We discussed:
日本人の英語はなぜ間違うのか？
Chapter 1: The author argues that university students make a lot of mistakes in writing and he thought it was the students’ mistakes but then he noticed that the JHS has many mistakes about grammar and that is the reason why many students have mistakes.
Chapter 2: He talks about tense. People who speak natural English use 12 kinds of tense.In JHS the textbook only teaches six and that is why there is a limit.
JHS tenses: present, present progressive, past, past progressive, future, past perfect
English tenses: present perfect progressive, past perfect, past perfect progressive, future progressive, future perfect, future perfect progressive
Aspect: Conditionals
Last week, I went to the Tokyo Race Course. I thought the Tokyo Race Course was a dirty place but it was a clean place.
Change the second sentence to:
I had thought that the Tokyo Race Course was a dirty place but it was clean.
I thought that the race course would be dirty but it was clean.
I had thought the Tokyo Race Course would be dirty but it was clean.
Sakuranbo’s point: Teachers might not be so strict about tense.
Chapter 3 & 4, Tsushi: Chapter 3 says many university students use “the” and there are mistakes with “the” in JHS textbooks. For example, “You save the kids!” = あなたたちは子供たちを全員救っています。
altruistic
hidden curriculum
In Chapter 4, many university students mistake how to use auxiliary verbs and verbs.
Chapters 5 & 6: About conditionals (subjunctive). Japanese do not use conditionals. Students start to learn them in HS but it is too late and there are a lot of unnatural sentences in JHS textbooks.
“If she doesn’t have a cold, she can go to the party.”
Next time, we will read 迫りくる破たん and Junior and Shinchan will discuss their thoughts about 日本人の英語はなぜ間違うのか？