Why I stopped studying grammar (and what I do instead)
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
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In this video I talk about why grammar instruction is not as important as we are taught to think and why you're better off focusing on reading, listening, and speaking.
⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - reasons not to study grammar
0:11 - reason 1: your brain will figure it out
3:18 - reason 2: there are more important things to do
5:04 - reason 3: grammar instruction and testing
5:58 - reason 4: Krashen's affective filter
6:48 - reason 5: limited range of content
8:28 - should we ignore grammar?
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Don't learn vocabulary: • Don't try to memorize ...
Do NOT study grammar: • Do NOT Study Grammar
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❓What’s your opinion on studying grammar? Tell me in the comments!
I HAVE BEEN COMMENTING ON MANY POLYGLOT VIDEOS INCLUDING STEVE KAUFMAN'S ABOUT TOTAL FAILURE OF CONVENTIONAL METHOD, STORYTELLING AND LINGQ IN GETTING ME TO EVEN BE BASICALLY CONVERSATIONALLY FLUENT. I HAVE WRITTEN TO LINGQ MANY TIMES. I WAS SENT SUGGESTIONS COVERING THREE PAGES. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO FIRST AND WHAT TO EXACTLY DO AFTER ALL THE 13 YEARS OF FAILURE. I HAVE MESSAGES ON THE PHONE OF LINGQ HEADQUARTERS.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? I WAS PROMISED AFTER THREE MONTHS WHEN DOING LINGQ I WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND. I WAS MORE THAN DEDICATED EVERY DAY. NOTHING HAPPENED. IT FAILED. THEN AFTER COMPLAINING I WAS SENT THE THREE PAGES THAT ARE CONFUSING.
WHAT IS WRONG?
-- GEORGE DECARLO
908-342-1275
I don't study grammar, because it's not easy for me to learn. I only watch videos about learning English with subtitles.
When I first started learning Japanese 2 year ago I almost completely focused on grammar rules, which didn't get me really anywhere. But about 6 months ago I finally dropped all the grammar and focused on listening and reading and boy oh boy after I started that my Japanese elevated so much higher and so much better. But I do think why I started picking up the langauge so fast is because I learned a lot of the grammar points before.
Nice effort, I'm learning Japanese too so is learning n5 grammer is enough to start reading and listening or what stage i can start from to read?
@@airikei7874you can start from 0 grammar. Especially on a site like LingQ. I’m not associated at all with them, it’s just great for learning a language. Overtime naturally through reading (at first it’ll be difficult because of not knowing words) you’ll pick up on grammar. Over time you’ll correct yourself too.
I know this from experience with learning Japanese.
@@airikei7874I think realistically you want to be high N4 or have some N3 before reading but naturally it all depends on your tolerance for constant look ups, people will say do it early and you can but it can be very tough work. Satori Reader is a great option for grammar and reading/listening too
@@airikei7874 I don't really use the jlpt system but If i had to guess I would say I started to be able to read a lot when I got to N3. But there are kinda like families of vocabulary in Japanese. For instance I can read anything that has to do with military or sailing in Japanese pretty easily, but I can't read much when it comes to vocabulary about science or mechanics. I highly recommend everybody who is learning to stay in different families of vocabulary and get used to the words in them, then move on to the next family. Thats how I study anyway haha.
School teachers love teaching grammar, because grammar can be taught, while the language itself cannot. (A language cannot be taught, but it can be learned.) So the students who are able to learn the rules do well at exams, but they are not learning the language. And when the teachers sees that their students can't speak or write (because they don't have the vocabulary) they think: "I have to teach more... what I can teach: grammar". A huge waste of time. I am a tutor, and with one of my students, we read one single children's book, the original version of a classic, with all the French tenses such as "passé simple" and subjunctive, and one day we counted the number of tenses she knew: 11, without any grammar lessons, just as the result of reading a story, while her classmates had only learned 4 tenses in five years of grammar lessons. You do learn the structure just by listening or reading, together with the vocabulary.
Agreed. The role a tutor or teacher is to inspire, encourage, stimulate, and support the learner. The rest will look after itself.
Studying grammar is something I enjoy. It helps me immensely when reading to be able to recognize tenses and the construction of sentences. Although I have come across passages in books that sometimes do not follow grammar rules and I then make adjustments in my understanding.
I think some grammar is useful but most of the French, German and Spanish I'm learning comes from reading online news articles. Patterns of expression become cemented through repeated exposure.
Steve has created a lot of content on how to approach language learning. I suppose that a lot of it is redundant, but he makes it sound fresh each time. And maybe learning how to learn a language is like learning the language itself: don't focus on mastery but on repeated exposure. He reinvigorates me with the best approach every time I listen. I always understand his points in the moment, but it seems to take a lot of repetitions for me to make his approach my own. One reason perhaps is that his loose, relaxed approach is so different from a lot that we have absorbed through our lives about knuckling down, not being lazy, MASTERY, and he says, relax, enjoy, don't worry, it will come to you!
Learning Japanese has actually been much easier with the astounding amount of content available to watch and listen to. I’m using WaniKani to learn kanji and Pimsleur for speaking, then it’s all music and podcasts on Spotify and ANN news here on UA-cam.
