Now that everyone's Grammar Crazy... a Grammar Top 10?

dgtully

July 16, 2007, 09:03 PM posted in General Discussion

Hello again, podders!

Thanks to eveyone who responded to my last post. I'm excited about the new grammar section and look forward to using it. But now that it's up, a newbie like me has a few questions-

1). How can a newbie use it to teach him or herself grammar? It seems well designed for those who know what they're looking to find, but how do newbies learn to ask the right questions?

2). Can anyone recommend a top ten (or better yet "first ten") newbie lessons in the ChinesePod archive that would serve as a good introduction to basic grammar? I get the impression that Ken doesn't like explicating structure too much, but are there any lessons of the top of podders' heads where Ken and Jenny get into the basics a littl emore indepth than usual?

Thanks in advance, everyone. CPod is such a strong community, it's nice to have you all as a very helpful resource.

Peace,

Deoksu

steve

July 17, 2007, 04:02 AM

Hi Deoksu, Great question. My advice is that a Newbie shouldn't concern themselves too much with grammar. All the Newbie lessons are designed so that a complete beginner can grasp them with no prior knowledge, and your goal at Newbie level is to build a basic vocabulary, learn simple sentence patterns, and develop your listening comprehension. All this can be done without tackling grammar head on. Once you graduate to Elementary, it's time to start delving into the grammar guide, and the way to do this is to let the lesson guide you. Every (ele or above) lesson will (eventually) have grammar tags that lead you to the relevant entries in the grammar guide, so just listen to the lesson and do the review exercises as normal, and then read the related grammar guide entry to get a deeper understanding of the dialog.

xiaohu

July 18, 2007, 01:10 AM

Steve, Isn't tackling new, even simple sentence patterns also tackling grammer? I think the sooner one tackles grammer the better because (in Chinese especially) the relation between words in a sentence can greatly affect the meaning. The more you understand the basic grammatical concepts the quicker you will pick up your vocabulary because you will understand much more, and much more deeply!

wildyaks

July 18, 2007, 05:58 AM

Xiaohu, you must be a kindred spirit. Because you make the same spelling mistake I ALWAYS make. "grammer" instead of "grammar"...

John

July 18, 2007, 06:21 AM

deoksu, It's a good question, and we are working on various ways to integrate the Grammar Guide into the learning process. In the meantime, maybe some of the more experienced premium users (Bazza, Henning, etc.) wouldn't mind posting some of their "Essential Grammar Guide Links" in the Conversations section. Of course, there's also the problem that not all the information is filled in yet! I think all this will work itself out over time as the Guide content nears completion.

henning

July 18, 2007, 06:56 AM

Deoksu, John, I think it would be better to have the grammar links attached to concrete sentences from lessons rather than to provide a "top 10". The best way to tackle this as a beginner is probably to actively question why a sentence is build in a certain way and than just ask for the rules behind it - and let the Intermediate students dig them up. I myself didn't start systematically delving into grammar up until 2 weeks ago. It is really rewarding because it aligns fuzzy guts feeling (developed over a *long, long* time) with rules and clarity. I don't know if I could have appreciated this in my very early Chinese learning days.