Ok, where was I… ?
Summer does this to me, especially the end of summer. As a teacher I am wallowing in the malaise of August, waking each morning confronted with the reality of what I should do versus what I want to do. I want to work on grammar and reading exercises, I should work on lesson plans and course syllabi for the fall. In the face of such decisions I go to the gym and clean my house. This is not say I have not been thinking about this blog post. I have been thinking about it often.
My students, (and sometimes their parents) ask me why they need to care about good grammar for my class. After all, I teach theology, not English. My inner Sunday school teacher would love to answer "because God expects you to speak correctly" (I am deeply disappointed proper grammar was not one of the Ten Commandments). What I calmly tell them is that while I will not grade them as strictly as their English teachers, I expect them to use proper grammar in their writing and (if possible) when they speak in class. Being articulate is a life skill. Being articulate helps you to think both about what you think and what you are going to say about what you think. If you can demonstrate you are well spoken you are an asset to an employer. If you can speak well and write well even better. No employer wants to spend time teaching you how to write and speak, that is my job.
Grammar is like brushing your teeth. You can put it off and busy yourself with other things but at some point you need to leave the house or will just be so disgusted by the feeling that your mouth has knit tiny sweaters on your teeth you will brush, and rinse and brush again until you feel like you can face civilization. To pull this metaphor out a bit more, at some point you will go to the dentist and you will either leave with nothing more than a feeling of satisfaction and a new appointment in six months OR you and the receptionist will be making another appointment to fill the cavities, repair the gums or some other unpleasant procedure. We hate the dentist but we go. We hate grammar but we need it.
Now, what about learning correct grammar in your target language? Well I guess that is up to you. How intelligent do you want to sound when you speak with native speakers? Are you content with "getting by"? Do you want to have deeper and more meaningful conversations with people? Do you want to learn about the culture beyond a tour guide? Do you want to sound like an adult? That is the real question. I am not trying to sound sarcastic or preachy. I am serious. If you are an adult and trying to deeply learn another language, you certainly don't want to sound like a child. Now this is not to say you won't sound like one for awhile.
This has been my recent struggle because I want to say things in Russian the same way I think them in English, but I can't. So I have a choice. I either ramble on in Russian making no sense or I say what I want to say in the simplest of constructions. My Russian teacher calls them "small bites". "Speak in small bites, but speak correctly, learn the patterns and then bit by bit you can add to your sentences." This is good advice. If you ask any of the people I try to speak Russian with they will tell you when I try to take too big a bite, I choke, dramatically. I also fully confess to those of you I speak to most often, you know who you are, that I also have recently begun to speak faster thinking you won't notice my mistakes. We both know I am not fooling anyone.
The other mistake people make when they learn a new language is a little something called "transference". It means you basically speak the target language with the same syntax as your native language. So Russians learning English will carefully sidestep articles (the, an, a) thinking I won't catch them. I do. English speakers learning Russian will use the participle быть with ANY verb thinking it will make it future tense. It won't. The bottom line is you cannot make the language follow your rules. You need to follow its rules and to do that you must understand your own. It goes back to what my graduate professor said to me. "If you don't know what a preposition is and how it functions in English you won't know how it works in Hebrew." You have to grasp how the target language works. Personally I think case and aspect are a major pain. However, once I submitted to the rule, to the discipline I could learn it.
I understand the resistance to this. It's like basic math. We should know this but we may not, and maybe we feel stupid that we don't. I was at the doctor's office today with my oldest son who is 13 years old. He was measured at 71 inches. He wanted to know how close he was to being taller than his father who is 6'4". The nurse told him to figure it out. She looked at me like I already knew the answer to this question. (I didn't, there is a reason I am studying Russian and not calculus.) I helped him think through the problem. "How many times does 12 go into 71…12 times five is what?" "60!" "Ok so 12 times 6 is?" "72!" "So you are how tall?" "5 feet 9inches."* Should I have known this? Of course, but I have kids who are really good at math as well as being giants.
Grammar is the same. We feel like we should know it but we don't and the older we get the harder it is for us to admit what we don't know. The difference here is that while I can rely on my super tall brainy kids for a quick calculation when I speak with «Ты или Вы» I have to tell you what I am thinking so if I don't know I have to ask, but I also have to do the work on my end. I have to study my case endings, my verb conjugations, my prepositions, my pronouns, my vocabulary. Then I have to try to use it. I love to try my new "Russian skills" out on my friends. Sometimes success when I learned how to use должен, должна, должны – must. As in: As in: Ты должен говорить по-английски со мной.Of course there were some epic failures, like when I tried to use the verb посылать. However, I know it now and I must say I will NEVER use it without a dative case pronoun EVER!
This works the other way too. If you are older you have the perspective of time, you can admit what you don't know with a grand wisdom. I personally have a lot of respect for someone who admits they do not know or does not understand something. Especially in the swimming pool of language learning, especially if you are working as I am with native speakers. It works best when we swim together and help each other out, without pretending we know something we clearly don't. We laugh at each other's stupid mistakes but if someone truly does not understand something a compassionate explanation goes a long way.
Learn the grammar, your own and that of your target language. By taking the time to learn the grammar you can confidently face the world as an articulate, educated person. In our hearts, the goal is for a native speaker to tell us "Your__________ is amazing! How is this not your native language?"
It is world peace through grammar.
*Apologies to those of you who use the metric system…when you meet my son just say «АГА!!»
UF! My math IS ужасный!! It seems my son is 5'11". In my defense (as I commented below) the nurse told him he was correct when he answered 5'9" I think it has been a long day for everyone.
