Grammatical accuracy in a second language

[tarvos]

I like grammatical accuracy, but as a beginner it's not my main goal - then creating a snowball effect is. I'll become a stickler for grammar once I can put sentences together.

[zenmonkey]

What are your thoughts on grammatical accuracy in a second language?
I'll address the questions directly. Basically I consider grammatical accuracy as importantly aspirational. It's a goal to strive for but should not be a language learning or an oral production barrier.

How important is it to you?
It's important enough that it should be stressed in learning but not to the point that it halts production.
It's more important in writing (because of permanence and correct-ability of the written word).

How accurate do you aim to be?
High enough to be able to write a formal letter without error. Orally, I try to improve constantly, and I want to be differentiated as a learner with grammar errors rather than someone who speaks regularly and inappropriately with low register language. Language is like a game of fencing, grammar accuracy is a tool so that your foil is fast and the point touches on target.

Are you happy with Tarzanese?
If it works for Jane, it works for me. But generally, no.

Do you prefer Tarzanese or a never-ending silent period?
How about stutternese? Something in them middle.

Do you think mistakes are unavoidable?
Yes. I think they are but it doesn't mean I have to have a low bar - accuracy remains aspirational.

The more mistakes the merrier?
Quite the opposite.

What do you think about other people's grammatical mistakes?
Are they my children or am I teaching them? Nowadays I really don't care about mistakes - but it depends on the situation and impact. In the workplace I will speak out when, as I work with a lot of ESL people of different levels, in emails or presentations poor grammar may have an impact on the outcomes because of ambiguity issues (recently someone repeatedly referring to a project as 'him' caused a huge confusion).

In social situations I'm much more relaxed.

All of which does NOT make me the ideal language learning partner; I let go a lot of mistakes that others will not let pass.

How do learner mistakes in your L1 sound to you?

As mistakes now, but I've come a long way. Honestly, I used to consider them rather poorly and representative of low IQ, poor education, incompetence or both. This is sort of the arrogance that a bilingual quickly develops but sometime in my late teens I really got taken to task about my attitude by my father. I was a young arrogant shit.
He makes minor but now petrified grammar mistakes in his L2 and L3 but neither his education, his intelligence nor ability can be questioned.

I really worked to kill that kind of snobbism in myself and am pretty critical when I see it crop up in others.

I sometimes do listen critically and if I hear something that needs correcting I may speak out (we are alone, the person expects it, it isn't an emotional discussion, etc.) if the situation allows.

[Kamlari]

I hate grammatical mistakes, but they love me.

[languist]

I've decided to answer these questions as a survey.

- What are your thoughts on grammatical accuracy in a second language?
At the beginning, it's not very important. It becomes increasingly important as you begin to express yourself in more complex (and naturalistic) ways. Overall, in normal conversation, you just don't want to be incomprehensible or jarringly off.

- How important is it to you?
I don't obsess over this issue, but the end goal must be to have high grammatical accuracy, because to be thoroughly 'fluent', I think you must be able to express yourself with the depth, nuance, and ease in your TL as you do in your native language. So, it's not important at the beginning, or even necessarily important for general communication, but if you want to live your life deeply through another language, your knowledge must be deep.

- How accurate do you aim to be?
Obviously, the more accurate the clearer you will be understood, which is the goal. However, if I know that I don't know if what I'm saying is correct or not because it's the first time I've tried saying it, I just aim to be understood without too much "????" written on the listener's face.

- Are you happy with Tarzanese?
Yes and no! I'll say this - it's much better to communicate badly than to not communicate at all.

- Do you prefer Tarzanese or a never-ending silent period?
I do. When I was younger, I got to quite a high level of French. I could speak well, write well, and my comprehension was high - but I never actually spoke, because I was so extremely shy that it wouldn't be perfect, and so my French began to suffer a lot, and I didn't get as much use and enjoyment out of the language as I should have. Fast forward a few years, and I started picking up Slovak from the people around me, and immediately started using it, with no knowledge of the grammar. True, I sounded like a small child when I spoke, but I gained so much more value from this than if I would have waited until I could speak more eloquently.

- Do you think mistakes are unavoidable?
Yes! even for natives!

- The more mistakes the merrier?
There's the Benny Lewis philosophy of 'you should aim to make x mistakes a day' or whatever, and I see the logic, but I think you should actively try to avoid them. If you make too many mistakes, native speakers may feel it is inappropriate to correct you (because they'll be correcting too much rather than just a few small issues), and so you can find yourself embedding these bad habits into your lingo-memory. But at the same time, don't worry about making mistakes - as with all things in life, true improvement usually only comes through reaction to failure.

- What do you think about other people's grammatical mistakes?
It's absolutely not an issue unless it gets in the way of comprehension. I only find it jarring when it's in a context where it's obviously inappropriate, like when I see people advertising their post as an English tutor somewhere but they have incorrect/unnatural grammar in their profile.

- How do learner mistakes in your L1 sound to you?
Again, unless they are so major that they make the speaker difficult to understand, it's usually quite endearing. Sometimes it makes me think about how logic in language works, and how it can be quite arbitrary, especially when the speaker's "mistake" actually seems to make more sense.

