# Did a formal understanding of grammar help you improve your grammar skills?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 7, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399 "2010-10-07T19:17:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2010, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/21 "2010-10-08T06:23:14Z")
> [@Miss\_Woodhouse](#):
>
> I agree with **dangermom** (not unusual for me.) Sure, unconsciously learning the rules of grammar works for a lot of people, but not for everyone. Even for those of us who learned grammar easily and naturally, knowing the parts of sentences can help with punctuation and sentence structure. For example, I very rarely have trouble knowing when a comma is appropriate because I know what they are for. I can forget one once in a while by accident, but if I’m studying a sentence to see if I’ve punctuated it correctly, the commas won’t throw me. I know their purpose in grammar, so I know if I’ve done it correctly.
Do you think this can be learned as an adult? I passed that college grammar class, but I’m still not terribly confident about my use of commas in narratives. I think I put them in places that aren’t strictly necessary, but…I’m mostly talking about setting things off when there is no conjunction to indicate a subordinate clause. For example: _If I had to take a stab at it, I would have guessed that she was feeling both curious and slightly mortified._ or _Despite their low heels, my boots must have made a racket as I hurried to catch up with him because he looked over shoulder._ So, do the comma belong or not? Clearly neither phrase in independent, but do they need the commas I’ve been sprinkling all over the place?
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2010, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/22 "2010-10-08T07:23:57Z")
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> Do you think this can be learned as an adult? I passed that college grammar class, but I’m still not terribly confident about my use of commas in narratives. I think I put them in places that aren’t strictly necessary, but…I’m mostly talking about setting things off when there is no conjunction to indicate a subordinate clause…
Most use of the comma isn’t about grammar: it’s a reading guide, just as capitalization is. But while capitalization is almost always straight-forward, there is more room for preference and grey areas with commas. Yes, there are frequently places where you can put a comma that aren’t “strictly necessary”–that is, where there’s not hard and fast rule, by most current standards, that says you must put a comma there.
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### Author:  [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/23 "2010-10-15T14:41:58Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> Just because you think that construction is a mistake doesn’t mean it’s a mistake.
>
> Just modifies “because you think that construction is a mistake.”
>
> “Because you think that construction is a mistake” is the subject (specifically “Because you think” is acting as the subject, with “that construction is a mistake” acting as an adjectival clause).
>
> I think I’m analyzing this correctly. What I know, however, is that it’s a grammatical sentence. And how do I know it?
>
> Because grammar is observational, not dictatorial. If it’s a construction that people use all the time, that’s how you define a grammatical construction.
>
> English doesn’t follow the rules of Latin. Many people don’t realize this, but it’s true. English has other rules, and you best learn those rules by observing how English speakers speak.
>
> Behold. Did my previous sentence have a subject? It certainly has less of a subject than the one that you objected to.
Well, the fact that everyone does it doesn’t make it sound any less wrong to me, but you do have an explanation for the structure, at least, and that trumps my complete lack of reasoning as to why it bothers me so much in the first place.
So thank you. It will still bug me, but I can stop thinking editors are just that stupid, which is a bit of a relief.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/24 "2010-10-15T16:36:33Z")
My experience was similar to the OP’s.
I _was_ taught the traditional formal grammar. I did well at it, but I didn’t _learn_ anything from it. I grasped immediately what the exercises wanted–because I already understood how language works just because I already understood very well how to read and write. So I applied the labels for the sake of a grade. And promptly forgot the labels ASAP.
I loved sentence diagramming, but just as a game. I didn’t learn anything from it. Played the game for the couple of weeks we were doing it, then forgot it all.
It’s hard for me to believe anyone learns to write better from learning traditional grammar, but I also know that things that are hard for me to believe often turn out true. For me, thinking formally about grammar is a completely different exercise, totally divorced from the practice of reading and writing. Maybe it’s not like that for others though.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/25 "2010-10-15T16:38:45Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> However, I have a very thorough grounding in Latin grammar, which is pretty easily applicable to English grammar, at least as far as case, mood, tense, and so on.
I remember feeling like I was learning something more useful and interesting about _English_ grammar by going through two years of a _Spanish_ course. Somehow, the grammar taught in English class didn’t stick, but the grammar learned in the Spanish course got me habitually thinking about the grammar of English sentences.
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### Author:  [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/26 "2010-10-15T16:53:31Z")
I’m like **Frylock**. I learned all the grammar rules and terminology in school, and promptly forgot most of them. I know what sounds right from reading voraciously. I’m a good speller for that reason, too. (Heh. I typo’d speller as speeler. Um, can I write “typo’d” like that? “Typoed” looks wrong.)
