Is Grammar Actually Important For Learning A Language?

Grammar is both important and not. It is basically the rules on how we use the language, so it certainly has its place in a language and as a learner it can be important.

However, you will also find that you do not need to put as much emphasis on it as might think when you are learning.

You can make a lot of progress in the language while not really focusing on the grammar, which is maybe something more of us should be doing and I will go through why I believe this is the case.

We Can’t Deny Grammar Is Important

When it comes to languages in general, we can’t deny that grammar is very important. If you want to be good at the language you need to make sure you are using grammar properly.

However, when we look at language learning, things are a little different.

If we look at the first language we have learned, our native language, we will be able to use grammar correctly, but how many of us actually understand the grammar we are using? We just know what is right and wrong and we can’t not really articulate why certain a thing works in a certain way.

This is the totally opposite from how we learn a new language, where you will force a lot of the grammar onto yourself early on.

We are generally quite successful at speaking our native language compared to languages we have learned after, which makes me question if learning so grammar early on is actually helpful.

We may have more success if we learned a second language more like our native one and didn’t worry so much about the grammar; however, knowing how grammar works can certainly be helpful, so it’s not as clear cut as this.   

Grammar Shouldn’t Be Your First Exposure To The Language

To really learn a language you need some exposure to it first, before you can truly understand how it works.  Once we have enough reference points in the language we can start to understand the grammar when it is explained to us.

I think this is why so many people fail with a second language. They are immediately hit with the grammar and they have no reference points. This leads them to reference it to their native language and it instantly makes no sense, since it’s a difference language.

This confusion just becomes too overwhelming and they give up.

I really believe that if you are going to start learning a new language you will find that initially leaning 100 words will be more useful to you than understanding 10 grammar points.

However, you will reach a point where vocabulary alone will not be enough and you will need to look at grammar.  I do think grammar is important; it just should not be your first exposure to the language.

(You an read more about – Where Should You Start When Learning A New Language?)

Look At How Kids Learn Grammar

If we look at children and how they learn grammar, you will see it slowly and through trial and error.

Children start by learning single words and then slowly adding them together to form little sentences. Often these will be jumbled together but as they are exposed to more of the language and keep speaking, they slowly learn the correct way to use the language and build up a large number of reference points to get things right.

While kids may not know every word when they are young, they are still considered fluent. However, they are not actually taught about grammar until they are about 11 years old and are at high school.

It’s at this point it is explained to them how things work and what all the rules are. At this point they have enough reference points to be able to understand what is being explained to them.

Most kids will have been using these grammar rules and will have no idea, which just goes to show that you can get quite advanced in a language while having no idea why certain things work the way they do.  

Adults Can Learn Differently

As adults we have a lot more understanding of the world and of our own language compared to an 11 year old, so we can be taught a language in a slightly different way.

I think this is exactly why most courses and text books lean into grammar very heavily from the start. I think these types of lessons can have their place, but I also believe we still need those reference points in the language to help us understand.

If we where to focus on getting some exposure to the language first and then looking at the grammar we would find it much more efficient. We will actually have some reference points to link the grammar rules too and they will all click a lot faster.

I don’t think we need to wait 11 years to learn the grammar like the kids, we can probably start a lot sooner, but I do think that initial expose and basic vocabulary is a lot more important than we realise.  

(You can read more about – Why Is Grammar Always The Hardest Part Of Language Learning?)

Don’t Obsess Over Grammar

I think the best approach is to accept that grammar is important, but don’t obsess over it.

I have found that just immersing in the language and focusing on learning vocabulary to be the best place to start. If you do this you will start to notice things naturally in the language and you will start to ask why things are that way.

Usually the answer to your questions is going to be a grammar point and if you look this up it will actually make a lot of sense as you have sort of noticed it naturally and more importantly you have some real world references points to relate it to.

I have done this a lot in Japanese. I quickly noticed that verb words I had learned always seems to be at the end of the sentence and when I looked this up and read about this, I was right. However, I also noticed that the verbs have slightly different endings; I assumed this was some sort of conjugation and when I looked it up I was basically right.

At this point I could have deep dived into all the endings and tried to really obsess over them, but I didn’t. I just accepted that different endings mean slightly different things and with time it will make more sense.

Trying to overwhelm myself with all this new information that I wasn’t really comfortable with wasn’t going to help, so it was better to just wait and get more exposure to the language and see if I noticed anything else around all this.    

Too Much Grammar Doesn’t Help

While grammar is important, too much doesn’t help you. If you ever look at the people who spend way too much energy on grammar, their language skills are actually not great.

Sure they can tell the difference between the present continuous and the simple present …but can they order a meal at a restaurant? Usually not.

I guess it depends on your goals and what you want from the language, but I am assuming most of you want to talk to a decent level and just use the language, which you will not get form focusing too much on grammar. If you wanted to really get an understanding of the grammar you would go and study literature at university instead.   

(You can read more about – Why Is Grammar Always The Hardest Part Of Language Learning)

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can see that while grammar is important, it is not everything. You will still be able to get pretty far without it and really the more exposure you can get to the language, the more likely you will actually start to understand the grammar and find it useful. 

(You can read more about – How To Make Learning Grammar Easier)