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by Asraelite
819 days ago
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> never use formalized grammar rules > the rules are formulated post-hoc Not sure what you mean by this. This post-hoc formulation is how you define formal grammar rules, at least in a modern linguistic approach. If the grammar rules you're referring to are nonsense prescriptivist things like "don't end a sentence with a preposition" that you get taught in school, then yeah you can completely disregard them. It is possible to codify the actual grammar of a language as it is spoken, and reading these rules is very helpful for learning a language, but this kind of accurate description of grammar is something you're more likely to find in academic papers than school textbooks. |
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As a personal example, when studying German in high school, I had to rotely memorize charts for article declension [1], prepositions [2], etc. Being able to regurgitate these charts helped me pass standardized tests, but they didn’t actually improve my ability to speak German.
Similarly, students of English are encouraged to painstakingly study rules such as those differentiating ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘me’, ‘mine’ and ‘myself’. [3] Personally, I learned English through immersion instead, acquiring these rules subconsciously rather than consciously studying them!
This is what input-based learning gets at. The theory goes that understanding input, and not conscious learning, is the only way to increase linguistic competence. [4]
(again: not a linguist, any errors are mine)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declension#Articles
[2] https://www.fluentin3months.com/german-prepositions/
[3] https://www.espressoenglish.net/i-my-me-mine-myself/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis