Comments on: Screw grammar

By: How to Ignore Grammar | Spanish Only

How to Ignore Grammar | Spanish Only — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:18:30 +0000

[...] When I tell people I’d be better if they ignore grammar fully, they generally say I’m nuts. How could someone learn Spanish (or any other language) without ever looking into a grammar book or trying to understand the rules? For them, that’s next to impossible. Unfortunately they forget how we learned our mother-tongue. Most people really think that grammar study can help you move faster, but in reality; it holds you back. Yes, it holds you back. Why? Because if you don’t know any rule but you can more or less understand the Spanish input you’re getting, you don’t worry and just enjoy the conversation/movie/song/audiobook/etc., whereas knowing the rules will let you think about them and will cause you to miss a lot of the input (read Keith’s interesting article about this). [...]

By: What’s grammar got to do with it?

What’s grammar got to do with it? — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:53:16 +0000

[...] couple of folks whose opinions I respect say none at all, but I’m not so sure. The biggest argument for not [...]

By: Book giveaway: 601 Spanish verbs | Spanish Only

Book giveaway: 601 Spanish verbs | Spanish Only — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:52:36 +0000

[...] know that I say ‘screw grammar!‘? Well, I mean it; I *hate* studying Spanish grammar. Yes, I’m kind of forced to study [...]

By: Review of 601 Spanish Verbs + a Giveaway | babelhut.com

Review of 601 Spanish Verbs + a Giveaway | babelhut.com — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:18:18 +0000

[...] understood of any Spanish book that I’ve come across. I know some of you have heard “Screw Grammar!” from my friend Ramses, and to some extent I agree, but I think you still need to know when [...]

By: Ramses

Ramses — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:33:56 +0000

Don’t know exactly. I think about 6 – 7 months, but with enough input that can be done earlier (I think).

By: mbreslin

mbreslin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:59:36 +0000

Sorry Ramses one more question I promise this is the last one! How long did it take you to go from bilingual question/answer to monolingual like the example you gave? I can’t wait!
Thanks again.

-Michael

By: Ramses

Ramses — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:22:36 +0000

I started out with sentences like that, yes. Now they’re more like:

QUESTION
Al fondo de la obra se puede ver el monte Fuji, cuyo pico está cubierto por la nieve.

ANSWER
fondo = m. Parte inferior de una cosa.
-inferior: Que está debajo de otra cosa o más bajo que ella.

pico = m. Parte puntiaguda que sobresale de algunas cosas.

When I started with the sentences I knew next to nothing. For Spanish it’s fine to start with sentences from day 1.

By: mbreslin

mbreslin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:15:55 +0000

Thanks! Can you give me just one of your sentences? Are they just something like this..

Question:
Tranquila, todavía tenemos tiempo.

Answer:
Relax, we still have some time.

Thanks again, I’m glad I aked you this now instead of 6 months into it! Also another question, did you have some basic vocabulary in your head before you started with sentences, I mean, I basically knew _nothing_ when I started doing sentences. Do you think that’s fine? (it seems I know a lot now though after only 1 month!)

-Michael

By: Ramses

Ramses — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:28:47 +0000

I guess with production cards you mean from English to Spanish, or (in the case of Spanish-Spanish items) something like this:

QUESTION
Onda formada por el viento en la superficie del mar o de un lago.

ANSWER
una ola

Well, I’d never ever do that. Why? In the case of English – Spanish because there are countless ways to translate and English sentence into Spanish and it’s just too error prone. The whole sentence idea is that you get correct input in Spanish and eventually understand every part of the sentence. The more you see a correct sentence, the more logical it’ll be and the more you’ll remember it (and its components). With the Spanish – Spanish production cards it would be possible, but I’ve never done it (would be an idea though).

About adding single words: DON’T DO THAT! In Spanish with the genders and tenses and everything it’ll just let you think when you have to speak/produce. In reality, thinking too much while producing is BAD. Do you think about your native language when you speak it? Not really I guess; it just flows out. That’s the whole purpose of the sentences: do gice you grammar and words in one so that you never have to cram tenses etc. or word lists.

Hopefully that answered your questions .

By: mbreslin

mbreslin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:43:13 +0000

¡Hola Ramses! I’ve been doing spanish sentences with anki for 1 month now and I don’t really know how I ever remembered anything before, anki rocks! Anyway, I wanted to ask you about your sentence items and the way you review, do you use production/recognition cards for each sentence, or only recognition? Also, do you add any single words at all? I find words by themselves exponentially harder to learned compared to learning words in sentences with context. Your site rocks keep it up!

-Michael