Difficulties in the English Language Teaching and Learning Process (DETLP)

Unit 3: SLA problems

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Student’s name Carlos Ivan Pulido Ramírez

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 UNIVERSIDAD
DA VINCI

GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCES OF
BOTH LANGUAGES: ENGLISH &
SPANISH.

CARLOS IVÁN PULIDO RAMÍREZ

BA. ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS. G28
PROFESSOR: JOSÉ JUAN PÉREZ RIVERO

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JULY, 25th 2022

INDEX

1. Introduction………………………………………………..4

2. Historical contexts: Spanish…………………………. …5

2.1 Historical contexts: English……………….…...6

3. Language structure…………………………………….. .8

4. Comparison of grammar………………………………….10

5. Conclusion…………………………………………………12

6. Reference list & bibliography……………………………13

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INTRODUCTION

Every language presents its own language structure with historical

background and linguistic evolution that makes each language
unique. For this essay, I will discuss the grammar differences
between the English and Spanish language. However, this will not
be possible if I don’t speak about their similarities, hence a
comparison will be needed.

I have chosen this topic for an accurate research due to it being one
of the major problems that EFL students present and teachers to
exemplify and explain in an easy and accurate way according to
students capabilities and learning contexts( age, linguistic level,
cultural and social background, etc…).

In addition, I will clarify and state the outcomes for this research,
giving some explanations of how, what and why this is such a
problem and suitable strategies for overcoming this notable issue
for EFL learners.

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HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: SPANISH

For having clear references about the differences, it is a priority to

review their historical contexts, wondering where do they come
from, for how long, Do they have suffered drastic changes or just
barely being exposed to such changes.

To begin with, we have our mother tongue, Spanish. This is a

romance language, named this way due to its root, Latin. Such a
tongue was the dominant one in Europe during such a long time,
used in the most powerful empire back then, Rome.

Spain and the Iberian Peninsula were inhabited by native settlers

who spoke their own dialects. This collection of native tongues
known as Proto-Indo-European languages paved the road for the
Spanish you know and learn today.

The Arab occupation allowed the Moors to introduce their

Mozarabic language in the region. Mozarabic was widely spoken by
the Hispanic population who were part of the Caliphate.

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Curiously, there are over 4,000 modern Spanish words that are
derived from Arabic.

HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: ENGLISH

After looking for historical aspects of Spanish, I want to present the

foreign language we teach, English. Such language is the current
lingua franca of the world, many aspects of our life are ruled by this
language, education, art, music, informatic, films and science.
Hence, the importance of learning it and using it in real life aspects.

The English language has its roots in three Germanic tribes who
invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles,
the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today
is Denmark and northern Germany.

The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in

Britain developed into what we now call Old English. the Duke of
Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered
England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with
them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal
Court, and the ruling and business classes.

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For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the
lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French.
In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but
with many French words added. This language is called Middle
English.

Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two
principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology
created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its
height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English
language adopted foreign words from many countries.

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LANGUAGE STRUCTURE

Each language presents its own characteristics, and these two are
not the exception, the researchers have found that the English
language has an interesting advantage over Spanish, in this case.

English has shown to be impressively brief when using words

(Arturo Zarate Ruiz, 2017), hence English economy is revealed in
news reports and editorials if compared with their extension with
other language versions. Then, English usually is briefer:

In addition, regarding the alphabetical Order, both languages follow

Latin Script but it is seen that the alphabetical order of Spanish is a
bit different from English as it contains some extra stressed
consonants.

As a matter of fact, word order of both languages is the same:

Subject+Object+Verb and even a neutral order (free order).
Sentences of both the language are subject and predicate and
except for a couple of word order exceptions (adjective before noun
in English and noun before adjective in Spanish), both the language
have most of noun, verbs, tenses similar.

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Since Spanish is a very flexible language we can change the order
of the sentence without changing the meaning. That means word
order doesn‟t have that much importance as in English.
Instead Spanish has a system using suffixes and particles that help
to denote the subject and object.

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COMPARISON OF GRAMMAR

Both English and Spanish have an infinitive. The infinitives in

English are characterized by preposition “to” + “verb form”. The
Spanish infinitives are known by the “r” ending. Verbs in Spanish
end in –ar, er, and ir (hablar, comer, and dormir). In English,verbs
other than be have two forms in the simple present tense (a simple
form and an-s form.) The –s form is used with third person singular
subjects (he, she, it).

Otherwise, the simple form is used. Both English and Spanish have
“to be”. In English the use of “to be” can be found in many kinds of
sentences. One of them is in the construction of NP + BE + N P. In
Spanish “ser” and ‘estar” can be both translated as “to be.” Both
“ser” and “estar” are conjugated. In the first case, one speaks of the
condition. In the second case, one speaks of the essential
characteristics.

In Spanish when the verb “to be” is followed by a noun, the verb ser
is always used. In this instance, it might be helpful to think of the

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verb as equivalent to an “equal” sign, such as a = b. This type of
sentence is always referring to essential characteristics, since the
verb is “linking” what comes before the verb to what comes after the
verb. English and Spanish have tenses, such as simple present
tense, past tense, future tense, present perfect, past perfect tense,
etc. English and Spanish have conjugated verbs, but there are a lot
of conjugations in Spanish. Direct object pronouns are used when a
person or thing receives the action of the verb directly. Both
languages have direct object pronouns. But, the position of the
direct object in a sentence may be different. (Muhammad Nur,
2015)

In English direct object pronouns are put after the verb. In Spanish
in an affirmative statement with one verb, the direct object pronoun
comes immediately before the conjugated verb. If the subject of the
sentence changes, this does not affect the direct object pronoun.

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CONCLUSIONS

The research shows that English and Spanish have similarities and
differences. The similarities can be seen in the existence of tenses,
the conjugation of verbs, the use of to be. The differences can also
be found in the aspects mentioned above. The conjugation of verbs
is more complicated in Spanish. In English, for example, the verb
“do” will change into “does” when it is used with the third person
singular subject in simple present tense. However, in Spanish, for
example, the verb “hablar” (speak) will change into hablo, habla,
hablas, hablamos, etc. English and Spanish are different. To be in
Spanish has two meanings: The researcher suggests that learners
of Spanish have to pay attention to the conjugations of verbs that
exist in Spanish.

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REFERENCE LISTS

ez
August 18, 2021 by Luis F. Domingu

Luis F. Dominguez (2021). Similarities and Differences Between

English and Spanish.
https://www.spanish.academy/blog/similarities-and-
differences-between-english-and-spanish/

ARTURO ZÁRATE RUIZ (2017). DIFFERENCES OF ENGLISH

AND SPANISH GRAMMARS, AND THEIR BEARING ON
AMERICAN AND MEXICAN CULTURES. Texas Journal of
Literacy Education | Volume 5, Issue 2 | Winter 2017 5-12
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1162713.pdf

Dzhumayov, Georgi. Lexical similarities between Spanish and

English, Journal.mu, 2017
http://journals.mu-varna.bg/index.php/conf/article/view/3886/34
29

International Journal of Innovations in TESOL and Applied

Linguistics Vol. 5, Issue 4; 2020 ISSN 2454-6887 Published by

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ASLA, Amity University, Gurgaon, India © 2020 Linguistic
Analysis of English and Spanish
https://www.ijital.org/images/issues/issue-19th/544-R
%20Surbhi-LINGUISTIC%20ANALYSIS%20OF%20ENGLISH
%20AND%20SPANISH-Final.pdf

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