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Grammar or Pronounciation more important? | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5834 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 28 30 October 2011 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
It wasn't a matter of not being clear, it's a matter of not saying what you meant. You explicitly asked which was more important in the title, rather than asking if either is neglected. You're not the only one to do this -- in fact, one of the biggest problems in language learning is that people tend to look at what's lacking in one teaching methodology and build a new one around that, ignoring the good of current methodologies. They all start out the way you did -- overstating the problem while understanding the problem. But they talk themselves into believing what they say, rather than just saying what they believe to start off with. I find myself doing the same thing, but thankfully there are people round here who tend to bring me back to Earth and show me my mistakes. So when you're criticising existing techniques and methods, be very careful to say what you mean right from the start. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5834 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 28 30 October 2011 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
That said, if forced to, I'd chose
...because pronunciation is something that gets harder and harder to improve the longer you're learning. Grammar too, actually, but vocabulary just keeps getting easier. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6260 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 11 of 28 31 October 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged | |||||
That's something I didn't even think of. If you are to the point of having your poor pronunciation ingrained as a bad habit, then it probably would be harder to fix the longer you keep doing it the wrong way! Back to answering my own question, I think pronunciation is more important. If someone comes up to me and enunciates clearly: "help! Map lost. Where bathroom?" I know exactly what they mean. But if they come up to me and are like "excuse me, I've lost my map and can't seem to find the bathroom. Can you please tell me where it is?" but I cannot understand any of it, it's not really going to get anywhere. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5131 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 12 of 28 31 October 2011 at 6:21am | IP Logged | |||||
But there you're comparing poor but comprehensible grammar with totally incomprehensible pronunciation. Of course you'd prefer the former! What if the poor but comprehensive grammar went "Bathroom lost! help map where?" instead? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6260 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 28 31 October 2011 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||
You lost the bathroom? I will show you where the maps are! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4879 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 14 of 28 31 October 2011 at 8:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Grammar is more important and vocabulary is much more important than both grammar and
pronunciation. For example, you all see my grammar mistakes (no one corrects them, however), don't you? Do you care how I pronounce those words? I spoke English when I was in Denmark for a week. Becides that, I have never had a necessaty to speak English beyond the classroom. And this is a very frequent situation. Although that's true that it is difficult to correct one's pronunciation after long studying. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5131 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 15 of 28 31 October 2011 at 9:33am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for that :) I can't decide between grammar & pronunciation. I'll just choose good grammar + poor pronunciation because then at least I'd make sense when I write. For oral communication I really don't know. Edited by smallwhite on 31 October 2011 at 9:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5030 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 28 31 October 2011 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I say pronunciation, because in most languages your pronunciation needs to be very good just to be consistently understood, whereas your grammar only needs to be decent. Of course "very good" and "decent" are hard to quantify, but that's my general observation.
Also, good pronunciation impresses people a lot more and gives the impression that you're a "good speaker" more than good grammar does, which, besides providing a nice ego boost, makes native speakers take you more seriously and be more willing to speak with you. At language meetups I've met quite a few people who've lived in France for a year or two and speak with a very good accent but make a lot of basic grammatical errors, and they're always considered good speakers and taken seriously. Also, the fact that these people have acquired a good accent but not good grammar says a lot about which is more important for someone in a situation where they need to use the language :) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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