Do NOT Study Grammar

Grammar describes usage in a language at any given time in its evolution. It's hard for us to learn these rules of usage without considerable investment of time in reading and listening. Input is the best way for our brain to get used to the patterns of language.

0:00 - When it comes to learning grammar, our brains are good at recognizing patterns and not so good at retaining detail.
3:06 - Grammar can be introduced at any time.
3:46 - Get a grammar book, but make sure it's a very thin book.
5:20 - The main goal in language learning should be exposure to the language.
6:26 - It's best to look up specific grammar details when you are actually interested.
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#grammar #learnlanguages #languages

[Thelinguist]

To master the grammar of a language, spend most of your time with the language itself, in low-stress enjoyable situations, listening, reading and speaking. Occasionally look things up in the smallest grammar book you can find, but don't try to deliberately learn the rules, it's too hard to do.

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[teamjipper]

Maybe don't START with grammar, but once a pattern begins to form dimly, reading grammar helps push the fog away.

[Neo-Reloaded]

My key takeaway from this lesson is that the best way to learn a language is to be exposed to lots of listening and lots of reading in an environment that's Low Stress.

[alwaysuseless]

The key point about grammar Steve Kaufmann makes is at 3:00 to 3:10: "So my feeling on grammar and other details of the language is that they can be introduced at any time. They should be introduced when the learner is interested in them." In other words, the best timing for and degree of attention to grammar depends on the learner. For example, I love grammar. Knowing grammar sooner rather than later gives me the ability to express more complex thoughts sooner rather than later. As a mathematician by training, I like to know the rules. Thinking about the rules while speaking doesn't slow me down; it speeds me up. Of course, my goal is eventually to speak the Standard version of the language correctly without having to think about it, and as Steve says, that comes with exposure and practice.

[NaturalLanguageLearning]

I agree for the most part. I do most of my learning with comprehensible input and speaking practice, but I like introducing small doses of grammar occasionally. It helps me be more accurate and make fewer mistakes when speaking.
However, learning grammar without regular reading and listening is pretty much useless, because you just don't remember the rules.

[dnicuilic]

This is so true when it comes to teaching Irish here in Ireland. Thanks to English occupation, we obviously speak English as a majority but we learn Irish in school from around ages 4-18, yet we can’t hold a conversation in Irish naturally after all that time. We learn poems and essays off by heart, but absolutely no emphasis on speaking. In fact, it’s often taught through English! I only became fluent myself after living in an Irish-speaking community for a few weeks and making mistakes. I wish the Department of Education in Ireland would watch this!😭

[anduril]

I like to start with a little grammar when learning a new language, like Teach Yourself or something like that. Just to get an introduction to the language. After I move to larger doses of comprehensible input, and only much later do I return to grammar for purposes of honing in skilsl

[Anglaide]

"Learn the language in an enjoyable low-stress environment." That's my philosophy to teaching English too - it's nice to hear an experienced learner who agrees!

[Jasshcsm]

I enjoy doing grammar exercises, it's like solving puzzles. It's a good cognitive exercise too.

[jameshowell]

So, so, so true! I studied Spanish at school for 5 years and I thought I was doing well. There then came an opportunity to go to Spain in my final year which also happened to be a week before my mock exams. I took it and absolutely loved it, however I really struggled understanding people and I couldn't put many sentences together at all. I brought a dictionary and Google Translate with me, which looking back was the worst thing I could have done. I was forced to speak to communicate, especially as we stayed with someone who didn't know English. After I got back, I got an A on my Spanish exam that I was getting a C on before. I think people don't realise how powerful immersion and learning through necessity actually are. I encourage everyone to put down the grammar books and dictionaries and start focusing on comprehension. Sure, you may not understand much in the beginning which is fine but I guarantee that the more you are exposed to the language, the more you will remember as our brains are sponges. That is how we all learnt our native languages, proof is that we could actually speak before we started school !Creo en ustedes, vamos a hacerlo!

