Naming Places in a City (Novice)

Practice on Your Own

• Think of the most common places in and near cities such as restaurants, hotels, different types of shops, river/lake/sea, universities, museums, cafés, bars, places of worship, etc.
• Now think of some places that may be specific to the culture and language that you are learning about. These may be places of worship or venues for cultural events, sports, or entertainment.
• Draw a map of an imaginary place and locate the places that you have listed. Then write in the target language the questions “What is this?” or “What is that?” for each place and answer them. If you are not sure about how to form these questions, take note of that so you can ask your conversation partner.
  • Practice asking and answering these questions out loud as well.
• Draw a map of the town/city where you are currently living with the names of some common places on it.

Practice in Conversation Session

• Be prepared to name for your conversation partner some of the places in the town/city where you are currently living. Show the map of the town/city that you have drawn.
• Show the map of the imaginary place you drew to your conversation partner and be prepared to provide appropriate answer to their questions (“What is this?” or “What is that?”). Go over the map several times to make sure that you have learned the names and are able to pronounce them correctly.
• Pay attention to any cultural information about places that may be different from what you had thought.
• Did you find any differences in the way these questions are asked in English and in the target language? For instance, is there a two‐way distinction between demonstratives (“this” and “that”), or are there more or fewer? What do these differences tell you about the language?