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> In these approaches that don't explain the grammar at all, you need to spend effort pattern matching to pick up the right grammatical rules to construct your

by Swizec 6y ago

> In these approaches that don't explain the grammar at all, you need to spend effort pattern matching to pick up the right grammatical rules to construct your own sentences, and you are never sure that you're doing the right thing. To be fair, you learn your first language by inference and don't start learning the rules until you're some 10 years into fluency. Even as late as high school we were taught grammatical rules with "As a native speaker, do what sounds right, then find the correct rule and say you applied it. Immigrants, sorry you'll find this exam question impossibly difficult. Good luck"

jjeaff 6y ago
We may not teach a codified grammar rule set until later, but we are definitely learning grammer as we learn language for the first time. My 2 year old will say things like, "I like she". After which we will correct her, "I like her". She has never heard anyone say "I like she" but she is re-ordering and inventing her own sentences using unspoken rules. (She may have generated that sentence from hearing "where is she?") She will eventually recognize that some things don't sound right, but she is also applying those things that sound right to newly invented sentences using those rules. So in effect, we do seem to be learning rules when first learning to talk, we just are extracting those rules internally and applying them rather than working from a codified set of rules.
- cyphar 6y ago
  There is a fair amount of evidence that corrections (negative evidence) do not actually improve the grammar of children who are still developing their language skills[1], for two reasons: adults are bad at correcting mistakes consistently, and children do not internalise corrections because language acquisition is not a conscious process. In addition, even in early development children actually do appear to have pretty strong understanding of their native language's syntax[2] even if they cannot produce adult-level English. There are certain classes of mistakes they do not make (indicating they have internalised many more rules than may be apparent), and they can understand sentences which have grammar that they do not produce themselves (meaning that the level of output is not a good indication of their language development). [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Un06tDOn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Un06tDOn0 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmghbKNiI1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmghbKNiI1k
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Interesting video. But it seems that the definition of negative evidence is telling the child "no" and then correcting them. When I say we "correct her", I simply mean that we repeat back the sentence correctly. It seems to work well as she will often repeat it back again how we say it or sometimes just continue on. We never withhold understanding because the grammar is wrong. I can definitely see how the example given of correcting with "no, that's not proper grammar" would not be effective with young ones. By repeating it back correctly, she is given another example of correct grammar and I know of no other way for a young child to learn than to hear it spoken more.
    - cyphar 6y ago
      > But it seems that the definition of negative evidence is telling the child "no" and then correcting them. The video goes through several examples from peer-reviewed studies, and several of them involve "repeating back the correct sentence". In fact while the video did mention the fact that saying "no" just makes communication harder, the majority of the video is explaining why giving corrected examples of grammar doesn't necessarily help. The video talks about your approach specifically here[1]. > I know of no other way for a young child to learn than to hear it spoken more. That is true, but repeating back a specific sentence is not necessarily the most effective manner of helping them acquire an aspect of grammar. Language acquisition isn't a conscious process, so focusing on a mistake doesn't help -- and repeating a sentence with correct grammar is only a single example of that particular grammar concept, which the child still needs to hear many more times before they actually acquire. It should also be noted that one of the studies (looking at what sentences parents would correct) found that "there is not even a shred of evidence that approval and disapproval are contingent on syntactic correctness". So it's quite likely that you aren't actually correcting grammatical mistakes -- most of the time you're probably correcting sentences with incorrect meaning and pronunciation. I mean, it probably doesn't hurt or anything, it's just probably not as helpful as you might think it is. [1]: https://youtu.be/a7Un06tDOn0?t=272 https://youtu.be/a7Un06tDOn0?t=272
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> To be fair, you learn your first language by inference and don't start learning the rules until you're some 10 years into fluency. This isn't really a good way to think about it; if you're fluent, you have already learned all the rules. A "rule" like "no one will take you seriously as a lawyer if you write 号, you must always write 日 instead" is a fact about the culture, not the language.
tsimionescu 6y ago
As I said elsewhere, the main difference is that children get 7-10 years of constant immersion, 24h a day, to learn their first language. I don't have that kind of time :) Also, I agree that past a certain point grammar becomes extremely convoluted. But I'm not speaking about complex grammar subtleties here, just basic things such as the role of prepositions, word order, basic conjugations etc. Stuff like "most verbs from their past by adding -ed at the end" or "when you ask a question, you typically change the word order and add "do" " etc.

