Are You Learning Grammar in The Most Effective Way?

Grammar can be the stuff of nightmares! Imagine strict, uniformed schools where a teacher puts you on the spot, and dozing off in the dusty haze of tables and rules…and all of this takes hours upon hours.

Does it have to be that way? Could it be that a modern language learner has a use for rules too? I say yes, yes, yes!

So How Can You Make Your Grammar Study More Effective?

Let’s be real: If you’re a creative language learner wanting to express your own thoughts instead of rattling off a phrasebook, you’re going to benefit from grammar study.

I’ve got 7 tips to help you learn grammar without having to spend hours numbing your mind.

1) Adopt a Needs-Based Process

Some people want to study grammar first, following dialogues in the textbook and working through each stage of a text book. This is an old-school approach: meet a rule, learn the rule, practice the rule.

As an independent language learner, you are not bound to the rule-led approach. You can wait and explore based on need.

So for example, you may want to say “this is the most expensive house I’ve ever seen” in month 2 of your learning journey. At month 2, most books won’t be teaching you the “superlative” (grammar term for “how to say most”) yet. But if that’s what you need right now in order to communicate, your independent study advantage means you can go ahead and learn it anyway.

I call this the exploring approach, because it works only when you’re driven by curiosity. The key is to ask good questions, meaning you want to be as specific as possible about what you’re trying to communicate and where you’re getting stuck.

When you get it right, you will find that needs-based grammar study is the most efficient way of becoming fluent.

2) Don’t Ignore That Grammar Exists

If you feel that “immersion learning” means that you put yourself into an environment where all the input is in another language (“like a child!”), you risk the pitfalls of this approach. Adults are analysers, organisers, thinkers, and they are also a lot more valuable about making mistakes. So if there’s a question in your mind, why withhold the answer?

Allow yourself look up and practice a rule when it’s needed. Once you know what rule you’re missing, you’ll feel ever more confident about learning more and attaining a higher level.

Related article: The 5 Golden Rules of Adult Learning

3) Learn Your Own Grammar

The ways in which people express themselves tend to follow a very similar patterns, and most of the world’s languages adhere to patterns involving subject, verb, and object. In fact, this is the structure that exists in all the human languages found so far.

The more you know how language works to describe the world, the easier it can become to see those patterns in any new language. So understanding how your native language works is a huge head start.

4) Mindmap and Teach It

The first step of making sense of a grammar rule for yourself is to draw it out in your own notebook. Use colourful pens, write example sentences, mind map, draw connections. I prefer to write grammar rules on paper, but in my German grammar course you can also see a big student-generated mind map made in a Mindmap software.

Once you’ve taken your own notes, stage 2 of understanding grammar is to explain it to someone else.

I experienced this myself when I jobbed as a French tutor in my teens. As I tried my best to explain the different French past tenses to my tutee, a lightbulb came on in my head. These structures of passé this and passé that are actually the same as in German! Soon, I was beginning to see patterns everywhere. Explaining what I had learnt to other people was an incredible confidence booster, and helped me learn it twice.

5) Use Your Language Tutor

It’s okay for the tutor to let you make mistakes in conversation practice, but when it comes down to finding a problem and fixing it with you, they should be able to articulate what you need to know.

One great way of making use of your tutor time is to explain to them how you understood a certain rule and ask whether you’ve got it right. After all, two smart people are better than one! So never be shy, and don’t accept “we just do it this way” as an answer from a language tutor.

6) Don’t Learn Too Much At Once

Sometimes, your conversation partners and your books will ask a little too much of you. There’s so much useful information out there, but you might need more time to process it. I’ve found it helpful to learn the word for “too much” here, so I can make use of it in lessons when I need to.

It’s not a failure to know your own limitations, and in fact you will be more productive and effective if you respect the times when you’re overloaded. Better to focus small bits, and to learn those really well before moving on.

