All right, I know some teaching methods and teachers really do overemphasize grammar study—including memorizing tables of case endings or verb conjugation patterns—at the expense of actual communication. When you’re starting out, you really don’t need that much grammar practice.

For beginner and intermediate learners, I’m a huge fan of “reverse engineering” grammar whenever possible. This is a fast, highly effective, low-stress way to learn how the grammar of a foreign language works. It also helps you absorb complex information in a way that memorizing some chart, table or list of rules just can’t.

That method’s fine if you only want to reach an intermediate level in the language, but when you’re aiming for real fluency, you’re cheating yourself by not investigating and practicing grammar.

Reaching High-Level Fluency

If you want to learn to speak and write near the level of an educated native speaker, you’ll eventually need focused practice with grammar. After all, not too many of us managed to get through school without some grammar lessons in our native language. We generally write and speak better after post-secondary education than before. Even professional writers sometimes make grammar errors and syntax errors, which is why editors exist.

As foreign learners, we also get tripped up by the assumptions we make about a new language based what we know about our first language. This is known as linguistic interference or language transfer.

Unless you keep seeking and destroying your grammar errors, you risk getting complacent at a certain level—probably around high upper-intermediate—and not progressing further. Your grammar errors will not clear up on their own just because you’re constantly hearing correct grammar. Interference from your first language will see to that.

Drills? Not Necessarily.

Focused practice with grammar doesn’t always have to take the form of working through pages of fill-in-the-blank sentences with the correct preposition or a verb in the right tense. My favorite way to practice grammar is translation. (And before you run away, there are alternatives that, too.)

When you write or speak your own thoughts, you can work around any “difficult” grammar. When you have to translate whatever’s put in front of you, though, you’re forced to confront those grammar structures you might rather avoid.

For more common languages you can find books with complete sentences and their translations. I recommend having a native speaker around to check in with, though, because you may come up with translations that are different from the book’s, but just as correct. If you can’t find a book like this, translating any relatively high-level text from your native language into your target language will do.

Grammar Practice Alternatives

If you don’t particularly enjoy translation, though, try writing on a topic you enjoy and finding a native speaker you can correct your grammar. Pay close attention to the mistakes you make repeatedly (keep a list, too) and if you feel like you don’t understand a certain grammar feature, study up on it.

And if you hate writing, you can always hold conversations with someone ready to stop you and point out your grammar errors or awkward phrasing.

The point is that grammar study isn’t inherently useless. Not everyone can reach a high level just by reverse engineering everything. Once you’re at upper-intermediate level, if you want to improve, you’ll probably need at lease some with the grammar structures you’re making mistakes with.

What do you think? Have you been able to reach C2 or near-native level without really studying grammar? If you have, leave a comment and let me know how you managed that one. I’d love to know!

Related posts:

1. Learning a Foreign Language: Tips for Learning Grammar
2. Which is Better: A Native or Non-Native Teacher?
3. A Real Answer to “How Fast Can I Learn a Language?”

While you will, at some point need focused work on grammar, there’s no reason grammar drills should take up the bulk of your study time. To get communicative fast and save your sanity, focus on what you need for communication and then learn the rules of why you’re supposed to say something a certain way.

Work Backwards

All too many foreign language learning courses present learners with grammar rules before they’ve really had a chance to hear and see those rules in action. This is the exact opposite of the way we learn grammar in our native language. First we learn to say something like, “I want some cake!” and much later we learn that there’s a thing called the “first person present tense” (I want, I like, etc.).

When you’re first starting a new language, learn whole phrases that will be useful in your every day life and add words that can be used which those phrases. For example, “I’d like some…” and “water,” “tissues” and “more time.” Do this instead of just memorizing lists of words and facts about the grammar.

Which brings us to…

Memorize Examples

Instead of trying to memorize charts of verb conjugations and case endings, learn each one in the context of a phrase. If you’re having trouble understanding how to use a particular grammar feature, collect examples of the grammar in use until you get the hang of it.

Quality phrasebooks and text books (those that aren’t filled with grammar errors) are great resources for this, but don’t over look authentic (native) sources, either.

One way to collect grammar examples that works well with common grammar features is to open up a book or newspaper and scan the pages looking for examples.

For less common ones, choose part of the grammar feature you want to use, plug that into your favorite online search engine, and see what examples you come up with. For instance, if you’re trying to learn how to use the Russian preposition “k,” (to/for) type just that letter into google.ru and you can pick up examples like “k prazdniku” (for the holiday). [Apologies for the Latin letters. Wordpress would take the Cyrillic.]

Songs are another great way to collect example phrases in general. We tend to listen to songs we live over and over and eventually memorize the words with no effort at all. In fact, it’s fun! Take advantage to free online resources like youtube.com and live365.com to find singers and bands you like to help build your vocab and grammar skills.

If you struggle with foreign language grammar and can’t stand tedious grammar drills, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something wrong or you’re “just not good at languages.” In Faster Foreign Language Learning, I outline specific ways to reach working fluency in another language without memorizing charts or spending hours on grammar drills.

Related posts:

1. Grammar: Now for the (Kind of) Bad News
2. Foreign Language Learning for Introverts: Speaking Practice Tips for Immersion Situations
3. Using Songs to Learn a Foreign Language: Get More From Your Pop Music