Do you need to study grammar? | The fastest way to learn English

In today's video I will be answering three common questions: Do you need to study grammar? Is grammar important for fluent English? What is the best way to study English grammar? To answer these questions we will take a journey from the definition of grammar, to the origin of language, to what science tells us about the difference between what's in your grammar book and what people actually use in natural conversation.

You will discover if language can exist without grammar and if it's possible to get fluent in English with no grammar study. See you in class!
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[Canguroenglish]

I’m sorry I don’t have time to reply to all of your comments but I read them all and I am eternally grateful for your love and support.

[joseantoniocastro]

I´ve learned english the way a child do. Listening, listening, listening and more listening for about 3 years and when you know how the music of the language works you can start to speak, read and finally write. It took me 4 5 years the whole language adquisition process.

[qlango]

Children of 10 can speak languages perfectly but don't know what grammar is (but know subconsciously how to use it). So they've learned it with listening and repeating and creating their own sentences using the phrases they heard for so many times. This methord of learning a new language actually works. For adults even better than for children. We need much less time than chindren need, because our knowledge of our own language is much better which helps us learn other languages (depends of language family of course).

[teklahuszar]

Hi, Everone. My husband has learned Hungarian (!!!) in one year just by listening others speaking it. Without grammar. Now he speaks as a native, still without knowing any grammar. If you have such a talent for languages, you don't need grammar. But it can be a great help though!!!

[vaskodagama]

Thank you for this interesting and educational video. Your pronunciation is so clear and understandable . I've got great pleasure listening to you. I think you're a good teacher ! I'm looking forward to see next videos from you! Best regards from Ukraine!👍

[rrvalverde]

After 22 minutes we arrive at the answer: “chicken dance.” Hahaha A little bit of this and a little bit of that. The best answer to a very complex question.

[tullochgorum]

A good common-sense conclusion. I really don't know why people make this so complicated. If you hate grammar and are intimidated by it, of course you can learn without it. But learning by deducing language patterns from massive input is slow - it takes children a decade to talk like 10-year-olds. And it's a faculty that declines rapidly with age, so the older you are the harder it gets.

On the other hand our ability to read and to reason develops with age. So unless you really actively hate working with grammar patterns, spending a bit of time learning to recognise them and automate them will pay off handsomely in terms of speeding up your progress. Just use it as an aid to your interaction with native language, and not as an end in itself. And that, surely, is about all you need to say about it, despite the oceans of impassioned debate on the YouTube vlogosphere...

[annag]

Once upon the time when there were no accessible translators on the Internet I decided to write a letter in French to my friend in France just to make her astonished and pleased. I new only a few words in French. We always write in English to each other. I took a little Polish-French dictionary and started my work. And then I realized that I need also a little grama to construct sentences. It took me all day to write a letter and I was proud when my friend from France answered that she could understand everything and was so moved by my letter. I is one of this moments when I understood that language is for communication and for expressing friendship to people. Just as you say Christian. You are a great teacher. Kind regards to you from Gdańsk, Poland. Have you visited Poland. Try to write an answer in Polish....of course I am joking.

[zdenekbobek]

Grammar is a logic description of the elements, relationships among the elements, and the structure of a language.

[Astro-Markus]

In my view, grammar is what produces meaning when putting together words. Or in other words: grammar is the link between vocabulary and communication.

[pavelzhivalov]

You are a philosopher of LANGUAGE, it attracts learners, making them more
thotfull about the ways of studying .Thank you for thoughts.

[Elsa.French.teacher]

Hi Christian, thanks for this video! I would like to add some things :
As the definition says, grammar is the way we organize words together in a certain logic. > So grammar exists since language exists, with or without books. Books are just one way to transmit this knowledge.
So when you learn a language you might need/want to know the “secrets” behind the sentences you express or not. Grammar rules are these “secrets” and you don’t NEED them to speak but you might WANT to know them to speed up your learning process.
Also, in French, we do have respect for the Académie Française, but their power is less and less strong ( they are not so modern people), because we want to let the language evolve a little bit faster (faster than the Académie would like it to evolve sometimes). And this is a long and complex subject. But I would like to finish with this : when we don’t follow the official rules, the ones from the Académie for example, that does not mean we don’t follow any rule, we just follow ANOTHER rule, because a language does not exists without rules, as you shown in the first study you talked about with the children.
Voilà! A bientôt. Elsa

[jimmykaming]

Cantonese Chinese is my mother and I can speak mandarin Chinese, not very fluently though. if grammar is like what it is in English, , like the English grammar. I would say Chinese is like almost gramnarless. we don't have articles, tenses, and the like in Chinese. I remembered when I started to study English at the age of 17, I opened a pocket dictionary of English, the first thing that baffled me was a, an and the. the lack of tenses in Chinese make Chinese people speak in a way that is confusing . when someone is recounting past events, the timeline in which things happened is not clear, what came first and what came later..the lack of pronouns of he, she and it in spoken Chinese makes it hard for the listener to follow which aforementioned items they refer to. no singular and plural forms of nouns can influence the way one thinks.
the underdeveloped nature of the Chinese language makes it easy for many native English speakers to learn to be fluent after their failed attempts at other foreign languages like French, German or Spanish.
as some linguistists have said that Chinese was a baby talk, that's why Chinese civilization can not develop to be a modern civilization, like the western civilization. or the anglo saxon civilization.
Chinese culture is like an ancient culture.

edit :Chinese do have parts of speech and word order.
英國Britain ，英國人a brit, Briton, a British person, an Englishman ，英語English, the language.
英國人在in英國說speak 英語。
the British people 人in Britain speak說English.
the Brits speak English in Britain.
I can't go on, it is too complicated.

[VasylHerman]

Hey, this is my first comment for about 2 years I have been watching this lovely channel. I have to say Christian, you have been doing a great job, you will have anyone speaking! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are amazing Teacher from the capital letter as we say in Ukraine. I hope the society realize your BIG message that you are trying to bring to everyone. You have already deserved a golden memorial for that job, they don't just understand it yet. I pray God to give us power to fight unless we win.

[beppobarrendero]

The answer to that question is easy: grammar is necesary, of course, but we don't have to study grammar... we have to "learn" grammar. Can you see the diference? 😉

[jimmykaming]

I came here for the best day of the week greeting.

[worky-gdanjeaofficiel]

this is the first time i've seen this video, as a matter in fact i'm truly excited to be here.

[anglogerman]

I certainly learned German "on the street" back in the 70s, as we had no money to pay for lessons or grammar books. Back in those days, people in Germany were not so capable of conversing in English (lucky for me, I guess), so it was either sink or swim. I was fluent wthin the first year. Might not be the best way for everyone, but it worked for me.

[marinadeargentina]

The short answer is : yes, a little bit .

[sergeigavrilov]

God, I love this guy! So much energy!