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Not Studying Grammar | ||
Tags: Natural method | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4637 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 25 of 89 13 August 2013 at 1:13am | IP Logged | |||||
It probably doesn't help the average language learner, but it acts as useful "shorthand" for people who want to talk a lot about language, as people on HTLAL tend to do. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6512 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 26 of 89 13 August 2013 at 11:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Generations of linguists have established the rules of grammar by categorizing millions of examples, and when you do that you need labels on each category. But the language learner may in some cases be more confused than assisted by all these names which originally just were intended to help a researcher, and in that case it may be enough to notice the main names of tenses, cases etc. and leave the rest for the poor souls who have to pass an exam where they will have to know the complete set of names.
Let's take an example: English basically has two finite verbal forms: the present and the past of the indicate (plus a present subjunctive which mostly coincide with the indicative present). Besides there are a number of infinite forms: the infinitive, the past participle and the present participle plus some adjectival and substantival derivations, which mostly are found as separate words in dictionaries. All other tenses are formed by using the basic forms of a few auxiliary verbs to form compound forms, which again can be used to make even more compound forms, and all these combinations have names. Do you really need to learn the names for all these combinations of 1, 2 or 3 components? Not really - except to understand grammars. If you see a reference to the English 'perfect' you are supposed to know that it is the present form of 'to have' plus the past participle of the verb which carries the bulk of the intended meaning, but you can see that by yourself if the author has provided an example. Your basic task as a learner is to know how to use the available combinations (which includes being aware of empty slots), and if you can build the combination matrix in your head without looking in a grammar then it's just fine. But even if you do use a grammar you can use it to grasp the basic combinatorics and then leave the names aside. Now the English verbal matrix is fairly simple and consistent, but there are cases where it would take an insane amount of exposure to see a logic - maybe because there IS no logic, or it has been buried in the mist of dawn. And then you may have to learn each occurrence as an isolated case (like ox, oxen) or you just want to keep a cupboard somewhere with exceptions. Maybe there is a name for a certain group of exceptions, and if you know it you can use the index in your grammar to find more information. If not, you have to know your grammar well to know where the hidden stash might be within those 300 or so pages. Or in other words, you have to know the structure or your grammar well to find things without knowing the exact linguistic terms - but it can be done, and sometimes it is more logical to know the structure than the individual terms. But those that know neither the structure nor the scientific terms used in grammar books are left to their own guesswork, which may be more or less wellfounded. Edited by Iversen on 13 August 2013 at 12:47pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 27 of 89 13 August 2013 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is no way to efficiently use the language without using the grammar. But there are many ways to approach learning it. Such as:
1. tons of input. Especially when you already know a related language, this is an awesome way to learn. And it does enhance your skills at any point of your studies. 2. the rules and tables. They have bad reputation due to people who use them as the only way to teach a language and fail for understandable reasons. However, they can make learning much faster than picking the piece of information from tons of examples. Of course, there are courses that explain the rules well and those who explain them badly. It's always up to you to choose. 3. grammar exercises. Fill the gaps, translation, substitution drills and so on. Again, they have a bad reputation but they offer a lot of practice. They take you out of your comfort zone. They allow you to focus on just the one thing before you are ready to multitask in real communication. You can learn without them but they can make the path easier. 4. practice in real situations. Awesome for many skills. But unless you are immersed for really long time, you risk getting stuck at quite basic level. And I have met people quite a lot of people who speak fluently, live in the country for years, can get across any information they want. But they will always sound uneducated or stupid and will never get some jobs and opportunities just because they have never focused on correct use of grammar. You will never learn like a child because you are not a child. EMK wrote a great post about it. Most products promising to teach you as if you were a child are overpriced rubbish. And one piece of advice: Don't ask usual natives about grammar. Ask them how to say something correctly or better and you'll get great insights. Ask about a grammar rule and most won't know what are you talking about and you'll end up with stupid advice like "grammar is useless, don't learn it". 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3953 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 28 of 89 13 August 2013 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
+1 to everything here! I think that the best ways to learn grammar are through conversations with natives, and through reading. After teaching children for many years, I can tell you that the kids who read the most are the ones with the best grammar - both written and verbal! I do some grammar exercises, and add them to my anki deck, but explicit grammar study is driven by my need to communicate. It doesn't form the cornerstone of language learning for me. I actually put up a blog post yesterday after reading and posting to this thread. Am I allowed to link to my blog here? If not, then I apologize and will edit my post to remove it. Thanks! www.tobefluent.com/2013/08/12/i-live-only-in-the-present Edited by Stelle on 13 August 2013 at 4:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6468 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 29 of 89 13 August 2013 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The thing that worries me about learning the way children do is that I don't really want to speak and read and write the way a child does.
Children also get lots and lots more input than the average foreign learner of a language. Not only that, adults have advantages children don't. We are able to look at languages with a certain amount of logic...but I would be the first person to admit that languages don't always seem terribly logical. Don't get bogged down by the grammar, but don't be too quick to assume that it can't be helpful. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5037 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 30 of 89 13 August 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's not necessary to learn grammar, it's just easier. One could, when approaching a language, expose themselves to so much input that they develop a largely unconscious sense of what is right and what is wrong (actually Chomsky says this isn't enough, but ignore that for now). This is how people learn their first language. And you could do the same thing with a second language, but should you? Let's look at an example. I want to say "a backpack" in Italian, and I need to figure out what the article is. ____ zaino So, if it were my first language, I would just expose myself to a massive amount of input. I'd hear adults speaking constantly, sometimes to me, sometimes to each other, and certain patterns that are frequent would start to sound more right. I'd be corrected if I spoke wrongly. Eventually I'd recognize that the indefinite article in Italian is un, uno, una or un' (ignore that if I'm just listening, un' and un sound identical; also ignore the fact that if I'm a child I don't know what an article is--I'll still have a vague sense of what it is to refer to something indefinite). After a longer amount of time, I'd get a feel for when the male articles un/uno and the female articles una/un' are used. And eventually I'd get a feel for when un is used and when uno is used. That'll work, and it does work, nearly flawlessly with Italian children. But once you're old enough to understand things like grammar, you have another option for determining the correct answer: simply learn the grammar rule. "The article before masculine singular nouns beginning with z is uno." If I just learn that rule, I will instantly be able to produce the correct article in this situation (provided I recognize gender, et al). Which is better? I honestly don't know--I prefer learning grammar rules so as to speedily be able to recognize and reproduce correct speech. But the person who relies more on exposure will undoubtedly have strengths I don't have. In my defense though, the learned grammar rule is usually only used at the beginning. I practice extensively after that until the rule is simply second nature. Learning a grammar rule is just for me a substitute for that native speaker adult who, were I a child, would constantly correct my mistakes. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4342 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 31 of 89 13 August 2013 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
All the people I know who are C2 in English, to the point they sometimes correct my own English when we have been involved in joint writing projects, were exposed to massive amounts of English by reading and watching movies. I am open-minded about how much learning explicit grammar rules speeds up the process of learning. I certainly think my own (native) English was helped by reading style-guides when I started university, but I am convinced no one gets to real C2 level without massive amounts of input (and perhaps a significant amount of output at some point). Edited by patrickwilken on 14 August 2013 at 9:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5037 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 32 of 89 13 August 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think I agree. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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