4 ms·

This largely depends on the language. More complex languages, yes, but for languages like swedish/norwegian/danish where there is very little grammar, I find i

This largely depends on the language. More complex languages, yes, but for languages like swedish/norwegian/danish where there is very little grammar, I find it's much easier to progress within the limits of their program.

yorwba 9y ago
It also depends on the languages you already speak. Swedish/Norwegian/Danish do not really have "little grammar", but for an English speaker, there probably won't be any need to explicitly learn the grammar, since it works mostly like English. But on the flipside, they are just as difficult as English for speakers of unrelated languages.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >for an English speaker, there probably won't be any need to explicitly learn the grammar, since it works mostly like English // For a period in the UK there was no English grammar taught in schools. This caused me great problems in Russian class (second high school language) as I had no idea there were cases in English and so had no reference for why a case was needed and what it did. The entirety of my English grammar training was learning a poem by rote for homework, which I didn't do ("A nouns the name of anything [...]"). I learnt the little grammar I know from French lessons. So, YMMV depending on the English speaker.
  - amaccuish 9y ago
    Having left school 3 years ago, I can confirm there is still no grammar taught in english lessons. It was all taught to the AQA exam we did. I studied french and german too, and all my grammar knowledge comes from there and from languages at uni. There's obviously basic things in primary school but that's like where to put commas, that's it.
    - 3pt14159 9y ago
      It's because English grammar is either obvious and doesn't need teaching or is inexplicable and isn't worth trying to make a pattern out of. I ran, she ran, he ran, they ran, we ran, y'all ran. I run, she runs, he runs, they run, we run, y'all run. I'll run, she'll run, he'll run, they'll run, we'll run, y'all'll run. I thought I'd run, he thought he'd run, they thought they'd run. We'll have wished we ran, they'll have wished they ran, he'll have wished he ran. What exactly do you want to teach here? The only weirdness to the rule is that he and she runs with an "s", everything else is the same. I love you. You love me. They love him. He loves them. I want you. You want me. They want him. He wants them. In Russian the above is far different because the word order can be switched for emphasis. The only thing in English worth teaching is "I have" vs "I am" and almost every language has that same problem as well (Je suis vs J'ai in French). The hard part with English is that our spelling makes zero sense, unlike Russian or French. The grammar is really quite straightforward.
      - selectodude 9y ago
        Also everything in English has dozens and dozens of exceptions that you just need to memorize.
        pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        A good way to teach that for native users might be to teach why that is the case and leave the specifics to happenstance.
        umanwizard 9y ago
        This isn't unique to English.
      - umanwizard 9y ago
        You seem to think that "verb morphology" is all there is to "grammar".
      - gordonguthrie 9y ago
        A 10 word sentence has 10! possible word orders of which only 1 is correct - that is grammer
    - gordonguthrie 9y ago
      Historically we were taught Latin grammer disguised as English grammer - so 'tenses' when English only has two tenses (past and present) and 6 or more moods (shall, could, will, might etc, etc) Most English 'grammer' discussed in the Anglophone world (split infinitives WTF? English doesn't have infinitives) is gibberish...
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      Well, now they teach made up nonsense about "fronted adverbials" ("Stupidly, they do it too early.") in primary school, they spend quite a bit of time on sentence structure and labelling the parts of speech. It's too much IMO and comes easy too early.

yorwba 9y ago

It also depends on the languages you already speak. Swedish/Norwegian/Danish do not really have "little grammar", but for an English speaker, there probably won't be any need to explicitly learn the grammar, since it works mostly like English. But on the flipside, they are just as difficult as English for speakers of unrelated languages.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>for an English speaker, there probably won't be any need to explicitly learn the grammar, since it works mostly like English // For a period in the UK there was no English grammar taught in schools. This caused me great problems in Russian class (second high school language) as I had no idea there were cases in English and so had no reference for why a case was needed and what it did. The entirety of my English grammar training was learning a poem by rote for homework, which I didn't do ("A nouns the name of anything [...]"). I learnt the little grammar I know from French lessons. So, YMMV depending on the English speaker.
- amaccuish 9y ago
  Having left school 3 years ago, I can confirm there is still no grammar taught in english lessons. It was all taught to the AQA exam we did. I studied french and german too, and all my grammar knowledge comes from there and from languages at uni. There's obviously basic things in primary school but that's like where to put commas, that's it.
  - 3pt14159 9y ago
    It's because English grammar is either obvious and doesn't need teaching or is inexplicable and isn't worth trying to make a pattern out of. I ran, she ran, he ran, they ran, we ran, y'all ran. I run, she runs, he runs, they run, we run, y'all run. I'll run, she'll run, he'll run, they'll run, we'll run, y'all'll run. I thought I'd run, he thought he'd run, they thought they'd run. We'll have wished we ran, they'll have wished they ran, he'll have wished he ran. What exactly do you want to teach here? The only weirdness to the rule is that he and she runs with an "s", everything else is the same. I love you. You love me. They love him. He loves them. I want you. You want me. They want him. He wants them. In Russian the above is far different because the word order can be switched for emphasis. The only thing in English worth teaching is "I have" vs "I am" and almost every language has that same problem as well (Je suis vs J'ai in French). The hard part with English is that our spelling makes zero sense, unlike Russian or French. The grammar is really quite straightforward.
    - selectodude 9y ago
      Also everything in English has dozens and dozens of exceptions that you just need to memorize.
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        A good way to teach that for native users might be to teach why that is the case and leave the specifics to happenstance.
      - umanwizard 9y ago
        This isn't unique to English.
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      You seem to think that "verb morphology" is all there is to "grammar".
    - gordonguthrie 9y ago
      A 10 word sentence has 10! possible word orders of which only 1 is correct - that is grammer
  - gordonguthrie 9y ago
    Historically we were taught Latin grammer disguised as English grammer - so 'tenses' when English only has two tenses (past and present) and 6 or more moods (shall, could, will, might etc, etc) Most English 'grammer' discussed in the Anglophone world (split infinitives WTF? English doesn't have infinitives) is gibberish...
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Well, now they teach made up nonsense about "fronted adverbials" ("Stupidly, they do it too early.") in primary school, they spend quite a bit of time on sentence structure and labelling the parts of speech. It's too much IMO and comes easy too early.