4 ms·

>When I asked our teacher how children learn which case to use, her rather wonderful reply was that “it comes with mother’s milk”. As a native speaker, I think

>When I asked our teacher how children learn which case to use, her rather wonderful reply was that “it comes with mother’s milk”. As a native speaker, I think the real answer is experience. You pick up most of the patterns simply by using the language. I think that's how most people learn English as well. English grammar rules are mostly a mystery to me and many of my peers from school. Estonian grammar is slightly less of a mystery, but that's because it is a mandatory subject even in high school (ages 16-19). About the title: "Kas sa sõid koogi (ära)?" - "Did you eat the (whole) cake?" "Kas sa sõid kooki?" - "Did you eat cake?" "Ära" in the first sentence has the meaning of "nothing left" or "gone". "Ära" doesn't have to be included, but in practice, it almost always is. It's similar with the abessive ("without") case. The example given in the article is "riik on ilma juhita". The word "ilma" means "without" and can be left out. The abessive case of "juhita" is enough - "riik on juhita" - but in practice "ilma" is often included. All in all, people generally don't care too much if you get the grammar just right. Mostly right is good enough. Many native speakers even have problems with words such as "kelle-ga-gi" vs "kelle-gi-ga" (the first is correct: -gi/-ki is always at the end). Some grammar rules can even result in words that many native speakers will say are incorrect, eg "keni" - the partitive plural of "kena" (neat). People are simply more used to the -id/-sid partitive plural "kenasid".

RHSeeger 7y ago
> You pick up most of the patterns simply by using the language. I only recently learned that there are rules to the order of adjectives in the English language [1]; it was never taught to us in school, we just used them enough that I know it by what sounds right. Ex "the big, red balloon", not "the red, big balloon". [1] https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/ https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjecti...
- ajscanlan 7y ago
  Not just adjectives, vowels too! E.g. tick tock vs tock tick, chit chat vs chat chit, ding dong vs dong ding [1] [1] http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules...
simias 7y ago
From personal experience I think English speakers have troubles approaching synthetic languages in general because the English language is very analytic. I lurk in a few language-learning forums and I try to help anglophones learning French from time to time, they're often overwhelmed by the conjugations and to a lesser extent the grammatical genders which are omnipresent in French grammar. On the other hand I've been studying Russian pretty intensely over the past year or so, so I can definitely empathize with the frustration of having to learn a complex case system. I think the important thing is: it doesn't really matter if you get it completely right (or even mostly wrong). As long as you build simple sentences a native speaker will be able to figure out what you're trying to say. If somebody asks me "tu parlons anglais ?" it's definitely going to sound very wrong to me but I'll probably be able to figure out what you're attempting to communicate. I think it's worth it to actually learn the declension/conjugation tables to familiarize yourself with them but you have to face the fact that you'll probably never learn to use them correctly just by memorizing rules. Eventually as you encounter them IRL you'll start to develop a feel for it. I wonder if the average English speaker would be able to explain why they say "if I were you" and not "if I am you". Yet few get it wrong. More generally I find that the main difficulty in learning languages is, by far, vocabulary. You can often get by with a surprisingly low amount of grammar if you understand what the words mean.
- jraph 7y ago
  > If somebody asks me "tu parlons anglais ?" it's definitely going to sound very wrong to me but I'll probably be able to figure out what you're attempting to communicate. If web browsers had feelings, they would possibly often experience this with the HTML soup being thrown at their parsers. "Hey, I think I know what you're attempting to communicate!"

RHSeeger 7y ago

> You pick up most of the patterns simply by using the language. I only recently learned that there are rules to the order of adjectives in the English language [1]; it was never taught to us in school, we just used them enough that I know it by what sounds right. Ex "the big, red balloon", not "the red, big balloon". [1] https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/ https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjecti...

ajscanlan 7y ago
Not just adjectives, vowels too! E.g. tick tock vs tock tick, chit chat vs chat chit, ding dong vs dong ding [1] [1] http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules...

simias 7y ago

From personal experience I think English speakers have troubles approaching synthetic languages in general because the English language is very analytic. I lurk in a few language-learning forums and I try to help anglophones learning French from time to time, they're often overwhelmed by the conjugations and to a lesser extent the grammatical genders which are omnipresent in French grammar. On the other hand I've been studying Russian pretty intensely over the past year or so, so I can definitely empathize with the frustration of having to learn a complex case system. I think the important thing is: it doesn't really matter if you get it completely right (or even mostly wrong). As long as you build simple sentences a native speaker will be able to figure out what you're trying to say. If somebody asks me "tu parlons anglais ?" it's definitely going to sound very wrong to me but I'll probably be able to figure out what you're attempting to communicate. I think it's worth it to actually learn the declension/conjugation tables to familiarize yourself with them but you have to face the fact that you'll probably never learn to use them correctly just by memorizing rules. Eventually as you encounter them IRL you'll start to develop a feel for it. I wonder if the average English speaker would be able to explain why they say "if I were you" and not "if I am you". Yet few get it wrong. More generally I find that the main difficulty in learning languages is, by far, vocabulary. You can often get by with a surprisingly low amount of grammar if you understand what the words mean.

jraph 7y ago
> If somebody asks me "tu parlons anglais ?" it's definitely going to sound very wrong to me but I'll probably be able to figure out what you're attempting to communicate. If web browsers had feelings, they would possibly often experience this with the HTML soup being thrown at their parsers. "Hey, I think I know what you're attempting to communicate!"