As a HS English teacher, teaching grammar is about as much fun as a root canal. It’s bland, complex, and filled with contradictions.
If a handbook for how to construct a language were made, English would be held up as a warning for how not to make a language. It’s a mess. We steal words, regularly butcher sentences in writing and speech, and there’s no central authority to say what is and what is not acceptable. Remember, the dictionary describes the language… it doesn’t dictate it.
Odds are that you learned about that in school and just forgot about it. How many of us could diagram a sentence once we have been out of school for a while, for example?
I feel like my 9th grade honors English teacher definitely tried to teach us things like Auxiliary Verbs and more in depth parts of speech, but me being an angsty 14 year old didn’t really want to learn. If I wished that I learned more grammar, I’d have no one to blame but myself.
I’m always shocked by posts like this because I absolutely learned grammar in school. I feel like whenever I have a conversation like this with my siblings where they say things like this it’s because they didn’t actually pay attention in class.
We learned a lot of grammar. I had a classical education. I can diagram any sentence. I absolutely hated it, as a kid, but I now see that it is essential.
I remember learning a lot about grammar, I just didn’t use any of it after finals so most of it didn’t stick. You remember stuff that gets used. Grammatical structure and analyzing sentences didn’t matter to me until I tried learning a second language, so it felt like a lot of stuff was being learned for the first time.
I realized when I switched to a language-heavy field that I’d absorbed a lot more grammar than I realized from the strict Catholic nuns at my elementary school. I’m sure that four years of Spanish and French language instruction also helped.
I don’t think it’s useful for anything other than learning foreign languages. You will improve your native tongue more quickly by reading good books, and it will be more pleasant.
I loved learning grammar. It always made sense to me. Seems like we had spelling and grammar all the way to 9th grade, and after that it was more reading and writing.
My degree is in English with a writing focus – it’s something I’ve always been interested in. I can tell you with relative certainty that you learned about auxiliary verbs at some point. For me it was in 6th grade when we spent quite a bit of time diagraming sentences. It’s the kind of thing you forget if you don’t care. For example I have no idea what SIN or TAN mean though I’m sure I learned that at some point.
No, I am not disappointed I didn’t learn more about grammar in school. I learned what I needed to communicate effectively and being able to explain the difference between an action and modal verb has never once come up in my real life.
Not at all. I don’t really care about grammar, I care about communicating. The written rules and what people are able to understand are very different things.
If someone is able to correct your grammar this shows they understood what you were saying and the correction was not needed as it does not add clarity to the communication. I write to communicate, not to grammar properly and once grammar stops making me a better communicator it serves no purpose.
I’m sure I learned it, but just didn’t retain it. If you don’t use it, you lose it. I started writing a lot of web content for my job, so I took some free grammar classes through my library’s website for a mental refresh. I was surprised how much I forgot.
I had to look up what an auxiliary verb was and found out it’s just another name for a helping verb, which we definitely went over. I feel like I learned about grammar about the right amount and identifying every little thing in a sentence was tedious.
I learned a ton about grammar in school. Also, I started taking foreign language classes in first grade, and it’s a great way to really teach yourself to pay attention to grammar rules and sentence structure. It also didn’t hurt that my dad was a former English teacher so that shit was burned into my brain 24/7.
The thing is, that was all 30+ years ago so I don’t remember the exact names of the rules, even if I inherently know the rules from decades of practice. Off the top of my head I can’t recall what a past participle is but I know I use them in conversation and writing.
This may be generational. I graduated high school in the late eighties and eighth grade English class was focused on grammar. We had to diagram sentences in a huge packet every week and then did them in class on chalkboard.
There’s only so much you can learn about grammar. I distinctly recall learning about auxiliary verbs (but they were called helper verbs.) Learning French helped reinforce a lot of grammar rules.
The schools I attended covered grammar well but still inculcated bad grammar at a few points. For example, it is not always “X and I” because sometimes it’s “X and me.” Take out “X and” and read the sentence again; if “me” is correct, it’s “X and me.” “He gave the ring to Frodo and me” is correct.
Yes! In 8th grade I was put in an ordinary English class and we were starting to learn to diagram sentences. Then I got pulled out and put into the “gifted” (I hate that term) English class. We spent most of our time reading and writing. I was happy.
The next year I decided to take Latin as an elective and I was stymied by noun declensions. Verb conjugations weren’t hard because I’d been taking Spanish already, but direct object, indirect object, gerund, and all the rest through me for a loop! I then wished I’d stayed in the on-level English class and learned to diagram sentences.
I finally did learn Latin, but to this day, languages with noun declensions scare me, and I say that as someone who finds Chinese easy.
I had a Jesuit priest in 10th grade who lived and died by Warriner’s Grammar book. It helped me tremendously in Spanish and German. I can’t thank him enough
Almost all of the grammar I learned was during a summer ACT prep class rather than in school. My school teachers only seemed to want to teach literature. I guess grammar is boring. I have no idea.
