May 7, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode, we’re asking why so many of us treat grammar mistakes like moral failures instead of what they actually are: a totally normal part of learning. We’ll dig into the shame spiral that comes with making errors, how it holds us back, and why grammar isn't as cut and dry as you might think.
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Jeremiah (00:00):
Except for French people.
Except for, yeah.
And that's actually not true.
Most French people are totallychill and nice.
It's really just Parisians frommy experience.
And if there are any Parisianslistening to this and are like,
suck, that's not true.
I don't care.
If you had been nicer to me whenI was in Paris, then I wouldn't
have said that.
(00:22):
Hello and welcome to How ToLanguage a podcast about
grammar.
Question mark.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:28):
And I'm Marina.
Jeremiah (00:29):
And today on how to Language we're gonna be talking
about, uh, you could probablyguess it.
Grammar.
I.
Again, question mark.
And, uh, the reason for that isbecause it is probably one of
the biggest topics that peopleworry about when it comes to
learning another language andfrankly, about their own
language when they're writing init, especially, uh, which I see
frequently in my job.
Marina (00:50):
So we wanna break down what grammar actually is, and.
Explore the loaded term of badgrammar and what it actually
means in a language learningcontext.
Jeremiah (01:05):
So, I'll just, throw out a question for you.
Feel free to answer.
You're the only other one here.
What, what, what would you sayis the source of most language
learner anxiety?
I think that's a good inroadinto talking about grammar
specifically, and maybe thatkind of answers the question,
but Yeah, I think you
Marina (01:23):
answered it.
I mean, it, it's gonna vary fromperson to person, what?
Causes them the most anxietywhen they're speaking their
target language.
We talk about it a lot on hereabout like, oh, learner anxiety.
But I think it's good to talkabout it in more detail and, and
get at the source of it.
(01:44):
It could vary.
Like I said, it could be kind ofgenerally sounding stupid.
We don't, we don't like to feel.
Like we're not smart.
And when you're speaking yourtarget language, when you don't
feel very proficient in it, youcan kind of feel a little bit
almost like a child.
I was just
Jeremiah (02:04):
gonna say like a child.
Yeah.
Marina (02:05):
Yeah.
You're having problemsexpressing yourself.
You might be sayingungrammatical things.
You might be pronouncing thingswrong.
Oh yeah.
You're worried about youraccent, you're worried about
just totally butchering words.
And then a big part of it isalso gonna be having bad
grammar.
Saying something ungrammatical,saying something that sounds
(02:26):
unnatural.
Things like that.
Jeremiah (02:29):
Those bullet points are good.
Those capture really like.
The, the vast majority of whatpeople worry about, when they're
learning another language.
So you mentioned grammar for thelast point, and I think it's
worth defining our terms herebecause grammar in particular is
a word that people just usewilly-nilly.
And I think it's not actuallyclear to most people what
(02:50):
specifically grammar is.
So how would you maybe definegrammar for the purpose of this
discussion?
Marina (02:57):
Grammar is a hard thing to define in linguistics.
That's not really something thatwe talk a lot about in
linguistics.
Instead you're gonna hear moreabout things like syntax, which
is sentence level, language atthe sentence level, or
morphology, which is language atthe word level.
And then whether or not certainconstructions are grammatical.
(03:18):
But for this discussion we cankind of.
Say that grammar is the logic,and the patterns of how words
are created and strung togetherin a language or in an
utterance.
So it's gonna be a mix ofsyntax, so like sentence level
mix of morphology, which is wordlevel.
(03:39):
And all of that combined createsa coherent language.
We can distinguish the two.
Syntax and morphology to makeunderstanding grammar as a
concept more manageable.
Jeremiah (03:52):
Yeah, grammar.
Yeah.
Grammar is a term, like youmentioned, we don't really use
it in linguistics.
It's kind of like accentactually, where.
It's more of like a lay person'sterm or like a general term
that, that people use.
It's not quite as scientific,which doesn't mean that we can't
speak about it scientifically.
Marina (04:11):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (04:12):
Like you just did.
Marina (04:14):
The idea of grammar comes up a lot more in language
learning and languageacquisition studies and so I
don't think it's likeinappropriate to talk about
grammar.
Yeah, so true.
