what I learned from NTPRS: Super 7 Verbs 2015

Working to eliminate mono-lingualism in the United States one student at a time through TCI

what I learned from NTPRS: Super 7 Verbs 2015

7/25/2015

A few times during the conference various presenters mentioned "Super 7 verbs" I had not heard about those before. It turns out that Terry Waltz has come up with what she feels are fundamental and foundational verbs that, if students can master them, will be useful in propelling their proficiency. They are:

To have
To want
To go
To like
There is/the are
To feel like (doing something)
To be

Here is the article that Terry posted on MoreTPRS. It comes from Haiyun Lu's blog: http://tprsforchinese.blogspot.com/2013/07/super-seven.html

I will make a point to have students acquire these as soon as possible. I wonder how they fall in the "natural order?"

3 Comments

Nathaniel Hardt

8/5/2015 04:06:11 am

This is a powerful thing, Skip. It gives us the depth that we need for fluency. It keeps us from wandering too far too soon. I would think that being among the most common verbs they would be the soonest to be acquired. One of the things about the super 7 is that the list comes from Chinese and so there may be a slightly different set from language to language. The Chinese list has three verbs related to English "is." It is interesting that Spanish has those same three verbs: ser for forms of "is," estar for forms of "is at," and haber for "there is." In Spanish (according to Mark Davies' frequency list), those are the three most common verbs. (It could be sad that haber's high frequency is to a huge extent due to its use with perfect tenses.) I noticed that the list you have here includes "want" and leaves off "to be at a place." Other lists tend to use "want" (querer) where Terry has "feel like" (tener ganas, which is a use of the fourth most common verb, tener).
As far as the frequency, Davies has them listed as ser (#1), haber (#2), estar (#3), tener (#4), ir (#8), querer (#12), and gustar (#93).
I look forward to hearing how this works and how you work it.

Skip Crosby

8/5/2015 08:20:11 am

Hey Nathaniel,

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my post. I appreciate your thoughts. I never considered that the order would be different for different languages.

Do you have the Davies dictionary? Would you mind posting the top 10 most frequent verbs in Spanish? I am really quite surprised that gustar is so low on the frequency list.... Does that surprise you?

If you were me would you adjust the list to include the top 7 (or 10) in Spanish according to Davies?

Thanks Nathaniel. Are you going to be able to attend the peer coaching session on the 19th.

Nathaniel

8/10/2015 04:15:33 pm

The top ten in Davies list are:
1. 8 ser to be (norm)
2. 11 haber to have (+Ved)
3. 17 estar to be (location, change from norm)
4. 18 tener to have
5. 25 hacer to do, make
6. 27 poder to be able to; can
7. 28 decir to tell, say
8. 30 ir to go
9. 37 ver to see
10. 39 dar to give

Note that the first number refers to frequency as a verb and the second to its frequency as a word. So dar is the 10th most frequent verb and the 39th most frequent word.
It did surprise me about gustar, but it is still in the top 400 words (#353), it is important in the class, and it is a key to fluency in the classroom. See you next week.

what I learned from NTPRS: Super 7 Verbs 2015

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