Below is a chart the explains why:
This chart lists a few common Spanish pronouns, followed by their rank in a word frequency list in Spanish, followed by the chapter in which they're taught in an online Spanish curriculum whose design mirrors most textbooks:
- le - ranks 19th (3rd most common pronoun)... taught in chapter 44 (Unit 4)
- me - ranks 33rd (5th most common pronoun)... taught in chapter 41 (Unit 4)
- tú - ranks 554th (28th most common pronoun) taught in chapter 7 (Unit 1)
Needless to say, if we map the word frequencies of the English translations of the above, the chart seems much more logical...
This chart lists a few common Spanish pronouns, followed by their English translation's rank in a word frequency list, followed by the chapter in which they're taught in an online Spanish curriculum whose design mirrors most textbooks:
- le - him - ranks 64th (10th most common pronoun)... taught in chapter 44 (Unit 4)
- me - "me" ranks 76th (14th most common pronoun)... taught in chapter 41 (Unit 4)
- tú - "you" ranks 15th (2nd most common pronoun) taught in chapter 7 (Unit 1)
There are a number of technicalities I could comment on here. Obviously, for example, translating "le" as "him" is not a simple equivalence. But nonetheless, the basic point stands. Also, it's worth noting that "you" (the #2 pronoun in English), is ranked 554th overall in the Spanish word frequency list. I'm quite sure that no living English pronoun ranks so low (we'll ignore "thou" and "thine" for obvious reasons). The reason, of course, has something to do with the fundamental structures of the languages (specifically, the fact that Spanish is a null-subject language), which is exactly why I have to work so hard to un-teach what is, traditionally, put front-and-center for students in Spanish 1 (chapter 7 of Unit 1 above, to be precise).
All of which begs the question, exactly which language do the textbook authors think we're teaching?
1 comment:
I would like to think that curricula do this because studies have shown that students cannot grasp certain concepts too early (such as reflexive verbs or past tenses). However, I suspect that you are right--concepts are introduced based on English, reinforcing the fact that we tend to teach translation, not language skills.
The other thing about this list: I am impressed at how much more common certain pronouns are in Portuguese, even in the Roudledge book that gives equal weight to peninsular and Brazilian versions and weighs heavily toward written language.
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