Nouns: The Building Blocks of Language

  Just like a medical student begins her training studying the bones and muscles of the human body, all serious language students should start with parts of speech.  And the study of parts of speech should begin with nouns.
  Basically, a noun is a word that refers to a person, place or thing.  Many people now divide things into two sub-groups: concrete nouns and abstract nouns.  Concrete nouns are things you can feel or touch or smell or taste.  These things have mass and substance.  You can pick them up and carry them around.  (Fine.  You can’t pick up or carry around an airplane, but it’s still a concrete noun.  You can certainly touch it.)  Conversely, an abstract noun is something you cannot touch or pick up or carry.  Abstract nouns are ideas, emotions and ideals.  For example, bravery, happiness and memory are all abstract nouns.  Things can also be divided into two other groups: countable and uncountable.  (See Death of the Countable Noun for more explanation.)  The trickiest group of nouns are called compound nouns.  They are LOTS of fun.
  You can identify parts of speech by characteristics that most, and sometimes all, words of a certain part of speech share.  I call these “markers.”  You can identify nouns by some basic markers that most nouns have.  First, most nouns have two forms: singular and plural*.  To make the plural form of a regular noun, you simply add an ~s or ~es to the end of the word.  For example:

• one dog, two dogs
• one ticket, three tickets
• one peach, two peaches

        The plural ~s is a good way to identify a noun.  If you have a word that seems to be a singular noun, try adding the ~s.  If the word looks like a plural noun, try taking the ~s away.  Do you still have a real word?
  This rule doesn’t always work though.  Some nouns are irregular, which means the plural form is very different from the singular form.  Or the plural form is the same as the singular form.  For example:

• one person, two people
• one tooth, two teeth
• one fish, two fish

        Also, uncountable nouns don’t have a plural form at all.  (One information, two informations?) That’s why they’re uncountable.  Finally, verbs in the third person singular form also have an ~s at the end.  (I like; she likes) Like is obviously not a noun.  That being said, the plural ~s rule is a good noun marker.
  A second excellent noun marker is capital letters.  Basically, if a word is capitalized, it’s a noun.  Capitalized nouns are also known as proper nouns.  (That’s just a fancy way of saying names.)  If two or three words are connected and all of them are capitalized, they are all a part of the same name.  Take the following group of words as an example.  If you have the simple phrase New York’s best pizza, only pizza is a noun and best is an adjective describing the pizza.  On the other hand New York’s Best Pizza altogether is one long noun that includes New York’s because all of the words are capitalized.  (This is probably the name of a restaurant in Kansas.)
  There are two exceptions to the capitalization rule.  First, and quite obviously, the first word of a sentence is always capitalized in English, but it is not always a noun.  Second, sometimes adjectives are capitalized.  Some proper nouns have an adjective form that is different.  For example:

• China, Chinese
• Germany, German
• Thailand, Thai

  Unfortunately, this is not always the case.  Very often, the noun form and the adjective form of proper nouns is the same.  For example, Philly is the nickname of Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania.  One of the greatest foods ever created is the Philly cheesesteak.**  By itself, Philly is obviously a noun, but when describing this wonderful food of the gods, Philly is an adjective describing the cheesesteak.  This one can be very confusing to students.  The only advice that I have is to chunk up the sentence and make sure the last word of a chunk is the capitalized word.  If the capitalized word is the last word, it’s a noun.  However, if ANYTHING comes after the capitalized word in the chunk, the capitalized word is an adjective.  (See the blog entry on Chunky Language for a more detailed explanation.)
  Another guaranteed marker for a noun is the apostrophe s ( ‘s )***.  The ‘s turns a regular old noun into a possessive noun that shows the relationship (ownership) between two nouns, usually a person and a thing or place.  Both the word with the ‘s and the last word of the chunk must be nouns.

• the school’s new gym
• Jim’s old job
• the car’s air-conditioner

        Related to ‘s is the preposition of.  Very, very often, but not always, the word that comes before of, along with the word after of, is a noun.  For example.