Japanese is definitely easy to learn because of this; I got addicted to VNs, and I now believe them to be the best resource as the difficulty range is wide and they provide listening and reading content
Ahhh I was thinking of starting to learn Japanese next year :) that's good news. Until then I'll try to level up my Italian ;)
Same. I have Pimsleur Japanese and watch TV Japan all the time. It’s crazy how fast and fun this is
When I was first learning Spanish many years ago, I really struggled with the grammar and I wasted so much time trying to memorize verb conjugations by looking at tables. It wasn't until I actually moved to México and became fully immersed in the language when my speaking and comprehension skills took off. Since then, I haven't been worrying about studying grammar with any of the languages I'm learning and it's helped immensely. ❤
Not really, maybe the time you spent on studying grammar did work subconsciously. I've fed up with comments like yours. Grammar is not all about rules but the nature of the language. So instead of saying things like I learned grammar but it didn't help me much, I do believe it did help you in some way or another.
@@bloosol2640Yeah, I can't be more agree with you, that's a good approach
The reason why I learn languages is that I like Grammar, that's the fun of it all. trying to communicate in these languages is just an excuse so I can justify the time I invest to my family.
Thank you Steve, this video has been one of my favorites.
The best video I've never seen about Grammar.
Hace 3 años veia series en inglés pero con subtitulos en español, no lo hacia para aprender inglés solo por el interés de escuchar las voces originales de los autores, poco a poco fui entiendo y disfrutaba ver el contenido original, actualmente puedo entender mucho. Hace 3 meses me propuse aprender inglés, y empecé tratando de aprender gramatica, hoy tuve la suerte de ver el video de Steve y mi experiencia esta resumida en todo que el menciono acerca de estudiar gramatica.
Sr. Steve Kaufmann, you are one of my biggest influences when it comes to learning English, thank you very much for inspiring me through your videos!
Thank you for your insight . I love the idea of exposure. I think this will help me remember everyday stuff. If I'm exposing myself more to our family calendar, work calendar etc -ill start to remember more!! So thank you ❤
I agree, input is always going to come before grammar. Studying grammar is also important though, as it really quickens the process of language learning. Plus, it really varies from language to language how important grammar is. As I've been focusing on learning Korean lately, grammar has to be a part of what I do, because otherwise I just stumble into more and more sentences where I know every word individually but not the full sentence because of the unknown grammar points.
However I also agree that you shouldn't focus on memorizing the exact rules and such when learning grammar. In the end, that's just not going to work when speaking/writing. So what I've been doing is studying some grammar points here and there, but focusing more on understanding them than getting them exactly right if I use them.
Ironically, I recently had a conversation about a friend who just went back to studying German, and she was telling me about how she forgot all those tables and she needed to learn them by heart again. And I just know that that's not going to help her with her goal: speaking.
I am no one to disagree with you Sir. However in my personal experience while learning German, I would say learning grammar as you go is the best way to boost your learning process up. Learning grammar first is just a waste of time as you will eventually forget it all. It's much better to focus on listening and reading as you said, and also learning vocabulary in context, and whenever you encounter something that you don't understand so well or that you notice changes depending on how it's used, that's the right time to see what's the matter and learn the corresponding granmar and believe me, I have never forgotten a grammar rule once I learnt it that way. So grammar is for me very important, as it can help you build your confidence when the time of speaking comes up. Thanks for your video, it was very insightful nevertheless.
As French teachers ourselves, we totally agree with what you said. When we started our career, we followed what we had learned before and gave grammar a lot of importance in our courses. Over time, we realized that our students were not making any progress in their listening and speaking skills. We noticed that this created a wrong learning mindset for our students. As a result, they became afraid of making mistakes, they overthought the language, and they felt like they were always being tested. Gradually, we decided to put grammar in the background, along with other aspects of the language, and we focused most of our time on listening and reading, with amazing results. Seeing that difference and how much more the students are enjoying the learning experience, we will never go back to a grammar-focused teaching. However, when a student begins to learn a language, it’s very hard to get rid of this mentality, which is shaped by years and years of “traditional” training. Thank you for making us feel more confident in this decision as teachers!
Thank you, that was a very interesting video for me as someone learning Japanese
I haven't really focused on Portuguese grammar.. but I think it's pretty important that we do look up grammatical structures. You don't want to read and see a word word a conjugation that you don't know. Maybe you can figure the sentence out. But I think it's important ONCE IN AWHILE to look at grammar. But I really don't study it either myself. Although my Portuguese sucks. Reading a lot helps 😊 especially if you're talking to a native in the country you're learning. It's helped me a lot writing to a Brazilian. I'm at 2 years of study now and until the beginning of this year I never read Portuguese as Portuguese.. I would translate it in my head.. very inefficient.. I decided to just pick up a beginner short story ebook (not knowing how to read) And I was learning as I was reading.. even though I didn't understand anything at first.. also this year I never wrote Portuguese and now I can write many of my thoughts. Not always the best.. and not all thoughts.. but many.. also just had my first conversation on the phone and it was 22 minutes! I was very terrible and my listening comprehension is also terrible. But nevertheless we communicated. after a couple minutes my anxiety went away And I was just saying whatever came to mind.. even though I know I was wrong. But I wasn't thinking of what to say.. it was coming out. Idk if that's necessarily good or bad.. but I thought it was a fun experience nevertheless 😂
I'm brazilian. If you want, we can chat for you to practice portuguese :)
In my opinion, I think the problem is when you focus your learning on grammar. However, when you study some language exists some kind of natural "grammar"that people follow. But when you want to study a language and starts learning lots of rules , it is pretty difficult to feel motivated. For example, you study Portuguese, imagine you will study "Colocação Pronominal" I say that many Brazilians do not follow and there are points in this subject that they study just for doing tests.