by Swizec 6y ago

jjeaff 6y ago

We may not teach a codified grammar rule set until later, but we are definitely learning grammer as we learn language for the first time. My 2 year old will say things like, "I like she". After which we will correct her, "I like her". She has never heard anyone say "I like she" but she is re-ordering and inventing her own sentences using unspoken rules. (She may have generated that sentence from hearing "where is she?") She will eventually recognize that some things don't sound right, but she is also applying those things that sound right to newly invented sentences using those rules. So in effect, we do seem to be learning rules when first learning to talk, we just are extracting those rules internally and applying them rather than working from a codified set of rules.

cyphar 6y ago
There is a fair amount of evidence that corrections (negative evidence) do not actually improve the grammar of children who are still developing their language skills[1], for two reasons: adults are bad at correcting mistakes consistently, and children do not internalise corrections because language acquisition is not a conscious process. In addition, even in early development children actually do appear to have pretty strong understanding of their native language's syntax[2] even if they cannot produce adult-level English. There are certain classes of mistakes they do not make (indicating they have internalised many more rules than may be apparent), and they can understand sentences which have grammar that they do not produce themselves (meaning that the level of output is not a good indication of their language development). [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Un06tDOn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Un06tDOn0 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmghbKNiI1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmghbKNiI1k
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Interesting video. But it seems that the definition of negative evidence is telling the child "no" and then correcting them. When I say we "correct her", I simply mean that we repeat back the sentence correctly. It seems to work well as she will often repeat it back again how we say it or sometimes just continue on. We never withhold understanding because the grammar is wrong. I can definitely see how the example given of correcting with "no, that's not proper grammar" would not be effective with young ones. By repeating it back correctly, she is given another example of correct grammar and I know of no other way for a young child to learn than to hear it spoken more.
  - cyphar 6y ago
    > But it seems that the definition of negative evidence is telling the child "no" and then correcting them. The video goes through several examples from peer-reviewed studies, and several of them involve "repeating back the correct sentence". In fact while the video did mention the fact that saying "no" just makes communication harder, the majority of the video is explaining why giving corrected examples of grammar doesn't necessarily help. The video talks about your approach specifically here[1]. > I know of no other way for a young child to learn than to hear it spoken more. That is true, but repeating back a specific sentence is not necessarily the most effective manner of helping them acquire an aspect of grammar. Language acquisition isn't a conscious process, so focusing on a mistake doesn't help -- and repeating a sentence with correct grammar is only a single example of that particular grammar concept, which the child still needs to hear many more times before they actually acquire. It should also be noted that one of the studies (looking at what sentences parents would correct) found that "there is not even a shred of evidence that approval and disapproval are contingent on syntactic correctness". So it's quite likely that you aren't actually correcting grammatical mistakes -- most of the time you're probably correcting sentences with incorrect meaning and pronunciation. I mean, it probably doesn't hurt or anything, it's just probably not as helpful as you might think it is. [1]: https://youtu.be/a7Un06tDOn0?t=272 https://youtu.be/a7Un06tDOn0?t=272

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> To be fair, you learn your first language by inference and don't start learning the rules until you're some 10 years into fluency. This isn't really a good way to think about it; if you're fluent, you have already learned all the rules. A "rule" like "no one will take you seriously as a lawyer if you write 号, you must always write 日 instead" is a fact about the culture, not the language.

tsimionescu 6y ago

As I said elsewhere, the main difference is that children get 7-10 years of constant immersion, 24h a day, to learn their first language. I don't have that kind of time :) Also, I agree that past a certain point grammar becomes extremely convoluted. But I'm not speaking about complex grammar subtleties here, just basic things such as the role of prepositions, word order, basic conjugations etc. Stuff like "most verbs from their past by adding -ed at the end" or "when you ask a question, you typically change the word order and add "do" " etc.