7) Look It Up

When a question comes up in your mind, make sure that you look it up! In my own routine, I like to keep a little list of things that I want to learn later. This is so helpful when I come across a weird construction in a news article, or when I realise there’s something I want to say but cannot. The Habit Tracker in the Language Habit Toolkit has this question built in, and it’s my own reminder to learn what I need.

When you keep a list and only look up what’s required, you are able to build a flexible, independent, and interesting grammar study method. No more need to follow a book - you can simply react to what’s required at the right time.

Where to Find Grammar Resources

Obviously, you can buy a straightforward book of grammar explanations. My favourites here are the books written for a teenage audience, perhaps even teenage native speakers, because these books tend to simplify their explanations and cut the word count right down. For example, I love BBC Bitesize for the languages on the British curriculum.

Related courses by me:

• German Grammar Explanations That Make Sense
• Finally Get It in French Grammar

Both of these courses are for beginners, and feature explanations and exercises in English, and in simple terms. And as you’re working with these courses, remember that they are designed to be your reference points. Each lesson answers a question, and it will be there for you when the question comes up in your own individual, needs-based curriculum.

So there you have it. I don’t believe that adults learning a new language should completely avoid grammar, and believe they have to act like children to get the most effective results. Instead, adopt your needs-based approach and let curiosity lead you on your own language learning journey!

Need more help with grammar?

Check out my course Crack the Grammar Code for an in-depth walkthrough of how you can learn the grammar of any language, stress-free.

Language Tracking Insider: How To Move Steadily Towards Your Next Breakthrough

Language tracking is so important. It allows you to stay on top of your studies, master busy periods and see your own progress towards fluency. It’s not just an exercise in discipline or productivity.

When you find smart ways to track, it will enhance all the work you’re doing and become one of the greatest motivators out there. And since I recently built and shared my own best practice templates for tracking in the Language Habit Toolkit learners, I’ve been hearing back from students who have some incredible ideas for making this even more effective.

Check out the following creative tracking tweaks and see if they can transform your language learning, too.

1) Track Life Events That Affect Your Study Routine

We all know that rules are made to be broken, and this is true for study routines too! Big and small events such as trips, conferences, and birthdays can knock you off your routine and even break habits.

Look out for these types of events at the start of the week and make a note in your tracker. Give yourself permission to drop off the routine and pay attention to getting back on track in the days after your event. For example, you could schedule 20 minutes of writing for the day after your birthday.

How To Add This To Your Tracker

My favourite trick comes from Catrin, one of my expert testers.

As Catrin started tracking her studies every day, she made little notes of what’s going on in her life.

Remember that it is okay if you are just too busy to study sometimes.

Developing a language habit is not about perfect records of focused study every day. It’s about more than that: Making language feel natural, building structure, and helping you go further simply by coming back to the project every week.

2) Code In Your Activities

The next trick is from Mark, another expert tester. Mark used to be a runner, and found that regular tracking was a key to his training regime. Taking the method into language learning, he built on his tracking expertise by adding little extras to show what he did during those sessions.

Here are a few easy ways of enhancing your Habit Tracker:

• Use different colours to track which skill you trained that day (vocab, grammar, listening, speaking, reading and writing..)
• Use numbers or letters to shorten descriptions of your resources, for example 1 for Duolingo, 2 for Glossika, 3 for your vocab notebook, 4 for a video chat, and so on.
• If you are studying more than one language, highlight which languages you were studying on which day. On the right, you can see how I reserve every Thursday for training French instead of Welsh (using the Language Habit Toolkit, printed at 50% and pasted into my Moleskine notebook).

A post shared by Kerstin Cable (@kerstin_fluent) on May 10, 2017 at 1:01pm PDT

3) Add A Review Box to Your Habit Tracker

The next tip was shared by Toolkit user Colette. She shared a tweak she uses to make sure she stays on top of what she’s learnt so far.

When you are just finishing a lesson with your tutor or a timed study session, the temptation to close the app/book and do something else is at its highest. You have earned your break! But with just one or two words of new vocabulary, you can hugely increase the benefit of what you just learnt.

