English Grammar and Foreign Languages

[The Man who was Thursday]

Gachetemas

I learned from my guitar teacher that there are twelve different ways to say "the" in German.

I take Spanish. It is one of my favorite subjects. Maybe it's easier for me because I don't have a hard time with grammar things. Sometimes grammar is reviewed to help out other students.

Uh.. Yeah, if you count cases and genders, there's 12. Some of those are duplicates though.  

[Aerin-Sol9]

Gachetemas

I learned from my guitar teacher that there are twelve different ways to say "the" in German.

I take Spanish. It is one of my favorite subjects. Maybe it's easier for me because I don't have a hard time with grammar things. Sometimes grammar is reviewed to help out other students.

I like Spanish. It's pretty easy for me and I think it's because I already have a good background in other Latin/Romance languages.  

[ljosberinn]

I don't think I've ever been as grateful for bein an Icelander until at this point in my life. I am quite obsessed on languages and Icelandic grammar is.. well, let's say it's similar to Latin grammar. Brobdingnagian. That is to say, quite complex.
Thanks to Icelandic, it's fairly easy for me to learn the grammar in most other languages, seeing as most other languages have easier grammar. German grammar is also somewhat similar.
I have to admit I haven't studied English grammar inparticular, I find English quite easy actually, especially compared to the other languages I know. But maybe that's just because they rarely teach you more than just the basic grammar? Hmm, maybe I should find an English grammar course..

 

[Fatal Hilarity]

Well, I'm not so sure.
I can see how learning another Germanic language might improve your English grammar, but I'm not sure about languages that have absolutely no similarity to English (say, Japanese). Of course, it would improve your abilities in many other areas.

If you are willing to improve your English by learning foreign languages, It would be better to try Old English or Latin. You could see the way the structure of sentences (also words and many other things) changed over time and generate a few rules about it. That would really help you understand English grammar much better.

I can say with certainty that speaking foreign languages that are very loosely connected to English has not helped my English grammar at all.  

[The Man who was Thursday]

F. Fritzi

Well, I'm not so sure.
I can see how learning another Germanic language might improve your English grammar, but I'm not sure about languages that have absolutely no similarity to English (say, Japanese). Of course, it would improve your abilities in many other areas.

If you are willing to improve your English by learning foreign languages, It would be better to try Old English or Latin. You could see the way the structure of sentences (also words and many other things) changed over time and generate a few rules about it. That would really help you understand English grammar much better.

I can say with certainty that speaking foreign languages that are very loosely connected to English has not helped my English grammar at all.

You have to understand the grammar behind both languages to translate between them. Hence, learning another language helps with your grammar.  

[Fatal Hilarity]

Ezra Pound

You have to understand the grammar behind both languages to translate between them. Hence, learning another language helps with your grammar.

I'd like to read an example.  

[Dulak]

Aerin-Sol9

You know, the best way to have good English grammar is to learn a Foreign Language. I speak, read and write fluent french, and that helped significantly in my English grammar. I went to a french school for 5 years, and even though we weren't allowed to speak English, I think that our English was much better than the English of other schools. I have to admit though, my French grammar isn't as good as it could be. redface


What do you think?

I'm taking a French class next year for school, so I'm hoping for it to be an "easy A" class rather than Spanish.