Is Spanish grammar necessary?
Welcome to another blog entry on study methods for the Spanish language. Click on this link to read the last blog entry on ways that you can incorporate studying into your everyday activities. This week we are going to be looking at…
The G word! Everyone seems scared of this thing called grammar, some so much so that they refuse to acknowledge its apparent usefulness or relevance in their learning. So what is the deal with grammar? Is it really just something for the brainiest of language speakers and academics, or is there something else holding you back? And is there another way you can get conversational without grammar or at the very least competent enough to travel around a Hispanic country or chat with Hispanic friends?
The Misunderstanding and Fear of Grammar
I see a number of absolute beginner courses available in Australia and even around the world advertised on the sole fact that they are pure conversational classes, with no grammar involved. As a language teacher, I often get emails and phone calls asking for classes – just conversational ones, with no grammar.
While there are grammar-less Spanish conversation classes (aimed at intermediate and advanced students) and travel classes (aimed at a range of students), there are a few things wrong with the above kinds of claims and requests when it comes to conversation classes and the complete beginner. Why do so many people never stop to ask themselves: “why would everyone else (but not me) want or need to learn grammar? Why would they purposefully put themselves through something potentially unpleasant and unnecessary, when they can just have a ‘conversation class’ or put themselves in an immersive environment and skip it all together?”
I think that deep down, many grammar naysayers suspect that something is amiss in their approach. In spite of seeing others tackle it, and acknowledging the fact that most courses teach something that is ostensibly quite useful, they probably don’t think they’re capable of it. They might also fear that grammar is some insanely hard, lofty, academic, inaccessible set of formulas that are only applicable to those few who are interested in such imposing, die-hard pursuits.
Well the above is simply not true. While some grammarians will disagree with me, and there are a number of aspects to the idea of grammar, you could in one way say that grammar is nothing more than a fancy word for ‘explanation’. Grammar, in the sense of what we look at to learn Spanish, is just an observation of something that happens in the language. I really want to stress the idea of explanation and observation here. Some of these explanations of Spanish are quite common, and a variety of grammar books explain them in much the same way. In other cases, their subjectivity is so broad, that different books, people, websites etc. will often explain the same thing but from different angles or in different styles.
So for the average student of Spanish, that is the definition of grammar that most serves us. It’s just a particular take on how something works. Saying that you want a conversational Spanish class with no grammar is like saying that you want a new job, but don’t want any explanations whatsoever as to why you’re doing what you’re doing, or why things are the way they are. I think that most would agree that explanations serve a purpose for a great deal of things in life. Some explanations may be more involved than others, but an explanation is simply a tool for understanding something.
The Irrelevance of Grammar?
Saying ‘no grammar, thanks (i.e. no explanations, thanks)’ is, therefore, a misunderstanding or fear about what grammar is. A lot of students seem intent on the idea that their Spanish learning journey somehow doesn’t have anything to do with grammar. The notion that grammar is irrelevant to one’s own journey is probably due to the belief that tough grammatical explanations are simply not necessary. We only want the ultra easy ones, with a focus on conversation, because conversation is supposed to be fun and down to earth. That sounds reasonable, right? After all, who wants to do anything which might be potentially stressful or unnecessarily difficult? I certainly wouldn’t want to! We should just be able to go to a conversational class, copy what the teacher does and immerse ourselves in the ambience of the class atmosphere.
Through this process, language will happen. After all, when someone says yo quiero una cerveza, the word-for-word translation is ‘I want a beer’. That’s straightforward enough. Why would I want any grammar? Now if all language acquisition were like this, I wouldn’t be writing this article. All I’d have to do is participate in a few classes over a period of time, and memorise the words. Eventually I’d become fluent.
If only!
Unlearning Through Grammar…
It is said that language is a vessel for culture. It both contains and informs our worldview. You could argue that language is itself, a type of culture. You have been programmed from an early age to think and say things in a certain way, without much questioning. When you began your English learning journey, you were sort of like a blank slate on which things were written. Yet when you learn a second or third or fourth language, you come complete with baggage, with ‘common sense’ barriers and rigid ways of doing things. Yet these barriers won’t move easily for most. In a way, you will have to ‘un-write’ much of what you have learned.
Take for instance, the verb hablar. It means ‘to speak’. Yo hablo = I speak. Tú hablas = you speak. Él habla = he speaks. Ella habla = she speaks. Nosotros hablamos = we speak. Let’s also have a look at the verb gustar, which effectively means ‘to like’. Therefore, if I follow the first explanation, all I need to do is say yo gusto to mean ‘I like’, right? No. This is because Spanish speakers do not like particular objects in their environment, but rather, the objects in their environment appeal to, or please them. The verb gustar does not mean ‘to like’ – it means ‘to please’ or ‘to appeal to’. So what you ended up saying was ‘I appeal to’, which means absolutely nothing. The correct way of saying that you like something in Spanish is me gusta. But this is only the beginning… be grateful for the expressions like yo quiero una cerveza when you see them, because at least half of the Spanish language will not be so forgiving.
