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Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - blackbrich - 2012-02-18
Hmmmm, all the grammar lessons I had were focused on naming what these and these are called. Most everything else was figured out with writing and teachers marking up all of your errors in using "correct" written language vocabulary, syntax, and style.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - blackbrich - 2012-02-18
caivano Wrote:Maybe "studying" grammar means... Perfectly memorize the grammar table, once you finish that move on, memorize the rule, move on, memorize, move onCarolinaCG Wrote:I stopped studying grammar like 1.5 years ago. From that time on, instead of studying I just added grammar sentences to anki.I think this is where a lot of the 'I don't study grammar' myth comes from, if you're learning sentences based on grammar you're learning (studying) grammar...
imo of course
Like in every subject at school
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - caivano - 2012-02-18
blackbrich Wrote:That's one way to study grammar... but there are quite a lot of other ways people don't consider 'studying' grammar when they are really.caivano Wrote:Maybe "studying" grammar means... Perfectly memorize the grammar table, once you finish that move on, memorize the rule, move on, memorize, move onCarolinaCG Wrote:I stopped studying grammar like 1.5 years ago. From that time on, instead of studying I just added grammar sentences to anki.I think this is where a lot of the 'I don't study grammar' myth comes from, if you're learning sentences based on grammar you're learning (studying) grammar...
imo of course
Like in every subject at school
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - caivano - 2012-02-18
blackbrich Wrote:Hmmmm, all the grammar lessons I had were focused on naming what these and these are called. Most everything else was figured out with writing and teachers marking up all of your errors in using "correct" written language vocabulary, syntax, and style.I'd definitely say you're studying grammar when writing, unless you never look anything up, and ignore all your teacher's comments and corrections..
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - Irixmark - 2012-02-18
I'm with yudantaiteki on this. I've tried it without studying grammar, in the sense that after the conjugations, passive/causative, and a rough idea of when to insert which particle, I thought I'd just focus on vocabulary. Did that for about two years, and got to a level where I was much more "fluent" than most non-native speakers I met. Then I went back to studying grammar because I felt I missed certain nuances. The DBJG/DIJG/DAJG books with their example sentences were a real eye (ear?) opener. That said, I would never do grammar drills.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what "grammar" really is. My sense of a minimum definition is "rules that make a language intelligible."
In Romance languages all you really need is the conjugation and when to use which tense. Because the formal study of grammar evolved primarily in Britain and Germany, i.e. places where non-Romance language speakers had to learn Latin, we tend to think that's what grammar study is.
Japanese has preciously few "rules" of this sort. In fact you could cover those in a few months of study. But there are hundreds of expressions that we would consider "idiomatic" in English that are probably "grammar" in Japanese, and grammar books help you learn the nuances of meaning of these expressions... provided you get enough exposure "in the wild."
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - blackbrich - 2012-02-18
caivano Wrote:I never look anything up when writing. I wouldn't ignore the corrections perse, but next written paper I might forget(This was grade school) and then screw up again and then bam one day it became second nature. I never thought of it as study though, but I guess when it comes down to it, anything you do is pretty much study.blackbrich Wrote:Hmmmm, all the grammar lessons I had were focused on naming what these and these are called. Most everything else was figured out with writing and teachers marking up all of your errors in using "correct" written language vocabulary, syntax, and style.I'd definitely say you're studying grammar when writing, unless you never look anything up, and ignore all your teacher's comments and corrections..
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - Tzadeck - 2012-02-18
dtcamero Wrote:I think the 'don't learn grammar' is one of the biggest points the 反ajatt crowd uses, in a way that is much more extreme than originally intended. As nadiatims says, studying sentences means studying grammar... but it is an issue of studying in a context vs. studying grammar bullet-points and tables in some book of artificial bubble-learning.I'm pretty sure you just accused the anti-AJATT crowd of exaggerating, and then you exaggerated just as badly. If there is some textbook that just has grammar bullet points and tables with no context, I've never seen it.
Even Genki, which is not exactly my favorite Japanese textbook, has grammar explanations with:
●Example sentences using the grammar
●A dialogue using the grammar from the chapter in context
●Class activities for using the grammar in context
●Small essays using the grammar from the chapter in context
You can argue that Genki doesn't do this particularly well, or something like that, but my point would still stand that you are sillily exaggerating.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - yudantaiteki - 2012-02-18
And also, the belief may exist among some people that studying conjugation tables is all you have to do. But I've also met people who believe that RTK 1 will let you read Japanese because you learn the meanings of the kanji, and that's all you need. Neither belief is relevant to a serious discussion of the merits or flaws of the study methods.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - Zgarbas - 2012-02-19
blackbrich Wrote:I always saw it as more filling the gaps and enabling you to pursue a higher level of conversation (from plain English to English). For one thing you get to actually learn the more formal ways of expressing yourself, which kids may or may not have been exposed to (depends on who they interact with when they're young). There's only so much intuition can get you.Zgarbas Wrote:People who say kids don't have to learn grammar to know their native tongue confuse me. Didn't everyone have grammar lessons in primary school?I'm not sure learning the names for things you already know is quite the same thing.