I had way to much grammar and much of it was unneeded. I would have liked it better if I had done 18th and 19th century political speeches (as an analogy to using Cicero for Latin), and kept diagramming sentences to a minimum.
You have no idea how much this made me angry by the time I got to college. My degree required me to take up to a 4th level in a foreign language. That’s reasonable but the problem was that I didn’t understand English grammar enough to apply it to the Spanish grammar I was being taught. I remember being told “you use the verb this way when it’s transitive and this way when it’s intransitive.” What the fuck is transitive?! I was completely lost.
I very distinctly remember my English class being like every other class I had in school until about 6th grade or so. We’d always build on what we’d learned before. Then after that English class became a literature class and I, along with everyone else, basically forgot basic grammar. I remember a highschool English teacher teaching us again elementary school grammar lessons that I hate to admit we all needed.
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Grammar is something that I find mildly interesting now, but would’ve thought it was boring as shit in school.
I learned plenty. Later I forgot it but some things remain.
No, I feel like I spent an entire lifetime diagramming sentences.
OTOH, I also didn’t truly understand grammar, even English grammar, my native tongue, until I studied a foreign language.
I learned more about English grammar in Spanish class than in English class.
As a HS English teacher, teaching grammar is about as much fun as a root canal. It’s bland, complex, and filled with contradictions.
If a handbook for how to construct a language were made, English would be held up as a warning for how not to make a language. It’s a mess. We steal words, regularly butcher sentences in writing and speech, and there’s no central authority to say what is and what is not acceptable. Remember, the dictionary describes the language… it doesn’t dictate it.
Odds are that you learned about that in school and just forgot about it. How many of us could diagram a sentence once we have been out of school for a while, for example?
I’m more disappointed in my memory
I feel like my 9th grade honors English teacher definitely tried to teach us things like Auxiliary Verbs and more in depth parts of speech, but me being an angsty 14 year old didn’t really want to learn. If I wished that I learned more grammar, I’d have no one to blame but myself.
I learned about grammar quite an bit in school. It was boring and hard to retain as it makes little sense.
I think we learned it, but maybe a bit too early so it didn’t sink in.
I’m always shocked by posts like this because I absolutely learned grammar in school. I feel like whenever I have a conversation like this with my siblings where they say things like this it’s because they didn’t actually pay attention in class.
I have a minor in English, so I’m good. I also took AP English in high school. It is taught, but retention seems to be low a lot of times.
No, my grammar lessons were very thorough. I was an absolute grammar nerd on top of that.
No, I learned plenty. More than people use or want to use. Mostly outdated and arbitrary rules with little bearing on how we communicate anyway.
Nope, I feel my school did a pretty good job.
I can still diagram a sentence. I majored in a language as part of my degree. I’m good.
Yes. Later in life I had a friend that was an English teacher and we got a chalkboard and she taught me grammar.
Also there’s a set of books called “English grammar for learners of (whatever different language)” that really helps full in gaps and reteach.
We learned a lot of grammar. I had a classical education. I can diagram any sentence. I absolutely hated it, as a kid, but I now see that it is essential.
I’m willing to bet that you learned this and just forgot it.
I remember learning a lot about grammar, I just didn’t use any of it after finals so most of it didn’t stick. You remember stuff that gets used. Grammatical structure and analyzing sentences didn’t matter to me until I tried learning a second language, so it felt like a lot of stuff was being learned for the first time.
I realized when I switched to a language-heavy field that I’d absorbed a lot more grammar than I realized from the strict Catholic nuns at my elementary school. I’m sure that four years of Spanish and French language instruction also helped.
I don’t think it’s useful for anything other than learning foreign languages. You will improve your native tongue more quickly by reading good books, and it will be more pleasant.
My 4th grader is currently learning about “helping verbs” right now!
Honestly, what I learned and what I remember are two very different things.
Nope. I’m fine with what I learned and I’m glad I never have to learn it again. I will not diagram another sentence
I loved learning grammar. It always made sense to me. Seems like we had spelling and grammar all the way to 9th grade, and after that it was more reading and writing.
english grammar made much more sense to me after studying latin.
in elementary school my teacher taught a foreign language’s grammar in that language and i understood nothing.
No, because why would I need it? I obviously didn’t need it enough to remember it.
Had to look that one up.
I did learn about it, quite a bit in fact, but we called them helping verbs.
I learned it. I forgot it. I can type a professional sounding email when needed.
My degree is in English with a writing focus – it’s something I’ve always been interested in. I can tell you with relative certainty that you learned about auxiliary verbs at some point. For me it was in 6th grade when we spent quite a bit of time diagraming sentences. It’s the kind of thing you forget if you don’t care. For example I have no idea what SIN or TAN mean though I’m sure I learned that at some point.
I learned about it from reading a lot, and from being corrected by my mom. I heard her voice in my head, correcting me, for years.
