Explaining the Abstract
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Whooo… If you want a really fun exercise, try explaining an abstract concept (usually a difference in the meanings of similar English words) to a Japanese teacher of English. Sometimes, especially at my academic school, they come to me looking forlorn with some awkward question that their students have handed them. They’re looking for help with an albatross - and man, I love nothing more than attempting to reconcile these problems. (Probably because it means a student out there somewhere is curious enough to go past the necessary exam related English and into speculation. But also because there is nothing more gratifying than watching someone “get something” for the first time. The epiphany is what I live for in this job.)
Yesterday, one of my favorite teachers (who is, through a schedule fluke, not teaching with me this year) came up and asked me this one. What is the difference between a circle and a ring? I started thinking about it. I said that a ring is always a circle, but a circle is not always a ring. He drew two circles on a piece of paper and shaded one in with his pencil. He asked me which was which. I pointed to the un-filled shape and said it was both a ring and a circle, but then to the shaded one and said that it was only a circle, not a ring. I told him that a circle just has the shape of a circle. And then the “duh” moment came - I told him a ring MUST have a hole in its center. I pulled out 2 coins - the 10 yen and 5 yen. A 10 yen coin is a circle. A 5 yen coin is a ring. He started to get it. I pointed out that you can call the hole itself in the 5 yen coin a circle, because that’s the shape it has. It clicked. He got it. Ha ha. I asked him to name a donut that is a ring and a donut that is a circle. He did it.
Then I related the problem to the whole issue of rectangles and squares. A square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a square. It’s a problem directly concerned with strict interpretations of the words’ definitions. But I’m a stickler. I did, however, point out afterward that in casual speech, it’s ok to misuse words as long as the meaning is conveyed. In any event, he was thrilled to be able to answer his student, and to have grasped the meaning fully for himself too. It was great.
Another weird one that I was asked at that school involves English language conventions when counting, especially when speaking about temperature. I was asked how to say the following temperatures: -1°C, 0°C, 1°C, and 2°C. I replied, “Negative one degree Celcius, zero degrees Celcius, one degree Celcius, and two degrees Celcius.” (Of course you may substitute Centigrade for Celcius. It’s the same thing. Or Fahrenheit, actually, since the question isn’t changed by it.) The teacher was flabbergasted. Why do you put an S on “degree” when zero is not plural?!? Hmmm… I reasoned that it was just a speech convention. (I have no formal English training, after all. I rely only on my natural speech - which is rarely, but occasionally incorrect.) I gave the example that I could say “I have two pencils” and “I have one pencil.” However, zero is neither singular nor plural. It simply isn’t. Therefore, I could say “I have no pencils” or “I haven’t any pencils.” I concluded that it’s sort of the same thing. I think that’s a fair equivalency. I told her that really -1° and +1° are the odd cases, since they are the only singular numbers. Man, you’d have thought she was loaded for bear the way she marched off all confidently to hunt down her question-asking student. Ha ha.
What weird things or snags have you tried to explain? Do you have any that you want to kick around? (Grammatical issues aside, hopefully…cause those are decidedly not fun.)
*Side note - spell check needs to get revamped. It didn’t like the words “Celcius” or “equivalency,” but both are in the dictionary. Curious.
on May 13th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
The rectangle thing can be argued both ways I think. “All squares are rectangles with 4 equal sides” vs. “All rectangles are oblong squares.” But what trumps them both is, “rectangles and squares are parallelograms with only 90 degree angles, but only squares are rhombuses.” Or something like that.
And then zero, I could swear I looked up the plural thing before, but we could say it’s not plural so much as we have a strict restriction on what we can call singular and conjugate as such (only ONE thing comes to mind at the moment hyuk hyuk); ultimately another thing where you can define it from multiple approaches.
I have had to explain why zero is even to teachers before; something I actually feel backed up on. I also have fun explaining voiced plurals versus unvoiced, and the vs. the (th-uh vs. th-ee).
I may do a follow up post for you about my adventures with a-kun (not ey-kun but uh-kun) on my own blog.
claytonian’s last blog post..Mother’s Day: The Movie
on May 13th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Huh! Interesting comment Claytonian! If only it was ten years ago and could remember what a rhombus actually was…
Most of my questions thus far from non-native english friends at uni have been of the vocabulary nature. “What does ambiguous mean?” While I’m like you and love teaching people - that point when they “get it” - but I am very very bad at explaining vocabulary. I have a huge passive vocabulary, I think, compared to a lot of people, probably because I read a lot, but when a word is said on TV and I am asked what it means, I can’t explain it. It may be that I have only a vague idea because I’ve only inferred meaning from a couple of sources, or it may be because I’m not very good at vocalising these kinds of things.
