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).
But because I go to college and am confronted with old-school teaching methods almost every day, it’s easy to fall in the trap of actually caring about grammar. A positive side-effect is that it made me thing about how to ignore grammar. It’s just a pity to see that many people in the pro-grammar and anti-grammar camp just focus on LEARN grammar or DON’T LEARN grammar, and don’t come up with alternatives. But I’ve come up with a plan to ignore grammar (better said: HOW to ignore grammar and how to free yourself from thinking: “Am I doing something wrong that I ignore the rules?“).
When learning Spanish, people don’t find it weird to learn words in context. On the other hand, they insist learning grammar and in particular the verb-endings. For long, I thought that learning the verb forms helps you because it helped me. But I actually think that I could have learned Spanish faster if I just ignored them all together. This may be a shocker, but I have to say it: Ignore the verb-endings! From now on, they’re seperated words. Yes, they’re words with a different meaning. Don’t agree with me? Well, let’s see:
The verb: Saber.
I know: sé.
They know: saben.
Most people learn these two words in one go, because they’re two forms of the same verb. Yeah, okay. Would you learn comunión and comunista in one go, because they both start with “com”? No, that would be weird! You only learn words (in context and with Anki, of course) because you want to learn that particular word/expression. Sé and saben don’t even look like each other! So why would you learn them both if you only need sé at the moment? Why would you learn them at the same time? Why not making a sentence item in your SRS for sé and later for saben. It just makes more sense, as they’re two distinct words. Distinct words? Yes! They have two totally different meanings. Look: I know. They know. Only 50% of the words have the same meaning: know.
So it’s totally possible to ignore grammar, and the verb forms in particular. Just threat them as different words and you’re good. Sure, in the beginning you won’t even know what the vosotros form is of most verbs, but who cares anyway? You probably don’t know how to say many things, but you don’t worry too much about them either. Right? Time and input will solve all your problems.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I study Pali, which is pretty much a dead language. About 95% of Pali stuff is Buddhist religious texts. I had started and stopped studying a few times and one reason was the complex grammar (8 different noun cases, for example) and how tedious it got for me to think about so many different rules when I encountered a new word (first look up the meaning in the dictionary, then figure out what case/conjugation/gender/number it was, then see how it relates to the other words, etc). Quite a challange!
Recently, I've done just what you say and I ignore the grammar. I started focusing on just reading the texts and repeating them out loud. I still look up the words, and I don't always understand the meanings of entire passages at first – but it will usually click after a while. It's worked wonders for me. I don't even need the SRS because I'm reciting the verses (chanting – it is religious texts afterall
).
Anyway, long story short: ignore grammar and you'll learn the rules naturally. It takes out the translation step.
I think it was Steve Kaufman that only learned Cantonese because he simply stopped worrying about its 6 tones.
Interesting point you make about Pali. Latin is more or less similar, but most people learn it in a grammatical way. That's a pity, because there are more than enough authentic texts in Latin and you could learn it perfectly without ever worrying about its grammar. Still, people don't seem to want to learn it that way. I feel sorry for them.
Different people learn in different ways. An old college buddy of mine can leaf through a foreign grammar text and absorb it like a sponge picks up water. Other people learn best by immersion/example.
I’m somewhere between the two extremes, though slightly closer to the immersion side.
Steven, the problem with grammar study is that it’ll make your speech unnatural. Do you think in grammar rules when you speak your native tongue? I don’t think so. Why would it be good if you do it with another language then? Wouldn’t it be better to know you’re right, although you don’t know why it’s correct?
Absorbing rules is nice and all, but there are very few people that convert this into the skill that they don’t even have to think about the rules anymore and simply produce. The majority just fails at learning the language and are stuck thinking about the rules before producing. My college class is full of that kind of people. They make fun of me because I ignore grammar study, but at the same time I’m the most fluent non-native speaking while I make almost no errors when speaking. They’re like: “Ehhm, sí, es que, ehm…, tengo que hacer… ehhhh, ¿cómo se dice?, ehm… esta, no… este ejercicio…”.
I agree and I disagree. If your aim is to become a fluent speaker, then I, for the most part, agree with your assessment of grammar. Mostly. But if your goal is fluency in reading, writing, and speaking than I completely disagree. Of course we didn’t grow up using perfect grammar in our mother tongue…that’s why we went to school around age 5! We were taught grammar in our native language starting with our parents – they corrected our sentences when we started talking. But, we still made mistakes. So we were sent to school where we heard more native language and learned grammar. All the way through university. The biggest difference is that we were NOT translating our native tongue AND it was full immersion AND we spoke/heard/saw/read it constantly. THOSE are the keys.
I’m largely with Tess on this one. My full response is here: Don’t ignore grammar, learn without grammar, or use it only for decoding.
I should’ve linked to my earlier post How to threat the rules: read about them but don’t learn them.
Man, you’ve got issues. Were you abused by the grammar nazi when you were a kid? Sexually?
Wow man, two comments on the blog and both are insulting. Could you please comment in a normal way?
Good, but if you know Krashen’s theory grammar could be useful to ‘monitor’, for example when writing instead of speaking you could be more accurate if you learn some grammar, the grammar rules that are ‘portable’. Waitin for some structures to be acquired could take a long time, so you should of course expose yourself to massive amounts of input, but also learn some grammar to be more accurate.
I already covered that: http://www.spanish-only.com/2009/06/learning-grammar-shortcut-fluency
That is absolutely nonsensical.
The less we know about grammar the less we know how to read and even speak and if you don’t you better start barking instead.
It makes no sense whatsoever to advocate ignorance in the name of an easy and fast satisfaction.
I know nothing is “easy” in life but what really matters takes time and effort, rules exist for a reason in the world and language is not an exception to that. The less you know the more ignorant you become, the more ignorant you are the worse you live.
Here we go again… It’s not because learning a language will become easier (although it will), it’s because learning grammar extensively in the beginning of your learning messes up your skills.
I know what I’m talking about because most second language speakers of grammar I know struggle with the language because they have to construct sentences themselves instead of just doing things by feeling. The weird thing is that their English is often superb and guess how they learned that; BY IMMERSION!
I actually study grammar at this point of my SPanish study, but it’s only because I’m fluent in it. You’re absolutely right that we need a formal knowledge of grammar to a certain point, that’s actually what most natives have as well. But they don’t bother to learn it until high school (often).
I think Ramas has got some great tips on learning spanish. I have been learning spanish over 2 years now.. and can i speak it good..? can i understand spoken spanish from a native..? errrr NO i cant.. why ? because all i have really done is use grammer books and flash cards [ single words ] dont get me wrong they do help, but there not enough. i have been listening to alot of audio the last few weeks, and today i started searching the net for spanish words but this time in context, i honestly think this way is the way to go. Maybe later when i can speak and listen to spanish without many problems i will get stuck in to the grammer and the single words again but for now i will just study the grammer un poco. I have a few friends here in madrid, a few from russia and a few from romania, everyone of them can speak fluent spanish with no problems..!! they did not study from books or take lessons they did it from listening and talking, they do have mistakes in there lingo [ bad habits ] but they got fluent within 2 years mas o menos, the romanians were quicker though, within a year..!!