The grammar of reading

A short reference to where the language you are learning differs from the languages you already know — and where it does not. It is the Bridge Method applied to grammar: only the points that trip a reader, each one stated the same way in all six languages, with the forms side by side.

It is for learners who know more than one of Immersive’s languages, so the comparisons are off until you turn them on: Profile → Account → Languages → Use the languages I know to explain the one I’m learning. With them off, the pages can still be opened, but nothing is measured against your languages or underlined in your reading.

The Bridge Method

Immersive’s six languages — Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French and English — are close relatives. If you read one of them, you already hold a large part of the others: thousands of shared words, the same constructions, parallel endings. The Bridge Method is the idea behind Immersive: rather than teaching the language you are learning from zero, every part of the app starts from the languages you know and stretches them.

In practice it comes down to three things:

  • Comprehension first. You succeed by understanding a text, not by translating every word, and approximating is allowed. Understanding runs ahead of speaking and writing, so Immersive tracks the two separately.
  • What you know is a resource. Word aids show the look-alike in a language you know, the reader points out only what is opaque to you given your languages, and the aids thin out as your level rises.
  • Grammar as comparison. The grammar of reading is the method applied to grammar: the constructions that trip a reader, each stated the same way in all six languages, the forms side by side in the order of the Romance continuum (Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, then English at the French edge), so that each column is a small step from its neighbour.

Browsing by section

Open Grammar and choose the Grammar of reading row at the foot of the page (or go to /grammar/reading). The page shows your languages beside the one you are learning, with Edit in Profile to change them. The 26 sections are listed by topic under seven headings: Lexicon, Sound and spelling, Syntax, Verb system, Determiners, Function words, and Morphology. Each section shows how many comparisons it has and, once you have recorded languages you know, how many differ from yours and how many work like yours.

Open a section to see its comparisons. Each row names the languages that differ, and says either Differs from yours or Same as the language of yours that works the same way. Rows marked Forms table are conjugation tables: they open the Verbs section instead.

Reading a comparison

A comparison page has three parts:

  1. Which languages differ, and how this comparison stands against yours. When one of your languages works the same way as the language you are learning, the page quotes the shared form, so you can see the similarity rather than take it on trust.
  2. The statement, in the language you read best. Use Read in to switch it to any of the six; your choice is remembered.
  3. The examples: the same sentences in all six languages, one row per language in the order of the Romance continuum (Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, English). A dotted underline marks the language that differs; your own languages and the one you are learning are in full ink.

Below, See also lists the related comparisons, and Learn this properly links to the grammar notes with exercises that teach the construction, in the language you are learning and in yours.

Ask about this comparison opens the Coach with the comparison in view, and Something wrong here? sends the team a report about it. When you arrived from a document or a review, the link at the top takes you back there.

In your reading

When a sentence in a document contains one of these constructions, the reader gives it a dotted underline. Tap it: the popover shows the translation, then the comparison’s summary in your reading language, which of your languages works the same way if one does, the example in your languages, and Open the comparison. The comparison page brings you back to the same sentence. More opens the comparison in full without leaving the page. On a comparison page, every example sentence is tappable in its own language, with its own audio.

Every published comparison is underlined, including the ones where a language you know already works like the one you are learning: the popover then says so (Same as Spanish), which is the reassurance, not a gap. The underlines appear only with the cross-language comparisons turned on in your profile.

Further reading