Why do Foreigners bother to learn English Grammar ?

Question

You don't have to know how an Internal Combustion Engine works before you can drive a Motor Car.......

So why get bogged down in the complexities of EG ?
It's slows your progress down and often gets so disheartening you give-up!

But maybe you know otherwise.....

Answer 1

If one learns a language one automatically learns the grammar. Many would say the grammar IS the language. The aim is to speak well, surely?

Answer 2

Someone has to, otherwise English as we know it will vanish.
I have a Turkish-Cypriot friend. The first time I had a long conversation with him, I thought his mother tongue was English. It was only after about 2 hours that I began to wonder. Why? Simply because he never made a mistake.
I was brought up in the old school, with grammar, parsing sentences etc. etc., but when a foreigner asked me to explain the difference between a gerund and an adjectival noun, I appealed to a German teacher of English for help.
It depends on the foreigner, some like to learn a language without explanations by developing an ear for the new language, others are interested in the structure of the language and want to learn the grammar.

Answer 3

If you do not know the steering in a car you can drive the car although you don't have to know the IC engine...! Similarly the grammar is the basich to build the meaning in any language.The basic grammer is a must It is like the steering in your car...! A decade ago to learn English, you had to attend costly English classes or purchase course material like tapes and books. Now you can learn English for free from the comfort of your home using the Internet. The BBC and the British Council offer a number of on line courses, which teach written and spoken English. You can also improve your English by watching television programs and reading English newspapers. For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/qnzpt

Answer 4

I think the example you give, isn't correct, to be more exact:
to know what is a car = to know what is English
to recognize different models of cars and parts of if = to know vocabulary about English
to know how to drive the car = to know how to speak english properly (so the grammar)
to know how the internal combustion engine works = to know what is the origin of words, how was formed the language, and so on...

you may not drive a car if you don't know that first you must start it, how to change the speed and in what order, isn't it? So you cannot speak a language correctly if you don't know the order of words inside the phrase or how to conjugate verbs...

Answer 5

My guess is that most foreigners DON'T bother learning the grammar. Either that or they find it difficult. In Scandinavia and Holland (two areas known for non-native English competence) a lot of English is learnt 'by ear' as it were.
Don't be fooled into believing that people whose native language is not English can speak it in the same way as a native speaker. I speak four other languages and I know that with my native language (English) I can always add more nuance.
Learning grammar though, is important for structure and also to follow the general rule.

Answer 6

It's basically like this:
If you start learning a language as a baby, you don't need t learn grammars, but if you an adult, then you have to.
The way babies learns a language is different from the way adults learn a language. Babies can just pick up the language by listening it, because they haven't got a system to process the language to understand. But it takes them many years to be able to speak because their brains have not developed yet, and it takes time for them to develop the system as it is to.
Adults have developed brains, that already have system(s) to understand the language they speak as the first language(s). When an adult starts learning a new language, he or she normally tries to put the new language into this ready-made system to understand, but it doesn't work, as the grammars are different. However since adult's brain is already developed, by learning the grammar as well as words, pronunciation, spelling form the beginning, he/she can speed up the process of learning, because it creates a new system for the new language. That is why people bother learning grammar. It helps. You will understand if you try learning a language with completely different grammar from English.
I am a foreigner. I know that form my experience. And one of my teachers used to study linguistics, and that's what he told us.

Answer 7

I think your analogy is a little flawed! You don't need to be an expert in philology to speak English properly, but you do need to know English grammar. To drive a car, you don't need to know how the engine works, but you do need to know how to drive.

Maybe it's a good thing foreigners do bother to learn English grammar, because it seems a lot of English people just can't be arsed. A lot of my foreign colleagues speak far better English than you often see on this site!

Answer 8

I think it's pretty funny (but eternally sad) that many foreigners can spell better than many many (and many and many) Americans!
I'm Italian and went to school in Italy till I was 17, then I continued my education in United States so I know both school methods and I wish they taught English in the States as they teach it in Europe (in good schools obviously). I really don't get why grammar is not a main focus in the American education. If someone spells badly (I'm not talking about the occasional mistake but a series of errors in the same sentence) I'll think the person is quite ignorant. Besides, if you read often enough, you won't even need school to learn proper spelling. It makes you look smart if you can spell! :)

Answer 9

Grammar is the stucture of any language and knowing the grammar of one language helps when you learn another language. I did Latin at school and didn't appreciate the value of this until I started learning French and Spanish, and I've often come across English words which I wouldn't have understood without knowing the Latin root.

Answer 10

because if you get the grammar correct you don't sound like a dumb ***! Why learn grammar for any additional language you learn, Because people find it easier to talk to you once you have mastered it properly. Another sadder point is half the kids in this country can seem to manage some of the basics and they were born here!!!