• the top of the stairs
• the middle of the night
• most of the food

  Finally, there are several noun markers that come at the beginning of a chunk.  This specific kind of chunk is called a noun phrase.  A noun phrase is a group of words that ends with a noun and includes all of the words connected in front of the noun, like adjectives.  Probably the most common noun markers are a(n) and the.  Guaranteed, if you see one of these words, there is a noun at the end of the chunk.  For example:

• the homework assignment
• a fluffy, white dog
• an enormous, pink elephant
• the seemingly impossible task

  The last word in all of these groups must be a noun.  There are a couple of common errors illustrated here.  In the first chunk, very often students will identify homework as the noun, but in this case, it’s an adjective.  Make sure you go completely to the end of the chunk.  Don’t stop at the first word that looks like a noun.  The second common error is thinking that fluffy and enormous are nouns.  This is because students think that commas always come at the end of the chunk.  This is normally true, but sometimes commas replace the conjunction and and connect ideas instead of separating them.
  The second group of noun markers also guarantees that a noun is at the end of the chunk.  Anytime you see an adjective pronoun like my, her, their, etc., a noun is close by.  For example:.89+

• his favorite band
• our new house
• your final exams
• its pristine beaches

  The final group of noun markers is not quite as guaranteed. There is a group of pronouns called demonstrative pronouns.  Basically, they are this, that, these and those.  Just like the adjective pronouns above, this, that, these and those are often at the beginning of a noun phrase, like:

• this car
• these black shoes
• that noisy monkey
• those wooden puzzles

  Just like the other markers, if a demonstrative pronoun comes at the beginning of a chunk, the last word of the chunk is a noun.  However, they can also be used alone, so there isn’t always a noun after them.  Also, they can be followed by one or ones, which are pronouns.

• That was delicious.
• I think I’ll get this one.
• Those belong to Kyra.

  By following these rules and looking for the noun markers, you should be able to find any noun in any sentence.  However, nothing comes easily.  Like anything else, it will take some time and practice.  But it is well worth the effort.  It’s a valuable skill to have.  Trust me.


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          *Singular means one.  Plural generally means two or more.  However, the tricky part of this is zero (0).  Even though it is less than one, zero nouns need the plural form.

• one person   /  one book
• two people   /   two books
• no people   /   no books

        **The absolute best cheesesteak I have ever had was from a place in Gettysburg, where I went to college for two years, called Robby's Pizza.  After I transferred to a college in Hawaii, whenever I was back in Pennsylvania, I would drive over an hour back to G-burg just for a Robby's cheesesteak.  One of the saddest days of my life was the day I went back and saw that Robby's had closed.  I have searched and searched for a cheesesteak as good and came close once in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but the search continues.  If I can get the recipe for a Robby's, I'll be a rich, rich man.  Best sandwich in the world. 

Parts of Speech: Why Should We Care?