I’m still not convinced – I will immerse myself…and language will happen
So can’t you just put yourself in an environment where people are using this construct and pick it up through participation and observation? Not likely. At least not unless you’re three years old and you’re learning Spanish as your first language. This topic discussed above is so unlike English, and deviates so much from what we English speakers see as the norm, that to use it properly, you will have to train yourself to say sentences such as (literally translated): ‘to me the apples are pleasing, but to her and to my brother, no.’ This is the correct way of communicating this idea in Spanish. It’s a bit of a stretch to assume that you will ever learn to speak like this purely by participation and observation, without any reflection on or exploration of the grammar which tries to explain it.
The problem is that all along you have either assumed that grammar was reserved for lofty, advanced topics that you would never need. But now you see that an everyday, conversational English expression or sentence that you have found so easy for your entire life is phrased completely differently in another language, to the point where it becomes an alien concept. You are going to have a very, very tough time trying to decipher that one in a conversation class completely devoid of any grammar (ie.: explanations), or attempt to rewire at least some thought processes.
Does this guy know what he is on about?
Some of you are probably thinking ‘this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve done an immersion course and I know Spanish’, or ‘I know of a conversation class that my mate Bob took that doesn’t teach grammar, and he learnt a fair bit’. Well, several things are happening here. It might be that you know how to say a few things in Spanish, but you probably aren’t as good as you think you are, and neither is Bob. I’ve never actually met a person who learned Spanish as an adult who became genuinely conversational without learning at least some grammar.
Another possibility is that you’re a language freak, in which case, congratulations! This too can happen, and you can ignore my first point. The most likely explanation though, is that your conversation class or immersion class probably did teach grammar, but you just didn’t realise it (and perhaps neither did the person who advertised it), because you assumed that grammar was something beyond what you could do. Yet in reality, all it really entailed was a bit of explaining here and there.
If I haven’t convinced you that you need at least some grammar in your study regimen, you are probably full of doubt about what you can actually do, because I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with a bit of explaining in adult learning. You should give it a go. What is there to be afraid of in a few explanations? Some are easy, some are hard. So what? Search through them and find the tools that most suit your learning process. Make them work to your advantage! Remember, for most of us grammar is nothing more than an explanation of something seen in language.
I still absolutely refuse to look at Spanish grammar
For those who absolutely refuse to engage in grammar, you might want to know if there any ways at all that you can learn Spanish by just observing, with very little to no grammatical explanations. Sure you can. At many schools you can find travel Spanish courses that have few to no explanations for the way things are. But that is precisely what you will learn in these types of classes – travel Spanish.
What about if you’re overseas in an immersive environment, free of grammar-crazed Spanish teachers? The same is also true of that scenario. You might just learn certain expressions and phrases to get around.
However, in either scenario, one of two things will most likely happen: the things you learn how to say will either be those which are so close to their English counterparts that it is simply a matter of repeating and committing them to memory, or you will wrongly assume that certain expressions have certain translations, and commit them to memory regardless. You will end up with a very rudimentary Spanish at best, and one that is certainly full of many errors.
All of this is absolutely fine, especially if all you want to do is take a three-week trip to Spain, say a few words to the new in-laws, or take up a language purely as a social activity to get out of the house and meet people. Learning another language is admirable and you should be praised for any attempt, grammar or no grammar.
Taking Language Beyond…
If, on the other hand, you wish to advance to the point where you can think (even to some degree) in another language, you – the adult learner – will need some analysis of what you are doing. You will also need plenty of hands – on experience through conversation and interaction. There is nothing wrong with picking things up as you hear them, and learning the occasional fixed expression without too much questioning. Yet it is the combination of this approach with that of grammar and analysis, working together in tandem, which will help you achieve bilingualism.
It is, however, a bit optimistic to assume that you can learn anything purely through observation and even interaction without any explanations involved. Without explanations, you will remain stuck at the level of repeating English-type constructions. While accepting that the effective translation of me gusta is ‘I like it’, further expansion of this topic will result in the breaking down of that model. It is at this point, that your English-to-Spanish becomes lost in translation, and you find yourself invariably asking for explanations.
That concludes another chapter and another week. This article was late in being uploaded, but there will be another addition to the site in just a few days. Thanks for reading and be sure to check in again soon for more articles on language learning and Hispanic culture!
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