Anyway, I know what is right to my ear, but I can’t tell you why it is correct.
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### Author:  [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/27 "2010-10-15T17:59:25Z")
I had this awesome 5th grade teacher who used to diagram sentences over and over and over. She always used the same sentence and added to it as we added parts of speech. Basic subject/verb was “Dogs bark.” Then we moved up to adjectives: “Brown dogs bark.” Adverbs: “Brown dogs bark loudly.” And so forth.
That was a very solid grounding. However, like you, I never really internalized the formal rules. Or maybe I did it so subconsciously that I just thought I instinctively knew what “sounded right”. I dunno. I took Freshman Comp at college during the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. I had to return to high school to take basically the same class, only taught at senior-in-high-school level. I was bored out of my skull, but the class was required for graduation, so I slept through most of it. The teacher pulled me aside one day and asked me to sort of peer-tutor the other kids in the class. He pointed out that I had pretty much straight As in his class, knew every answer, and had a good rapport with my classmates. He thought hearing it from me might help the others internalize it better than hearing it from him, the stuffy old teacher (who looked _exactly_ like Mr. Hand, but had the opposite personality:D). Anyway, he woke me up in class one day to ask me the answer to some grammar rule question that nobody else in the class had gotten correct. I wiped the drool off my chin, mumbled the correct answer and started to drop my head back to my desk. He asked me why that was the right answer. I mumbled again, “I dunno. It just sounded right.” 🆒
Anyway, what improved my grammar skills more than anything else I did in 17 years of education, was learning Latin. A formal understanding of _Latin_ grammar gave me the skills that I now use to make my living as an editor. Go figure.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/28 "2010-10-15T20:54:06Z")
The study of formal grammar is a good supplement to practice, but not a substitute. Read a lot (preferably stuff by people who care about getting it right) and write a lot (preferably with an assumed audience that cares about the language), and Bob’s your uncle. Meanwhile, piddle around picking up tidbits of formal grammar. It’s interesting stuff.
> [@guizot](#):
>
> When people started to describe English grammar–and teach it formally to speakers of other languages–they just lazily imposed Latin grammar concepts upon it, even when it didn’t really fit.
There is a problem with trying to jam English into a Latin mold. But it’s very different from the problem we call “laziness”.
> [@guizot](#):
>
> To this day, bad ESL teachers have their students “conjugate” verbs in English, even though verbs in English don’t really have conjugations.
English does have conjugations – ‘is’ ‘are’ ‘be’ ‘been’ etc. are all _conjugated_ (tied together) to one verbal function. The difference is that verbs in English use free morphemes to serve the functions of the bound morphemes used in inflected languages like Latin. You wouldn’t be doing ESL students any favors by not calling attention to this.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/29 "2010-10-15T21:04:00Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> I _was_ taught the traditional formal grammar. I did well at it, but I didn’t _learn_ anything from it. I grasped immediately what the exercises wanted–because I already understood how language works just because I already understood very well how to read and write. So I applied the labels for the sake of a grade. And promptly forgot the labels ASAP.
>
> I loved sentence diagramming, but just as a game. I didn’t learn anything from it. Played the game for the couple of weeks we were doing it, then forgot it all.
Well, sentence diagramming and grammar labeling in general are things that simply demonstrate what you already know–kind of like crossword puzzles. They satisfy the egos of the Lisa Simpsons in the class, but do little for those who haven’t already gotten it.
As an English teacher it causes me great chagrin that much of what high school English teachers do is in this category. It’s like the totally useless comment in the margin of a paper that consists of a single word: “Awkward.” :smack: (The student obviously isn’t going to know how to make it “unawkward,” or he wouldn’t’ve written that way!!) Really what this comment means is: “_ **I have no idea how to help you with this** _.”
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### Author:  [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/30 "2010-10-15T21:05:27Z")
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> > [@Miss\_Woodhouse](#):
> >
> > I agree with **dangermom** (not unusual for me.) Sure, unconsciously learning the rules of grammar works for a lot of people, but not for everyone. Even for those of us who learned grammar easily and naturally, knowing the parts of sentences can help with punctuation and sentence structure. For example, I very rarely have trouble knowing when a comma is appropriate because I know what they are for. I can forget one once in a while by accident, but if I’m studying a sentence to see if I’ve punctuated it correctly, the commas won’t throw me. I know their purpose in grammar, so I know if I’ve done it correctly.
>
> Do you think this can be learned as an adult? I passed that college grammar class, but I’m still not terribly confident about my use of commas in narratives. I think I put them in places that aren’t strictly necessary, but…I’m mostly talking about setting things off when there is no conjunction to indicate a subordinate clause. For example: _If I had to take a stab at it, I would have guessed that she was feeling both curious and slightly mortified._ or _Despite their low heels, my boots must have made a racket as I hurried to catch up with him because he looked over shoulder._ So, do the comma belong or not? Clearly neither phrase in independent, but do they need the commas I’ve been sprinkling all over the place?