@@canalmusicaefutebol4587 I don't know what pronominal is.. even in English I don't know the fancy word names 😂 that's why I don't really study grammar. When I say I study it sometimes I mean I see how a word is used "gostar vs gostaria vs gostasse" *i don't even know if gostasse is a thing.. but the ending is the example* I see how the ending is used in different scenarios. Pop it into my translator... Just to check to see if it's correct I'll pop in an English sentence to make sure that's how it's used.
@@gamingwithpurg3anarchy157I’m learning Portuguese too and this subjunctive moods are confusing. I actually really enjoy the studying of grammar. It’s funny because the -esse -esses, etc I’m still deciphering.
what's your instagram? (im brazilian)
I sooooo agree! Our brain is geared to learn language naturally, if we expose ourself to the language enough - or immerse ourselves in it! Thank you Steve!!
Fully concur with this. I've been saying for the longest while being an expert in grammar if you have intentions in being a journalist, author, or a teacher.
Good evening! I'm a former language teacher in my early thirties, and I recently found this channel. It's so nice to see lifelong learners coming together in a community like this one. I'm sending good thoughts to everybody. Also, I recently started learning Polish, so my final word will be: cześć!
Thank you for advising
It looks like Steve is trying to convince me to become one of his subscribers. Good tips and a good video from a person who knows about the language learning process very well
thanks so much for this video! i needed to see it, i have been feelling down lately with regards to japanese. in search of a japanese tutor to practice speaking, lately all of my new japanese tutors are trying to force grammar textbooks on me like genki (even thought i feel like i dont need it, i did the immersion method)
Wow, Steve, you're so close to 1M subscribers! I subbed to you over a decade ago and your videos are still helping me to this day. Your video speaking in various languages to Luca was what inspired me to take up Spanish. I now have a pretty solid level in the language, mostly from using an input based method. Thanks for turning me onto languages, I'll forever be grateful to you for that. 👍
Thank you. Nice to hear that.
Thank you!! Someone needs to say this.
You’re my hero, Steve. One year into my reading and listening to the melifluous italian language I am fending well without too much grammar. Granted, I still struggle when I speak, but that’s due to these two facts: 1- I lack the confidence that I have when I write, and 2- I only have one person with whom I speak for a few minutes once or twice a week. I understand most of what I hear even when the people are talking very fast, the exception being sicilians. Thanks for all your videos and savvy advice. 🌹
that’s good to hear! im italian so if you have any doubts you can ask me i’d gladly help you out. What is your native language?
@@luyssm Thank you! Sorry for the late reply, I only noticed now. La mia lingua madre è lo spagnolo, ma sono cresciuta anche con l'inglese, quindi conosco bene entrambe le lingue. Il mio grande problema è che non ho nessuno con cui mettere in pratica l’italiano, soltanto una nuova amica pugliese con ciu parlo per wassap ma non troppo spesso. Pertanto, mi sento bloccata quando parlo.
@@pattidifusa4363 ho capito. Nonostante quello, comunque parli e scrivi bene. La pronuncia spagnola è più o meno simile dai. Posso consigliarti di parlare con te stessa allo specchio oppure esprimere come ti senti in italiano e se proprio hai difficoltà nel trovare qualche parola, ti puoi aiutare con un dizionario. Tanto non bisogna sforzarsi, studiare una lingua è anche svago e divertimento. Ti auguro buona fortuna per i tuoi studi 🍀
Grammar-instruction based lessons don't typically take place in Beginner to Intermediate language classes at a language school, all that often. But they do occur, yes. Also, grammar is not simply sentence structures and rules. It also refers to many different things, phonology, morphology, phrases, clauses, and vocabulary. You recommended, listening to the target language, listening for patterns which is phonology... A part of grammar. Additionally, reading and listening are very different to one another. Languages will have different written grammatical rules in comparison to spoken grammatical rules. Like English, where we commonly use elision and connective speech to shorten words and sentences. I.e. "I want to eat something delicious." -> "I wanna' eat somethin' delicious." Which a language learner could read and hear but not correlate them as being the same.
As you already know, in Japanese, one word can have many different meanings and can actually change meaning based upon your notion of grammar. For example, ○○そう(です)-> to seem/look. However, there are certain adjectives that you can't use this with, which many non-native speakers mistakenly do. For example, かわいい, you can not say かわいそう as it does not transalte to "looks cute" but to "poor thing". Again, this can happen with things like すごい, most people will know it to mean awesome/amazing, and it has a positive meaning but don't know that it can have a negative connotation. I.e. すごい顔 -> awful face (google translate will say the opposite, it's not perfect guys). Then there's タメ口 and 敬語 which you could learn, but you don't know how to use as they're complex and nuanced. How should someone learning Japanese, then approach the language? Should they learn タメ口 as it's how the Japanese first speak as children, and adults use it with those younger than them or to friends or should they learn 敬語? Authentic materials aren't always enough, and not everyone has the luxury of being able to visit a country or live in an area with accessibility to a first-language speaker.
Danke für die Tipps! Diese spezielle Regel in der deutschen Grammatik hab ich auch noch nie gehört! Ich denke mal, dass dein Deutsch recht gut ist 🎉✨🌟
Ich verblüffe meine Freunde mit dieser Aufgabe: ich erzähle folgende Geschichte ind sie sollen sie in die 2. Vergangenheit setzen: In den Bergen wohnt eine Gruppe von Zwergen, die viele Dinge tun, die wir nicht kennen: Sie lachen, reden, botieren und parmen.
In der Vergangenheit sagen alle Freunde: die Zwerge haben botiert und GEparmt 😂.
I agree with his idea about vocabulary acquisition being the main goal we should aim for when learning a new language. Most of our time needs to be dedicated to language input, not to grammar rules (it's the easiest part)
Great job thanks
Incredible content.
thats awsome sir !!!