Just because I could hold a conversation and understand the things that were going on around me and in books didn't mean that a few conjugations in my native tongue or the future perfect continuous in English didn't take me by surprise.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - sikieiki - 2012-02-19
Particles are the only grammar that seems to be grammer-ish.
Verb conjugation is straight forward and the other grammar points feel more like "words".
I havent studied grammar other than looking at example sentences sometimes.
Having said that, I dont get particles yet and often make the incorrect guess. The more I see them the stranger they get used, and in ways that another particle was used before. Very confusing.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - nadiatims - 2012-02-19
Grammar is just an attempted description of patterns that exist in the language anyway, patterns that are unavoidable and encountered any time you make contact with it. Whenever language acquisition occurs, grammar acquisition also occurs.
Grammar study (to me at least) refers to going through some prescribed set of language patterns in a set order, with explanations, examples and usually accompanied by questions and drills. This may involve some memorization of methods of conjugation (tables, drills etc).
The problem with this kind of grammar study is that the grammar is often prescribed and can be inaccurate, it is often of limited usefulness in authentic language situations (that haven't been artificially constrained), inevitably makes heavy use of inauthentic 'textbook' language, takes time away from comprehensible input, potentially delays contact with authentic materials and massive vocabulary learning, gives the learner a false feeling of full comprehension and possibly conditions them to not develop/trust their instincts instead relying on crude A=B transformations.
Yudan's personal anecdote to me suggests that he reexamined grammar at about the right time. That is after first reaching a high level, as a way to polish and fill in gaps. The problem with a very grammar focused approach right at the start, is that it can bog you down learning things of dubious usefulness in real language situations. As a beginner what you need more than anything else is to massively grow you vocabulary and get a whole lot of listening practice to develop an ear for the language and start acquiring the ability to parse it in real time.
In the case of Japanese, I think about the most useful grammar worth knowing right off the bat is:
a basic easily applicable rule for は、が、を、に.
verb at the end word order.
placement of subordinate clauses.
How to get back to dictionary form.
This is all you really need. The rest is all vocabulary.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - turvy - 2012-02-19
Fermi style: The hypothesis that you can learn Japanese without grammar seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.
"I learned Japanese without studying grammar" sounds like bullocks to me. By all means, if you actually learned Japanese without grammar (not even the slightest) share the experiment details with the world.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - nadiatims - 2012-02-19
Well bucket loads of Japanese children speak Japanese very very well without ever studying grammar...
My Japanese continued to improve well after I stopped studying grammar.
My Mandarin continues to steadily improve, even though I have never studied grammar.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - Tzadeck - 2012-02-19
nadiatims Wrote:Well bucket loads of Japanese children speak Japanese very very well without ever studying grammar...As for your first point, Japanese children learn Japanese as a first language at a young age and with a parent around constantly, which does not mimic our situation at all.
My Japanese continued to improve well after I stopped studying grammar.
My Mandarin continues to steadily improve, even though I have never studied grammar.
As for your other two points, nobody is saying that you can't improve your Japanese without grammar study. ANY time invested in studying will improve your Japanese. That's not what's being questioned. Which being question is whether you will improve more quickly/efficiently with some sort of formal grammar study.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - turvy - 2012-02-19
nadiatims Wrote:My Japanese continued to improve well after I stopped studying grammar.But you admit that you did study grammar. What you learned then was probably enough to allow you now to figure out things on your own.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - nadiatims - 2012-02-19
You asked for examples of anyone who learned japanese without grammar. I learned japanese to fluency 95% without grammar. Yes I did learn some grammar from books and JLPT prep materials in the past, but I consider the amount to be almost negligible and honestly think I progressed faster ignoring these things and focusing on media and vocabulary only. I'm now experiencing the same with Mandarin. So there's my personal anecdote.
edit: to answer your edited response. Honestly I think what enabled me to figure things out on my own was mostly by using dictionaries, translations and prior knowledge.