I absolutely believe that any grammar or punctuation rules can be learned at any age. There are some pretty simple rules for commas; some of them are a bit flexible, though. For example, the phrases you are setting off with the commas in your example sentence follow the “misplaced phrase” rule. (I’m just calling it that. It’s not the official name.) Basically in a standard sentence the phrases you’ve placed at the front of the sentence would be at the end, however, you have moved them to the front for emphasis. When a phrase is moved from it’s standard location in a sentence you set it off with commas.
My high school English teacher had worksheets with the standard rules for punctuation. There were six rules for commas I believe. I do wish I could remember them all. I remember the “misplaced” phrase rule, lists, comma between complete clauses joined by a conjunction, and commas for words like “however” and “although”. I can’t remember the other two sadly.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/31 "2010-10-15T21:17:33Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#):
>
> English does have conjugations – ‘is’ ‘are’ ‘be’ ‘been’ etc. are all _conjugated_ (tied together) to one verbal function. The difference is that verbs in English use free morphemes to serve the functions of the bound morphemes used in inflected languages like Latin. You wouldn’t be doing ESL students any favors by not calling attention to this.
Of course one should call attention to strong verbs, however the vast majority are not strong. Moreover, the principle forms of strong verbs are the most quickly and easily acquired through simple exposure to the language–memorizing forms is only necessary for L2 learners in artificial contexts, like a college class.
I’m referring to the teacher who has the students repeat: “I walk, you walk, he walks, we walk, you walk, they walk, I walked, you walked, he walked, we walked, they walked” etc. That’s really not conjugation, for all practical purposes, and a waste of time. English isn’t Latin, and moreover, it’s still alive, and thereby more efficiently learned though meaningful use in context.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/32 "2010-10-15T21:26:57Z")
> [@guizot](#):
>
> Of course one should call attention to strong verbs, however the vast majority are not strong. Moreover, the principle forms of strong verbs are the most quickly and easily acquired through simple exposure to the language–memorizing forms is only necessary for L2 learners in artificial contexts, like a college class.
>
> I’m referring to the teacher who has the students repeat: “I walk, you walk, he walks, we walk, you walk, they walk, I walked, you walked, he walked, we walked, they walked” etc. That’s really not conjugation, for all practical purposes, and a waste of time. English isn’t Latin, and moreover, it’s still alive, and thereby more efficiently learned though meaningful use in context.
I’m not sure what you mean by “strong verbs”, but I will testify from personal experience that Latin is not really best learned by simply spouting off conjugations. This has been a mistake in the way Latin has been taught. I’ve elaborated on this point elsewhere, but for the purposes here what I’m saying is that actually reading and speaking actually work better for learning Latin just as much as English, but a study of conjugations actually gives you a little cheatsheet that makes it easier to absorb the language through practice, and the practice makes the tables more meaningful. The benefits of the two systems – practice and rote memorization – stack. Picking one or the other makes it harder to do either.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/33 "2010-10-15T21:46:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#):
>
> I’m not sure what you mean by “strong verbs”,
Verbs like run, be, stand, etc. which are tensed (and ‘personed’) by actually changing the word itself rather than by adding (or not adding) a suffix.
BTW sort-of on topic question: Are there any strong verbs in English _other_ than ‘be’ which undergo some kind of change in the word itself in order to indicate person?
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### Author:  [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/34 "2010-10-15T21:55:34Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#):
>
> I’m not sure what you mean by “strong verbs”,
Verb strength is a feature of Germanic languages. A weak verb’s past participle is marked by a dental (walk, walked), whereas the root vowel of a strong verb changes in the past participle (sing, sang, sung).
It’s a really bad example of shoehorning English into Latin grammar because verb strength is absolutely not an import from Latin. It’s native to English.
It’s really handy to understand the difference between hang, hanged and hang, hung, but people do just fine in life even if they can’t articulate it.
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/35 "2010-10-15T22:02:29Z")
I don’t have an answer because I’m in the same boat as the OP. I never really learned about grammar in school (I read books instead of doing any work in class), I have a 10th grade education, and I still have a very limited grasp of the actual rules, the names for all the part of a sentence, etc. No idea how much better I would write or speak if I decided to educate myself on grammar, I find the idea pretty boring so doubt I will bother.
