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Aversion towards grammar? | ||
Tags: Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 37 08 December 2010 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would divide the use of grammar books (and sites) into three, maybe four phrases, with no. 2 as the most important one..
First you should look through a grammar book to see what there is to learn, but without trying to learn the details straight away. Next you have to deal with the details. However I don't think that pure rote learning is healthy (ie. repetition without any care for the meaning). I make 'green sheets' where I try to organize large sections of the morphology into very compact summaries, but having made those I mainly use them for reference while reading or writing. With syntax I like to take out one topic for more detailed study, and as part of that I collect and analyze concrete examples from grammars or from the internet. Finally I go through one or (preferably) more grammars chapter by chapter to make sure I have at least seen all the rules and exceptions. This doesn't mean that I can avoid making errors in my active language production, but at least I should know what is wrong when I notice an error. And the fourth phase? Well, it is mainly a prolonged struggle to master the idiomatics of a language, but idiomatics also have syntactic and even morphological repercussions. However the main tool here isn't the grammar books, but simply reading and listening to as much genuine stuff as much as possible. I acknowledge that small children by hearing the same simple constructions and word forms again and again for many years learn to speak in grammatically correct sentences. And nobody would try to hinder adult learners in absorbing the correct ways of putting things from things they hear or read. The point is just that you can make sense of a language much faster and with fewer erroneous perceptions if you also permit yourself to learn from the works compiled by knowledgable grammarians. Grammar books are not meant to be used in isolation - the real value of studying them only appears when they are used in conjunction with studies of actual speech or writing. Edited by Iversen on 08 December 2010 at 10:15pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 26 of 37 09 December 2010 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think there is a slight confusion here between aversion to grammar and aversion to the study of grammar. Grammar or syntax is one of the fundamental components of language. You can't speak a language correctly without mastering the grammar. However, how to learn the grammar is the big question. This is where the confusion arises. The study of grammar can be boring, tedious, inefficient and even counterproductive. One could even decide not to study grammar at all and just pick it up as children do. But make no bones about it, you have to acquire grammar, however you care to do so.
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| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5515 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 27 of 37 09 December 2010 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I find grammar study extremely interesting. In fact if a language doesn't have very "unique" or "strange" grammar to an English speaker, then it's hard for me to be as motivated for it.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 28 of 37 09 December 2010 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
The study of anything can be boring, tedious, inefficient and even counterproductive if done badly. The confusion between "aversion to grammar" and "aversion to the study of grammar" is something that is fueled by the confusion between "the study of grammar" and "bad methods of studying grammar.
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| justberta Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5577 days ago 140 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian* Studies: Indonesian, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 29 of 37 09 December 2010 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Grammar is fun if studied the right way. Meaning being mimicked and spoken, as opposed
to being actively studied from a book. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rmss Triglot Senior Member Spain spanish-only.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6556 days ago 234 posts - 248 votes 3 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, English, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 30 of 37 11 December 2010 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The problem with learning grammar is that you're learning a set of rules and then hundreds of pages of exceptions. In other words: you're wasting you time, because you have to memorize all these exceptions, and sometimes exceptions within exceptions. Although learning grammar can be fun because you have the feeling you're actually learning something, it's not useful at all for beginners.
Another reason for the aversion to learning grammar is that it's simply not necessary to learn grammar. Now, I'm all for finetuning your target language after having learned it to a certain level of fluency, because that's what natives do. But don't be silly to learn grammar just for the sake of learning a language. You won't learn a language by learning its grammar, it's a natural process you have to go through. Studying grammar afterwars not only makes life easier, it also makes sense because it's the natural order of language acquisition. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 37 11 December 2010 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't subscribe to this eulogy to the 'natural' method. Grammatical rules should certainly not be learned verbatim and in isolation, but while you are learning a language it is an excellent idea to check a grammar book to make order in the apparent chaos you have met while reading or listening, and it is an equally excellent idea to identify your principal problem areas, read what the grammar (or grammars) say about them and then try out its suggestions in practice. Maybe children don't read grammars, but that's their problem. I find it torally natural to use an excellent source of information when I see one.
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| Rmss Triglot Senior Member Spain spanish-only.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6556 days ago 234 posts - 248 votes 3 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, English, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 32 of 37 11 December 2010 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Iversen, I respect your opinion and the great way you go about learning languages, but I doubt if anyone except for an advanced learner can say what his or her problem areas are.
Only when you have a good understanding of you target language you can say what parts of the language you still not get or that still sound very foreign to you. How is a beginner or intermediate learner able to pinpoint his weak points when he doesn't even understand much of the vocabulary yet? Grammars try to turn language into something mechanical, that can be crammed and learned. Of course grammar can be learned, because people learn foreign languages all the time. However, the way it's learned is vital. Grammars do a bad job at presenting parts of the language as "rules", while they're not rules. Why not? Because there are hundreds of exceptions! Next to that, reading something and then taking the time to decode every part of the language is just a waste of time. While you're figuring out what the form of a particular verb is, I've read three more paragraphs and am sure I'll learn the grammar by seeing it in action. By that's my opinion of course... But there are more than enough linguists that would agree with me, based on solid research. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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