I guess I'm just, it's hard todefine.
Yeah.
Jeremiah (04:25):
I'm linguist pilled.
You'll have to excuse mylinguist pilled brain.
And I mentioned earlier how Isee this a lot come up in my
work, working in a writingcenter and in a writing center
context, what that looks like isoften writers who come in for a
writing appointment will saythat they want help with
grammar, quote unquote, even ifthey don't actually know what
(04:46):
grammar means.
And the way that I know thatthey don't actually know what
grammar means is that they willcome in and on their.
Intake form, they'll say, I needhelp with grammar.
And then they'll start askingabout like, citations or
punctuation or something.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so the word grammar kindagets used as a shorthand for
everything from like flow, youknow, very sentence level and
(05:06):
even almost paragraph levelwriting all the way down to
punctuation.
Which is kind of funny becausepunctuation isn't, isn't even
like a natural thing in, inlanguage.
Which arguably, well, notarguably, grammar is a natural
thing in language.
We've talked about writingbefore, so I won't get into
punctuation, but it brings up a,an important point, which is
(05:26):
that the grammar of a languagehas a lot of similarities
between its, uh, spoken and itswritten form, you know, of the
language.
I.
But not a hundred percentoverlap.
For example, spoken languagedoesn't have punctuation like I
just said.
And so what, and also what youwould call like flow, not you,
but what a normal person wouldcall flow.
(05:50):
Rude.
Uh, you know, what a personwould call flow.
Which again, is also not alinguistic term, is different in
writing versus in speech.
And there are differentexpectations in particular, in
writing versus in speech.
So for example, again, it's okayin speech to use a certain
amount of filler words like, youknow.
(06:12):
Obviously not too many becausethat can annoy people.
But if you're having a normalconversation with somebody,
nobody is going to be shocked ifyou say, you know, a couple
times or if you say like acouple times.
Some people like to make a stinkabout that, but those are the
people that don't understand thedifference between spoken and
written writing, in writingthese, you know, filler words
(06:32):
tend to be a lot less tolerated,let's say.
From audiences, and again, thatcan vary depending on the type
of writing.
But just to say that, as alanguage learner, it's worth
distinguishing between writtenlanguage and spoken language for
purposes of thinking aboutgrammar and how important it is
to have like really precise,quote unquote correct grammar.
Marina (06:56):
Especially when we're talking about learner anxiety.
Yeah.
'cause when you're writing, evenif it's in your target language,
you generally have a lot moretime to think through your
answers When you're writing, youhave a lot more time to think
about your.
Sentence constructions and whatwords you're using to make sure
that what you're saying isgrammatical.
(07:18):
But when you're speaking in yourtarget language, it's like, it's
kinda like improv.
Like you're, you're flying bythe city to your pants.
You are more likely to makemistakes because you're
producing language in real time.
And so I think, you know, that'spart of the reason why people
feel a lot more anxiety whenthey're speaking versus writing.
(07:38):
So today we're gonna be focusingon speaking.
Jeremiah (07:42):
I love that it is exactly like improv, in more
ways than, than one.
I don't, maybe I don't need tobuild off of that, but I kind of
want to because like how animprov, I've never actually done
improv to be clear, but myunderstanding of it is that a
big part of it is someone elsesays something or does
something, and you build off ofthat to continue the skit.
(08:05):
Is that?
Marina (2) (08:06):
I think so.
Jeremiah (08:07):
Yeah.
That seems to be right.
And weirdly, that's actually alot of what spoken language is
because another thing aboutspoken versus written language
is that spoken languagetypically has an immediate
audience, whereas writtenlanguage has a remote audience.
Usually in writing, you can'tget feedback from your audience
in real time.
(08:27):
Whereas in speaking, you can.
And also, whereas in writing,the flow of information goes one
way and speaking typically theperson you're talking to has
something to communicate to youas well.
Even if you are giving them alecture or a speech, you're
still getting importantinformation from them in the
form of feedback, even if it'snot verbal.
Which you're also basing yourproduction on.
(08:49):
So it's an added dimension thatyou have to think about when
you're speaking, which I guessI'm getting a little far away
from grammar, but that's yetanother reason why it's totally
expected, especially forlanguage learners, that there
will be, less grammaticalproduction from you.
