> This is a false dichotomy. Focusing on grammar is not the opposite.

I don't follow you. I did not claim that focusing on grammar was a literal opposite of anything. I claimed that in my case "repetitive learning by example" turned out to be less boring than "repetitive learning by memorizing grammar".

In order to translate a randomly generated (thus never seen before, non-memorized) sentence from one language to another you have to understand the grammar in order to create a valid combination of words for your translation.

You don't have to consciously and rationally understand the grammar - you didn't when first learning to speak your first language!

Stephen Krashen is a pretty good researcher on this - the summary is that exposure to the language for time (e.g. 500 hours of content you just about understand) is the critical factor. This is training non-conscious parts of your brain's neural network.

Some people like understanding the grammar and structure of a language consciously, and it can help as a mnemonic aid for anyone. But it isn't necessary, or the critical process.

A very interesting point, I stand corrected. When I think about it, my brain usually does strongly prefer to consciously create a set of "rules" about a knowledge base rather than unconsciously memorize a set of ready-made samples. But that might be just me.

> Some people like understanding the grammar and structure of a language consciously, and it can help as a mnemonic aid for anyone.

Also, if you're looking for entertaining reading in your target language, grammar books are going to be interesting to you. The goal during language learning is to find interesting content that you understand, and your target language's grammar is a known hobby of yours.

Good luck learning Finnish without understanding the grammar.

I feel like it's the opposite. Most people who speak languages with complex grammar natively can not clearly explain the grammar to you, because they use the correct grammar intuitively, and they have learned to do so by having a ton of input in that language.

This is a bad example because it's probably more wordy/complex than it needs to be but I couldn't begin to name the various grammar being used in: "I would not have gone to Paris except that a friend decided to give me a free ticket."

Good luck getting a 3 year old Finnish person lecturing you on Finnish grammar - Even though the kid can easily ask for a ice cream in both past, present, and future.

Weirdly enough, a 3 year old kid is not the same as an adult. The same learning methods do not necessarily apply.

> I claimed that in my case "repetitive learning by example" turned out to be less boring than "repetitive learning by memorizing grammar"

In this claim you implicitly say that you are focusing on "learning by memorizing grammar" if you do not are focusing on "learning by example" - hence the dichotomy, that is false.

The parent commenter never talked about grammar.

> 2) speech from day one.

.. is something I can't fully agree with. The exception being if the target language only has sounds which you are familiar with already (as in _really_ familiar - your native language already have them). Otherwise you'll simply train your brain to pronounce badly, because in the beginning you can't hear the differences. That's something which will be hard to fix later. And it takes time to hear the differences, your brain literally needs to grow new connections. There are other reasons too for doing a lot (a lot) of listening when you start a new language.

> ... target language ...

> your native language already have them

It seems like there is a strong underlying understanding that learning a new language is done from a source language towards a target language.

The book I am referring to argues that learning a language is about embodying that language - ie. it is not an intellectual task.

The most natural embodiment og a language is speech.

This is fundamentally another way of looking at language learning than what most people think about having had Spanish in high school or what not.

It might not be for all.

I did not at all in any way mean to say that learning a language should be from a source language towards a target language. Quite the opposite really. I completely agree with the statement ".. embodying that language - ie. it is not an intellectual task". That matches my own anecdotal experiences, at least.

What I wanted to say was that even though babies can hear and differentiate between all the sounds of every language on earth (and yes they can), and young children too - what then happens is that the brain will after a time simply keep what's needed for the child's language and discard the rest. Which is why adults will have problems hearing certain sounds of a target language, unless those sounds already exist in that person's language(s). That takes time. Native English speakers, for example, are in my experience generally unable to hear the difference between certain vowels in my native language even though said vowels are as different as night and day for me. It seems to take up to two years for that to get fixed, depending on the person and also age. And in the meantime the pronunciation will be wrong and the person is unable to hear it and thus can't fix it. And later it's so hard that it won't, as a rule, get fixed.

My wife can't hear the difference between certain consonants in my language even though she's fully fluent otherwise. She has to watch my lips. After all these years. The reason is simply that those differences don't exist in her native language. On the other hand, very young people can easily do it and will get the pronunciation right at first try.

But you have to start speaking at some point. Very few non-natives can differentiate between some sounds in my language and if they waited with speaking until they could they would never get there.

Does it really matter? You can always take a diction course later if it is that important. I’ve never bothered myself to learn the different sound for ‘th’ in English, nor the exact spanish flow.

Ah yes, I agree. There are biases from previous language experience.

I am learning Polish currently, that has "complex consonant clusters". I come from a vowel heavy language, and I use a lot of time with my partner to learn to pronounce these sounds.