Grammar Frustration

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Ack, I have to go to bed, it's nearly 11 and I have to leave for work at 6:30. I have to confess my ignorance about hyphen rules; as I said before, it's rare that I deal with such high-level grammar and although I'm generally an "expert" on grammar (compared to the vast majority of people), there are always new things to learn. I'll have to look at that site tomorrow, as I have three or four hours of staring at the ceiling and then if I'm lucky a few hours of sleeping to do before I get up for work. Thanks everyone for the stimulating discussion. I hope it gets some of this nonsense out of my system for a while!

Oh, I see!

Do you only teach them regular verbs at first, then? As we both know, irregular verbs need a lot more fiddling than just adding an "S!"

I wasn't implying (or supposing) that your students were native speakers of English. If they were, they wouldn't be studying grammar at all.

Sadly, English grammar is no longer a part of our National Curriculum. Foreigners know more about the ins and outs of the British language than the average British person does. A British person may be able to say to a foreigner "that's not how you say that; you're wrong," but they won't be able to explain why, because they have no idea. That's what saddens me.

I once heard a foreigner ask his British acquaintance for help with phrasal verbs, and he was shocked to discover that said Briton did not even know what a verb was, let alone a phrasal one.

In terms of grammar, we are a national (and global) embarrassment.

Oh, that's OK! You are welcome.

Like you, I am an "expert" compared to most people, but there are predictable and glaring gaps in my knowledge, so I'm sure this thread will be interesting for learning new things.



You may have to be invited to join my Secret Society. Membership currently stands at three; it's very exclusive.

Well I've been told that in US they don't even teach (in public schools) what is "inflection" and now you say there's no such thing as grammar class in UK curriculum any more? How come? What if students want to learn linguistics or study other languages - do they study it when they enroll the University??

We've been taught the basics of grammar from the third grade, primary school and basically in every high school there is a class on grammar - from gymnasiums, art schools to technical schools etc.

In the UK people are no longer taught grammar at school, no. It's an absolute disgrace. Students in other European countries not only learn English but they are also taught to study the grammar of their own language, something sadly lacking in the UK. This is perhaps what makes Brits so bad at learning foreign languages: they are not familiar with the grammatical terms needed to enable them to do so. Terms such as verbs, adjectives, nouns, pronouns, prepositions, etc are in themselves a bit of a foreign language to the average Brit.

Wow, and I thought US education system was bad! But I guess you do get some kind of linguistic education - at least at the University level, no - if that's your major?

We even have classical primary schools, where children are being taught their maternal language (literature, grammar, spelling) plus 1-2 second (or third) languages (usually English and German) and plus the study of Latin and Greek!

There are many university teachers that speak up to 5-6 languages, and it's a common thing to have at least studied 2-3 languages apart from our own. Yet we're still at the bottom of Europe, when it comes development and progress in general.

That is likely a part of it. There is a tendency amongst native English speakers resident in UK or America to be uninterested in learning another language anyway. Unless those people travel a lot they rarely encounter other languages in their daily lives.

Comparing England to France; the kids here in France are taught English as standard nowadays and they are exposed to English in many aspects of life. In England French is rarely seen or heard - except maybe for a few words in a perfume advert on television. Curiously those very same adverts are shown here in France in English - the products must sound more sophisticated when spoken in a foreign language.

Which country are you from?

As far as I know, British children are still being taught spelling and being made to read literature, but they're not being taught grammar.

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/lagb-las.htm



http://www.st-michaels-pri.devon.sch.uk ... Policy.htm



"Not about learning terminology?"

I see their point, of course; they're trying to justify their failure to teach students what verbs and nouns and adjectives are, by trying to claim that the students aren't even going to remember, so what's the use? Well, make them remember them! They must remember them. Learning those terms ought to be as vital as being made to learn one's ABC, in my opinion. How on earth do they propose to teach foreign languages without them?

My High School French classes were often rather bewildering, because the teacher was "conjugating" things called "verbs," and explaining rules about the gender of things called "adjectives" that had to agree with things called "nouns," and because no one in our English class had ever bothered to teach us what those things were, a lot of it went over the top of my head. It wasn't the French teacher's fault, either. S/he is there to teach French, not to waste time explaining basic grammatical terminology that the students ought to have been taught elsewhere.

Croatia - we may have good education (for now), but I've heard that government is planing to reform it - by following the US model! For god's sake - talking about following the bandwagon effect and heard instincts and the road of least resistance.

Right now our government suggested some changes, which caused our teachers to abort the exam season and start a general strike, and we might even miss a whole academic year because of it (which some of us had to pay). Not to mention that we already had a 5 weeks of strike earlier this year because they wanted bigger salaries. Oh the joys of the modern education. (I'm a student of classical philology and romance languages).



Thanks for the links.

I wholeheartedly agree with you - studying a language without knowing the basic structures is silly! like trying to teach architecture without knowing what are the basic elements i.e. the bricks. Every child here knows what is a noun and 90% of the population can at least understand English (and some other languages) pretty well, presumably not only owing to exposure via all sorts of media, but because of the continuous studying since the primary school.

I'm really surprised that anyone proposed such a lacking curriculum, that's really silly.

Last edited by Booyakasha on 01 Jul 2011, 1:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

this is y i suld neva date some1 good n english. day will neva stop nit-pickin ma typin & gramor.
I have nothing helpful to suggest but I can not have great typing & grammar when I try my best due to bad typing & dyslexia. Grammar natzie's drive people to type worse sometimes. I want to type wrong to rebel when people start nit-picking my post.

If you don't like this thread, why storm in and mess it up? Why not go and start your own thread for people who want to write in textspeak?

