that doesn't stop them calling it the Future.<br /><br />I'm sorry but in my opinion it's just mind games for Diploma courses, and helps ESL students not a jot. It's like the weird and wonderful diagrams they produce for understanding tenses with arrows going in all directions which leave me twice as confused as when I started.<br /><br />Well you needed a dissenting voice! Oh, sorry, I've just seen IR Reader, my feelings precisely.Warsaw Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15373568589613033674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-64717714712610514062010-01-19T05:13:25.012-05:002010-01-19T05:13:25.012-05:00A great post! Thanl you very much for this :) I te...A great post! Thanl you very much for this :) I teach all sorts of students both at the university and at high school, adults and children. I think it is much easier for them if you tell them right away that English has no future tense as such but can express futurity in a number of ways. I do not see any reason to tell small kids something different, with the risk of it being wrong, when they are capable of understanding it! My experience shows that it does not confuse beginning students at all if explained correctly!Margaritahttp://journal-encounters.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-4288381873726656292009-06-29T02:56:29.223-05:002009-06-29T02:56:29.223-05:00I hope you teach university level students. Peopl...I hope you teach university level students. People who argue about the technicalities and semantics of metalanguage can do that to their heart's content in a place like that. I guarantee your little tirade would needlessly confuse a beginning students. You know, a lot of teachers want to argue the technicalities of linguistics because it makes then sound smarter (and probably yields better jobs), but we'll see whose students learn better. Try working with simplicity from the ground up (oops, did I end a sentence with preposition... or is it OK as an idiom? - hahahahaha - "From where is your problem?") How about you study English instead of teaching it?IR_Readerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299292960507521250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-36475656929959721582009-03-22T12:54:00.000-05:002009-03-22T12:54:00.000-05:00Thank you for your explanation. I am an ESL teach...Thank you for your explanation. I am an ESL teacher at Rice University and I have come across some students who don't believe me, at first, when I explain that there is no future tense, per se. It is really difficult to explain to some of the beginner students because they expect that there is something for past, present and future. I found that by the intermediate levels they seem to have forgotten that it was ever a big deal and the Modals chapter of the Fundamentals of English Grammar is pretty easy for them. <BR/><BR/>Anyway, I think that any serious ESL teacher should know about this if they took a serious grammar class in graduate school, like I had too. Among others, we used "The Grammar Book" by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman which, I think, does a nice job of explaining why the "future tense in English" is a misnomer.stefaniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14881956946830828614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-91395528200510806952009-02-09T19:39:00.000-05:002009-02-09T19:39:00.000-05:00I usually try to get around the technical definiti...I usually try to get around the technical definition by mentioning 'future forms' instead of 'future' tenses.<BR/><BR/>There are many ways to teach it, but I agree that most ESL trainers are oblivious to the fact that there is no future tense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com