Did you use this approach to learn which languages without grammar? I did learn English and French without really studying conjugations or focusing on grammar textbooks, and now I'm studying Mandarin. I passed a test which I had to compete with other students from the University to get a scholarship to study in France, I passed, and I'm finishing my graduation here in La Rochelle. There's 1 year and a half that I'm living here now. I was just beginning my studies on the university and competed with people who were already finishing the graduation with a grammar based study approach… And I passed it anyway, not bragging, but it just shows the effectiveness of an input based approach compared to a grammar based approach in practice.
I'm Brazilian, by the way :)
It's been years that I follow you, and you are a great inspiration in my journey!
I only became comfortable in French once I stopped trying to remember the grammar. Plus on y pense, plus on se trompe.
Ive been watching your channel for a while and feel inapired to learn languages after watching... But what really leads me to want to learn languages is the connection i would feel yo more people around the world. This is especially true for me now, watching what is happening in Gaza to 20,000 innocent people. And i just wish woth all my heart for thwor safwty and to be able to understand Arabic, so i can witness the love and care and generosity of the doctors, the journalists, the neighbors, and the children who are being affected-- in their own language without subtitles... So than none of their brilliance is lost to translation.
And i ask you, please, as a multi-lingual person who has studied Arabic-- How does understanding the language of the oppressed give you more global understanding? How does it give you more compassion? How do you have ability to engage woth media and news and see past hateful propoganda? The world knows what is happening in Gaza. But they dont know how to process it or to act. Please be a voice that helps them do that.
Thanks!
I'm someone who actually likes grammar a lot, I even prefer to learn non-Indo-European languages because I find different grammar interesting, and I agree with this video. When I study grammar with example sentences, I just focus on enjoying learning about how the language functions. I'll get a grammar book for every language I study, but it never consumes the majority of my learning time. We can't try to memorize rules, grammar lessons simply help me to notice what's going on in a language quicker. It's only with hours of listening and reading that I can actually use the grammar rules when speaking.
I'm totally with what this video says when it comes to language learning - I just have to think of myself: What worked, and what didn't (and yes input is what works, in case it wasn't clear - the "cci" type).
Those who *should* focus on grammar a bit are actually native speakers.. when I see my fellow natives writing letters to the newspapers I cringe. It's horrible to read. And when I read English I see things like "it's" instead of (possessive) "its" all the time. Though it seems to be worse in my own language, possibly because of, ironically, English influence (I looked at a web page provided my my own company yesterday - every headline was grammatically wrong, in a very annoying way. It's pathetic.)
@@tohaason Yes, I think grammar is important to study once we're at an advanced level and want to refine our skills. I also find studying grammar for a bit to help recognize different forms as I study is helpful. I think this video is best interpreted as "Trying to memorize rules won't make you fluent in a language"
Anyway, I enjoy studying grammar and reading grammar books. 🙂
I think we should let people do what they like when they are learning language. There is more than one way to learn a language.
Thank you.
I think that Kaufmann understated just how much grammar instructions fits into the need for testing in the classroom. A much more student centered approach would be to have the students discover the grammatical patterns as they acquire the language. Yet as long as students must be ranked and teachers are allowed to opt for the easy way, grammar instruction will be the primary focus in the classroom
Wow, Steve, I watched your videos years ago when I was learning Russian and you had twenty or thirty thousand subscribers, now close to a million! Congratulations on your success!
Thanks
I completely agree with Steven. One primarily learns a language through extensive listening, reading, and speaking-this is the key to fluency. When it comes to writing, a strong grasp of grammar is very important and can significantly enhance one's writing abilities. However, without being close to fluent or fluent, one can't be a good writer.
even after learning danish to a highly competent level without using any grammar tables, i STILL went to tables for russian. this has brought that kinda thing back to me, thank you
Да, похоже, ваша правда, Стив: надо больше слушать и читать, меньше сидеть над грамматикой👍🔥.
I really like your approach. However, as a teacher I fail to see how to teach adults only by reading and speaking, without giving them some kind of basis of what a Simple Past or Present look like, for instance. Notwithstanding, I've been focusing less on grammar in the last years as I also believe we should use languages more rather than only studying them.
thank you
I stopped my sophomore year in HS with German Grammar. I've lived and worked there for many, many years. Life is good!
I always respect Mr. Kaufmann, who strives to seek interesting and creative methods of language learning, but I don’t wholly agree with the idea that grammar is unnecessary at all, though it is certain that focusing too much on the grammar-translation method does not produce anything communicative.
Speaking of the German language mentioned in this video, for example, we need to understand the distinction between „Trennbare Verben“ and „Untrennbare Verben“; for the past participle of „anzeigen“ is „angezeigt“ („ge“ follows the prefix of „an“) whereas the past participle of „übersetzen“ is „übersetzt“ (ohne „ge“).
Although native children learn the rules totally unconsciously, it is hard for the nonnatives to grasp them without any explicit knowledge. The important thing lies in how teachers can prepare practical settings where students can apply grammatical rules to actual communication regardless of what language they’re learning.
I was able to speak French very fluently through reading, listening, and deliberate vocabulary study (and some speaking, of course) way before I even started understanding the nuances of French tenses.
In fact, I still don’t think I do, but doesn’t stop me, as long as native French speakers can fully understand me.
most natives don't know how half the tenses are called.
You know subjunctive right?
Every kid assimilates it easily, because there's a clear condition behind it, and often a pronounciation difference.
But do you know how late we learn that in school? The first time we're exposed to the term 'subjonctif'? Tenth. Grade.
