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I find it weird that many English natives try to claim that English grammar is in fact complex (you are by far not the first). I think it might be because in ge
by cycomanic 5y ago
I find it weird that many English natives try to claim that English grammar is in fact complex (you are by far not the first). I think it might be because in general many don't speak another language and the most common second language is Spanish which has also a very "simple" grammar.
Regarding your example with the gerund, yes it is subtle, but similar subtleties exist in German, e.g. The difference between perfect and simple past (also exist in English), which many native speakers in both English and German get wrong as well.
An interesting anecdote (which might be related) is, that in my experience having gone to high-school in the US for a year and having done language courses with Australian teachers, that there seems to be much less education on the grammar of the language than in Germany. I often knew the "theory" of English grammar much better than the native speakers (doesn't mean I was better at applying it though).
All that said, mastering English is still difficult, just not due to the grammar. Spelling is one thing, but also the vocabulary is huge. Supposedly Shakespeares vocabulary was 60000 words, the equivalent German poet Goethes was less than 40000.
- maxnoe 5y agoGerman Goethe researchers claim 90.000 for Goethe im their dictionary of Goethe's work: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe-W%C3%B6rterbuch https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe-W%C3%B6rterbuch
- cycomanic 5y agoInteresting, I wonder if this is due to a difference of counting compound words?
- Teknoman117 5y agoEnglish grammar is heavily taught in elementary school (K-5, ~age 5 to 11) and middle school (6-8, ~age 11-14) curriculum in the US. You're pretty much expected to have the grammar down by high school, where the focus shifts to composition (essay courses, etc.) This was my experience growing up here anyways. The last time I had a test question ask me to circle the past participle was middle school (and the SAT).
- Symbiote 5y agoDo 14 year olds in the USA know what "gerund" means? I didn't know terms like that in England in the 2000s, though I picked them up from learning other foreign languages later. I have heard university professors complain that they can say, simply, "rephrase the paper into the active voice" to a student from <anywhere else>, but many British students don't know what that means. England now teaches more grammar, but it is not much use generalizing from individual experiences of a particular state/country in a particular decade.
- brightly-salty 5y agoNo, I don’t think most 14-year-olds in the USA would know what a gerund is, but most of them would know active versus passive voice. Maybe the kids in advanced or hobbies classes, though. (Speaking as an American high school student)
- Teknoman117 5y agoYes, we were taught what a gerund _is_, but I never had a teacher who actually called it that.
- cafard 5y agoI did, but because of Latin class, not because of English class.
- wink 5y agoTalking of perfect and simple past you might be missing the "fact" that for parts of Germany (Upper Bavaria in my case) the simple past simply doesn't exist. At all. (With the exception of "to be" where the perfect doesn't seem to exist). I know, you can argue that away by calling it a dialect but even though I kinda lost my dialect in all the years at school and at work, this has persisted insofar that is still sounds wrong if someone says "Ich ging spazieren."
- bobthepanda 5y agoEnglish grammar in the US would have been elementary and middle school. By high school English classes moved on to just literature and analysis. So you may have just not been present for it. YMMV; curricula are highly local.