Do NOT Study Grammar

Very true.

Yeah sir! It is exactly how l learn French, Spanish, and Italian. Just look into thin piece of grammar book when curiosity kicks in.

"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!

No it's not the same sir I'm sorry...brains are different from a person to another..although slightly sometimes but still that the difference does exist!

I absolutely agree with what you’ve said here. It’s important to learn the specific details yes but I always think it’s better to learn it as you need it. For example if you wanted to talk about what you did yesterday then yes you need the past tense but I would never start there

Grammar is after you become fluent in the target language. This was one of the best videos of the channel so far.

My target language is english. I have learned it for 2 months. I will learn grammar in english way , no't in my mother language.

I'm currently learning French and every time I think to myself "I can do this" another set of grammatical rules is introduced and I get frustrated. Grammar really does ruin language learning, at least for me.

I saw the book of Tolstoy on the shelf!!!!

Hi Steve, thanks for this video 🌹
Sometimes you know every word in this sentence, but you can't understand the real meaning. How did you deal with it ?
Have you encountered other thorny difficulties while reading and listening a lot? Do you choose to skip or deal with it in time?

👌👌

Does anyone have a recommendation for a thin grammar book for Spanish?

can you please recommend a small grammar book for german and spanish

Yup, give the grammar a quick once over, enough to help make content more comprehensible or help you notice thing.. I personally believe that "studying" grammar, doing exercises, or skill-building is not just useless but is actually harmful.

The title is clickbait. You do not explain how to learn in school, you only explain why the classes are bad.

Grammar rules destroy your speaking ability

As a beginner I made this mistake. I spent a lot of time on grammar and it was almost totally wasted. I had to make the mistake and later moved on to absorbing as much content as possible. That's what things accelerated. Grammar? Best to wait.

I agree with you, but learn a little bit of grammar in russian (conjugations) really helped me a lot. Before I did not know why some verbs ends up in "ют" or "ят" for exemple... And learn about conjugations and other things made me understand the language. Those things about the word change, it I get naturally, like, I know I must say "я люблю зиму" and not "я люблю зима" (I love winter). Why? I don't know, but I know :D
Well that's it, I think it can be helpful sometimes, but learn by input is easier and prove to ourself that we are able to learn any language like a baby.

You changed my view on learning languages. I've been taught in school English mostly through grammar excercises. But I am going to learn German on my own with more listening and reading and less grammar.

By studying basic French grammar (something I was able to do while reading comprehensive input in two other languages- since it was more like fact knowledge), I was able to increase my comprehension of French texts significantly and quite quickly. I don't think it would have been the same if I had tried to learn the grammar through input alone

I’m starting to learn Russian…would it be better for me to memorize the alphabet before learning what words mean or phrases?

Easy grammar in use* instructions may be introduced at anytime.

Grammar in use is just a description of how language really happens, it doesn't prescribe how it should be written and spoken as opposed to the NORMATIVE grammar.

Before starting to study English in a course, I was focused only on grammar and I couldn't speak, but now I can speak because I focused on phrases. I try learning phrases and how they are structured to create my own sentences. Since I have been studying on this way, I have improved a lot and I consider that grammar is not as good as practicing every single day to improve yourself.

I have learning disabilities and I had a good Spanish teacher in secondary school. She used lots of pictures and music and games when teaching us. There was only little grammar studying. I learned a lot and Spanish classes were fun and I got good grades. When I got to another school teacher recommend me to study more Spanish on online course. I tried and didn't understand anything of the exercises. Even though I knew already Spanish quite well. I quitted the course.

I love learning languages but my main goal is more to understand them than speak myself.

Steve still looks great at his age..slim and trim and solid posture...respect for that...

I was born in the 90s in Vietnam, most of my English knowledge comes from learning grammars and vocabulary at school, those big thick grammar books and list of all present/past/past perfect vocab lists, I had to learn them all. I was even proud of it. Any small grammar mistake is a shame and I tried hard to avoid it, at the same time laugh when I found one from other people. Back then we don't have Internet, nor any native speaker around to talk to, and every test asks every small details of grammar, so I and others learned it the hardest way possible. Also I believe that's the only way for us to learn English back then

now things have changed, Internet makes the world closer, information is everywhere, and people start bashing grammar learning. I feel angry at first, how the hell you use the language without its building block of grammar and vocab. but on the second thought I think maybe these people are right. I know lots of grammar, but when it comes to speaking or writing I struggle to keep the fluency by all the rules I learned, and it's hard. so hard. the only way to fix this is to expose more to the language by speaking and reading more and imitate native people, which is essentially what I should have done from the beginning!!!

anyway just a random thought accumulated after a long time seeing these 'stop learning grammar' video

I wish Manfred Spitzer's book was available in English 😢

How encouraging your techniques are! You are saying that we can and should play with languages if we want to master them, right?