It depends. If you use a foreign language at work every single day, and need to communicate with your colleagues in writing through emails, reports, tasks, messages and so on----then, grammar does help a lot.
I thought grammar was useful when I learnt French, it helped me really engage with everything when I was ready, but of course, immersion in the language via books and media and speaking were the most important factor. Now learning Japanese, I have spent almost zero time on grammar, and I think it is extremely limiting. I often don't understand, or misunderstand, a sentence despite knowing every word in it. I think I need to go and actually learn grammar at some point, but I also feel a strong dread around doing it. It's uninteresting, but probably a neccesary evil in some respect.
I cant say whats best for anyone but im exactly one year in and have done anki (core 2k/6k deck) 10 words a day every day as well as reading, 3 italki classes a week (speaking, they speak to me 99% in japanese, went through genki 1,2 and Quartet), listening to podcast, watching dramas and UA-camrs both slow and native speed.
Now after a year i’m at N3 level and can watch and listen to native people and as long as there isn’t special interest vocabulary then i can understand fully and sometimes just enough to understand what is going on (50%). Really varies by the speaker and content.
From my experience having multiple sources keeping me engaged as well as meeting with a professional japanese teachers has made it all possible.
Some folks make it to N2 in a year but i also ran a business and had some kind of personal life at the same time. Somedays immersing 1 hour and somedays 6. With this semi-flexible approach,it was sustainable.
Have lived in Tokyo now for 3 months and can confidently say that reading and hearing Japanese all the time is useful but definitely not necessary. I made similar progress in the states. I just read a bit faster now.
Best of luck to you mate!
Edit: i do not regret learning grammar every week this year. I didn’t make it my main focus. Only went over it with my teachers and did some practice drills. After that i would very causally write a diary using the grammar i learned. Basically a fairly lax approach. Probably 5% of my time was invested here.
So i think the same applies for vocabulary. Learn vocabulary and grammar but let it reinforce itself via listening, reading, watching, writing etc and it really sets in. No surprise im sure. (:
Japanese particles are vastly different, so you probably need to focus on that first
My experience was kinda the opposite. In 2016 I got into kpop and soon got completely sucked up into the korean media world and only watched it.
I started picking up words and grammar naturally and after a couple of years I could just "feel" whether something is right or wrong or how it needs to be said grammatically
As a lifelong language enthusiast I'm often coming back to this question of how much grammar should I study. It seems to vary according to the language and my goals at the time. I did really well studying minimal grammar for German when my goal was just to consume content and speaking was almost non-existent since every German person I met in the US spoke English far better than I could speak German. People are encouraging but it's rare for someone to be so encouraging they'll speak to you in your target language even if they speak English really well unless you're IN their country. But when I studied Japanese I benefited so much by taking grammar classes at the local community college. It get me able to speak and have conversations. Reading came much later after I'd been studying for several years and had even lived there. People's experiences will vary but for me it seems you need to be able to speak basic Japanese at least before you can even start trying to read it due to the difficult writing system.
But like it's pointed out in this video - the brain is good at picking up on patterns but details are harder. For Japanese, there really aren't many exceptions at all so we mostly studied sentence patterns. But if you study German/French/Spanish grammar it seems ALL you do is study charts of exceptions for conjugations all the time. But they have a relatively simple writing system so instead of looking at lists of exceptions you can just read books instead.
After long time i am confident👌
I have a mix of everything. I use Duolingo for the basis, I use Lingq for extended reading and listening. In Linq I do not like the repetition of words and sentences, so I have Anki, but I do not use this too often. Regarding grammar I have a book and I read this and that, but the time I use it is about 5%. In some extend some grammar is useful. How to use present for example, what are the exceptions etc. And to get an idea how something works. That´s it, I do not make tests, I do not learn specific rules, but I have sentences to train this and that. Grammar is some sort of mathematics and if you understad the concept, you don´t have to learn every excemption. I agree: The more words and sentences you know or you are used to, the better it is. This should be the focus.
Well said old boy grammar tends to worsen my existing ocd for crying out loud 😢 😢
Thanks
I could read and understand Danish for years, watched movies, texted in Danish and wrote e-mails, but natives had trouble understanding me. Turns out what I thought was good enough pronunciation was not what native speakers expected words to sound like and I needed to get good at distinguishing sounds that sounded the same to me and I needed to learn to pronounce them in ways I didn't think was possible.
Danish is a real hard one. Even people who have lived there a long time and read well, still can't speak. Lots of sounds and a non-transparent spelling system.
@@Thelinguist Yeah, I'm in that situation right now. People wouldn't even talk Danish to me until I've read Ny dansk fonetik by Ruben Schachtenhaufen and learned all the nuances of the language, many of which are similar in English, but I could just get away with not knowing about them, because English speakers don't care if you don't aspirate your plosives, or don't reduce your schwas.
@SteveKaufmann. 100% agree. Studying grammar before you have consumed enough input is silly. It's like someone who is learning how to swim and doesn't get into the water until they have studied a textbook on how to swim. For example your swimming textbook tells you to move your right hand down until you lose resistance then move your left hand down, then kick your right leg for half a second then your left... etc. etc. you could study that in a textbook but if you just jump in the water with a paddle board and muck around a while you will learn these things naturally. Big waste of time to beat yourself up over trying to memorise confusing and difficult grammar rules.
1:50 (Learning is possible without explicit instruction) This is similar to the premise of AI training: self-driving cars, while still in their infancy, are now learning to read English signs on the road simply by seeing enough of the signs and knowing what drivers do in response, without receiving any instruction from human programmers on each sign individually. This suggests that a lot of learning, for any intelligent entity, may generally be achieved this way: through exposure and practice.