Colette’s idea takes this review system one step further, as she decided to write down one word to review from her vocab routine right on the Habit Tracker every day. Just think: If you review just one vocabulary word extra every single day, you save yourself 365 reviews a year. Your Memrise buddies will be very impressed!

How To Add This To Your Tracker

In the Language Habit Toolkit, your Study Tracker sheet also comes with a “What I Learnt” section that prompts you to make a quick note of exactly what you added to your knowledge on this occasion.

Making a note while it is fresh in your mind will help you realise that even just a few minutes spent on a flashcard review can take you further towards becoming fluent.

4) Log in Advance

The final trick in today’s round-up comes from me, and it’s my classic way of kick-starting any activity when I feel like I’m procrastinating a bit too much. I’m a person who can struggle with overwhelm, and sometimes I get nothing at all done because I don’t even know where to start.

One thing I’ve learnt is that I can usually get myself unstuck by creating dedicated times in my week. It doesn’t work if I say “I will study every Monday from 6 to 7”, but it does work when I look just a few days ahead and decide where important work will fit in.

The most effective way to “advance log” is to become extremely specific. Don’t just write “read in Welsh” - it has to be “spend 8 minutes reading MADRON comic”. Instead of saying “do Memrise”, make a specific note of the level you want to complete or the mini-goal you have.

Related article: How to Learn a Language With Smart and Useful Goals

Want To Get Ready-Made Language Tracking Templates?

You’ll find two in-depth tracking worksheets to print and use in the Language Habit Toolkit. These trackers are professionally designed, developed with language learning experts, and will give you an instant set-up for effective tracking.

Find the Language Habit Toolkit in Fluent’s Learning Section.

Do you keep track of your language learning sessions in detail, or do you prefer to sail along and set big goals only? If you’ve got a tip to share, let me know in the comments below!

5 Grammar Learning Techniques To Make You a Language Natural

Let's hear it for the structure, the building blocks and road maps of language in my blog's grammar ♥︎ season. Exploring language patterns gives you depth, context, and answers.

Today I'm sharing a handful of ways in which you can become a better language learner without ever memorizing a whole verb table.

How Can Grammar Be Your Ally When Motivation Goes South?

Language learning follows the curve of excitement that you can find in many new projects. First there is a real burst of activity and motivation, bumping you up to emotional highs. This is where app streaks get completed, flashcards are interesting, and you're out there telling the world about your project. It is the perfect time to buy stationery.

After a little bit of time, your notebook is half full and your brain feels tired. Progress becomes invisible. The first burst of excitement gives way to a recognition of the gaps that you still have, and you find yourself having to memorize quite a lot in a short time. It gets frustrating, demotivating, it kinda sucks. This is where you go online and read my blog and I tell you that you're awesome and you must! not! stop!

The frustration point is where discipline and organization have to kick in.What you might not realize is that this very point of plateau is the perfect time to start speaking to people in your target language. You might not be entirely ready yet, but that's ok. Perfection isn't required anyway.

If you have only been studying stock phrases and vocabulary so far, you will reach that point of plateau with NOTHING.

But with just a small amount of key grammar structures like knowing how to say a sentence in the present tense, or how to ask a question, your range of expression will become immense. This is the magic of using grammar as your roadmap.

How Can You Learn and Remember Grammar Structures?

I know how bloody boring all grammar can be if you study it in the wrong way. In fact, I know that even the word "grammar" sounds like an instant yawn.

But maybe you can find a way of sneaking in a little bit of that goodness without losing all will to exist. Here are 5 steps that work for me every time, and I know that you'll feel so much better once you get going with them.

1. Observe and Record

Observing natural inputs is one of your biggest allies for developing the right feel for a language. Learners from anywhere can use the internet to do this in millions of ways. My own students do it by listening to the news on their drive to work, tuning in to German podcasts, or watching cool German TV shows like Deutschland 83.