Like that sentence I just said,which was a really weirdly
(09:09):
worded sentence, because of allthose things that you're
juggling as a speaker.
Marina (09:16):
So bringing it back to a language learning perspective.
When people say grammar, they'reusually referring to a set of
rules that you learn whenlearning the language about how
sentences are put together.
So, for example, in Spanish,you're gonna learn that object
pronouns come before the verbunless it's in the infinitive,
(09:38):
in which case they can beattached to the end of the verb,
right?
That's a grammatical rule thatyou learn.
Um, which brings up anothergrammar point actually, when,
when people think of grammar,they often think of all these
words that a lot of people findhard to remember and know what
they mean.
Like parts of speech objects.
(10:00):
Adverb, subjective, reflexiveaspect, so on, that can be
pretty daunting, which is a partof why people can struggle with
explicit language instruction.
Meaning that, you know, whenyour teacher says, put the
object pro down ahead of theverb, elicits an definitive, and
you don't know what any of thosewords mean, you're, you're gonna
(10:22):
wanna say yourself on fire.
Like, that's not a fun learningenvironment.
On the other hand, people whohave been learning a language
for a long time and are veryproficient in it, um, which
applies to native speakers morethan anyone else, honestly, will
often tell you that they can'texplain why a certain sentence
is grammatical or ungrammatical.
(10:43):
They'll just say, oh, it soundsright.
Um, for first language, Englishspeakers listening, I could say,
me the lake, go.
Me the like to go and maybe youcouldn't explain in grammar
terms what, what's wrong withthat sentence, but you know,
it's not right because itdoesn't sound right.
(11:06):
At the same time, even thoughthe construction is wrong, you
probably still kind ofunderstood.
Could at least guess what I wastrying to say,
Jeremiah (11:16):
yeah.
So that raises, brings up thequestion of like, what is bad
grammar?
'cause people are afraid ofhaving bad grammar, you know?
So, you know, what, what doesbad grammar look like?
Is that even a real thing?
And I guess my.
Thoughts on that?
Is that when you're trying to goabout things in a scientific
way, as we strive to do on thisshow, an important thing to do
(11:38):
early on as we did above, is todefine your terms.
So, you know, what do we meanwhen we say we're afraid of
having bad grammar?
The bad quote unquote, impliesthat making grammar mistakes is,
some kind of like a moralfailing on the part of the
speaker.
And hopefully if you've beenlistening for a little while,
you'll know that we don't reallyget down like that.
So our first major takeaway foryou today is that there is no
(12:02):
such thing as quote unquote badgrammar, as in like bad frowny
face.
Um.
You know, negative, um, immoralgrammar.
Uh, what I mean by that is thatbad grammar is not like a crime
against the language or somekind of a sin, and it's not
something to be ashamed of,which, you know, is easy to say,
(12:25):
hard to put into practice.
So yeah, there is no such thingas bad grammar.
What there is such a thing as isungrammatical constructions so
Ungrammatical Construction isjust a fancy way of saying that
there are ways of saying thingsthat fit the established
patterns in the language, andthen there are ways of saying
things that break theestablished patterns.
(12:47):
Language.
And what does it mean ifsomething is an established
pattern?
It just means that people areexpecting you to phrase things
in that way.
And if you don't, it's gonnasound weird, quote unquote, like
we talked about above.
So what we're talking abouthere, the, the, the concept that
you can put in your notebook isgrammatically nice, long word.
Marina (13:07):
Take notes.
Jeremiah (13:07):
So that's our keyword for today, grammatically.
Feel free to write it down.
And it is, on a spectrum more sothan being a yes or no.
So grammatically, grammaticallyis on the spectrum.
Something can therefore be moregrammatical or less grammatical.
And if you're thinking, well,that's not true, there's just
(13:29):
right and wrong.
I got proof for you.
Listen to the followingsentences.
Oh my, One, she's talking to me.
Two.
She's talking on me.
Marina (13:39):
Hmm?
Jeremiah (13:40):
Three.
She talking me.
Four, her talk I five, I talkher six talk.
Seven I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,I, I.
So, uh, marina, what do younotice about the sentences that
(14:00):
I, that I just said?
Marina (14:02):
Um, some of them sounded fine.