Hey there! Thanks for the video! I'll be back again :))
Yes, I am thinked that grammar is bad. Grammar is useless tbh. Thank your advices!
Im learning Romanian and all I do is just watching Romanian youtubers
With subtitles? You just watch any Romanian UA-camr or ones that specifically teach Romanian?
@@Lomogrammaton no, most of them don't have subtitles
how is Romanian. im interested
@@IncredibleStan it is similar to italian, so it is certainly interesting. Also my favorite language families or types are romance and slavic and it's like a mixture of both, so I enjoy learning it.
What is your first language? How are your progress?
I'm learning romanian and polish here in london ,there are so many romanian and polish folk here it's easy to practise
Within the limits of a traditional classroom setting, how would you go about teaching a second language? Say, for beginners? (Asking as a former teacher that struggled a lot to teach English as a second language.)
From your other video, Don't Try to Memorize Vocabulary: "Language learning is not about memorization. Language learning is about committing yourself to a process, enjoying the process, allowing the language to come into you and trusting that your brain will gradually understand more and more, gradually acquire more and more words". I agree Steve, but for me occasional grammar studies often helped quickly sort out knotty issues which were bugging me and thus interfering with my learning "flow". As you say at the end, grammar's fine if you get a lot out of it, but some people find other methods that work best for them. Thanks for the video.
I find grammar helps me get bolder in trying thingsand comprehend and speak faster! As it happens I'm leaning German and I find as an adult female just listening and repeating doesn't do it for me. I love me a good verb conjugation table and some rules of grammar.
I don't think we should overstress it, of course. But if we don't learn grammar... I mean, I hear native English speakers saying "I should have did" instead of "I should have done"... So in this one, I think grammar needs to come in early, but in light, small bites.
Anyone here lovee grammar too?
Preposition and conjunction uses is life long learning 😅
I am very beginner italian but already can start to say “that doesnt sound right” in terms of some grammar aspects just because i read small things in the language
I agree 100%
Muchas gracias maestro, siempre excelentes recomendaciones, bendiciones
خیلی خوشحالم که در حال یادگیری زبان فارسی هستید❤🇮🇷😍
I think extensive input is how you subconsciously acquire grammar. Over time you will slowly absorb what’s correct without having to put any actual effort into specifically studying grammar. Studying grammar should be exclusively for people who are interested in understanding the grammatical functions of a language. I personally am into grammar and just got Handbuch zur Deutschen Grammatik, that I’m slowly reading through to get a better understanding of the grammar of German, however I use LingQ to actually LEARN German.
I guess I can make the analogy: Input is like learning how to drive a car, studying grammar is like studying how a car works
I would love to see a conversation between Manfred and you.
Studying grammar on its own is very dull and turns people off languages.
Some people. I love it
I can’t spell well in English especially words with unstressed syllables, the I go on Duolingo, Babbel and Mondly and they all have a feature where you must spell out the words in French, Romanian, German and Norwegian or you kind of get stuck. I already understand Romanian as it is the primary language spoken in my house for the past 20 years (but we mix French and German) I already have a fairly large vocabulary of French and German words, even some Norwegian thanks to streaming movies. But I can’t spell to save my life and I don’t know grammar or its rules. A past participle and all that crap. That is why I appreciate your videos.
我開始不管文法後，忽然英文就變好了☺️
Grammar is like vitamins, it is not the whole diet but can come in handy from time to time😅
Today I gonna to talk about that I never learn grammar in each language that I learnt I get it with the time
Nice microphone 🎙️.
Also I don't think you should be studying grammar until you're at the point where you read the grammar rule and actually you already realised that you naturally already realised the rule. ie. the way the sentences is structured correctly you could already pick that it was the right way because you've had enough input to have an ear for what sounds right and wrong.
You and I think a lot a like. I wanted to ask, Steve: If students are going to take classes, and those students are at a beginner level, do you think that it's beneficial or counterproductive if the teacher limits their vocabulary to words they know the students know, at the cost of it being natural?
I have helped teach English in Japan in the past, and am also fluent in Japanese and enjoy translating J→E, and to be honest, I was afraid of "forgetting natural English", if you will, or rather creating undesirable idiosyncracies in my own English outside of teaching, if I were to e.g. use "finish" for everything even if I meant it was "over" or I was "done". There are plenty of teaching assistants (native speakers without a teaching license or their own class) who do limit their vocabulary like that, because they think it's contributing to good ol' "comphrehensible input" and they're helping create an experience where the kids understand everything without having to look new words up. (Flipping back over to "my side" of this: I have a friend who studied in Korea for a year, survived there on hyper-simplified English, and came back to the States with his own native language sounding broken as heck. So my fears were not unfounded. But I also didn't think it would really behoove my students all that much either if my English was different from the English they might eventually hear if they went to the States someday.)
As I'm writing this, I'm becoming more and more unsure about whether I'm on the right side of the crusade I'm starting here, from the standpoint of a student's best interests. XD
What's your take on this, if you have one?
I can see how it would be useful, but only if the students were all motivated enough to be reading/listening to engaging content outside of class so that they could "figure out" how to speak naturally on their own.
I mean, the real earth-shattering punch that precedes all this to begin with is, a language can't be taught; it can only be learned.
But if you're trying to teach SOME of your language, is vocab limitation on the part of the teacher a good idea?
When I was younger, I used to watch movies in german. After a time, I was able to understand almost everything. I didn't use dictionary, I didn't study grammar and I know some people, who had the same experience.
