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How do you guys feel about grammar rules in foreigner languages? Aside from learning those of your mother language which are obligatory in schools, did you even bother to study grammar rules when learning another language?
This is something I've always been curious. It took me around 4 years to learn english, it's still pretty rough, but you can see I'm close to (if not already) fluent. The thing is, I never took my english classes in school seriously enough to the point of learning gramatical rules, I've always went with this rule:
http://imgur.com/mug6UcR
Now I'm about to learn another language, and I was wondering if I should try to learn these gramatical rules (even start the english ones), or if there's no problem in knowing them at all.
So what do you think?
  
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I think about grammar rules when I'm writing something. When I'm talking to people, I usually just say whatever comes to my mind. Imho it's more important to aqcuire some sort of fluency (both in speaking and understanding) than making zero grammatical errors.
Lots of native speakers also make mistakes, e.g. djWHEAT has a tendency to use adjectives instead of adverbs.
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United States2822 Posts
Your lack in studying grammar shows in this post, but you're right - your English is sufficient enough to be understood.
Grammar is not necessarily something that requires rigorous study. It is definitely possible to pick up grammatical rules without studying them. That's what children learning their native language do, after all.
However, there definitely is a barrier between "competency" and "fluency" that is bridged in part by proper knowledge of grammar skills. This is most evident in writing, where proper grammar is more prevalent due to the ability to edit the medium. Native speakers will very frequently make grammatical flubs while speaking, and that's natural.
You may not have ever studied the grammar of English, but I'm sure you could point out errors because they "sound wrong." You have an innate understanding of the grammar without study.
And for future reference:
"foreign languages"
"This is something I've always been curious about."
And you have a few comma splices, which create run-on sentences.
What new language are you learning, out of curiosity? And what's your native tongue?
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My English teacher in high school always said that in terms of communication, grammar rules are of little importance compared to the vocabulary. However, in English, the margin of error is probably bigger than in other languages and I guess one can completely miss his point if he's unlucky to use the wrong expression.
On the other hand, after learning Polish grammar, everything else can seem quite easy to master.
What language you are trying to learn?
EDIT: Grammar 
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It really comes down to your goals -- are you learning the language for pleasure, for work, because you moved there, etc. Keep in mind that English is a very complicated language and even as a native speaker I feel like I am constantly learning it.
In America, if you speak any degree of intelligible English then that's more than enough to live comfortably, make friends, and get a decent job. People probably won't judge you too much on a day-to-day basis (especially if you live in a more urban area) because there are so many immigrants with different dialects so most people are used to the language being butchered in one way or another. Another thing to note is that a lot of young Americans are not learning much grammar at all in school thanks to our crappy education system, so speaking/writing well is somewhat of a privilege reserved for the wealthy or those who spend their free time reading a lot. And I'm not just talking about GRE-level vocabulary -- I mean simple shit like not knowing the difference between their/there/they're or even using complete sentences.
Since English is pretty much the lingua franca of the western business world, being linguistically adept definitely carries a lot of weight when you need to network or schmooze with someone. As for other languages, you need to figure out how often you'll be speaking with people in that language and in what context -- i.e. if 90% of your business is going to be done with Germans then learning the ins and outs of German grammar will probably go a long way in aiding your career goals. But if you're just going to be living there and doing your work with international partners, then you can probably get away with mediocre German while honing your English skills even further.
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Korea (South)11232 Posts
The further away your own language is from the language you learn you should learn the grammar.
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English grammar came very naturally to me. I sort of picked up the language almost like a native language even though I probably didn't get into contact with the language before age 12 or so. I'm sure I'm far from a native speaker in terms of grammatical correctness, but I never really thought or think about grammar when I write in English (which happens to be the majority of the writing I do).
Japanese grammar on the other hand... is rough. It seems to be very important though, because the grammatical constructs in Japanese carry very precise and fine-grained meanings.
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Grammar is key to any language, without it no one would understand it. The question isn't so much whether or not you think about grammar when you write; the question is how much do you need to study it in particular to grasp it. See, even if you didn't study grammar seriously in school, you still write "how do you guys feel", not "how feel guys you", and that's grammar right there.