@Tzadeck, I agree native children are in a different situation, but I think the language acquisition process (what's happening subconsciously) is essentially no different than for adults. All that differs is the time/devotion on task.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - Fillanzea - 2012-02-19
The thing is, though, it's almost impossible for adult learners to begin self-studying Japanese without reference to grammar. Total immersion does not work for beginners; it's just a firehose of language. What you need is some sheltered way to get input that's comprehensible, and I don't know that that's possible in a self-study context. I think the ideal for classrooms for beginners is something like Total Physical Response, but that's not a method you're going to get in your average college class!
So, I think it's a little bizarre that Khatzumoto would advocate both self-study (without a textbook) and immersion, because one of the things that Krashen is very clear on is that the purpose of a classroom is to get you to the point where you're capable of becoming an independent learner (via watching TV, reading books, having conversations). It takes a while.
(I actually think that if you are self-studying you probably should start with a textbook like Genki. It's not the ideal by Krashen's standards, because it's grammatically sequenced, but it does provide a pretty good source of sheltered input.)
So, we shouldn't be surprised if it's hard to find people who have succeeded as adult learners without studying grammar. It's hard to find people who started out learning Japanese in classrooms using more input-focused methods.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - TwoMoreCharacters - 2012-02-19
Fillanzea Wrote:Yes, but grammar lessons in school are mainly focused on things that are part ofReading!
-written language
-formal language
-the language of the middle and upper classes.
So, you learn where to put the comma, you learn not to write run-on sentences and sentence fragments, you learn not to say "ain't" or end a sentence with a preposition (which, by the way, linguists generally agree is a pretty silly rule.) It's important to learn that kind of thing, especially if you want to go to university or get a white-collar job, but it's not fundamental to the grammar of the language.
You'll have to watch a few minutes in, his conclusion comes at around 14.50.
http://sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=2
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - nadiatims - 2012-02-19
Fillanzia Wrote:What you need is some sheltered way to get input that's comprehensible, and I don't know that that's possible in a self-study context.It is possible. You just go buy a cheap phrasebook loaded with example sentences and translations. Or you use a textbook for the same purpose. Read through all the sample sentences and passages, listen to the any recordings on the attached CDs and you'll start absorbing the vocabulary and patterns even if you ignore grammar explanations. Then there's stuff like music (find the translations of the lyrics) and subtitled movies etc.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - blackbrich - 2012-02-19
Zgarbas Wrote:Maybe I was an odd kid, but I never filled in any gaps learning grammar about my native language. They definitely never taught us to speak or write formally. Not explicitly at least. Everything was something I could do, did, and understood. They were literally just names.blackbrich Wrote:I always saw it as more filling the gaps and enabling you to pursue a higher level of conversation (from plain English to English). For one thing you get to actually learn the more formal ways of expressing yourself, which kids may or may not have been exposed to (depends on who they interact with when they're young). There's only so much intuition can get you.Zgarbas Wrote:People who say kids don't have to learn grammar to know their native tongue confuse me. Didn't everyone have grammar lessons in primary school?I'm not sure learning the names for things you already know is quite the same thing.
Just because I could hold a conversation and understand the things that were going on around me and in books didn't mean that a few conjugations in my native tongue or the future perfect continuous in English didn't take me by surprise.
I certainly learned all that formal stuff, and talking better English by simply living in an English speaking country. There was nothing deliberate.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - jishera - 2012-02-19
One of the reasons I like Japanese for Everyone so much is because their grammar exercises are mainly about production or reading/listening in Japanese. There are very few grammar drills or "fill-in-the-blank" exercises in the book. Almost everything is in complete sentences.
Personally, I like having a textbook. I think no matter what you do you are learning grammar to some extent, especially if doing i+1 sentences. Our brain is wired to recognize patterns. In many ways I think having a textbook give you a quick "rule" is faster than figuring out the rule yourself through sentences. Just depends. I think reading a lot is important, too, and after seeing something a billion times it will just sound natural (which seems to be the point of the sentence method).
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - LivingNexus - 2012-02-19
Tzadeck Wrote:Haha, whenever I read a Khatz article I still get so angry...his poor writing skills...Er, how do you mean? I found his writing to be rather entertaining.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - kainzero - 2012-02-19
i feel like the answer to the OP's question is
"no, no one has not studied grammar."
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - TwoMoreCharacters - 2012-02-19
LivingNexus Wrote:♪ Don't get them started!Tzadeck Wrote:Haha, whenever I read a Khatz article I still get so angry...his poor writing skills...Er, how do you mean? I found his writing to be rather entertaining.
Has anyone NOT studied grammar and succeeded? - LivingNexus - 2012-02-19
TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:♪ Don't get them started!XD
Er, I think it's rather too late now.