More on grammar

I have now been learning Russian for two months. I really enjoy it. I bought a grammar book ( in the teach yourself series) just to see if my anti-grammar bias was justified.

There are 90 chapters. It is a simplified approach! The headings of the chapters read as follows, (just a few examples)

genitive singular, gentivite plural, genitive plural irregular

instrumental singular..

regular present tense (1) and (2)

irregular present tense (1) and (2) (3)

adjectives stressed

adjectives unstressed soft

and on and on

The explanations within the chapters are even more obscure, full of attempts to account for all the things that happen in Russian, with all the exceptions. If I thought I had to study all this nonsense I would have quit Russian long ago.

After 2 months I can almost make out stories by Gogol. In another two months I will read the newspaper and Pushkin without knowing Russian grammar, at least officially. If I can continue reading and listening I will get a feel for Russian. After a year or two of reading and listening to Russian and enjoying myself, if I really want to get upset I will look at this grammar book again.

I am sure the same is true for English.

Set the learners free from the grammar teachers! Language learners of the world arise and cast off your chains! Grammar teachers of the world, go and look for something useful to do!

Comments

[Alexandre Rafalovitch]

Steve,

I want to believe you, I really do. I could use this to convince others to learn Russian. And true, I am not convinced myself that the russian grammar is the best way to start learning the language. But completely decrying it as not suitable for anybody and at any stage feel anarchical to me. I feel that learning the grammar of English helped me, especially when it came to building more complex sentences and phrases.

Anyway, can you prove your progress already? Can you write something in Russian without a book yet? Can you give us a paragraph of speach on your podcast? Or are you just concentrating on reading so far with (without?) a dictionary? And how do you know you are not loosing the meaning? Until you hit 'man bit the dog' because you missed the correct ending, how do you know you've read it right?