Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/415

CHAPTER 8 importance and difficulty of a distinction. These factors vary from language to language. In French, for example, the tag question ? is added to sentences about as often as the corresponding tag questions are used in English. Yet ? requires much less practice than is needed to master English ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ? and so forth. On the other hand, changing from present to past tenses in the best-known European languages including English is troublesome:, , but , ; , , but ,. In Swahili this difference is always made by replacing the prefix by the prefix. And in some languages, the verb doesn't change to show tense at all. A French speaker, whose definite and indefinite articles work something like and  in English, will need less drill on these words than will a speaker of Russian, whose language lacks articles altogether.

A difficult manipulation which is however infrequent and relatively unimportant is the relationship between:

Points like this will not be made the subject of 'routine manipulation.' They are best handled by writing manipulative drills ahead of time, as is usually done in the preparation of language textbooks.