I was reading...

[fajrdrako]

An interesting item about memory and language.

I suppose it would be the same in languages other than English?

Comments

[chatona.livejournal.com]

It would only be the same in languages other than English that have the connotation to imperfect and perfect as English does. For example, in German, the only difference between imperfect and perfect is that one is used in written language while the other prevails in oral language and thus I don't think the same would hold true if the test had been done in the German language.

In French and Italian, though, I think it would hold true, because the use of imperfect and perfect underlies pretty much the same rules (reasons) as in the English language.

... Not sure if that made sense just now >>

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That makes sense; I was wondering about German. I don't know enough non-Romance languages to judge, or even to guess. My impression is that Esperanto doesn't use the imperfect nearly as much as we do in English. And are there not languages which don't commonly use the imperfect at all? I'm not even sure.

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure myself, either. The only languages that I can talk about with any kind of certainty are English, German, French and Italian. My Dutch isn't good enough yet for me to make any kind of definite statement, though I think it's very similar to German. The two are generally similar.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You name exactly the same languages I have studied and spoken - adding Esperanto - and it's much of a muchness. I think Russian uses a form of the imperfect, but does Japanese? Arabic? Turkish? I have no idea.

[chatona.livejournal.com]

It's been a great many years since I've studied Japanese and I never got very far with it. I know that I only learnt one kind of past tense and I think that our teacher did not omit any kind of past tense, so Japanese might only have one on the same level of imperfect and perfect in English? But don't quote me on that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to look it up; or ask someone who knows Japanese. I wish we could just ask Toshiko!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I could ask my best friend. He's half Japanese.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Let me know what he says.

[chatona.livejournal.com]

No, there's no such thing in Japanese. Although if you want to say you "have done" something at some point in your life, there's a specific way of saying that

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Right!

And the Japanese, in my experience, have good memories.