Grammar where do I make mistakes

[Ccaesar]

Hello everyone.
I was just wondering how all of you individual learners out there figure out what part of your grammar to focus on/improve?
Since not mastering your grammar in a certain area might not be something you're consciously aware of.

[Cavesa]

-observation of my own output. not perfect, but very useful
-sometimes feedback by others, but unfortunately many tutors you pay exactly for this still let many things slide
-just systematically studying the grammar and/or reviewing it. It allows me to learn what I don't know that I don't know. It makes me discover uncertainties and mistakes. And rectify the situation.

That's why I simply don't understand, why so many learners abandon grammar books and coursebooks as soon as they reaching A2 or even less. They take it as grammarbooks=for beginners. No a good one for intermediate and advanced learners will help you uncover your mistakes and improve. The "I'll just look it up" strategy is simply not gonna cover vast majority of the problems.

[iguanamon]

My favorite courses are from an increasingly bygone era the 1960's and 1970's where there were drills, drills and more drills. The concept was like a brute force driving itself into the brain. Many people reject the approach of the old DLI and FSI courses but they sure helped me get my grammar down.

That's why I simply don't understand, why so many learners abandon grammar books and coursebooks as soon as they reaching A2 or even less. They take it as grammar books = for beginners. No, a good one for intermediate and advanced learners will help you uncover your mistakes and improve.

Native material is a wonderful and fun way to learn but that doesn't mean an "either/or" choice. I still benefit from my grammar books to this day and read and re-read them. When a learner lives outside a TL country and doesn't speak or write every day, these books help keep the cobwebs at bay.

I was just wondering how all of you individual learners out there figure out what part of your grammar to focus on/improve?

Writing and speaking help with this. When I'm trying to write something or say something and I know it's not right, that's how I figure out something needs work. After a lot of exposure to the real thing, language outside of course world, a learner has a sense for knowing where their weaknesses are. When I know my weaknesses, I can work on them. Then, it doesn't hurt to reinforce what I think I already know. As language-learners, we are never entirely finished with learning a language.

[aokoye]

Recognizing what I'm having trouble with, with regards to grammar, is actually pretty easy for me. I typically don't feel comfortable/confident with grammar constructions where I'll typically make mistakes. As was suggested, one way to get an idea of your strengths and weaknesses is to go through a grammar book (with an answer key!).

[Iversen]

Unfortunately not all instructors/mentors/teachers have the least shadow of an inkling of knowledge about grammar, so even you get your errors pointed out you can't be sure to get a valid explanation. On the other hand you can't change things you haven't noticed yet, so either you find somebody to point out the errors or you focus on the areas where you already know that you have problems - and the areas will be different from language to language (and probably also from learner to learner). And I have always been more comfortable with finding the areas myself, even if that means that I may have overlooked some arcane niceties at the outer borders of the grammar of some peripheral language.

Let's take an example: Bulgarian. It has dispensed with the complex cases endings of the other Slavic languages, but it has filled out the hole with a verbal form named aorist, which it probably nicked from some kind of Greek (though not the kind in use now). It has also kept the distinction perfective - nonperfective in its verbal system. Anybody who isn't a Slavic native speaker is bound to have problems with that one, but I would expect Slavic speakers to find the system quite natural. Except that it is messed up with the Aorist thing in Bulgarian, but nobody outside Bulgaria could be expected to understand that idiosyncratic entanglement.

In other words a learner of Bulgarian should probably spend more time on the verbal morphology than if he/she had chosen to study Russian or Serbian. And you don't need a teacher to tell you that.

[Cavesa]

Native material is a wonderful and fun way to learn but that doesn't mean an "either/or" choice. I still benefit from my grammar books to this day and read and re-read them. When a learner lives outside a TL country and doesn't speak or write every day, these books help keep the cobwebs at bay.

Yes, the either/or attitude is weird.
But it's not just for the cobwebs outside the country. I believe reviewing the grammar is useful for advanced learners inside the country (or otherwise frequently using the language) too. I can see some changes in my own writing, need to remind myself of some rules (I got too used to the telegraphic style). One might get too used to colloquial language, but is less able to switch back to formal, when needed. Cause speaking formally is actually one of the least practiced things ever (contrary to popular belief, I'd say), the natives around us may speak totally colloquially but have had enough practice to turn their more standard register on at any moment. And I've heard of interesting cases of people (typically au-pair), who arrive to the country and actually worsen in a few months considerably. They learn to get through they days with just five verbs, a hundred words, and very simple sentences.

So, I'd say a good grammarbook should be a friend you keep in touch with years or decades. You may not see each other for months, but you talk whenever you feel like it or need their support

[Daniel N.]

it has filled out the hole with a verbal form named aorist, which it probably nicked from some kind of Greek (though not the kind in use now).

Actually, the aorist tense existed Proto-Slavic and you have it also in Serbia and Bosnia to this day. It's the original past tense, while the be-perfect is a more recent thing. You have it in any Croatian grammar, for instance, but I don't really use it.

However, Macedonian has really gained some tenses, so it has 9 tenses today, ofc with all impf/perf complications.