In general, studying grammar specifically will speed up the process at which you learn a language. You can read a bunch of books in said language without studying grammar and eventually get a grasp of it, but reading up on grammatical structures beforehand will let you understand far faster.
Don't be afraid of learning grammar. It's a helpful tool in language learning, it doesn't have to be a chore.
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Not having at least decent grammar tends to devolve the speaker or writer into relying on pictures of cats with equally questionable language.
Great grammar isn't usually necessary to get the point across, but it still makes you sound silly intelligent (edit).
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On August 21 2013 23:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Great grammar isn't usually necessary to get the point across, but it still makes you sound silly.
If there is a grammatical rule that causes this sentence not to be funny then I haven't heard of it.
Damn, now I am in doubt of the placement of the "not".
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On August 21 2013 23:39 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2013 23:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Great grammar isn't usually necessary to get the point across, but it still makes you sound silly. If there is a grammatical rule that causes this sentence not to be funny then I haven't heard of it.
What? I said that you rarely require perfect grammar to be understood, but using grammar correctly certainly helps.
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I learned English largely by reading it, but never really bothered to learn grammatical rules per se. I just deduced them over many many years. I'm sure sometime it shows.
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On August 21 2013 23:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2013 23:39 spinesheath wrote:On August 21 2013 23:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Great grammar isn't usually necessary to get the point across, but it still makes you sound silly. If there is a grammatical rule that causes this sentence not to be funny then I haven't heard of it. What? I said that you rarely require perfect grammar to be understood, but using grammar correctly certainly helps.
"(great) grammar" is the subject of your sentence, "it" refers to the subject. Therefore "great grammar makes you sound silly".
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On August 21 2013 23:54 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2013 23:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On August 21 2013 23:39 spinesheath wrote:On August 21 2013 23:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Great grammar isn't usually necessary to get the point across, but it still makes you sound silly. If there is a grammatical rule that causes this sentence not to be funny then I haven't heard of it. What? I said that you rarely require perfect grammar to be understood, but using grammar correctly certainly helps. "(great) grammar" is the subject of your sentence, "it" refers to the subject. Therefore "great grammar makes you sound silly".
Good catch; I was careless 
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about grammar for foreigner: 3month talk>>>>>>>6years write.
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I'm doing fine in Japanese having read a grand total of one grammar textbook in 5 years or so. Lots of reading, lots of TV/movies/music, lots of chatting with people. I get the impression that this is how a lot of people from other countries pick up English so well too. The amount of times you're gaming with some Euro guy and ask how he has such amazing English and he replies that he just grew up watching English TV shows and chatting English on the internet... yeah, I kinda wanted to emulate that learning Japanese lol.
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i tried japanese for a semester at Uni, i failed miserably. Even though i am fluent in german, french and english, japanese seems completely backwards in terms of grammar and sentencing.
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United States5491 Posts
Knowing the grammar and then breaking it like a native is pretty much the standard. Perfect grammar isn't necessary, but perfectly broken grammar sometimes is to sound like a native.
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On August 22 2013 01:10 Maxhster wrote:
i tried japanese for a semester at Uni, i failed miserably. Even though i am fluent in german, french and english, japanese seems completely backwards in terms of grammar and sentencing.
I thought Japanese grammar was easy since you didn't have to order the sentence all that much?
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On August 22 2013 01:56 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 01:10 Maxhster wrote:
i tried japanese for a semester at Uni, i failed miserably. Even though i am fluent in german, french and english, japanese seems completely backwards in terms of grammar and sentencing. I thought Japanese grammar was easy since you didn't have to order the sentence all that much?
Grammar is FAR more complex than just word order.
Most western languages (I probably not the right word for what I mean, but you get the point) use similar concepts in different layouts, or something like that. Japanese is different. The western concept of a "subject" can't be applied just like that to Japanese. Japanese doesn't even have "words" in the same sense as western languages. A sentence can be complete while omitting a lot of grammatical components, but you can't just randomly omit stuff because you feel like it...
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EPT
