How to treat the rules: read about them but don’t learn them

When people start studying Spanish they often wonder where to start. There’s so much to learn so it might look overwhelming (I know that I was being overwhelmed when I was in my first three weeks of studying Spanish). So what do people generally do? They pick up a grammar book and start studying the rules. Big mistake! Learning how the verbs work to some degree is ok, I approve that (hopefully I don’t sound too cocky. If I do: I apologize). But why learning word order? The place of the adjective? When to use the indefenido or the imperfecto? There’s often no fixed order, place of the adjective and it’s pretty hard to decide as a beginner when to use what tense. Time could be spend better in general, but people choose to walk a road which leads to weird Spanish that’s… off.

Do you like bread? You may be eating bread each and every day and still you don’t know how they make it. You use a car each and every day but you still don’t know how the heck they make it function like it’s supposed to function. You can do all these things without worrying about the underlying theory. You don’t have to be a scientist and understand the chemical reactions that occur when baking bread in order to enjoy a nice sandwich. You don’t have to be an engineer in order to enjoy the handling of your new car. But when it comes to learning a language you want to learn those exact same rules you normally just ignore? Are you some kind of robot? *beep* conjugate verb, add noun plus adjective *beep*. I mean, could you ever speak more contrived?

I say: read about the rules but DO NOT learn them. Learning the verb endings is ok, read about when you use them more or less. But never, ever, learn or memorize these rules. ‘Why’ you ask? Again; because it’ll make you speak like a robot. Example: take a random foreigner who doesn’t speak English all that well. Does it sound artificial, bookish? Probably. Does it suck? Yes! Now, not all foreigners speak English bad (look at me! I’m doing fine as I say it myself), but lots do due to faulty methods. They struggle to put a simple English sentence together. You can almost hear them cracking their brains to construct that sentence where to simply ask for something to eat. The cause? Faulthy methods, for example memorizing word order and when to use what tense. Why not concentrate on the hows first and later on the whys? Trust me, it’s a whole lot easier and more fun.

The best (and maybe only good way if you’re honest) is probably reading about the grammar in Spanish. Doing something in Spanish is always good, even if it means that you’re reading some dull grammar book. Wait… is that grammar book dull for you? Then don’t read it. I mean; why doing something that you don’t want to do anyway? It’s not necessary or something to become fluent. You could be watching Friends in Spanish, or Los Serrano! But if you really, really, want to read some grammar stuff (and not because you think you have to, because that’s not the case) do it in Spanish. All Spanish all the time?

Final advice: concentrate on the hows, forget the whys.

Tagged as: Grammar, natural learning, spanish grammar