But I seem to be better at writing and at speaking ‘properly’ than many people and when something doesn’t ‘sound right’ or ‘look right’ it sticks out a mile. I’ve always been a big reader. And I come from a family full of people who are both talented at writing, and speak much more formally and with more technical correctness than the average. I absorbed the ability to sound educated without getting my own PhD.
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### Author:  [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/36 "2010-10-15T22:05:34Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Verbs like run, be, stand, etc. which are tensed (and ‘personed’) by actually changing the word itself rather than by adding (or not adding) a suffix.
>
> BTW sort-of on topic question: Are there any strong verbs in English _other_ than ‘be’ which undergo some kind of change in the word itself in order to indicate person?
Since they distinguish between first/second and third, I presume you are asking if any other distinguish the second person. I think the answer to that is no. To be is also neither strong nor weak.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/37 "2010-10-15T23:48:14Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> > [@Johnny\_Angel](#):
> >
> > I’m not sure what you mean by “strong verbs”,
>
> Verbs like run, be, stand, etc. which are tensed (and ‘personed’) by actually changing the word itself rather than by adding (or not adding) a suffix.
Like others here, I mostly learned English grammar by studying Latin. Some of the irregular verbs in Latin are such because multiple verbs ended up filling different parts of the paradigm through extensive usage, which I was told was the deal with all the irregulars in English. I’ve never heard “strong” as a special term for this.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/38 "2010-10-16T00:23:45Z")
> [@Maeglin](#):
>
> It’s a really bad example of shoehorning English into Latin grammar…
I agree. What I find detrimental for effective ESL instruction, however, is the emphasis (nay, the obsession) on verb _forms_ and _morphology_, at the cost of competency with verb _functions_, and it seems that the legacy of Latin instruction (and that of other languages descended from Latin) has had a lot to do with this.
> [@](#):
>
> To be is also neither strong nor weak.
True, but my point is that for instruction about English grammar, it’s better to not even consider it a “verb,” because it behaves so differently. I personally don’t use the phrase, “the verb _to be_,” if it can be avoided.
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### Author:  [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/39 "2010-10-16T04:43:28Z")
> [@guizot](#):
>
> > [@Maeglin](#):
> >
> > It’s a really bad example of shoehorning English into Latin grammar…
>
> I agree.
I might have been ambiguous. The strong/weak distinction is a bad example because it is not Latinate at all. It’s perfectly English. It’s a very important feature of Old English as well. So much great stuff from OE never made it, but sic transiit gloria mundi.
> [@](#):
>
> What I find detrimental for effective ESL instruction, however, is the emphasis (nay, the obsession) on verb _forms_ and _morphology_, at the cost of competency with verb _functions_, and it seems that the legacy of Latin instruction (and that of other languages descended from Latin) has had a lot to do with this.
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > To be is also neither strong nor weak.
>
> True, but my point is that for instruction about English grammar, it’s better to not even consider it a “verb,” because it behaves so differently. I personally don’t use the phrase, “the verb _to be_,” if it can be avoided.
My perspective is very different. I am not an ESL teacher so I do not have your experience in the trenches. But I have learned a lot of languages, some of which I can even speak. I’ll probably end up having to teach a section of Latin or Greek next year, so I have learned how to teach difficult languages.
The function of a verb in Indo-European languages is pretty damn intuitive if you’ve grown up speaking one. If not, then you definitely have bigger hurdles to jump than learning morphology. If your native Spanish speakers don’t grasp it, then you have my sympathy. I don’t know very much about the Chinese languages, for example, just that there are some very foreign concepts about our verbs that can take them extra time to master. In a mixed class of IE family speakers and non-IE speakers, that must be hard to manage. But morphology and what you call verb function is not a zero sum game. You really need to master both, and I see no reason not to learn them in parallel.
But I can also see not belaboring the point of the function of a verb, because it takes about five minutes for an IE speaker to understand that in English, it usually comes between the subject and the object.
There may be pedagogical value to teaching that to be is not a verb, but that does violence to the fact that it really is a verb. The Old English, even the ones not heavily influenced by Latin grammar, certainly thought it was a verb. It’s copulative and behaves kind of weirdly, but it simply is a verb and as such, I don’t see how making up new categories or periphrases really helps anyone.
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### Author:  [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2010, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-a-formal-understanding-of-grammar-help-you-improve-your-grammar-skills/556399/40 "2010-10-17T06:02:57Z")
I write as I speak. I know verb, noun, action, subject, adjective, adverb, etc. However, I never understood past participle and all that, but I know how to say them from experience gained from reading and speaking. The former was greater teacher than any English class. I still can’t separate word by syllables or place the accent mark, which is useless to me because I have to hear a word to know to know how to say it. Also, as I posted once on the board, I don’t understand direct and indirect objects.
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