Pat’s Polemics

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Imitation is the best form of acquisition

  03/12/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Have you ever noticed that when people are horsing around imitating an accent: Italain, Swedish, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese – you’re heard it many times (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning
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Recent Posts

  • Imitation is the best form of acquisition
  • What to call it?
  • Know your preferred learning channel
  • Perfect example of the complexity of French grammar
  • Left or Right?

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  • Pat Barrett on Time to replace the top leadership of the Democratic Party
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  • Pat Barrett on Speculation on leaked draft opinion re Roe
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What to call it?

  02/20/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Most grammatical features are named by linguists so as to convey their function, e.g. conditional, inceptive, conative, concomitive, etc. The coinages are mostly based on (Continue Reading)

Linguistics

Know your preferred learning channel

  02/19/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I read a lot. When I want to learn a language, I read it. That works OK for me normally, but with Korean I am (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning

Perfect example of the complexity of French grammar

  02/15/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Examining French grammar in light of my teaching my granddaughter French, I learned just how much the expression ‘one Xs’ dominates the verb paradigm. “on (Continue Reading)

Foreign language teaching & learning, grammar & language change

Left or Right?

  02/15/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

No, not my politics; we know where they lie. It’s handedness. I’ve always known my handedness as “mixed dominance,” doing some things only with the (Continue Reading)

Health and exercise, Uncategorized

Going way out on a limb……….

  02/02/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In a cave far up in the snowy reaches of the Himalayas I encountered a master who provided me with esoteric knowledge required for good (Continue Reading)

Health and exercise

One of my mistakes in attribution….. to a language

  01/17/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Very popular in my grandmother’s household was Lawrence Welk. Corny or cheesy do not begin to describe him. Popular throughout a certain set does. He (Continue Reading)

Mistakes I made and still make.... apparently

Who designed the Viet Nam War Memorial?

  01/01/2023       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

When Maya Lin was announced as the winning designer of the projected Viet Nam War Memorial, I am sure I read or heard that she (Continue Reading)

Mistakes Made

Weight gain and a new diet

  12/30/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Yesterday, Dec. 29, 2022, I got the basis of my new diet started, heavy on meat and vegetables and fruit and nuts, light on cheeses (Continue Reading)

Health and exercise

An old, old story……..

  12/27/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

A couple looking for a place to stay in cold weather in a strange city on Dec. 24……….. we see it portrayed everywhere. The governor (Continue Reading)

Complete nonsense

Nyah II VR E 34 Oct. 16 2018 lesson 54

  12/10/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Moi, j’ai un mot nouveau. Les sciences  en francais on dit l’informatique (computer science). Moi j’ai appris ce mot d’un ami. (here I guessed totally (Continue Reading)

TPRS

Restart for Word of the Day

  12/07/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

This category has been sore neglected so when I came across a list of buzzwords I thought, “Hey! A trove! I can list one of (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

NyahII Oct 12, 2018 VR 33

  11/16/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Qu’est-ce que vous etudiez a l’ecole? What? Study? (I write in marker) It’s not even the same color! Ce n’est pas le meme couleur? No. (Continue Reading)

TPRS

catch up catch down

  11/15/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Word play. When I moved from Ohio to Arizona I found myself ahead of other students in school. I did that twice, fifth grade and (Continue Reading)

Word of the Day

The Link Between Autocracy and Conservatism

  10/20/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The link is authority, the principle of authority. Conservative writings are replete with the citing of authority as essential to order and order they consider (Continue Reading)

Pat's World View, Politics

Nyah II Oct. 2, 2018

  10/19/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Chez Nyah, so without the vocabulary posters. NOTE: usually the French is me speaking and the English is Nyah’s response.The stories are complicated, Nyah says.L’animal (Continue Reading)

TPRS

NyahII sept 28, lesson 48 E25

  10/16/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Nyah asked: are we continuing the story which shows she understood ‘groupe’word building chanteur, voleur, voyageur, she wanted to know how I remembered claviercomment s’appelle (Continue Reading)

TPRS

The Rest of the Story………

  10/12/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Years ago Paul Harvey had a radio spot called The Rest of the Story where he presented a commonly known event or personality and then (Continue Reading)

Pat's World View

A matter of perspective

  10/10/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I grew up reading Hiroshima. Lots of liberals did. We bemoaned the horror of it all and felt bolstered by the nearly universal condemnation of (Continue Reading)

Pat's World View

Up-date on the old M.O.

  09/24/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

My Magnum Opus is devolving into a series of entries on a variety of topics. Eventually I will have to go over all of them (Continue Reading)

Basics, Pat's World View

Communication up close

  09/14/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Ruby Payne something I have found true in the microcosm of my personal life, that poor families use fewer nouns and more pronouns. After 58 (Continue Reading)

Uncategorized

A Shift in Programs —- October update

  09/09/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Once I got to the point with the core program – a set of 6 exercises arranged in pairs – where it was no challenge, (Continue Reading)

Health and exercise

Starting exercise after a long hiatus

  09/01/2022       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

I hope ‘hiatus’ doesn’t bring up memories of hiatal hernias, but I did stop exercising for almost 3 years: nothing, niente, nada, rien, nichego, etc. (Continue Reading)

Health and exercise
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