Hey guys! Welcome back to the English Fluency Journey.
I'm Anna and today I want to give you my take on such a hot topic, which is Can you speak English without grammar?
Can you speak good English without grammar? and without learning grammar rules intentionally.
And I'll tell you Right away, this is not my case.
I have learned grammar separately and intentionally.
And I don't have an intention to speculate on this topic, but I do have some thoughts that I want to share.
And I think that It is very much possible for non-native speakers to speak good English without learning grammar rules.
But when I say not learning grammar rules, I mean not to sit and memorize and drill them.
I don't mean ignore the rules. Here's the thing.
If you asked just some random speakers about tenses, all those grammar rules, how to ask questions, auxiliary verbs, phrasal verbs and word order in those.
They would probably just tell you Back off man.
I'm just simply speaking English. I don't know how to explain all these things and I don't need to.
And that's true, they don't need to unless they're teachers.
And you don't need to know how to explain all these things and learn them by heart unless you're a teacher.
I think that you have to understand them and to be able to use them naturally without even thinking.
Do native speakers speak perfectly grammatically absolutely correct?
No. Within every language, there's literally language that you can find only in books.
There are rules for writing and formal writing.
When you're writing an essay for college, You want to stick to the rules of formal writing.
You have to know grammar. But when you're texting someone or writing a post on Instagram, You don't want it to be too formal.
You want it to be casual. And that is an informal spoken language.
It's the way that people communicate. And sometimes they use phrases that are grammatically incorrect.
Because how many times have you heard from native speakers?
This is the way we say this. This is the way people speak.
Yes, it is grammatically incorrect, but when you say this phrase grammatically correctly, it sounds weird to us and too formal.
Now think about yourself in your native language.
I bet that you don't know how to explain a lot of grammar rules and I bet that you don't even know a lot about them. and yet still you don't have problems with expressing yourself.
You may not even be grammatically correct sometimes, but I think that's not a problem at all, right?
Yes, of course, we and native speakers of English went to school and had have learned all these things a long time ago.
Let's talk about children. preschoolers.
They haven't learned grammar rules, but yet they can speak English and they do speak English. and sometimes pretty good English for their age.
Why? because I think first, they listen a lot.
Second, they are very attentive. And third, they actually speak and they don't give a damn about their mistakes.
They just want to express themselves. And sometimes they speak non-stop.
Like my son, for example, he can repeat one word like 30 times in a row and then another one.
My fourth point is that they mimic adults all the time by repeating the exact words they hear. and then using all that they've heard when they need to and want to say something.
And the most important thing is that they are exposed to language.
Yes, they're not always grammatically correct.
Neither are adults, even though they learned all these grammar rules.
And there's actually scientific confirmation that spoken language differs from written language. to something with the brain and the speed of processing information. so when we write we have time to think about grammar and to find a way to express our thoughts in the best way possible.
I'm not going to go into details because I'm not a scientist and you can find this information if you want.
If you hate learning grammar rules, then I think you have to think of yourself as a child and do a couple of things.
If you're like me and you don't live in an English speaking country, then you have to create this environment for yourself to immerse yourself in the language. like literally start listening and watching everything in English.
Follow someone on social media who posts in English, some native speakers.
And this is the first thing that you want to do.
You have to be surrounded by English. You have to be soaking it all up.
Pay close attention to the way people use English in different life situations.
This is not passive listening. Children never passively listen.
They always learn from the environment. But with children it happens subconsciously and automatically.
It's nature. And you're just gonna have to try a little bit more harder.
And don't forget why you're doing this. Don't forget your ultimate goal and that it is beneficial for you in every way.
Then, what else children do? They repeat everything all the time, like little And it seems that they are never tired of this.
And this is extremely important to repeat what you're hearing a lot, all the time, and then using what you heard in your speech if you don't want to dig into grammar rules.
And if you don't have anyone to ask how to say something, you have to look it up. and it may be enough for you knowing that in this situation you have to say this like this and to use this tense and not knowing why. and then you just reapply this knowledge to another situation.
But even if you don't look up everything, you will be able to grasp something and understand things from the context.
This is the way our brain works. It builds connections and associations.
And then of course, speaking and using a language.
You're going to have to do this all the time.
No days off, no excuses. This is like crucial.
If you do live in an English-speaking country, then it's a lot easier for you If you don't, then there are so many ways you can do this.
I mean find people to talk to. and I've talked about this a lot in my previous videos.
So I'll give you links somewhere above my head to those videos where you can find this information in the description boxes to those videos.
So, it is very much possible. I know so many examples when teenagers move to an English-speaking country in a couple of years they picked up the language.
And when I asked asked how did you do it, the usual answer of those success stories, because let's face the truth.
Not everyone's successful in this. So the answer was.
I just made friends, try to be as social as possible and communicate it.
So your main go-to things will be... attentive listening, repeating, communicating, and immersion.
Listen carefully and a lot. There has to be a really massive input. and reproduce what you've heard and actually use a language.
The point is in taking action. Now, guys, I'm not encouraging anyone not to learn grammar.
I am personally a very curious person and I always want to know why and all the options. and I am willing to sit and to do my research.
And it's not like I learn grammar by heart.
I try to understand it. Am I always correct?
No. Do I know everything? I don't think that this is possible.
I'm simply speaking from my experience because the more you use a language, the more questions you have and you're trying to find answers to those questions.
And when you communicate with people, when you make mistakes, when you're in those awkward situations Of course, you want to know how to say what you've said correctly to avoid embarrassment the next time.
And you're searching for information. And you're starting educating yourself.
This is kind of inevitable. And at the beginning you do this a lot, but less and less over time.
Okay guys, that's it for now. Thank you for choosing our podcast.
Until the next one.