She's talking to me is a totallyperfectly grammatical sentence
in English.
Same with just talk as animperative.
I, I would argue that that'sgrammatical potentially,
depending on the context though.
That's, that
Jeremiah (14:19):
is interesting.
'cause the context here is thatI'm saying that she is talking
to me.
Ah.
So if I just say talk, it's notgrammatical for the intention
that I meant it, but it isobjectively grammatical in the
sense that it is a grammaticalconstruction.
Marina (14:31):
That's interesting.
Jeremiah (14:32):
It's kind of fun, right?
Mm-hmm.
Marina (14:33):
So you're, all of these sentences are trying to say the
same thing.
Jeremiah (14:36):
That's what I was going for.
Okay.
Got it.
But no, that's a really goodpoint you raised about talk,
being perfectly grammatical,just meaning something totally
different.
Marina (14:43):
Right.
Okay.
And then the rest, well, almostall of the rest were just
totally ungrammatical.
Like her talk, I, that's a wordorder that's completely
ungrammatical.
In English,
Jeremiah (14:56):
not to mention the pronouns are in the wrong case,
but,
Marina (14:59):
right, right.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
The object pronouns are in thewrong case.
Jeremiah (15:03):
Would, would you say it's still understandable in the
same sense that the first oneshe's talking to me.
Like, would you say that,depending on the listener, it's
possible to still get thatmeaning from that her talk?
I,
Marina (15:16):
I mean, I think you could guess.
Mm-hmm.
You could guess that, but youget a, you could, I think that a
more.
A more common guess that youwould get is that you're trying
to say, I talk to her because,interesting.
The pronouns are in the objectcase.
Jeremiah (15:32):
That's interesting.
'cause yeah, the next one I talkher
Marina (15:35):
mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (15:35):
Sounds more like that.
Marina (15:37):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (15:37):
And what I was going for here is that it's the same
words as her talk I, but becauseof English word, word order.
Mm.
Um, it sounds like it means theopposite.
And so even though the wordshaven't changed, the order
changing makes it lessgrammatical.
Mm-hmm.
Relative to what I was trying tosay, but equally on grammatical
rel like ob objectively,
Marina (15:59):
right.
And then she's talking on me isinteresting because it's like,
it's close, right?
It's close.
The on is wrong because we, inEnglish, we don't really have a
well.
Not for this situation.
You could talk on a subject.
Jeremiah (16:17):
Right.
But I'm saying like she'stalking to me.
Right?
So if I'm a learner of Englishand I want to say she's talking
to me, but instead I say she'stalking on me'cause I use the
wrong preposition, which issuper common because
prepositions in every languageare really complicated to
remember.
Marina (16:31):
I feel like this is a good example of like an actual
utterance that an Englishlearner would, would, would do.
Mm-hmm.
So
Jeremiah (16:39):
is she's show is I think also she talking me is
also an utterance that anEnglish learner might use.
Marina (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
So,
Jeremiah (16:46):
but one is they're both ungrammatical, but one is
more ungrammatical than theother.
Marina (16:50):
Yeah, I would agree.
But I think like for all threeof those, she's talking to me,
she's talking on me, she'stalking me.
I think that those are like.
Like you could understand whatthey're trying to say.
Mm-hmm.
Even if some are moreungrammatical than others.
Jeremiah (17:05):
Yeah, exactly.
That's, and that's what I wasgoing for, which is, you know,
way more grammatical than I, I,I, I, I, that one's just
Marina (17:12):
funny.
Jeremiah (17:13):
Yeah.
Um, and is not an utterance thatsomeone, whatever actually say,
but it gets at the point thatlike exactly what I was saying,
which is that grammatically ison a spectrum, and at some point
on that spectrum, you veer outof what is intelligible.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
Marina (17:32):
I remember like our syntax professor in college
talking to us aboutgrammatically,'cause this is a
big thing that comes up insyntax is grammatically tests
where a syntech ian willconstruct a sentence that is
somewhere on the spectrum ofgrammatically and show it to
first language users and belike, does this sound right to
(17:55):
you?
And then the responses are.
Really interesting aboutrevealing things about the
spectrum of grammatically Mm.
In a, in a given language.
It's really interesting.
It's not, it's not as, textbookgrammar as people expect.