No, I am not disappointed I didn’t learn more about grammar in school. I learned what I needed to communicate effectively and being able to explain the difference between an action and modal verb has never once come up in my real life.
My very old school 6th grade language arts teacher loved grammar. I would have been a lot happier learning less of it.
Not at all. I don’t really care about grammar, I care about communicating. The written rules and what people are able to understand are very different things.
If someone is able to correct your grammar this shows they understood what you were saying and the correction was not needed as it does not add clarity to the communication. I write to communicate, not to grammar properly and once grammar stops making me a better communicator it serves no purpose.
Doesn’t seem like something you should learn in school, outside of a college degree in a subject that is.
No, I paid attention in class.
I’m sure I learned it, but just didn’t retain it. If you don’t use it, you lose it. I started writing a lot of web content for my job, so I took some free grammar classes through my library’s website for a mental refresh. I was surprised how much I forgot.
I had to look up what an auxiliary verb was and found out it’s just another name for a helping verb, which we definitely went over. I feel like I learned about grammar about the right amount and identifying every little thing in a sentence was tedious.
Yes. I am disappointed I didn’t pay attention more.
They were teaching it. I was not interested.
I learned a ton about grammar in school. Also, I started taking foreign language classes in first grade, and it’s a great way to really teach yourself to pay attention to grammar rules and sentence structure. It also didn’t hurt that my dad was a former English teacher so that shit was burned into my brain 24/7.
The thing is, that was all 30+ years ago so I don’t remember the exact names of the rules, even if I inherently know the rules from decades of practice. Off the top of my head I can’t recall what a past participle is but I know I use them in conversation and writing.
Nope…. What would the grammar/ spelling Nazis on Reddit do with their lives, I give them purpose!
This may be generational. I graduated high school in the late eighties and eighth grade English class was focused on grammar. We had to diagram sentences in a huge packet every week and then did them in class on chalkboard.
There’s only so much you can learn about grammar. I distinctly recall learning about auxiliary verbs (but they were called helper verbs.) Learning French helped reinforce a lot of grammar rules.
What I wish we spent more time on, was spelling.
Nope.
You learned about helping verbs. You just didn’t learn that they can also be referred to as auxiliary verbs.
No.
Our school had us certify on certain aspects of grammar. We had to analyze and diagram sentences in front of our parents.
My husband is self employed and makes me edit his documents.
No.
Catholic elementary, I learned grammar and went more in depth in public middle school.
The schools I attended covered grammar well but still inculcated bad grammar at a few points. For example, it is not always “X and I” because sometimes it’s “X and me.” Take out “X and” and read the sentence again; if “me” is correct, it’s “X and me.” “He gave the ring to Frodo and me” is correct.
I’m still, confused about, the use of commas.
Yes! In 8th grade I was put in an ordinary English class and we were starting to learn to diagram sentences. Then I got pulled out and put into the “gifted” (I hate that term) English class. We spent most of our time reading and writing. I was happy.
The next year I decided to take Latin as an elective and I was stymied by noun declensions. Verb conjugations weren’t hard because I’d been taking Spanish already, but direct object, indirect object, gerund, and all the rest through me for a loop! I then wished I’d stayed in the on-level English class and learned to diagram sentences.
I finally did learn Latin, but to this day, languages with noun declensions scare me, and I say that as someone who finds Chinese easy.
Not really
My grammar skills may not be flawless, but they’ve apparently been good enough that they haven’t impacted my career.
Yes . I skipped a few grades and entirely missed those lessons.
I had a Jesuit priest in 10th grade who lived and died by Warriner’s Grammar book. It helped me tremendously in Spanish and German. I can’t thank him enough
I was taking college level russian classes in highschool, i learned more about English grammar there than in any English class.
Almost all of the grammar I learned was during a summer ACT prep class rather than in school. My school teachers only seemed to want to teach literature. I guess grammar is boring. I have no idea.
I had way to much grammar and much of it was unneeded. I would have liked it better if I had done 18th and 19th century political speeches (as an analogy to using Cicero for Latin), and kept diagramming sentences to a minimum.
No. I learned grammar well in like 5th grade?
You have no idea how much this made me angry by the time I got to college. My degree required me to take up to a 4th level in a foreign language. That’s reasonable but the problem was that I didn’t understand English grammar enough to apply it to the Spanish grammar I was being taught. I remember being told “you use the verb this way when it’s transitive and this way when it’s intransitive.” What the fuck is transitive?! I was completely lost.
I very distinctly remember my English class being like every other class I had in school until about 6th grade or so. We’d always build on what we’d learned before. Then after that English class became a literature class and I, along with everyone else, basically forgot basic grammar. I remember a highschool English teacher teaching us again elementary school grammar lessons that I hate to admit we all needed.
You very likely did learn about it, you just didn’t retain that information.
We learned a ton of grammar, but it was painfully boring and I forgot a lot of it by now.