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Super-Fast Grammar Learning Techniques | ||
Tags: Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 9 of 11 22 January 2012 at 12:48am | IP Logged | |||||
There was actually a way for a beginner to read grammer in their target language. Transparent Lanuage used to have grammars available in most of the languages they covered in their early days. So when I had studied German for about 6 months, I then read a German grammar summary in German. The TL method meant I was able to understand and figure out most of what I was reading, and checking verb endings/vocab/etc was instant. It was great because it combined learning by grammar with learning by exposure. Sadly, TL have gone down the commercial route of big promises with lots of whiz-bang content, so they no longer offer grammars. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Balliballi Groupie Korea, SouthRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4627 days ago 70 posts - 115 votes Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 11 22 January 2012 at 4:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is a way of shortening the time it takes to ABSORB the grammar.
You need to first spend time learning the grammar and understanding it quite well. There is no way of getting around that. It might mean reading and reviewing the text book several times. But even if you understand the grammar WHILE you are studying the book, there is no guarantee that the grammar will stick in your head. (That was the problem I had when I studied Korean grammar from an advanced grammar book. There were around 1500 grammar endings I had to learn individually. And I had to know how to attach each of them to the end of verbs and nouns, changing the verb endings as required. I read the grammar book about five times but I kept forgetting what I had learned after I finished reading because there were so many of these grammar words to remember.) If you are in a situation like mine, instead of reading and reviewing the book more times, what you can do is to get an online newspaper article in the target language. Choose something that has a translation if at all possible. (I couldn't find ones that had exact translations. There were English versions of the articles but they were not translations.) I suggest an online article because you can copy and paste it onto a document and copy and paste definitions (from a computer dictionary) and other things. Now work on the article paragraph by paragraph. Make sure you have a good bilingual dictionary on your computer, preferably one that shows sample sentences and common word collocations. Then look up all the words you don't know. Grammar will help you work out the dictionary form of the word if this isn't apparent. Place this list under the paragraph on your document. Then make a word for word translation underneath the paragraph referring to the list. It probably won't make sense at first. Just a jumble of words. This is where you have to use your grammar knowledge. Try and work out how the sentence is structured. Write each part down as you work it out. This process can be time-consuming and frustrating but very rewarding. At the end you should have a paragraph that has been translated into English and makes reasonable sense. You are not finished yet. After you have got the translation down, go to your vocabulary list. Pick the first word. Make up your own sentence that uses this word. Choose a sentence that is simple in grammar construction and is commonly said. Try and choose scenarios that match the word. Now try and write that sentence in the target language. This will involve looking up your computer's dictionary a lot, checking that you are using the right expressions and not just directly translating from your native language to the target language because you are assuming that the same expressions are used (which is often not the case). Doing this is good practice in applying your grammar knowledge and it also helps you to learn grammar from the dictionary. If your dictionary is good, there will be sample sentences under many of the words you look up. This is very useful in many cases as it gives you commonly used collocations and tells you what prepositions are used with this word, etc. If you are stuck, just copy a sample sentence from the dictionary and modify it as you wish, eg. use a different subject noun in the sentence. I found that I ended up doing this (using the sentences I found in the dictionary and adapting them) a lot. When you do this many times (work down the vocabulary list and do the same exercise for all the words), you are really giving your grammar knowledge a good workout. You are applying grammar as you might use it in the real world. And not only that, you are learning how to express yourself in the target language. You aren't merely parroting sentences that an author