Culture Tab

You may have noticed that there's a new "Culture" tab near the top of the screen, below where it says "Sitzman ABC":

If you click on the Culture tab, you'll find Sitzman ABC posts related to "cultural" aspects of language. The topics there include holidays, communication, names, and other things that are difficult to classify. I'll also plan on adding more posts to this section in the near future.

Don't forget, there are also tabs that will take you to pages with lists of Common Errors, False Friends, and "Fun" ("Fun" includes things like songs, videos, and other activities).

So have a look around, and enjoy your weekend!

English Conditionals: 3rd Conditional

It's hard to find pictures to illustrate grammatical concepts, so here's a nice flower.

Hello, and welcome to "Fun Friday" on Sitzman ABC! Today we'll talk about the Third Conditional in English.

"Wait!" you're possibly thinking, "That doesn't sound like fun!" Good point. I know that grammar can be difficult and complicated, but it's also very important to learn how to use grammar correctly, especially if you want to be an advanced English speaker. So, I'll try to make this post interesting, at least, but you'll have to forgive me if you don't think it's fun.

You might remember that late last year we talked about the 1st and 2nd conditionals in English, and I had meant to write a post about the 3rd conditional immediately after those. However, I had trouble finding a song I liked that used the 3rd conditional. Some English sites mention that Taylor Swift's song "Should've Said No" is good, and it does have some examples of 3rd conditional, but it's not a good song. I just don't like it, so sorry (you can still check it out here if you want). A few songs by artists like Meat Loaf and Rancid use a little bit of third conditional, but Meat Loaf's song only uses it once, and Rancid's song is difficult to understand and a bit too vulgar for a "family" language site like Sitzman ABC.

But then I finally noticed a Journey song that uses the 3rd conditional! You can listen to the song here and read the lyrics below, or you can go to the video's YouTube page to see the lyrics.

So, where is the 3rd conditional in this song? We'll identify that in a moment, but first let's do a quick review about when we use the different conditionals:

1st Conditional: real, probable situations

Example: "If I still feel hungry after dinner, I'll order a piece of pie for dessert." 

(In this case, there's a definite possibility that I will feel hungry, so I can use the first conditional.)

2nd Conditional: unreal, improbable situations

Example: "If I were a cat, I would sleep all day."

(This is obviously an unreal situation: I'm not a cat, and I'm not going to be a cat unless a science experiment goes terribly wrong.)

Now, for the 3rd Conditional:

3rd Conditional: unreal situations in the past

Example: "If I hadn't missed the bus, I could have arrived to class on time."

(This is how we can speculate about past events that could have happened differently. In this sentence, I missed the bus, but I'm imagining a different past condition and result.) 

The 3rd conditional is structured very similarly to the 2nd conditional, except that the 2nd conditional talks about the present and the future, but the 3rd talks about a fictional past. It also has two parts:

1. The "if" part (also called the "if phrase," "if clause," or "condition")

2. The "fantasy" part (also called the "would clause" or "result")

Let's look at another example:

If I hadn't come to Costa Rica, I might never have learned Spanish.

I can say this sentence in the 3rd conditional because I'm speculating about the past. I did come to Costa Rica, obviously, but I'm just imagining what my life might be like if I hadn't come to Costa Rica. We can usually invert the two parts, like in the other conditional tenses:

I might never have learned Spanish if I hadn't come to Costa Rica.

Both sentences mean the same thing, and the condition and result are the same in both.

Forming sentences in 3rd Conditional:  

The structure of a 3rd conditional sentence is very similar to a 2nd conditional sentence, with one important difference:

In the third conditional, the condition is written in a past perfect tense ("had / hadn't" + past participle), and the result is written using would / could / might / should + "have" + past participle. 

Here are some more examples:

If Shelly had known Mike was a vegetarian, she wouldn't have cooked steaks.

If Jim hadn't traveled to India, he wouldn't have met his wife in Bangalore.

If Ryan had thought this would be so complicated to explain, he wouldn't have written this post.

No one would have believed it if Costa Rica had won the 2006 World Cup.

