Fun fact: Most Romance languages don’t actually have “why”. Instead they have “forwhat”: “pourquoi” (fr), “porqué” (es), “perché” (it), “porquê” (pt), etc.
It makes me sad that in school when we were forced to learn French, none of my peers seemed to register that “pourquoi” is just “pour” and “quoi” smashed together - and they don’t teach it that way, either. They should teach it as “literally ‘forwhat’, takes the same linguistic function as our ‘why’”.
There’s a lot of things, actually, that when they teach language, they should teach literally, instead of trying to teach its equivalent in the person’s native language. It makes for a better understanding of the language.
I’d have an easier time learning language if everything was translated literally, grammar included.
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@naln1 Here's another example: adieu (fr) / adiós (es) / addio (it) / adeus (pt) / adeo (ia). They all function as "goodbye" (with connotations of permanence in pt-BR), but by etymology, they literally mean "to God". The full expression in French would be "a dieu vous commant", literally "to God you I commend", or less literally, "I entrust you to God".
I think what you're suggesting works better for people who like learning this stuff. A required class wouldn't bother, because like half the students don't care anyway.
