Finished vs Done
Craig brought up this last meeting–one of his students, a returnee from the States used the word ‘done’ rather than ‘finished’ when they finished up some kind of activity. I’ve been rolling it over in my mind since then and I thought the following:
When speaking to my own kids I will ask them ‘Are you all done?’ When speaking to my students I continually ask them, ‘Finished?’ I really hadn’t thought of the difference before….and there really isn’t a huge difference in that I could use ‘Are you all done?’ to my students as they are children, but usually in a class room setting wouldn’t most teachers ask ‘Are you finished with your test?’ rather than ‘Are you all done with your test?’ or Did you finish your homework?
Any thoughts?
My thoughts.
1. We are the natives, Miki. We should be teaching the colloquial up-to-date use. The kids can learn the archaic stuff at JHS, as they need that for their Uni entrance exams. Our kids will never thank us, as native “specialists” for teaching them stuff they can’t use when the go overseas.
2. Depends on the situation. Sometimes “finished” is appropriate, sometimes “done”. Go with you gut feeling. Teach whichever when you feel it’s right. Hopefully they will then develop their own instincts.
3. Personally, I wouldn’t use any of your phrases
Are you all done?
Are you finished with your test?
Are you all done with your test?
Did you finish your homework?
Where I come from we generally use HAVE instead of BE as the auxiliary verb in the above situations.
I think it’s great that our students learn differently – when they change teachers they will get more exposure to yet more natural language patterns. Go with what’s natural for you!