          The human body is made up of many different, disgusting parts. The most disgusting things in a baby’s body regularly end up in its diaper.  (Yes, Skyler.  I’m talking about your diapers.)  The most important part of the body is the skeleton.  Without the skeleton, we would all just be blobs of goo sliding along like snails.  The skeleton is made up of four basic parts: bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments.  (Sorry, scientists.  I know I’m over-simplifying.)  The bones create structure, muscles allow us to move, ligaments hold two bones together and tendons connect bones to muscle.
          So what?
          There are so many cool similarities between our bodies and language.  Verbs are the muscles of language.  Verbs give the motion.  And the brain is the biggest muscle of all.  Ligaments are like conjunctions, connecting clauses with nouns and verbs together. Tendons are like prepositions, connecting a noun phrase to a clause.  The fundamental building blocks of language, though, are the nouns.  Like the bones of a skeleton, nouns give a sentence its structure.
          So why should we care about parts of speech?
          The simplest and most important answer is, “For reading.”  The quickest way to learn vocabulary is to read.  From the day you begin learning a foreign language, you should begin reading.  However, too often, students make reading painfully slow by stopping every two or three words to check a dictionary, which is not a good idea.  I am pretty much a self-taught Japanese speaker.  I never took formal classes and I stopped self-study from textbooks over fifteen years ago.  However, my Japanese is pretty good and it has improved over the years.  During my studies, I have used a Japanese-English dictionary maybe ten times and I haven’t even looked at one in over twenty years.  Sometimes being lazy is a good thing.
          So what’s the point?
          Sorry.  I got excited.  To learn a language, you need two things: vocabulary and grammar.  Without a large vocabulary, knowing the most beautiful grammatical structures is useless.  The best way to learn vocabulary is to learn how to guess the meaning from context.  To guess the meaning, the first thing you need to know is the word’s part of speech.  Once you understand parts of speech, you can look at any word in any sentence in any book written in the English language and identify its part of speech within a few seconds.  (This skill by itself will probably never earn you any money unless you work for a really lame carnival.  “Ladies and Gentlemen.  The Amazing Grammario will now tell you the part of speech of any word you can think of.”)
          So how did this help your Japanese improve?
          To be honest, it’s hard to say exactly how this happened.  However, I definitely see a parallel between my interest and understanding of English grammar and my Japanese ability.  I think my success in Japanese has come from my experience as a teacher.  I saw what worked for my students and what didn’t.  I saw where my students struggled in English and how I helped them figure out difficult language structures.  In other words, I try to practice what I preach.  I have learned Japanese they way I hope my students learn English.
          So how has knowledge of parts of speech helped you?
          Well, it certainly didn’t help me read Japanese better because I’m basically illiterate in Japanese.  I can read hiragana and katakana fairly well and I know enough kanji to get around.  However, I probably couldn’t read a second-grade textbook.  What I can do is isolate important parts of language I hear (nouns and verbs) and ignore the less important ones (adjectives and adverbs).  I know which words are more important, which words I need to figure out.  Second, when I learn one word, like a noun, I can fairly easily learn the verb, adjective and adverb forms and, more importantly, USE THEM CORRECTLY.  I almost never use a noun when I should use a verb; I can use make adverbs from adjectives and use them correctly.  I use complete phrases and clauses and don’t forget connecting words.  I might not use the correct connecting word, but one is in a place where it’s needed.  I don’t have an impressive vocabulary, but I know how to use the vocabulary I have learned.
          And this is all I ask of my students.  Know the difference between parts of speech and how to use them, make sure your statements are complete and make sure you have connecting words where you need them.  Of course there will be mistakes.  But the mistakes will be smaller mistakes that people can figure out and still understand what you are trying to say.  There will be very few global errors, errors that make understanding very difficult.
          If you are still not convinced that this is important, how about this argument?  I guarantee that understanding parts of speech will greatly improve scores on the SAT and TOEFL tests.
          Now you’re paying attention, aren’t you.

Musicians Make the Best Language Learners

Throughout my 22-year teaching career, I have taught many wonderful students with loads of ability.  My all-time favorite student was a twelve-year-old girl I taught early in my career.  The first day she attended class, she was so nervous, she was almost shaking.  She had just started junior high school, which meant she had just started learning English.  At the beginning of the lesson, as I was asking simple warm-up questions to each student, I didn’t want to leave her out, so I asked her a simple one.  “How old are you?”  After I repeated the question several times and after her regular Japanese teacher gave her several prompts, she slowly began to...CRY.  She eventually whispered an answer through her tears, but the whole situation just overwhelmed her.  (I’m sure my being a 6-foot, 215-pound–at the time--gaijin didn’t help.)


But she didn’t give up.  From that day forward, I don’t think she missed a lesson.  (They were voluntary special lessons that were offered for free by a cram school teacher on Saturdays.)  What makes her stick out in my memory, however, was how disciplined she was.  In a very short time, she became one of the best speakers I’ve ever taught.  She wasn’t chattering like a monkey or discussing Shakespeare.  What made her the best was she tried so hard to use everything she had learned.  When she began to speak, she used a slow, even pace and rarely paused or broke rhythm in the middle of a statement.  She was precise and deliberate and she self-corrected.  She couldn’t say a lot, but what she said was so well-said with so few errors.  After a few months (six, maybe?), her family moved away and she was unable to continue attending lessons.  For the life of me, I can’t remember her name and I would dearly love to see how she has progressed over the years.  I’ll bet she became an amazing English speaker.


I’ll be she was a musician.


