> > Mark A. Mandel <thnidu at yahoo.com> wrote: > > > --- David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > > > > > > > The fact that I dealt with German as a language learned as an > > > > adolescent, not as a child, may be warping my view here. But > > > > it seems to me that everything about grammar they taught us > > > > in English there was some German equivalent, and then there > > > > was about three times that much *additional* stuff that > > > > applied only to German, not to English. > > > > > > But that doesn't count the sh*tloads that you never had to > > > learn as a native speaker of English because native speakers > > > don't get it wrong, but that L2 learners have to learn by > > > study. For example: > > > > > > Give the big blue book to Jane. -- fine > > > Give it to Jane. -- fine > > > Give Jane the big blue book. -- fine > > > Give Jane it. -- WRONG!!! Just a comment that this strikes me as being in David's "there was some German equivalent" category - "gib mir das Buch" ok, "gib mir es" not. Similarly, donne Philip le livre -> donne-le-lui. Which of Je le lui donne. Je donne le lui. Je lui le donne. Je donne lui le. is correct? Also for the record I've checked with a linguist of my acquaintance who suspects (again based on mostly anecdotal info from non-native speakers) that English is relatively easy to learn. I'm still interested in seeing a study disproving/confirming that.