[eric_bullington]

@schacon Interesting post. I agree that language-learning is more of a marathon than a sprint. As someone who speaks several languages[1], it was interesting to read about your perception of how polyglots learn languages. You picked up on some good things (flashcards and these days spaced repetition learning programs since vocab is critical, multiple different tools and books, online tutors) but you didn't mention a characteristic that most polyglots I know share[2]: an excellent foundation in the grammar of their own language, and the inclination to spend the time necessary to build a good foundation in the grammar of whatever language they are learning. I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be enough of a trend that it's worth mentioning.

Some people promote the idea of learning a language "naturally" through an immersive environment. Although immersing yourself in the language is critical once you've picked up a strong foundation, I've personally known very few people who have learned a language to near-native fluency as an adult by simply jumping into a new language environment. Kids do this all the time, but the way most adults successfully learn a new language is different from the way children do it. I've watched some people waste a lot of time trying to speak to native speakers of a language they're learning without having any kind of foundation in vocabulary and grammar. They would have done well to spend at least a portion of that time picking up a basic vocab through flashcards and learning grammar fundamentals of the foreign language in question.

And although I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, most polyglots I know are fascinated by grammar, in addition to having a strong interest in phonology and speech/accents.

So to anyone who has tried and failed to learn a foreign language as an adult and is thinking of giving it another try, I recommend picking up both a review book on the grammar of their native language, as well as a basic but complete grammar of the language they are targeting. Spend some time with these books along with Anki and the language-learning apps, and then go out and immerse yourself in another language environment, either through online language communities, or living/traveling abroad.

And one last type for new language learners: be sure to study idioms and phrases when you use Anki or whatever flashcard program, and not just simple words. Having a good stock of idioms is critical to fluent conversation.

1. At one time, fully fluent in 4 languages, now 2 are rusty but I'm picking them and another back up. I've also enjoyed an intermediate level of fluency in an additional 5-6 languages at one time or another. (I've also worked as a professional interpreter (2 years) and translator (10 years))

2. The only exceptions to this rule have been people who have learned 3-4 languages as children, but even they have a much better knowledge of grammar than most Americans I know.

[schacon]

Thanks for the great comment. I agree that you need to learn the grammar of a language. I personally have a pretty hard time internalizing grammar rules. Our head curriculum designer always makes fun of me because I want to ban tables of things (conjugations, etc) from the world. I can study and memorize it and then when I go to use it, totally miss and it's frustrating. But if I hear a sentence structure 30 times in a few weeks, I will often naturally start using it.

We try in our system to teach grammar through the same spaced repetition system - presenting a rule and then giving you a cloze test and spacing it the same as vocab. So we can know, for example, that your second person plural conjugation is weak and often missed, but your first person singular is strong because you always nail it. Then we can try to show you exercises that make you practice the weaker thing when you're in a live session, to reinforce it in a different environment and make sure you can produce it orally too.

Most recent research that I've seen, and the linguistics researchers that I've talked to, seem to conclude that there is little difference between being implicitly and explicitly taught grammar. That you don't need be explicitly explained the rule to use it consistently, but that the important thing is that your focus is brought to mistakes in form and you make an effort to improve those mistakes. There are a hundred studies on this and they all seem to come out slightly differently and generally not very significantly. That said, learners often like to know the rules, even if it's not significantly helpful for long term retention and production.

I would caution against recommending that people pick up a grammar book unless it's an incredibly good one. Most are dry and difficult and assume you know the vocabulary of linguistics, which most people don't. As we said, language is a marathon and it's hard to stick with if you're immediately and mind-numbingly bored, which grammar books are good at. I personally prefer to get communicative and work on fixing my grammar as I go, since it gives me momentum.

I like the middle ground that Chatterbug has taken. The grammar testing is interactive and you can reinforce good patterns when talking with human beings in a spaced way. I know my grammar is in many cases wrong when speaking in German, but most people don't seem to find the mistakes I make at my level particularly problematic, and it gives me time and confidence to focus on the forms that I'm getting wrong.

What's really funny to me is that watching my own videos right after I do a lesson, I notice many of my own grammar errors, because I'm hearing them and have time to think about them, but I don't always have time to pull stuff properly when in the heat of trying to formulate and speak a sentence in real time. But I belive that helps me improve faster and stay motivated.

[eric_bullington]

I'm glad that you're integrating grammar into Chatterbug, even if it's implicit. I do believe that learning a foreign language's grammar implicitly (via immersion) is an inefficient way to pick up grammar. I tutored languages for 5 years in university and grad school, and I always saw the light bulb go off when I explained the rules why some word behaved in a certain way in a sentence. For most people, it's very enlightening and makes language learning easier and more enjoyable.

> I would caution against recommending that people pick up a grammar book unless it's an incredibly good one. Most are dry and difficult and assume you know the vocabulary of linguistics, which most people don't.

I strongly disagree. First, grammar books very rarely use any linguistics vocabulary. And learners can find totally adequate basic grammars in the back of introductory language learning books and textbooks. They do assume you know a little grammar vocab, but not linguistics (which is, of course, a field of study completely separate from language learning). For Indo-European languages, that includes things like "indirect object", "relative pronouns", "demonstrative pronouns", etc. And for declined languages like Russian and Greek, they may use terms like "nominative" and "accusative". But they often explain these terms first, and if not, that's why I recommend people first pick up a basic book on English grammar.

And yes, if your goal is simply to get by in a language, like to the level of a serious tourist, making frequent grammar mistakes is not a big deal.

But if your goal is to learn a language fluently, and particularly if your goal is to learn more than one language fluently, you should ask yourself if it's worth the initial investment of learning the basics of grammar, to the level that you're able to follow a basic introductory grammar. For most people reading HN, I'd think this is something they could pick up in several weeks part-time, or maybe a month or two if they have absolutely no background (like, you have no idea what the subject of a sentence is, or what verb tenses refer to). And then, based on my past multi-decade experience learning, teaching, and speaking multiple languages, I'd be willing to bet that things will "click" much more than if they had no idea what these things refer to.

Finally, I do agree that grammar should not be a major focus of foreign language learning -- maybe 10-20% of the time. But that 10-20% has the potential to make the other components of your language learning voyage much, much easier.