[osamahabbas]

totally agree.We need a video about noticing.Thanks steve

[crylove]

Exactly, you have to surround yourself with language and things you like in it.
I noticed that with learning English, I was really bad at school with English & grammar, I've always used the wrong tense and stuff, but after school, I started using English more often, just for me, as a hobby to look up some cool things in the English language, I barely understood the songs or movies, practically been zero non-fluent, but after a while, year or two by surrounding myself everywhere with it, watching movies, googling everything in English it made me fluent, so yes, it is true, you got to just practice it on a daily basis, if you have a phone, change the language to one you want to learn, google everything with that language, plus it's very easy nowadays with google translate or the whole page translate online before that learning process was really slow, I learned (or got acquainted with) like a few or five words a day max. Now it's very easy.
BTW, I thought that I am bad at English when I watched a movie because it's always some words I never understand, hear for the first time, but then I watched THE SAME MOVIE in my native Russian language and it dawned on me that I never knew those words in a first-place even in my native language, plus I realized that I think differently in English and Russian when it's English, my mind is always wandering around thinking about how stuff works, but when it's in my native Russian lang it's always everywhere but self evolvement.
New language is a new skill, not just a language, it's a skill of self-developing and figuring how stuff works, I mean, sometimes when I need to do my work, thinking and googling in English makes me think rather when it's in Russian, Russian lang brings old me, the one that just wanders around without real purpose.

[artiesolomon]

I gave up on a French course because there was so much emphasis on grammar. fortunately we got a Spanish teacher who thinks the way you do. For Russian i look at a lot of sentences and what they mean and am gradually seeing the grammatical patterns.

[krin]

Learning Japanese currently. I used to focus a lot on grammar and skimp out on vocab, but at some point I decided to just touch on some grammar points, do a few minutes of practice, and not worry about it too much after that. I think having a broad vocabulary is far more important that knowing a ton of grammar points.

[flipevent]

I agree with the points made here. In my past 10 months in studying Korean, I nearly never "focused" on the grammar. That doesn't mean I didn't study it--on the contrary, it's the main exercise I use with my online tutor to keep some form of structured study going. But, the key here is I used the lessons to "unlock" that part of my hearing where I would then recognize that grammar point the next time I hear it.

There's a saying in Korean that when translated, goes something like "you won't know that you heard something unless you know it". So, when my tutor taught me -은/ㄴ 데, from that point on, I heard it EVERYWHERE. That's how I've naturally acquired the proper use of a grammar point.

[jailtongiraodasilva]

I couldn't agree with you more Steve. You're the man . I trust completely in your wise pieces of advice. Thanks a lot!

[akashgautam]

I'm totally with you on this point. Back in time, I used to study grammar in detail but never practiced speaking and listening. Guess what? I got better at grammar to an extent, but I was still not able to speak. Sometimes I hesitated to pronounce certain words due to lack of confidence about their pronunciation. I learned grammar without having clear goal; I thought English is all about grammar, so let's learn it. I practiced grammar drills and all that sort of stuff, but I missed the most important part that was " to get enough exposure of the language."

On the other hand, I completely stopped learning grammar two years back and put myself into speaking the language. Although I grasped quite good command over grammar, my speaking sucked. Then I realized that speaking is different from learning grammar. I continued speaking more and more along with listening. After lots of exposure to the language, those rules I learned actually started making sense to me. Now I do what you shared. If I am uncertain about some sentence structure, I simply look for it once or twice, including examples. That's it. My brain recognizes it and starts observing such patterns while listening or reading something.


Thanks!

[sambell]

Steve, I love your take on language learning. Very inspiring! Thanks for all you do! I will definitely continue to follow your content

[wandreyalexandre]

This video came in the right moment, I was trying to get started on Russian grammar and it's so huge and hard. But even though it's hard, that's what motives me in this aspect. Great video, as always!

[lars-magnusskog]

Thank you Steve for the great work you are doing. So nice to just sit down and listen to what you have to say and take in parts of your own experience.