I'm hardly a hyperpolyglot gigachad, so my two cents may be worth less than that even, but I have found that, for me at least, "learning grammar" always follows, rather than precedes, acquiring language.
In other words, my brain identifies a pattern, I start to wonder if that's "a thing" then I look it up to confirm, deny, or qualify my current understanding. When a grammar rule is the answer to a question, rather than just an abstract law, I can actually understand and remember it, but usually not before then.
I agree but I believe getting an overview of the grammatical arsenal of a language helps. What do I mean by that? Finding out what meaning in terms of content some grammar has, if any. Finding out wether certain grammar is necessary or redundant. German for example has 4 cases. For english speakers cases are the differentiation between who-whose-whom. Most of the time cases are redundant for Germans would use prepositions along with it. The prepositions have the same meaning as the corresponding case. The 6 cases in Turkish however are not redundant because they do not use prepositions. There's no way to talk around cases in Turkish. No case no meaning. As a consequence one must think in terms of cases. Thinking is the real challenge and thinking requires content above rules.
Where Steve is completely right is that learning grammar by the rules often makes little sense. Here's an example from German. The language has an imperative form. That form has meaning: the speaker wants you to do something not just listen. Imperative is rarely used but in a few cases: gib! (give!) lies(read!) sprich(speak!). These 3 cover I guess more than 90% of the use. However there's no point learning the rules to construct the imperative. Why? All of the three are irregular outside of the rules.
Then there's the particular real-life situation to use the imperative. The imperative differs only in informal speech. If one address someone formally that difference goes away. Say, you ask a waiter to give you sugar. You would aks formally "geben sie mir Zucker" which needs no extra grammar. Only if I knew the waiter personnally I would speak informally "gib mir Zucker". If the German learner knows waiters personnally he or she probably speaks the language well already.
To put a sharper point to it. The imperative is more about your personal relationship with someone than it is about grammar rules.
Great point, recognizing patterns vs. remembering rules… But a word should be said here about the somewhat guilty pleasures of studying grammars. The common man ability to understand and speak a language is quite limited, I would say 5 ot 6 (except for super athletes like Steve), but that should not prevent anybody to relish the incredible richness of grammars all over the world. Grammatical patterns appear to be infinite in their inventivity and complexity. The discovery of the grammatical intricacies of an Amazonian language can be as adventurous as an actual trip to the Amazonia…!
I always had an aptitude for languages, but studying English grammar in school was pure torture, 5 years of studying and all I figured out in the end was the ABC song and how there's a lot of tenses that I can't even begin to comprehend let alone use correctly lol. After school I dropped the textbooks and started consuming content online entirely in English, switched the language setting on all of my devices, started playing video games only in English, and so on. 5 years later I was minimum at B2 level, C1 in certain areas. Now it's been 10 years and I'm starting to forget how my native language works lol. Imagine if I started doing this during those 5 years in school when I was younger, I would be like 99% fluent by now 😂
About the pattern recognition thing, it's very real, and not just for language learning. You can study science and math like this too. If you memorize some definitions and formulas you might be able to pass an exam or two, but I can guarantee you haven't actually understood anything, which usually comes to bite you later on because math and science are cumulative.
Now instead of memorizing definitions, try to understand the "patterns", the relationships between the different definitions in a topic, ask yourself questions not just about the definitions but about those relationships between them, experiment and ask yourself what makes things the way they're, what if you switch things around or ignore them, how does that effect the topic, why are these things important to the overall topic. Create a mind map of the topic, connect things based on the patterns and relationships you've discovered so far. Now after doing all of that, I dare you to forget any of what you've learned. It's nearly impossible. You could forget the finer details, but the "map" of patterns of the overall topic will be etched into your mind for a long time. Because memorizing some words is meaningless to the brain, but exploring patterns is literally how the brain works.
This is useful to a point, and is somewhat language dependent. For instance, about 1/4-1/3 of Korean grammar is written only or is used in formal situations. In hierarchical language, it is difficult to get enough exposure to certain levels of honorific speech.
pełna zgoda. te rady w równym stopniu dotyczą języków słowiańskich w tym języka polskiego z najbardziej nieregularną odmianą rzeczowników ze wszystkich większych języków świata. miałem polską gramatykę na lekcjach polskiego (oczywiście na poziomie native speakera) i tylko rozbolała mnie od niej głowa, żadnego pożytku.
Yea grammar is important but it shouldn't be what you start with .i am now trying to learn the rare Nahuatl language from Mexico and the online lessons start talking about grammar but they have only taught me a couple of words. the lessons are also in Spanish and my Spanish is not very good but nobody who can speak English teaches it well .i started learning Spanish 6 years ago i can understand it but it takes more brain power in need to focus harder. the grammar can also be annoying when i try to talk but i am progressing. a lot of people teach Spanish so i don't have to deal with mediocre teachers. but with rare languages i just have to accept it .this is a very common way of teaching only in the bigger languages can you be picky .also another issues with rare language like Nahuatl is that most of the media will be text only but the pronunciation of this language is very different from any European languages. when i read it it makes no sense but when i hear it its much clearer and i can pronounce it properly if i heard it recently .but this doesn't happen often in this language .
Reminds myself a couple of months ago. I didn't take grammar lesson. Listen only. And it take a while to moved another level. Cause while i was did test on internet. I did lots of mistakes. I know 100% the meaning of questions. But each of options is tricky. Preposition, article, gerund. Everything lose. And gradually i begun to learning grammar. I need to conquer the hardest part of english which is grammar and pronoun.