We might not have had transmission problems if we had changed the transmission fluid earlier.

They probably wouldn't have gotten hypothermia while camping if they had brought warmer clothes.

In other words:

If (had/hadn't) + (past participle), (would/could/might) + (have) + (past participle) 

Notice that in many cases, like in the Journey or Taylor Swift songs, we often only say the result, and the condition is often implied or not mentioned.

Can you complete the following phrases?

Roger might have gotten a better grade on his exam if ___________ .

Elaine would have felt happy yesterday if ___________ .

If Timothy had read his email, he ___________ .
If the baby hadn't spilled its juice in the car, the parents ___________ a new car seat.

(You can find many more 3rd conditional exercises here, here, here, and here.)

For more practice, listen to the song again and try to find some phrases that use the third conditional (remember that in this song, it only uses the result, and not the condition). Here are the lyrics (I'll put the third conditional phrases at the end of this post so you can check your answers):

Journey - "It Could Have Been You"

We were so close yet so far away
I'd reach out, you'd be gone
Moments that still take my breath away
There's so much more to life than loving you
You don't need me, no...

I can't wait all my life, on a street of broken dreams
It could have been you my love (where are you now)
Oh I still wonder if you remember the night
It could have been you

Time washes over memories
I can't look back no more
Change has forsaken our promises
There's someone else for you to hold again
So please stop your crying

I can't wait all my life, on a street of broken dreams
It could have been you my love (where are you now)
Oh I still wonder if you remember the night
It could have been you

Remember, remember, girl I remember
I can't wait all my life, on a street of broken dreams
It could have been you my love (where are you now)
Oh I still wonder if you remember the night
It could have been you (where are you now)
Should have been you my love (where are you now)
It could have been you my love (where are you now)
remember...remember...remember

Aah! An 80s pop song about heartbreak, regret, and lost love... the perfect place to use third conditional! Any time you talk about a past action that you wish you had done differently (a regret), then the third conditional can be your grammatical weapon of choice!

So, what phrases did you find in the 3rd conditional? Yep, they're basically "It could have been you" and "It should have been you." So as mentioned before, we often only use one half of the third conditional. 

That's about it for today-- maybe it wasn't "fun," but at least you got to listen to some Journey!

As usual, if you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below or contact me.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

New Sitzblog Publishing Schedule

Relax, Sitzman ABC's publishing schedule will not be this complicated. (Image Credit)

OK, so this is how it's (hopefully!) going to be. I noticed that I have a lot of ideas for this blog, but I never seem to have enough time to write all the posts I want to write. It seemed that I had two options:

1. Forget about the blog; do other things like play video games and run around outside in the grass with the cats.

2. Systematically dedicate more time to making this blog better, so that it gets more readers and eventually maybe even makes a bit of income through Google ads and/or donations.

I've decided on #2 for now, at least (the cats can come inside and find me if they want to play). I said "dedicate more time" to this blog, but that's an abstract concept. So, I decided I needed a fixed blogging schedule in order to push and motivate me. I decided on three posts a week:

Monday: Let's call this "Mistake Monday," which I occasionally did in the past. On Mondays, I'll write about a Common Error or some other "difficult" language area. 

Wednesday: I'll call this "Word Wednesday." I'll write a False Friend post, or something else related to vocabulary (like loanwords, for example).

Friday: This will be "Fun Friday." I'll write about entertaining and/or interesting websites, apps, blogs, games, or other things that will hopefully appeal to many readers. Yes, I realize that even if I try to make something "fun," it will be difficult to get people to read on Fridays, but they'll have the whole weekend to read it!

Most posts will be related to English, but I may occasionally talk about other languages. I'll also occasionally write extra posts on other days if something interesting comes up.

So, now I'd like to ask you to do three things:

1. Try to help by reading and even contributing to this blog, if possible. You can always leave a comment or send me an email if you have a question you'd like me to address, or if you have any suggestions for False Friends or Common Errors.

2. Help by mentioning the blog to people you know who might be learning foreign languages --especially English learners, but everyone is welcome!

