Teaching > Grammar Questions and Teaching Suggestions

"Take a rest."

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Davey:
The elementary book I use teaches "Take a rest." Seems grammatically correct, but I've never heard this where I'm from (Canada). We say, "Get some rest." What about you guys?

I guess Koreans think it's right because of "Take a break," "Take a shower," etc.

teachermc:
I have the same book.  I heard this expression a lot since being here but this is the first time I have been asked to teach it to students.  Since this is a widespread English-Korean expression here and something that most students already know, I have decided to emphasize the new expressions rather than trying to help the students un-learn 'take a rest.'

Every teacher chooses their battles.  I do not have much of an explanation to back up my method.  I guess I would feel like it was most important to address if it were a problem of unclear pronunciation or incorrect grammar.  Fixed expressions are illogical to begin with; I do not want to be stuck in the quagmire of defending a phrase like 'tell a story' while discouraging students from generalizing from the expression and saying something like 'tell a book.'

Sprite06:
It's in the book I'm using as well.

When it came up, I wrote this on the board

"You should take a rest."
"You should rest."

My co-teacher and I explained to them that the first sentence is widely taught and used in Korea, but to a native English speaker, it sounds very awkward.  The second sentence is much more natural. 

I'm from USA and I've never heard anyone say "take a rest".  I made sure the students knew that.

Jozigirl:
I use the expression "take a rest" but only when doing something like hiking or playing a sport.

theTazz:
I'd never heard the phrase "take a rest" before coming to Korea. It's one of those dreadful Konglishisms.

I brought it up with my co-teacher (she'd asked me to make a PPT of the chapter's expressions) and I explained that while it's very common in Korea, no native speaker would ever say that. She was quite surprised but she asked me to teach them the better expression "get some rest" and she explained it to the class.

For the rest of the chapter we've used both, saying "The textbook says..." for "take a rest"  and "But the better expression is..." for "get some rest".

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