Based on writing produced by second language learners at different proficiency levels (CEFR A1 to C1), we adopted a usage-based approach (Ellis, Römer, & O'Donnell, 2016; Tyler & Ortega, 2018) to investigate how German and Spanish learner knowledge of 19 English verb-argument constructions (VACs; e.g., "V with n," illustrated by…

Discusses the benefits of short answers and how they differ in German and English. Provides hints on how to teach students to produce reduced answers that are grammatically acceptable in spoken German. (EKN)

Weak forms belong to the realm of sentence phonetics. Syntactic and phonetic conditions for the various appearances of weak forms are discussed. Two examples show how much of a role weak forms have played in FL teaching. Comparisons with English are made. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Part 1 of the article appeared in vl nl of Linguistik und Didaktik.'' (WB)

Lexical differences between English and German in "there" constructions are examined. Contrastive evidence is also examined to propose analyses for certain troublesome types of "there" constructions in English. The descriptive approach attempts to show that the structuring of information in "there" sentences is dependent on lexical features of the…

Discusses failings of the more common rules on German word order placement, then considers in detail a recent study on the subject by Ulrich Engel. (Text is in German.) (DH)

Suggests that the acquisition of German syntactic patterns can be facilitated by providing 10 rules for German word order at the beginning of the first semester of instruction. The 10 rules and illustrative examples are included as well as notes on their use. Two sample student handouts are appended. (SED)