Classic ideas to get you started:

• Play Pattern Bingo by making a note of any sentence you spot in one week that follows a rule you've recently learnt.
• If you're reading, work with a colour-coding system, for example the traffic light system. Constructions you know are in green, the ones you aren't sure about are in yellow, and the ones where you're completely lost are in red. And don't worry. Everyone's got an all-red page at some point.

2. Cut the Negative Talk

Negative self-talk in language learning is nobody's friend. So the more you dread the g-word and the more you resist, the harder it gets to make sense of even the most basic structures. Just like we're doing here in grammar ♥︎ season, it's helpful to create an atmosphere of positivity in your language learning.

For a few ideas about how exactly you might do this when faced with a conjugation rule, try Fluent's fabulous set of language affirmations.

3. Force Yourself to Speak or Write..

It doesn't matter where you live, or if you can afford lessons, or if you are an eskimo living on the moon. As soon as you observe a new pattern, challenge yourself to use it quickly and make it your own. You should be writing or speaking at least 3 sentences in your target language every day. In a guided scenario, you have a tutor or a great course to prompt what you are working on. But it's just as good to take the notes you made in point 1 of this list and start building your own variations on set pieces.

4. ...and Get Feedback

Yep, even though you're now producing language you're not even done yet. Whatever you write, say or record has got to go out to another human. Find a person that you trust to make you feel positive and support you fully in the language learning journey. They should not be allowed to make you feel bad for making mistakes.

My advice is always to make that person someone who has studied your target language extensively, ideally a 1-to-1 tutor. The reason is that whenever you make a mistake, your curiosity perks up. You'll want to know more, and good teaching means explaining how something works, and prompting you gently so that you can do it correctly and adopt new patterns.

5. Leave Grammar Books to Your Tutor

By now, you've probably learnt that the most important killer trick for learning grammar is to leave the hard study to your tutor. If they are good, and if they are as fanatic about language as possible, then they may already have read the book from cover to cover. The key here is that the tutor is a great resource for you, because it creates a trusted environment where someone can explain to you why the language behaves a certain way.

Wield That Grammar Force

I haven't seen a lot of Star Wars. But as a pop culture aware person, I do know one thing: Star Wars films talk a lot about the Force. Wikipedia tells you:

The Force is a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power.

The story of the force contains a dark side, of course. You can't just go and start wielding it all willy-nilly or you'll end up like that guy Darth Vader.

Now, I admit that knowing how to name words and conjugate verbs isn't exactly going to power anyone's lightsabre. But just like the Force, the key to mastering grammar is in learning how to use it for your own purposes.

Some learners are curious and want to know the exact rules of language. Others just want to get a feeling for how to do things correctly.

Which one are you?

Festive Fluency Tips: How to Learn German This Holiday Season

I hope that you're enjoying a great start into the holiday season. One of the happiest activities during this season is decorating your home. Have you ever thought about how it could boost your language learning efforts?

Why This Is So Effective

You often spend so much time with books and screens that it becomes difficult to put language love into your life. Here are some of the easiest, most effective ways to bring language and Christmas together in your house this year.

Decorating your home with German items, signs, and Christmas cards triggers a priming effect. Similarly to Spaced Repetition Systems, it will remind you of your target language in situations where you don't expect it. Your brain stays switched on, reviews the right vocabulary for the season, and helps you learn a language.

Weihnachtsdeko: Quick German Christmas Decorations

For a German feel to your home, start decorating early and put out an Adventskranz (advent wreath). This wreath features four candles. As you count off the Sundays before Christmas Eve, a candle is lit every week so that all four candles are finally lit in the Christmas week. The ritual of lighting a new candle can ring in a natural break in your day, so it's an opportunity to take 5 minutes to combine it with the recital of a German Christmas song or listening to a festive song.