- What do you think about them?
I commend anyone who has taken the time to learn another language! I make grammar mistakes all the time and I'm a native, so I can't judge.

edit: oh I see zenmonkey beat me to it

[garyb]

My experience is that when speaking a language that you've not mastered, you have to choose one of accuracy and fluency at the expense of the other. I'm a bit of a perfectionist about grammar, and I realise that because of this my speaking is slower and less fluid than it would be if I worried less about correctness. And even despite this attention to detail, I still make my share of basic mistakes; avoiding these would probably require speaking so slowly and carefully that conversing with me would be painful!

I'd say that most intermediate to advanced learners, especially the L2 English speakers I know in my city, are towards the other extreme: lots of mistakes, but they get their point across quite fluidly and without much hesitation, and that's perhaps a smarter approach than mine. They know that any negative consequences of errors are outweighed by the positive of fluid speech, and since speaking like that gets the job done they don't feel a need to perfect their grammar.

I like to think that my approach will pay off in the long term and I'll eventually speak both accurately and fluidly as producing correct language becomes more automatic, but that might be wishful thinking...

[rdearman]

There's the Benny Lewis philosophy of 'you should aim to make x mistakes a day' or whatever, and I see the logic,

Hummm... this is hardly an original philosophy:

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. -- Thomas J Watson (CEO, IBM)

but then again he also said:

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

So perhaps we should take both Mr. Lewis and Mr. Watson's advice with a grain of salt.

[languist]

There's the Benny Lewis philosophy of 'you should aim to make x mistakes a day' or whatever, and I see the logic,

Hummm... this is hardly an original philosophy:

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. -- Thomas J Watson (CEO, IBM)

but then again he also said:

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

So perhaps we should take both Mr. Lewis and Mr. Watson's advice with a grain of salt.

Haha, indeed, I wasn't intending to promote that he is the original source of this concept - but he's certainly the one actively marketing it in the language learning community.

[Hrhenry]

Do you prefer Tarzanese or a never-ending silent period?

I'm not a huge fan of extremes. It's possible to at times resort to Tarzanese while using silent times to analyse/check your progress with grammar. I don't think a "never-ending silent period" is all that helpful, but I'm quite OK with taking a bit of time to sort out how people use the langiage before jumping full in, so to speak.

R.
==

[Cavesa]

What are your thoughts on grammatical accuracy in a second language?

How important is it to you?
How accurate do you aim to be?
Are you happy with Tarzanese?
Do you prefer Tarzanese or a never-ending silent period?
Do you think mistakes are unavoidable?
The more mistakes the merrier?
What do you think about other people's grammatical mistakes?
How do learner mistakes in your L1 sound to you?
What do you think about them?
etc etc

What are your thoughts on grammatical accuracy?

It is very important. I don't think you can get past very basic level without striving for grammar accuracy. No need to be perfectionist from the first day, but it has to be a long term goal.

How accurate? Enough to achieve my goals, without grammar holding me back. One of my goals usually is sounding like an educated person, so not making basic mistakes is a part of that.

My Neanderthalisch is very useful. I am not happy with it, no. But it is certainly useful during my travels.

I have no general preference. If I need the language or simply get opportunities to use it, I'll go for Tarzanese. If I don't, I don't mind "silent period". I am not gonna consider myself a bad learner, just because I don't care about "speaking from day 1". Or anyone else. I think both approaches have their pros and cons.

Mistakes are definitely unavoidable. Even at C2, I still make some in French. There are not many. And they are not systematic (should I discover one such problem, I'd try to fix it immediately, as I think only accidental mistakes should happen at this level), but they are simply gonna happen. Especially when I am tired. Or look at my English, I am not gonna keep myself from writing after 1am just because I make many more mistakes that late in the night

The more mistakes, the merrier? I have no opinion on this statement. Both extremes are wrong. The fear of making mistakes can keep someone from practicing. And the opposite are all those "oh, you finished Duolingo, just speak and speak and use the language" naive people, who are gonna end with eternal Tarzanese.

Learner mistakes in my L1 are ok. Some make understanding harder, some are not that much of a problem. As long as we understand each other, I am happy to talk. You know, natives of unpopular languages cannot afford to judge learners too harshly. As a Czech native, either you're ok with learners' mistakes, or you're an as...e.

I think "Cool! They are learning Czech, unlike many other people in their situation! Awesome!"

What I dislike are some kinds of grammar mistakes made by natives. I am ok with regionalism, I am ok with being colloquial. I use colloquial language even while writing, which may be taken for grammar mistakes (but I think it's a bit different). It depends on the context, a fb conversation is different from a job related email. There are simply situations, in which stupid mistakes are embarrassing. When I see an email by someone with a university degree, and there are several (!) very basic mistakes typical of kids in the 5th grade, I judge. Either that person should never have gotten their highschool diploma, or they should have shown some basic respect and read the email after themselves.

[aaleks]

Grammar is one of the reasons (actually the main reason) why I usually think twice before posting anything on the forum. So, I guess, I do care about grammar accuracy .

Learners' mistakes in my native tongue don't bother me (if they do not hinder the understanding, of course).