4 The acquisition of German

4.1 Introduction 4.1.1 Presentation of the chapter This chapter concentrates on two Italian-speaking learners, Tino and An-gelina, and two Turkish-speaking learners, Çevdet and Ayshe. Since it turned out that the two Italian learners represent two very different levels of acquisition, two other learners, Gina and Vito, are included in the analysis so as to give a representative sample of the process of development found for this group. Tino has frequent contact with speakers of German and makes rapid progress over the period studied. Angelina, on the other hand, is the least advanced learner; she has comparatively little opportunity for speaking German, and her utterances, though they show some progress, are even at the end still quite typical of those of a beginner. Gina and Vito, whom we have already considered in chapter 2, are somewhat more advanced in their use of the language. The differences between these learners are palpable, but they appear to be differences in speed rather than structural differences. The group of Turkish learners is far more homogeneous with respect to language contact and other factors; thus, the study is bated on the data of two learners as they give a representative picture of the course of development found. In the remainder of this introduction we shall, to the extent necessary for present purposes, outline some regularities of word order in everyday German, and briefly consider word order in Turkish (for Italian, see chapter 3).