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Aversion towards grammar?

  Tags: Grammar
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
37 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>
CheeseInsider
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 Message 1 of 37
16 November 2010 at 12:26pm | IP Logged 
It seems to me that most, if not all language learners I know of hate learning grammar! Do you like learning grammar?

For me, it is one of the more exciting aspects of learning a language... The more alien the grammar, the more interesting it is to me. I would not want to learn a language that had an identical grammar to my own. I'm learning French now, and every time I learn new sentence structures that are (quite) different from English, I get very excited. The way I see it is, if one were to learn a language with an identical grammar to their own, then it would be nothing more than learning vocabulary. And thus, not the full language learning experience.

What do you think about this?
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josht
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 Message 2 of 37
16 November 2010 at 1:44pm | IP Logged 
I enjoy studying grammar, for grammar's sake and because I very much view it as a tool for cracking open a language. I would much rather study some grammar to figure out why words are changing forms, or why the words are in such and such order, rather than reading vast amounts of stuff and hoping I just "figure it out."
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Sprachprofi
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 Message 3 of 37
16 November 2010 at 2:11pm | IP Logged 
I don't like learning grammar tables, but I do like to see grammar points that are
different than what I'm used to, like Swahili including relative pronouns in the verb, or
having a tense for things that follow.

Edited by Sprachprofi on 16 November 2010 at 2:12pm

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furrykef
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 Message 4 of 37
16 November 2010 at 4:15pm | IP Logged 
I love grammar. Well, sometimes. Latin grammar is a pain, but I've found joy in Spanish and Japanese grammar. It's too bad that grammar is a relatively small part of a language compared to its vocabulary, so mastering a language's essential grammar is still quite a far cry from actually mastering the language itself...

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Enki
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 Message 5 of 37
16 November 2010 at 6:14pm | IP Logged 
Some people associate grammar with either being publically humiliated for making mistakes by strict teachers or internet trolls, or a whole bunch of overly complicated and seemingly endless grammatical terms and tables.

Personally I think grammar is great! I've been forcing myself to learn some basic grammatical concepts and it's been doing wonders for my language learning. I just came back from my first German language exchange, and I feel knowing about cases and phrases helped me get a lot more out of my lesson than just going in and trying to wade through the endless maze of sentences and phrases.

Looks like everyone who has replied so far are on the pro-grammar side, haha. Hopefully you'll get an answer to your original question about grammar aversion soon.
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Cainntear
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 Message 6 of 37
16 November 2010 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
People have an aversion to anything that doesn't make sense to them.

If people don't like grammar, it's because it's not being explained clearly enough to them. The teacher or the book is to blame, not the student.
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josht
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 Message 7 of 37
16 November 2010 at 8:51pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
If people don't like grammar, it's because it's not being explained clearly enough to them. The teacher or the book is to blame, not the student.


You're forgetting another issue - some people will preach against grammar if they're selling a product that more or less ignores it. If your sales pitch is all about input, input, and more input, you're less likely to use the G word.
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CheeseInsider
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 Message 8 of 37
16 November 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for your replies everyone ^_^

Cainntear wrote:
People have an aversion to anything that doesn't make sense to them.

If people don't like grammar, it's because it's not being explained clearly enough to them. The teacher or the book is to blame, not the student.


Thanks for your answer.


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