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Making Grammar Stick | ||
Tags: Drill/exercise | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Principiante Senior Member United States lucasgentry.com Joined 6286 days ago 130 posts - 138 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 7 01 May 2012 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been in the habit of listening to Pimsleur Spanish CDs on the way to and from work for the last while, and listened to Michel Thomas before that. I'm really enjoying the progress that I feel that I'm making, but I'd like to do some book work too. However, I don't have the foggiest what that entails.
With Pimsleur or Michel Thomas, it's pretty straight-forward: They tell you something, or ask a question, and you repeat or respond. They do it over and over, adding a little piece here and there, until eventually, you've got something completely new and different. They refer back to previous material in later CDs, helping you to solidify what you've heard, then eventually, you've internalized the content. With books, I'm not really sure how to get the reviewing aspect incorporated into my study. When a book teaches me a given construct, (e.g., "hace + time period + que + infinitive verb" or whatever) what am I supposed to do with that? Just answer the questions in the book and move on? Write a bunch of random sentences incorporating the new construction? Five sentences from today's lesson, four from yesterdays, three from the day before that, two from the day before that, and one from four days ago? How do you get grammar to stick in your brain? On a side note, until you've got a couple thousand words of vocabulary, do you study grammar at all? Or just memorize sentences and see if the grammar starts to stick by itself? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6937 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 01 May 2012 at 11:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Textbooks usually have exercises (or an entire book of exercises) for anything taught in the actual lesson. Ideally, those should cover the new grammar as well. The FSI courses do that a lot.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6625 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 7 01 May 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Michel Thomas should take you pretty far in terms of grammar, as far as I understand.
When it comes to advanced grammar, I prefer just adding a couple of examples to SRS. These are usually things you don't have to use, and SRS ensures I see them every now and then (I might not see them enough in literature) so they really sink in.
Another thing is that I sort of believe in a silent period, or at least in a lot of input before proper output. So yes I start working on active grammar when I know a few thousand words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sabotai Senior Member United States Joined 5910 days ago 391 posts - 489 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese, Korean, French | Message 4 of 7 01 May 2012 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
The bolded is somewhat close to what I do. I'll take a sentence pattern, or just a regular sentence, and play with it for awhile. For example, in one of the early Assimil lessons for German, there's this sentence: Ich kann es versuchen (I can try it). What I did with that is think of the various ways to use "I ___ try it". I can try it (Ich kann es versuchen), I have to try it (Ich muß es versuchen), I want to try it (Ich will es versuchen), I should try it (Ich soll es versuchen). Then I take grammar from a previous lesson and add it in. Say, the word "nicht" (not). I can't try it (Ich kann nicht es versuchen), I should not try it (Ich soll nicht es versuchen), etc. And maybe take another piece of grammar. Say the conjunction "aber" (but). I can try it, but I don't want to (try it). (I kann es versuchen, aber ich will nicht.) I will also type this all up so that I can review it, and go back to it (and correct it because I'm bound to make a lot of mistakes), later. Early on, I don't have a large vocabulary, so it's common for me to only think of 1 or 2 other ways to use something. As time goes on, I'll go back to old grammar notes and see if I can build on them more. I'll even add notes for things I can't think of how to say so that I can look them up later. Let's say I didn't know how to say "I am going to have to try it, but I am afraid to." I'll add that to the side so that when I do go back and review it, I'll remember to check to see if I can now say that sentence. If not, sometimes I'll ignore it, sometimes I'll look it up (depending on my mood and how much time I have.) And, of course, I can target a different part of the sentence. "Ich kann es VERB", or "PRONOUN kann es versuchen" and go from there. I can throw it, I can catch it, etc. You can try it, you should try it, they should try it, etc. In a way, I'm slowly building my own "grammar dictionary" as I go. That's the idea, anyway. And I usually wait to do this. If I'm starting lesson 10 of Assimil, I'll listen to the dialog in it a bunch of times and read over the example sentences in it a bunch of times (over the course of a few weeks) before I mess around with the grammar. So I could be starting Assimil Lesson 35 on the same day that I start practicing the grammar from Assimil Lesson 10. Anyway, I hope that helps and gives you some ideas. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4857 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 5 of 7 02 May 2012 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||
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sabotai, the problem with what you suggest is that you really have no reference of what
is wrong or right. For example: You're using an old Assimil book and the ß is no longer used with "müssen". So, it should say, "Ich muss es versuchen." Your negation is placed wrong as well. "Ich kann es nicht versuchen." "Ich soll es nicht versuchen." Then even with, "Ich kann es versuchen, aber ich will nicht." -- Sure, that's right, but it might be argued that "Ich kann es versuchen, aber ich will es nicht." would be better, or even yet, in speech, "Ich kanns nicht, aber ich wills nicht wirklich." would be better yet. My point is that you can't grade yourself and it's essential to have some frame of reference as to what is right or wrong. So if you're going to do things on your own like this then you should at least post your exercises on http://lang-8.com/ and hope someone checks them over for you. Otherwise you can get really cheap workbooks on Amazon by the "Practice Makes Perfect" series for around $6 or $7. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6625 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 7 02 May 2012 at 3:02am | IP Logged | ||
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If you don't reread your own sentences, it's not really a problem if some are wrong. You're getting automatic with grammar. For style&usage you need a lot of reading anyway.
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| sabotai Senior Member United States Joined 5910 days ago 391 posts - 489 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese, Korean, French | Message 7 of 7 02 May 2012 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I realize that I'm going to get some things wrong. I don't mean to give the impression that that is something I spend a lot of time doing. 95%+ of my time is spent listening and reading. I do go back and correct things when I see they are wrong. For me, that's part of the process.
After I started doing this, things started popping out at me while I read. I noticed grammar constructions better and faster, things I probably wouldn't have even noticed had I not spent a little time toying around with the grammar. And yeah, sometimes I had things wrong or I came across better ways of saying things and had to go back and make corrections. And yes, writing up entries on lang-8 would be a good idea. I've been doing that for Korean on a similar site (HaruKorean) and it has helped a lot. EDIT: And no, I never use any of my (uncorrected) sentences for reading practice. Edited by sabotai on 02 May 2012 at 3:28am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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