We all have our own interests. There is nothing wrong with having a thread all about grammar. No one is forcing you to take part if grammar is not your thing, but please don't spoil it for the rest of us.

Those of us who actually care about correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling are forced to read others' appalling errors on a daily basis, and we bite our tongues and say nothing out of politeness and consideration because we are aware that people do not welcome unsolicited remarks on their writing.

Can't you show us the same consideration, and let us have just one thread where we're allowed to discuss things we care about without being disturbed?

Thanks.

Because Grammar Natzie's correct my grammar here occasionally. It seems hypocritical for em to call others out on their grammar when they don't like me complaining about grammar Natzie's in this thread. I am NOT trying to be rude or anything here. I'm trying to make a point(& probably not doing a good job at it) that we need to try avoid being nit-picky about things like that because being nit-picky with others can cause them to be nit-picky with us. My post here was bad just as correcting others grammar in there post is bad. Perhaps having a better understanding that this nit-pickyness can go both ways can be a helpful motivating factor for the OP & others to resist calling others on it & maybe they will have less of an urge to. Sometimes I feel the urge to be very critical of others but understanding where they are coming from & that they can have similar complaints about me reduces my urge to be critical of them. Those thigns start bothering me less. Hopefully this makes some sense

I am a primary school teacher in England. We do teach terminology such as verb, adjective, noun, preposition etc. I currently teach 5 year olds and they know this terminology. I do agree that there is a lot to work on though; we do not teach grammar in depth.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down everyone.

Nick, this thread is not about wanting everyone in the world to always type with perfect grammar. If you'll read through the posts, at least the ones I've made, you'll see that I explicitly state that I have no problem with people making mistakes if they are not native speakers or have language-related disabilities like dyslexia. The thing that bothers me is when people *intentionally* refuse to learn basic grammar and spelling.

I never said it's a good idea to go around correcting people all the time. I'm well aware that this is a terrible and useless idea. I did not start this thread because I think everyone should write perfectly, or because I think everyone should always be correcting strangers on web sites. I started it to ask for advice, for OTHER ways of dealing with the frustration I feel when I see or hear these mistakes. Some people asked me some questions, I answered to the best of my ability, and I found that it was helpful for me to release this energy, and that's how we got onto specific discussion of grammar rules.

Please, guys, do NOT start an argument over whether everyone should write with perfect grammar or whether everyone should be corrected all the time. That is NOT what I want at all. I was only looking for ways to release my frustration without stepping on anyone's toes. THAT'S ALL.

Finally, on the term "grammar nazi" - please do not use it. I know that for Americans, World War 2 and the holocaust are like a long-ago, far-away, half-remembered dream, but I live in central Europe, where pockets of Nazis still exist and the memory of what they did (and occasionally still try to do) is still fresh and painful. Comparing someone who likes to correct grammar to someone who supports the mass murder of innocent people based solely on their ethnic background is incredibly unfair. Calling someone a Nazi here is like calling a black person "n****r." Just don't. Please. Find another term to use. Nazi is far too harsh.

Now, regarding the original subject, I've been thinking about it since last night. I've realized one reason why it bothers me so much. As has already been pointed out, it's depressingly rare for any native speaker of English to bother to learn a second language. This annoys me in itself, especially since Americans (particularly the ones who have no knowledge of foreign languages or cultures) generally regard themselves as "the best country in the world," even though most of them have never left it. But the fact that they won't even bother to learn (or teach their children) the BASIC grammar of THEIR OWN LANGUAGE just frustrates me. I know some people have legitimate reasons for this (such as dyslexia), but most people don't. It's one thing if you've never been taught - how can you know what you haven't been taught? - but it's the complete refusal to learn that gets me. My students make plenty of grammatical mistakes, but not ONE of them would EVER confuse "your" and "you're," and they are confused that anyone could. They are completely different ideas.

I was only taught English grammar for a couple of months in my small-town American middle school, in sixth grade. No one in that class remembered any of it afterwards, myself included. The only reason I am an expert on grammar now is because I studied foreign languages, and then later went into teaching English. I learned more about English grammar by studying Latin and German (and all the rest) than I ever did by studying English. This is a tragedy, I agree. And I also agree that for many people, it will never be important. If you're working in a factory or a restaurant or a supermarket, it doesn't come into play. But if you work in an office where you have to write reports, and you write "they're" instead of "their," you're making yourself and your company look bad. This is doubly true if you work for an international company. If a non-native speaker of English sees such a mistake made by a native speaker, their confidence in you will drop considerably, I can assure you. And yes, in the unlikely event that an English-speaker wants to learn a foreign language, it is INFINITELY easier if you already know English grammar. Otherwise your foreign language teacher will have to teach you your own grammar before they can begin teaching you the new language. Frustrating for everyone.

I wanted to say this yesterday, but didn't because I thought I'd already said enough.

I couldn't agree more. Nazi is a highly offensive word to use against anyone unless they really ARE a Nazi. The term "stickler" (which is used in the book I linked to) is a far more relevant (and less offensive) one to use, Nick007, so please use that if you wish to continue posting on this thread.

Presumably you wouldn't go round calling someone a racist murderer if they corrected your mistakes on their superior knowledge of any other subject, so why grammar?

Correcting grammar has nothing to do with slaughtering innocent Jews, so back off.

I've learned much more about grammar because of studying other languages (Russian, Sanskrit and now French). Like you I'd forgotten much of the English grammar I was taught at school.

It is certainly true that grammar is important when working in an office environment. In the past when I've interviewed people for office jobs it was often a case of ten or more applicants for one job. A number of those eliminated themselves due to spelling errors or basic grammatical mistakes in their CV. Surprisingly some even made spelling mistakes with the company name or address on their application envelope.