Crafty parents and lovers make their own advent calendars, too. You can do some basteln (crafting) of your own by collecting 24 little presents, wrapping them individually and putting them in a box or 24 empty toilet roll tubes. Note that the German advent calendar features only 24 presents as the German festivities and present-giving are held on Christmas Eve.

During the Christmas season, German homes will light up with candles and Christmas pyramids. The Räuchermann, a little incense burner figurine made to look like a smoking man, is also a classic at Christmas. Each year I excitedly light mine, even if my British husband complains about the smell. Make the incense burner work for your language studies by using its German name, naming the utensils you use for lighting the incense, or lighting it to ring in your regular study sessions every week.

The Christmas tree is another essential. Germany's tree goes back to pagan traditions of the Middle Ages. South West Germany and the French Alsace are the original regions where the Christmas tree was introduced more than 500 years ago. These days, the Germans export Christmas trees to many other countries including Denmark, France and Poland. Traditional German tree decoration stays away from tinsel and glitter in favour of wooden decorations, fabric ribbons and real candles. And just in case it catches fire, here's a German video demonstrating how to put out a tree fire.

Combine Decorating and Labelling

Labelling is a vocabulary review method that I discussed in detail in The Vocab Cookbook, and for language learners it should become the next step you take in your decorating. Label the new items and look out for the words associated with the new items.

For example, if there is a Christmas card from a friend wishing you Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr!, where is a good place to display it in your home? Label it Weihnachtskarte, and if you are using an electronic flashcard app this is the time to add a picture to the card.

For those of you who choose not to decorate your home, here are a few other ways to engage with the season and still learn a language:

Christmas Markets

If you think that running around the Christmas market in a panic halfway through Christmas Eve is a common German image, you'll be surprised. The markets traditionally run from late November to the week before Christmas. They do sell many gift items, but are also used as a chance for families, colleagues and friends to get together over a mug of hot mulled wine.

Next time you're at an authentic German market, dare yourself to try a mug of Feuerzangenbowle which combines mulled wine with rum-soaked flambé sugar loaf. It's special! For those who don't enjoy alcohol as part of keeping warm at the Weihnachtsmarkt, there will always be some Kinderpunsch available.

If there is no market happening near you, don't feel left out though. Ask your language exchange partner or tutor to send you a video from their own market visit, showing you some items and telling you what they are in German.

German Christmas Characters

In Germany, you might get blank looks if you think that gifts are really delivered by an old man in a red coat who flies around on a reindeer sleigh and comes in through the chimney. Really. Who believes that? Obviously gifts are brought by a small angelic child! The German Christkind is a unique character, sometimes considered to be Baby Jesus himself, sometimes an angel. They come and place everyone's gifts under the tree on Heiligabend (Christmas Eve). In my house, we all used to get together for a meal and wait until the Christkind rings a bell. That's when you knew it was time for the good bit: Bescherung, where everyone got to open their gifts.

Many families sing songs like Alle Jahre wieder and Oh du fröhliche. They make the perfect basis for a merry study session. This year, I've already had a wonderful experience enriching my Welsh studies with recitals of Tawel Nos (Silent Night). The words are simple, the tunes are catchy, and you're guaranteed to pick up a few new words.

Does it Snow At Christmas in Germany?

Germany doesn't usually benefit from full snow cover to make things look romantic at Christmas. The North of the country is flat and close to the North Sea. The further South you go, the better your chances for a white Christmas. The Alps are prime territory for picture-book scenes, but Eastern Germany and Berlin usually keep up with the winter scenes too. Wrap up warm as temperatures often drop below zero and keep active by rodeln (sledging), Schlittschuh laufen (ice-skating) or Ski fahren (skiing). Germans love winter sports and always have a frontrunner in the key events of the season such as Skispringen (ski jumping) and slalom. If you are looking for festive TV shows to watch, the sports coverage of these events has excellent potential to combine repetition and easy language with an authentic winter atmosphere.

Ready to Start Decorating?

Are you building these tips into your study routine? Comment below to let me know your favourite Christmas study tricks!

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