I know what your thinking, not another discussing on grammar, but it should make for an interesting post. Contrary to what some of you may believe, grammar doesn't need to be studied for more than 5 hours. However in my opinion you will never reach a native level in a language if you do not study grammar for at least 30 minutes a week.
Does that mean sitting down with a grammar book and working through exercises???
No of course not, there are so many ways to study grammar.
Are there any interesting ways to study grammar???
In my opinion studying grammar is never going to be interesting, but there are some ways to make it more fun:
1. Have a native speaker correct your writing on Lang8, sure you still have to study grammar, but your not studying it through books or doing exercises, your just learning from your mistakes.
2. Have a native speaker note down some of your corrections whilst your speaking to them and then talk to them about what you said wrong (in the foreign language if your level is good enough)
To sum up I really feel that when you start a language you should start by learning the basic rules of grammar, I did it in Spanish. My first 10 hours of study were "grammar hours" and obviously I picked up words through it, even if it was only fifty, and since then, over the past six months I have probably only done 5 hours of grammar, just studying my writing reports and conversation reports, it's great. Really all that you need to know is that grammar isn't the most important thing, but can still be fun and is necessary if you want to reach that native level of fluency :)
Leave a comment below to let me know what you think :)
Well, grammar is important, but not for learning a language. I mean, it's important when you want to refine your skills. If you want to base your learning only on studing grammar, it's not going to work out. It's much better to spend lots of hours listening and reading, and of course speaking instead of trying to memmorise stupid grammar rules. Once you've achieve the sense of the language, that is, some degree of fluency, is when you can take more advantage of grammar.
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that a person can speak perfectly if they don't do quite a bit of grammar work throughout, as an English tutor I have spoken with a lot of students, out of all of them I only know two that have a native like level and both of them regard grammar as highly important, it can't be a coincidence :)
ReplyDeleteYes, but also, there is no way that a person can speak fluently if he/she only focuses on grammar. Grammar is just a tool, a very useful tool you could say, but not the goal itself.
ReplyDeleteAll I am saying is that grammar is essential if you wish to reach a native level. But if your goal is fluency then you don't need to study it that much :)
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