Carlie’s last blog post..Zettai Kareshi - Episode Three - Review and Caps
on May 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Clay - Wait - that first part makes no sense. “All rectangles are oblong squares” is factually incorrect. (Because some rectangles are squares…) A square is a shape with 4 equal, parallel sides and 4 right angles (also equal). A rectangle is a shape with 2 sets of parallel sides and 4 right angles. But yeah. Ha ha. I like the rhombus thing - but why would I throw an additional wrench in my poor teacher’s clockwork?
Carlie - I am very much the same! My passive vocabulary is big, and explaining stuff is difficult at times. But I really enjoy the challenge. I guess I get a kick out of the epiphany I have too when I discover how to easily explain something complicated.
on May 13th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
ohhh … donuts….
on May 13th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Greg - Yeah….donuts…..
on May 13th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I can see what you are getting at. Okay, some rectangles are squares, but if they [i]are[/i] squares, are they really something we can call rectangles? @_@
claytonian’s last blog post..Mother’s Day: The Movie
on May 14th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Zero *is* plural. In English, anyway. Plural doesn’t really mean “more than one” It means “other than one”; ie anything other than singular is plural — not only 0 degrees, but also 1.00001 degrees and 0.99999 degrees. It’s a uniform usage:
How many cats are there?
there are 2 cats
there is 1 cat
there are (no/zero) cats.
on May 14th, 2008 at 6:25 am
“there is nothing more gratifying than watching someone “get something” for the first time. The epiphany is what I live for in this job.)” BINGO!
Yes, my wonderful son, you have figured it out. And that’s why I’m still teaching little kids even though some days they drive me bonkers.
Hey, I think it’s spelled Celsius, but equivalency is in my dictionary as well.
I’m jealous that you get to see Beauty and the Beast!
Love,
Mom
on May 14th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Clay - the short answer is YES. Ha ha ha. According to the definitions, YES we can.
It’s like battle of the nitpickers here. Ha ha.
Bingobangoboy - welcome to the blog. And sweet name. Where’d you dig up this interesting info on zero and plurality vs. singularity? Thanks for the comment!
Mom - Awww. Don’t let the little kids drive you bonkers. Celsius. Hey! What do you know? It likes that spelling. (Aaah. I looked it up - Celcius is the French spelling. Celsius is the English spelling. But both are valid.) I’ll use the English spelling from now on though, just to avoid the stupid little red line. Ha ha.
on May 15th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
But I really want to know how to tell a square rectangle from a non-square one. I might be challenged by the mathletes! The shove compasses under people’s fingernails if they’re not satisfied.
claytonian’s last blog post..Just like that, Japanese
on May 15th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
It’s simple - if it’s a square, it is both a square AND a rectangle. If it’s a rectangle, and it happens to have 4 equal sides then it is also a square.
on May 15th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I hate (and love) those questions that don’t have real concrete answers. I wish I knew exactly WHY English morphed the way it did.
I’m itching to say it has something to do with how it changed from Latin etc, which could very well be true, but it could just have easily have been a mistakes ages ago that got carried on for years on end.
Anyway - if you do ever find a solid answer, by all means let me know. Have fun at Beauty and the Beast!! Are they going to screech “IRASHAIMASE” “IRASHAIMASE” instead of “be our guest, be our guest?”
Nicole’s last blog post..The Cambodian Cow On My Luggage
on May 15th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
and yes i know i made errors in my post. no need to point them out to me.
Nicole’s last blog post..The Cambodian Cow On My Luggage
on May 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Interesting post, which made me think! I probably couldn’t have come up with a good answer right away.
You really say “negative 1 degree”? Isn’t it “minus 1 degree”?
on May 16th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Nicole - I love language glitches too. (I recently marveled at the fact that France is responsible for American wacked-out pronunciation of “Iraq.” When we say something like “eye + rack” we’re using the English pronunciation of both vowel sounds; when we say it more like “ee + rock” we’re using the French pronunciation of both vowels. France caused Americans to deal with schizo pronunciation via the Norman conquest of England. Awesome. I mean, that theory’s as good as any of the other billions out there.) And they sing 「ようこそ！どうぞ！」 in the song ひとりぼっちの晩餐会.
Ken - I guess I do? I dunno. I say both, I suppose. But I think I usually say negative, because I associate minus with mathematic calculations?
on May 19th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Deas - thanks for the welcome, although actually I don’t comment much. Well, I guess the idea of zero being grammatically plural is just something I figured out after being through a couple of rounds of the same kind of conversation you describe. Although a quick Wikipedia search on “plural” seems to agree:
“Languages having only a singular and plural form may still differ in their treatment of zero. For example, in English, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, the plural form is used for zero or more than one, and the singular for one thing only. By contrast, in French, the singular form is used for zero.”
Once you get the idea that “single” only means exactly one, and “plural” means anything else, it suddenly doesn’t seem so strange any more. Yeah, it’s a little weird to think of zero as plural since we’ve probably all been told that plural means “more than one,” but isn’t it even more weird to think of it as single?
As for minus/negative with temperature, I use “minus” when talking about weather, and “negative” in other contexts.