Why are musicians also such good language learners?  There are two traits that both need.  The first, and most obvious, is that musicians have good ears.  This is very important for listening and pronunciation.  Musicians pick up the rhythm of language more quickly, can distinguish words more clearly and can mimic sounds better.  (That’s my hypothesis.  I’m pretty good at these things and I was a decent musician back in the day.)  Also, musicians sound more natural than most second-language learners, especially singers.  (In my new job, I’d like to design a speaking/pronunciation course in conjunction with a voice teacher.)  A musical ear is a huge advantage when you learn a language.


However, much more important than an ear is DISCIPLINE.  I suppose there are a few mythical geniuses out there who can sit down at a piano when they are two and within a short time begin playing Mozart piano concertos.  Must be nice.  For the rest of us, though, it’s a lot of long, boring practice sessions running scales and squeaking out Mary Had a Little Lamb.  (The people who deserve the most credit are the neighbors who didn’t call the police to report cat abuse during little Susie’s violin practice.)  For months, the noise that came from my trombone probably sounded more like a flatulent hippo than music.


That’s why so many would-be musicians give up.  It’s too hard.  It’s boring.  It’s frustrating.  They’d rather be playing video games.  “I still don’t sound like Eddie Van Halen and I’ve been practicing for two whole months.  I quit.”  But some make it.  Some put in the hours of drudgery and make it through THE WALL.  They persevere to the day when suddenly they realize “Hey.  I’m getting pretty good.  This is FUN!”  That’s when they become real musicians.  They WANT to go home and practice.  They ENJOY getting up in front of their friends and family to perform.  They LOVE to sit down and jam with other musicians.  The long practice sessions and rehearsals are like a game.  Their mother doesn’t have to push them anymore.  They push themselves.


Learning a language is exactly the same.  Practicing grammar patterns is the same as practicing scales.  An SVO clause equals the C scale.  Pronouncing a second language well is equivalent to getting a beautiful tone from an instrument.  Those horrible hours practicing the clarinet after school are my grammar class.  Your mother, who pushed and forced, who scolded and praised, who wouldn’t let you give up?  That’s me.


Why do musicians spend so much time playing scales?  Even at the highest levels, concert oboists begin warming up with scales.  This is to develop and later, to turn on muscle memory.  A drummer doesn’t think about what they are going to do on their kit.  They just turn off their brains and let their hands and feet fly.  (That’s right.  I just said drummers don’t use their brains.  Have you ever seen Animal from the Muppets?)  When you speak a language, you have similar muscle memory, only I call it grammar memory.


When you speak (or listen), there are two elements: grammar and information.  When you speak your first language, you don’t really stop and think about grammar.  It just comes out naturally.  Therefore, you can focus on communicating your ideas.  On the other hand, when you speak a second language, the grammar is not automatic.  Along with WHAT you want to say, you have to slow down to think of HOW you are going to say it.  This slows down the process and often causes a breakdown.  “It’s too hard.”  But the more you practice, especially basic grammar, the stronger your grammar memory gets, the more smoothly you can communicate and the more confident you feel.  Some people call this “thinking in another language.”  Musicians are good at this.  They already think musically.


Another part of musical discipline is practicing until it’s perfect.  A piano player getting ready for a recital will play the same piece over and over and over again.  They will isolate a part of the song that is particularly troubling and practice that one part until their fingers remember.  They will not accept mistakes.  The concept of “good enough” doesn’t exist.  It’s either perfect or it’s wrong.


Developing your grammar memory is very similar, with a couple of differences.  Language has patterns.  A comparative sentence like “I am smarter than my brother” follows a general pattern that needs to be practiced again and again.  However, unlike music, practicing the exact same sentence over and over doesn’t help.  You need to add your imagination to the pattern.  This is where jazz musicians have an advantage.


I do not mean to say that only musicians can learn a language well.  Nor do I mean that non-musicians don’t have skills that will help them.  Anyone can learn a language if they put in the time and the effort.  An athlete brings their own type of discipline to the language classroom.  So does a scientist.  Visual artists are very often beautiful writers even when their English is still at a basic lever. (You have to read through the mistakes.)  I still say that musicians (and mathematicians) have the most crossover.  Music and language complement each other very well.