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I'm a non native speaker who has reached native-level fluency in English, and I have never looked at a conjugation table in my life. The only experience I have

I'm a non native speaker who has reached native-level fluency in English, and I have never looked at a conjugation table in my life. The only experience I have is thousands of hours of reading/listening, and maybe a couple hundred hours of speaking.

Jabbles 6y ago
English does not have many different conjugations or verb inflections. Russian has lots.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Yet Russian people learn the language just as OP did. Those tables serve at best as references to be consulted rarely, not as an organic learning material, that would be insanity.
  - AndriyKunitsyn 6y ago
    They do, they start as toddlers, they practice the language 24/7, and they have a decade to master it. Adult people simply don't have this luxury. Kids are not really a model for learning as an adult. Learning is an effort that needs to be put. Preferably, in a time frame narrow enough you don't forget why you even started learning. And when optimizing the language learning process, grammar tables are useful.
    - nullsense 6y ago
      Kids actually learn really slowly when you think about it.
    - chr1 6y ago
      I have learned Russian at around 10 years and Engish at 22 and in both cases grammar tables and rules were waste of time. After accumulating some initial vocabulary, the best route was to read books and watch tv.
  - watwut 6y ago
    A lot of time in school is spent learning grammar. And one (small) part of it is conjugation - you actually learn the rules. For situations where feel guides you wrong. Or for arguing - if there is disagreement you solve it y rules.
rahimnathwani 6y ago
Right, but you started as a child, spent a lot of time in an English-speaking environment and (presumably) had teachers who would identify language mistakes in your homework. BTW I think most native speakers would write 'non-native' instead of 'non native'.
- ajfjrbfbf 6y ago
  Also English has the easiest verb conjugation of nearly all languages but Esperanto.

Jabbles 6y ago

English does not have many different conjugations or verb inflections. Russian has lots.

cambalache 6y ago
Yet Russian people learn the language just as OP did. Those tables serve at best as references to be consulted rarely, not as an organic learning material, that would be insanity.
- AndriyKunitsyn 6y ago
  They do, they start as toddlers, they practice the language 24/7, and they have a decade to master it. Adult people simply don't have this luxury. Kids are not really a model for learning as an adult. Learning is an effort that needs to be put. Preferably, in a time frame narrow enough you don't forget why you even started learning. And when optimizing the language learning process, grammar tables are useful.
  - nullsense 6y ago
    Kids actually learn really slowly when you think about it.
  - chr1 6y ago
    I have learned Russian at around 10 years and Engish at 22 and in both cases grammar tables and rules were waste of time. After accumulating some initial vocabulary, the best route was to read books and watch tv.
- watwut 6y ago
  A lot of time in school is spent learning grammar. And one (small) part of it is conjugation - you actually learn the rules. For situations where feel guides you wrong. Or for arguing - if there is disagreement you solve it y rules.

rahimnathwani 6y ago

Right, but you started as a child, spent a lot of time in an English-speaking environment and (presumably) had teachers who would identify language mistakes in your homework. BTW I think most native speakers would write 'non-native' instead of 'non native'.

ajfjrbfbf 6y ago
Also English has the easiest verb conjugation of nearly all languages but Esperanto.