has written, you are learning how to communicate your own unique thoughts, wants and ideas in the target language. You have to think like Koreans think, employing grammar the same way that Koreans do. After doing this for many articles, it is likely that your knowledge of grammar and the retention of that knowledge will be much better and it will mean that you won't have to keep revising the grammar text book. Additionally, you will be expanding your vocabulary knowledge. By the time you are translating your one hundredth article, you will be very good at composing language and expressing yourself. Getting a native speaker or a teacher to check your sentences and give corrections will help even more. The important thing is that you have a good bilingual dictionary on your computer. Being able to copy and paste significantly cuts down the time you spend translating articles and writing sentences in the target language. Here is a link to an article that I have been working on using the method outlined above. (I am just showing one paragraph.) I have not shown the sentences that I have made up myself in that link. But I will show those on this page below. http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=24558&PN=1&TPN=4 (it is on page 4) 경찰=the police (경찰은 그 살인 사건을 수사중이다./ 경찰은 살인 사건을 수사 하고 있어요. The police are investigating the murder.) 합동=joint, combination, coalition, union (합동조사반은 이 살인 사건을 스사고 있어요. A joint investigation team is investigating the murder. ) 단장=leader of a party (당장은 공격&nb sp; 명령� � 내렸다. The leader gave an order to attack.) 권익=rights and interests (권익을 옹호해야 한다. I have to protect my rights and interests.) 부장=general manager (the general manager gave an order to his subordinates to do the work immediately. 부장은 부하들에게 그것을 즉시 하라고 명령 했어요.) 검사=public prosecutor (The public prosecutor is investigating the bank irregularity case. 검사는 저축은행 비리 수사 하고 있어요.) 따르다=follow, go after a person, shadow, depend on something (모두 자기를 따라라고 명령 했어요. He ordered them to follow him.) -에 따라 = according to [see the textbook conjugations section] 께=around (I got home around 6pm. 야섯시께 집으로 돌아갔어요. ) 객실=a drawing room, a guest room (The maid cleaned the hotel room. 소녀 객실을 청소 했다.) 회장=a meeting place, grounds, site; the president 쪼그리다=crouch, squat, hunker down (He crouched and warmed himself by the fire. 그는 쪼그리고 불을 쬐었다.) 쪼그리고 앉다 / 쪼그려 앉다 = squatting on one’s heels 채=as it stands; yet; poles, shafts; a whip, rod, switch, cane; cutting in thin strips; a building, a house, a wing (He jumped into the pool with his clothes on. 옷을 입은 채 수영장에 뛰었다.) 숨지다=breathe one’s last, expire, die (He died in a traffic accident. 교통 사고로 숨졌어요.) 손모=wear and tear, wastage, a loss 친척 손모씨 (친척 손모씨가 편지를 발견했다. The grieving relative found his letter.) Edited by Balliballi on 22 January 2012 at 7:31am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4636 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 11 of 11 22 January 2012 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I see where you're coming from, having to handle similar problems to what I'm being confronted with in Japanese. Word endings change for verbs, nouns and the two kinds of adjectives, sometimes due to grammatical reasons (conjunctive forms) or politeness (level of formality), and so on.
My main grief while applying your idea to my learning would be the reading part. There are 1945 常用漢字 (chinese letters for daily useage), plus some added recently, plus some for names, etc, plus the 2 syllabic writing systems Hiragana and Katakana (of which the latter is very inaccessible for me, I don't know why). It will take me a while (a few years) to read things fluently, I guess. You can most of the time not make such a kind of literal translation, if things are left our or inferred, if particles (which control the meaning of a word within the sentence's structure) are omitted, and such, in order to then apply grammatical rules to "bring order to the chaos". What I did, was, trying to go by gut feeling. Yeah, this may sound crazy, but.. Since the order of Japanese sentences can be however you like (yeah, the rule that says a verb has to be at the end is only there to be broken for various reasons, for example emphasis), it can be quite the task to find out what a sentence actually means. :) Now, that's for the written language. The spoken language, at the speed of a native speaker, with all its slurred and blurry pronunciation stunts, is another thing altogether, and the fact that Japanese only has very few sounds leads to many homonymes and many words being very similar: yokujitsu, yokushitsu, and so on. TLDR: After learning the basics, I just tried to let go, then pick up specific grammar points one by one and tried to use them until they came naturally without thinking much. Edited by atama warui on 22 January 2012 at 10:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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