The question that we often find asking ourselves while learning a language is how important is the grammar and should I give priority to grammar as I progress ?
I think, that language is not meant to be "processed", it is meant to be absorbed 'cos I believe that within us, there is an innate affinity towards languages. our minds are like magnets when it comes to languages. If there is one thing that the immense complexity of the brain is meant to do, it's to absorb information and make sense of it, the very same thing is true with languages as well. The most wonderful thing about this process is that once we know a language we can use it as the founding stone for the most breathtakingly complex things like Literature, Mathematics et cetera.
The most fun part of learning a language is to witness our slow progress in the language and to see something completely unintelligible become something we understand as if it's a child's play.
Do children naturally worry about the correct usage of a particular verb, adjective or case. Not really. That's the genius of children, even if they don't know something or understand it well enough, they will have a go at it. That's curiosity at it's best.
No family sets up weekly grammar lesson for the child so the child may learn the "correct" usage of the language. Grammar, at it's very basic foundation, is an arbitrary set of rules and conventions which evolved organically. To think that once someone has memorised or understood all the various rules of the Grammar, do you think that the person would be able to really "feel" the language. Language is not a dead body, meant to be dissected rather it is random, chaotic and even senseless to someone from an other culture !! But at the same time, it is profoundly the most wonderful thing that life managed to come up with. And when I say language I don't only mean the everyday "flavour", rather I mean the immense diversity of languages.
You never thought about sign languages right?
They too have dialects, they too evolve organically and once the users become proficient in the language, they get the "feel" for the language they start innovating in the language. And any form of innovation involves breaking a few "tradition" here and there and coming up with something that few ever conceived. If two people with two different "parent" sign languages need to communicate, they would come up with a hybrid which would still be as consistent as any language that we can think of. This is just how Creoles are born, they are always at the fuzzy boundaries of cultures involved, they learn from both and create something unique in it's own right, much like how biology works the wonders of creating something new and unique life from genetic inheritance .
They too have dialects, they too evolve organically and once the users become proficient in the language, they get the "feel" for the language they start innovating in the language. And any form of innovation involves breaking a few "tradition" here and there and coming up with something that few ever conceived. If two people with two different "parent" sign languages need to communicate, they would come up with a hybrid which would still be as consistent as any language that we can think of. This is just how Creoles are born, they are always at the fuzzy boundaries of cultures involved, they learn from both and create something unique in it's own right, much like how biology works the wonders of creating something new and unique life from genetic inheritance .
Trust me, if languages were only meant to be those which have a "Grammar" book, then the truth is we have only about a 1000 languages, at best.
The real number is about 6000 languages, having this explicit Grammar book is a luxury invention which only some cultures had at their disposal. Get this, there is this wonderful quote in German "Man lernt Grammatik aus der Sprache, nicht Sprache aus der Grammatik" which in English means, "One learns the Grammar from the Language, not the Language from the Grammar". Makes sense, right?
If we rationalise and try to control the process too much, the absorption and assimilation of the language we interfere with the process. Of course, having definite goals like being able to bargain, order food in the language or say flirt* in the language is a good aim. But having S.M.A.R.T goals is even better, provided, one allows the mind understand things organically.
It's a fact that if we hear certain things over and over again, then even if we don't know what it means we would assimilate it. You seriously don't believe that you "know" what a word means on it's own, do you?
The same fact is true for most of our beliefs, traditions and it is obviously true of languages. We keep on changing, we keep adapting to the changes. C'est la Vie ( That's life) !!
How do I use it ?
Say I am doing this Anki set on Chinese and I come across some sentence or a card that makes no sense to me at the moment. I would hit the Red one[repeat again, quick] for a few times and then start hitting the green ones[repeat in a few days] and moving on with the rest of the pack. Then after some time, when Anki again brings it all up I would again get it wrong a few times but I would remember something more and somewhat more of the sense of the sentence if not the exact words, tones or the order or those words. But there still is something that is being absorbed subconsciously.
And over time after a few more these trials, to my immense pleasure I see that it has started to make more sense and I can easily remember it.
Using Spaced Repetition Software (SRS, like Anki or Memrise) can also be a round-about manner of learning a language for at its core, it's a list of words, vocabulary list again. So eventually, the usefulness of the entire experience depends on the Content of what you are learning.
But if the vocabulary list is constructed with your own reality and needs in mind then there SRS can only be a great help. Thankfully, the ANKI set that I am using for Chinese started off with the few simple sentences and it builds upon those basic phrases and successively adds at most a couple of words to that basic phrases or it would change the context a bit, as in making it an interrogative by adding (ma / 吗) in the end.
I believe that it's only human that what we don't understand, if we are exposed to it enough we eventually accept it and assimilate it. And trust me this tendency of ours is the reason for many a social and personal problems but as far as learning a language is concerned. I think, it is quite a boon, rather than a bane for us.
I think it's especially true for the grammar of languages. Obviously, if we are exposed to the language enough then we supersede the grammatical drills and adapt according to our needs and reality in the language.
Think how grammatical would rap music or poetry be?
I love the former and I am beginning to appreciate the latter more and more each day. It is often he case that those who innovate in languages break a few rules of grammar here and there but it only makes sense that they need to. Think Pushkin, for Russian; there is a reason why he is said to have a fundamental impact on Russian language.
As I wrote this post, I realised that it is getting too long for a single blog post. So, the other half of this piece is contained in Act - 2, coming up next)
*Disclaimer :- If you are looking to flirt in the foreign language at the very beginning, this requires considerably more skill and craftiness. So, do so at your own risk 'cos the depending on the language you might accidentally say something, you would rather not. The stunts are to be performed by well trained artists, do not attempt on your own;P
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