But of course everyone is free to do what they want. It just boggles my mind that people will literally spend upwards to 3 years “learning” a new language through grammar study method. If its an oral language, get used to the sounds first. There isn’t a grammar book for every language out there so in order to pick up an oral language, like Khatzu said, the ears are sacred.

The “why’s” don’t really matter in the long run; when you think of it, native speakers don’t even know the “why’s”! The way we learn languages is too wrapped up in the study of grammar and linguistics, which makes learning languages seem way harder than it actually is. There are some people who will argue you to death about why grammar is so important…but I honestly think those people just want to show off their supposed extensive knowledge of grammar to make themselves seem like a smartass. :p

“For example, I doupt that I would have been able to internalize English sentence structure without having deliberately pondered upon the differences between German and English grammar. ”

I think you would have. 🙂

AJATT is all about having fun with the learning process, so if you really dig grammar then by all means study grammar. You don’t need it to become a fluent speaker though, which I think is the message behind Khatz’s words.

I have been lurking around your blog for some time and found it helpful in many ways. Let me give you some information abput myself first: I was brought up with 3 different languages, of which I still speak 2 fluently: German and Polish. During school I started learning English, French and Spanish. Out of these 3 I have become fluent only in English, even though I still have basic skills in the other two, i.e. reading simple texts. Japanese is the 7th language I started to learn.
Even though I generally sympathize with your ideas, I would like to disagree with you here. I believe that learning formal grammar is not a waste of your time. For one, there may be people who find that learning grammar in itself satisfying. It allows you to consciously relate patterns within a language, that you may have ignored otherwise. Much like learning music theory, it opens your eyes for broader structures, prevents overgeneralization of assumed ‘rules’, and deepens your meta-knowledge. For me, it has never been a burden, but always a great supplement to my other learning methods.
More importantly, grammar gives you a tool to prevent confusion between different languages. It is true that you can acquire high proficiency in a language without ever opening a book about grammar. However, what if you have already knowledge in similiar languages that will interfer with your ability to express complex ideas? For example, I doupt that I would have been able to internalize English sentence structure without having deliberately pondered upon the differences between German and English grammar. Grammar is a great heuristic if your exposure to a specific language has not been so high recently.
It may well be that my claims are limited to people with an inclination towards analytical thinking. Those people, however, do exist and their desire to ‘understand’ a language shouldn’t be dismissed as useless. This is by the way also represented in language acquisition theory: The so called “monitor” is a part of declaratif knolwedge about a language and is supposed to be helpful for specific types of learners.
This being said, I hope that you can see a few positive points of laerning formal grammar. After all, truth is often a two sided coin.
Yours,
Michal