Новыя увлеченія въ области преподаванія
>
Одностороннее увлеченіе грамматикой и почти исключительно
грамматическими упражненіями въ переводахъ съ родного языка на
древніе, господствовавшее долгое время въ нашей школѣ и нынѣ,
такъ сказать, упраздненное новыми учебными планами 1890 г.,
грозитъ замѣниться увлеченіемъ не менѣе одностороннимъ и гораздо
болѣе вреднымъ, чѣмъ прежнее. Прежняя школа, при всѣхъ сво-
ихъ недостаткахъ, имѣла подъ собой твердую почву и вела своихъ
питомцевъ твердымъ, методическимъ путемъ , стараясь пріучить ихъ
этой цѣльностью занятій и серіозностью требованій къ вдумчивой
работѣ и не легкомысленному отношенію къ труду . Проникавшая ее
система, хотя и ошибочная, может быть, сама по себѣ, способство-
вала, однако умственной выправкѣ учащихся и могла подготовить
изъ нихъ хорошихъ и серіозныхъ работниковъ . Пренебрегая всякой
традиціей въ дѣлѣ образования, мы и тогда стали на проторенную
нѣмцами дорогу, мало для насъ подходящую, и пройдя ее до
конца, доказали свою несостоятельность, и теперь рискуемъ под-
пасть подъ все разрастающееся общественное движеніе по поводу
школьныхъ дѣлъ и потерпѣть при этомъ зло, горше перваго .

Completely agree with your opinion on partially shunning grammar and I say that as a French and Spanish teacher who detests teaching grammar. I used to teach it religiously and found it didn't benefit many of my students in their language acquisition. So one day as a gruelling lesson trying to get students to understand the passé composé in French, I thought where the students could express themselves in the past without all these complex grammar rules. This is what I'm trying to do now!

I could not agree more with some of the things stated in this video. When I first started learning Japanese a few years ago I was so into the technicalities of the language and so I would specifically spend hours a day learning just kanji, and hours on another day learning just grammar, and hours learning just vocabulary…without context and just out of a book designed to teach you rather than with real Japanese content.

After a bit I realized that maybe I should be reading more in this language than about this language….I know it sounds like a no brainer, but at the time it was not something that came to mind as easily, being the first language I learned by myself….so about maybe 5 months into starting to learn Japanese I dropped all books that were designed to teach me the language in favor of books targeted towards the Japanese audience…books that already expected you to know Japanese. I did keep my kanji studies though, because the more you know what a kanji means and how to pronounce it the easier the reading will become….

While this approach worked work a couple of years, I did reach sort of a plateau in terms of learning…..where I felt I wasn’t really learning anything but maybe new words….that I probably would never even use in real life….The problem is, I would come across grammar patterns without knowing they were grammar patterns….and so I would not know how to interpret that….

So about a year ago I started looking at books (again) that directly teach me Japanese….but that don’t throw me into like 50 exercises on how to use a single grammar pattern…instead I started with the 日本語総まとめ series, on only the grammar portion…and because of the structure of the book, I could spend maybe like 10-15 mins a day looking at maybe 3-5 new grammar patterns…this, I feel, has sky rocketed my understanding of the written language and I really spend less than 20 minutes a day looking at it (of course, this is not counting review of older points….which in my case I use anki and takes about an extra 20 minutes a day)….already up to N1 in the series..and while I could not say I can use all this grammar, I can certainly understand the language a lot better so I definitely don’t see it as a waste of time :)…as long as most of my time is spent on consuming the language rather than learning about technical details…I think it’s a good happy medium :)

Grammar helps us notice. It expedites the process of noticing.

I concur , exposure is more helpful than going through the language rules /syntax, YES it happened to me learning English.

I agree up to a point, not all brains learn the same way and each person has her own way of learning.

Preach!

very helpful

The question should be: how hepful the grammar pattern could be in the learning of a language? I guess that there'd be no ONE only universal answer for everyone and all languages. For example, I'm learning Japanese, konwing the verbs 3 groups classification and the transforming rules at an early stage of learning journay seem to be very helpful and time saving.

In my opinion, it’s ok to have
a quick look to lessons, see the examples and that’s all,
For instance, in Italian sometimes you will say il, sometimes lo : it’s not bad to know the rules about that.

Honestly I just really enjoy learning grammar and working through grammar books so… we’ll do what works best for you and what keeps you coming back :)

I disagree with this approach. Grammar of modern languages has been codified/fossilized which means that regardless of evolution of spoken dialects the grammar will not change. Prime example is the vast difference between spoken and written Persian. Grammar is the most essential component to learn any language. Even more important for aggluntative languages that build upon each other or language with verb tense mood and aspect. Also, grammar

I've been learning English for about 3 years, German for 9 months and German goes smoothly than English.
Today, when I woken up I was thinking about grammar. Should we really focus on it most of our time or not? Then I realized that I wana try a new approach by making short dialogues, since it's innatural to just learn a language by concentrating at the grammar and unilizing books all the time. Thanks Steave!

See "The Origin of Language: atheist Lies VS The Scriptures."

I take it that’s not your office with all those grammar books behind you? 😅🤔

Just kidding
Great video.
I’m loving the LingQ website and app.

Listen, Listen, Listen




.. and read 👍

この地球上にいる限り自然が答えだ。不自然な事をするのは人間だけ。それ以外の生き物は皆自然に生きている。不自然に生きる人間だけが地球さんに迷惑をかけている。科学は不自然の塊。だから地球を破壊し続けるのだ。自然が答え。これ以上地球に迷惑をかけるのはやめてもらいたい。人間だけだよ。おかしな事してるのは。

I love grammar. Grammar helps know where words must go to form a sentence. "Don't learn math rules". The demonization of grammar needs to stop.

أشكرك على النصيحة المفيدة , اتفق أكثر مايضيع وقتي بتعلم اللغة هو القواعد اللغوية والفائدة قليلة في النهاية , التركيز على الاستماع وتكوين الأنماط أفضل بكثير . شكرا جزيلًا ستيفن