How much grammar and when - a debate 2

  
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Vince 3.mp3 (3723 KB)

Here is the final part of the debate.

 

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Comments

[Ivana]

Interesting debate, guys.

I think, Steve, that it all turns on this "visceral reaction" of yours against studying grammar. It seems that your way would usually be slower for someone who *doesn't* have such an aversion to it. Otherwise, you and Vince seem to be pretty much on the same page.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Ivana,

I think my anti-grammar reaction is quite common. People do not like theoretical explanations, people do not like to read manuals.

I do not understand your statement "your way would usually be slower for someone who *doesn't* have such an aversion to it"

In this discussion Vince and I disagree on three points.

1) He likes to spend 2 weeks up front digesting the grammar of a new language. I do not. I just jump right in.

2) Vince likes to look up any points of grammar that he comes up against. I don't.

The reason why I do not do 1) and 2) is that I do not find that I remember the rules or tables or explanations.

3) He thinks his approach allows you to learn a language better and faster, and I think mine does.

We agree on the importance of vocabulary.

[Ivana]

"I do not understand your statement "your way would usually be slower for someone who *doesn't* have such an aversion to it"

Well, just like how Vince uses the input to reinforce his understanding from the grammar book (or from those notes he writes). Since he doesn't have an aversion to grammar, that's much quicker than trying to figure it out from input in the first instance. This is also how I use grammar and input.

And yes, I would agree that most people don't like grammar. Are you just making the point that you're in the majority, or something else?

[Steve Kaufmann]

I just did not understand your statement. Now I do.

I do not agree that digesting the grammar up front is faster. You and Vince and others may enjoy doing it that way, but I have not seen any proof that it is faster learning that way. I feel that my way is faster regardless of the learners aversion to grammar.

Whether people with an aversion to grammar are in the majority or not, is something that would be interesting to try to find out with a poll or something.

[Maha]

I've enjoyed listening to this debate. Actually, both of you have made a point about the influence of studying grammar on learning a language.
Although I find learning grammar essential to acquire a language, I do agree with Steve that it is not interesting at all.
Thank you!

[Peter]

Steve,
One thing that you didn't really touch on in your arguments (in this podcast) is the issue of motivation.

Most people lose motivation (not just patience) when confronted with too much grammar, particularly in the early stages. Listening and reading can be a lot more 'fun' for probably the majority of people, whereas those that are particularly driven or goal-oriented might be more willing to intensively focus on drilling the grammar into their brains early on.

[Katie]

Pretty interesting interview.

Steve, I don't know how you can learn by input alone, without grammar. When you're reading a brand new language on LingQ, you might not even recognize a word because it's in a tense you don't recognize. You won't get the full meaning.

Or in Russian, if you don't know the endings, or what happens after certain propositions, you don't know if a word is a subject, object, indirect object, and so on. So you might be listening passively, but you won't be understanding passively.

Even if it's not your goal initially to speak, but to understand, I don't see how you can do that without understanding the grammar. I don't mean memorizing it, just understanding enough so that you recognize how a word is used in the sentence.

[Steve Kaufmann]

The earliest content items I studied for Russian , like who is she, also exist in English and other languages. I listened to the 26 episodes many times. I got the hang of the language. After that not always knowing the endings created a little confusion, but now knowing the words was always the biggest problem. languages are quite redundant. You can make out French without gender, English without articles, most languages with poor spelling, and Russian without knowing the case endings. Gradually things become clearer. Explanations of the grammar do not make things much clearer to me until have enough exposure to relate to them.

[Katie]

Hmmm. I'm going to ponder this, but I tried going by input alone when I started learning Italian on LingQ, and went so crazy that I bought a grammar book on my own. It's like navigating around a town. Sure, you'll figure out the streets eventually, but if you've got a good map, you'll learn it that much faster.

Yes, I would equate grammar with a language map. I never sit there and study maps, but I do like looking at them. I just need hints, and my brain fills in the blanks.

What I don't do are grammar exercises. I did that for Russian and Spanish, but found it didn't transfer over to real life understanding at all.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I am not anti-grammar. I just think it should not be the focus. We refer to grammar as we need to, and this can clear things up, although we forget the rules and explanations. It does help us to notice things. Our need for grammar will vary with each person and each language. It should be individual, not what the curriculum is built around. I certainly do not do exercizes, full agreed. In fact we largely agree.

[Street-Smart Language Learning]

I uploaded a video version of our debate here.