I didn't know the rule either with -ieren. I only learned German from LingQ initially, then switching to UA-cam and podcasts doing mostly input activities and I would also never put a ge- prefix to those verbs. It just sounds awkward to me but about the rule I've heard for the first time here.
And now the haters come out and say to me:
But your are tallented/a linguist! You cannot compare yourself to those who struggle with languages! They need to memorize the rule because they aren't tallented! They can't pick up languages naturally from context, only through rule memorization!
These, by the way, are the words of some of the teachers that I cooperate with.
You have to study grammar. Unless you’re exposed to a language starting from infancy and develop it by immersion, you need to study grammar. Adults minds don’t work the same. I spent the first 6 months studying text books with grammar and sentence structure and core vocabulary. Then in the following 18 months I developed a base level fluency. But there’s no way in hell I could have done it without studying grammar first.
You don't have to be an infant to develope a language by immersion though, that's what he and many other polyglots are expressing. "Learn like a baby". Still that doesn't discount your method of learning we all learn different
how can I remenber subjuntivo and pasado en español without grammar?
I am always mixing up which form I should use... he estado, estaba, era, fui, estuve.... most times everything sounds good to me... exactly like dropping an a into the sentence where it does not should be...
I'm almost convinced but i'm trying to learn polish and i dont know if its possible to do without understanding the cases, aspects, etc. Polish sentence has a every word changing the ending.
You can look at the rules, but you will only be comfortable with the patterns of the language if you get enough exposure, and enough practice making mistakes.
I don’t think the best approach is to necessarily NEVER study grammar, but to not make it a huge portion of your studying. Even in Polish, the Nominative (subject marking), Accusative (object marking), and Genetive (possessive) are by far the most common and will be used exclusively in most of your conversations anyway
I am skeptical because I think learning grammar accelerates the process rather than trying to learn it from diffusion
I can only partially agree. My Japanese comprehension seemed to significantly improve after watching many videos by mostly Japanese ammo with Misa, Miku Sensei, and Cure Dolly. Now those aren't textbook grammar lessons; they're closer to real life Japanese, in terms of the examples. I don't really watch those videos anymore (for now), but for the few months that I did it was very helpful. I can read books much more easily because of it. Also, let's not forget that we studied grammar as kids, even in our native language. There were many things I used to say, that were wrong, which weren't corrected until I learned them in school. And many English speaking adults still screw up grammar a lot. But I agree that overly focusing on it is an issue. Anyway, that's just my experience.
9:35 all you need to know
I started learning German from scratch. I have gradually come to the conclusion that learning tables of grammar is not useful, and listening and reading are the best approach. I came to that realisation through practice, which seems to have also been the case with Steve Kaufmann, so at least I am in esteemed company. I have had to check a grammar book occasionally. For example I could not make head nor tale of the adjective case endings until I consulted a grammar book. Once I saw explanations it made sense, and it’s not so hard. If I was immersed in the language from dawn to dusk, 7 days a week, then it might have come naturally. It is kind of scary to listen to a language and only understand some of it, and to read simple text, and only understand some of it. I suspect novice learners find this daunting, and prefer the security blanket provided by a traditional course, with grammar tables and exercises.
I have also started German from scratch and so far the grammar terrifies me but I love the sound of it, I mainly want to listen to podcasts etc.
you have to read carefully what he says: I just stopped studying grammar and .... focusing on listening or speaking. That's the normal process to learn a language: study grammar, stop studying grammar and try to use it.
Personally, I love learning grammar and for me on a personal note, whether my brain can recognise patterns naturally or otherwise, I feel that the time spent on learning grammar is time well spent because I don't have to work as much on the patterns later and oh, the cockiness and sense of accomplishment that you feel when you find that someone's language is not as grammatically perfect as yours, especially when you are in the middle of an argument when he/she thinks that he/she has got the better of you and you point out the grammatical error that he/she has made! XD, the perks of being a grammar Nazi!. Also, I feel that recognising patterns alone would not necessarily be helpful in mastering the rules of grammar. Sure, if you want to speak a language quickly, pick up a phrase book and go use the phrases in it with native speakers and force yourself to communicate till you feel that you have made progress but if you focus on grammar, much of the work in recognising patterns is done already and someone with a very good memory who loves learning grammar will always be able to show the loopholes in the language of someone who thinks grammar is overrated. What is more is that if we work on the bare bones and muscles of a language (grammar), we will be able to use that language more flexibly than someone who picks up a phrase book, mugs up a couple of phrases and forces himself/herself to use them with a native speaker to make them go "oh and ah" when actually they don't know that the knowledge of that person about their respective language is only skin deep!.
I know this because I have a friend who knows more languages than I do but he is the phrasebook-kind of language learner who wants to skip grammar and immediately start talking a language with whomsoever he meets from a target country, lo and behold, even today, although he speaks languages which I don't speak and I speak fewer languages than he does, both my friend and I know that the gap in his knowledge of the nitty-gritties of some of those languages is wider than mine, e.g., his main languages are Spanish and Portuguese while his French grammar sucks whereas in my case, the gap in my knowledge of French grammar compared to my knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese grammar is not as wide as his!. Moreover, I am an example of a person who started speaking the French language after learning basic grammar initially and my knowledge of French later helped me with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin and vice versa too since Latin helps with identification of root words, later I went on to start speaking Latin with other Latinists around the world. German is an example of a grammar heavy language like Latin and if a person can master the patterns without learning grammar, that is indeed a big accomplishment, though it does no harm to learn grammar to recognise those patterns and enjoy noticing those differences till they become a part of our active and not just passive memory!