3. Consider contributing a "guest" blog post of your own (email me if you have an idea, and I'd be happy to feature your language-related blog post and give you the credit). If you aren't able to contribute that way but still want to help, consider donating to Sitzman ABC (there's a yellow button in the right column that says "Donate"). You can easily donate any amount through PayPal, and your contribution can help keep the machines running at the Sitzman ABC factory!

Hopefully this will be a big step in the right direction for this blog, but of course I won't be able to do it without my readers. So as usual, I want to say a big THANKS to all of you for reading the blog. You are literally the reason I do this! Have a great week!

A Few Internet Resources For... Chinese??

Yes, Chinese! As you may know, I recently started a Mandarin Chinese course. It's enjoyable but also pretty difficult! My teacher is nice and patient, and the materials she's given us are good, but I've also been searching around for some additional resources to help me learn. I found a few sites on the internet and I thought I'd mention them here, in case any of you are interested. Best of all, they're all FREE! Additionally, if you know Chinese or someone who speaks it, and you have any tips or resource suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them!

Here are a few sites I've found so far:

Chinese With Mike

This is a series of videos done by a Chinese teacher named Mike. The style is a bit goofy at times (it's shot in his garage and he tends to wear strange shirts, hats, and/or sunglasses), but he seems to genuinely know what he's talking about when he teaches. He's able to make the 10-minute video lessons interesting and entertaining, and he does a good job explaining details about the language. The best part is each video also has a transcript you can download, and together the transcripts form chapters of a book. Especially considering that it's a free site, Chinese With Mike is a pretty great resource for people wanting to start learning Chinese on their own.

BBC Languages - Chinese

I'm a big promoter of the BBC's offerings for English learning, but they also have good sites for other languages. The Chinese learning site isn't very extensive but it does have a good variety of activities and articles, including games for tones and characters, sample dialogues, cultural information, and language guides. It would be interesting even for people who are just curious about the language, but don't necessarily want or need to learn it.

Live Mocha

Angela recommended this site after using it to practice some of her new German vocabulary. I think it's good, but it may a bit difficult for Mandarin language beginners to use. All the language courses on the site start off the same way, introducing basic phrases like "Good Morning" or "I don't feel well." That's OK for a non-tonal language that uses the Roman alphabet (like English, German, French, etc.), but for Chinese it's a bit difficult to just jump into it, without even mentioning tones or the writing system at the beginning. It can be good to listen to and identify vocabulary, but it's a bit lacking in terms of additional information.

I also downloaded a few programs and Chinese learning games to my iPod touch. If any of them turn out to be useful, I'll be sure to mention them here. 

Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments, suggestions, or language tips, please leave a comment below. Have a great day!

False Friends: Actual/Actualmente vs. Actual/Actually

Hello! I was on vacation for the last month or so, so I apologize that I didn't do any blog posts. I did put up a few things on Sitzman ABC's Facebook page, so if you want to follow that, you can do it by clicking here. 

What's another way to say this phrase in English? How would you say it in Spanish? Image Credit

Today we have another False Friend. If you don't know what a False Friend is, see this introductory post. Today we're going to look at the difference between actual and actualmente in Spanish and actual and actually in English. This is one of the most common False Friends I notice my students having problems with: 

False Friend: actual/actualmente vs. actual/actually
This SPANISH word...	Looks like this ENGLISH word...	...but they are DIFFERENT because...
actual / actualmente	actual / actually	These two words look exactly the same, but they have different pronunciations and meanings: In Spanish, actual is a word used to indicate something relevant at this present time, right now: "Mi trabajo actual es bastante difícil." If you want to say the same thing in English, instead use the word current or present: "My current/present job is rather difficult." Also: "We are studying current events in our Social Studies class." The adverb forms of these words are currently and presently: "I'm currently (right now) working on my Sitzman ABC blog." In English, the words actual and actually indicate a contradiction. They mean the same thing as real or really in this context. For example: Jane: "Pete, you have a beautiful car!" Pete: "Actually, I think it's ugly."

Good luck! If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. If you have suggestions for other False Friends or Common Errors, please tell me. 

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!