Like I think people expectgrammar to be like, there's like
(18:17):
this to somewhere that containsall of the rules.
And then linguists just likelook at those to determine
what's grammatical.
But we look at what peoplethink.
Yeah.
And how people perceive thesethings to determine if something
is grammatical or not.
Something that was grammatical along time ago is no longer
grammatical and vice versa.
(18:38):
Mm-hmm.
You know?
Jeremiah (18:40):
Yeah.
Like, I feel like that is kindof the contradiction at the core
of like understanding whyAfrican American vernacular
English is.
Is a dialect and not just likea, a series of mistakes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let's, let's use the sentencethat we just used for the other
example.
She's talking to me.
Mm-hmm.
In aav.
(19:00):
If you wanted to be like, she isregularly talking to me, you can
say she'd be talking to me.
Marina (19:05):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (19:07):
And then if you wanna say that she's talking to me
right now.
She talking to me.
Marina (19:11):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (19:11):
Right.
And if you ask speakers of AAVs,this grammatical or not as this
grammatical, does this soundright?
Mm-hmm.
They would say, yeah.
and then if you look at thetome, yeah, it would say, now
you can't say that.
And it's like, too bad.
I, I just did, I just said it.
Marina (19:28):
Like two first language users of a language could look
at a sentence and one says Itsounds right, and one says that
it doesn't sound right.
Jeremiah (19:36):
You're right.
Which is gonna depend on theirdialect,
Marina (19:39):
right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
I, and I think that's justfurther, further shows that
like, this is a lot more messythan people, I think first
assume.
Jeremiah (19:48):
Do you think that grammatically is like the only
metric for determining whethersomething is appropriate to say
or do you think there are othermetrics that are as important or
more important?
Marina (20:02):
Yeah, so grammatically.
I would say is not the onlymetric for determining
appropriateness.
There's so much more to languagethan that.
I think that goes back to one ofthe learner anxieties of feeling
like what you're saying isn'tnatural.
Oh, this is grammatical.
Like, oh my God.
Like when you're talking to yourlanguage partner and they're
(20:23):
like, well, a native speakerwould never say that.
But it makes sense.
I get what you're trying to say.
Ouch.
It's grammatical.
Yeah, no, that doesn't feelgood.
But using.
A hyper grammatical sentencearound your best friend would
probably seem a little out ofplace.
Because grammatically is alwaysinformed by the social context.
(20:44):
Language isn't just a staticsystem of rules inside your
head.
It's a social behavior thatmediates human interactions to
allow us to communicateextremely complex information.
Jeremiah (20:58):
At a distance.
Because you can look at likeother forms of communication in
the animal kingdom.
Like do you know how ants rubtheir antenna together to
communicate things?
It's not language, but likethat's the basis of it is they
rub.
Did you know that they rub theirantenna together?
I did not know
Marina (21:12):
that.
No.
Jeremiah (21:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
So ants fun fact rub, like maybeit's only certain species of
ants, but like they're veryorganized, you know, Uhhuh, and
part of how they're able to dothat is.
By like communicating things byrubbing their antenna together.
Uhhuh with between ants.
Okay.
They also use scent trails, butanyway, um,
Marina (21:30):
okay.
Ant guy, I love
Jeremiah (21:32):
ants.
I love them.
They're cool, but it, that onlyworks like when they're
touching.
So language I think isn't justamazing because of its
complexity, but also because ofthe fact that it works from far
away.
That's like something thatpeople don't always think about
being cool about language, butit's really cool.
It's kinda like the invention ofthe telegraph, like totally
changed.
So much about everything fromlike war to, you know,
(21:54):
diplomacy, all kinds of stuff.
And language was like the OGversion of that because, it's
something, it's, it's just likea very useful.
Adaptation.
It's, I'm getting a little bitof a tangent, but it's, it's
cool.
I'm sorry.
Marina (22:09):
I didn't know you were such a freak about ants.
Jeremiah (22:11):
I love I'm You didn't know that.
I love ants.
They're awesome.
They're the coolest animalaround.
This is another reason that signlanguage is awesome because,
this is something they actuallyhave over spoken languages,
which is that you can sign a lotfarther than you can shout.
Depending on the vision acuityof the person you're signing to.
I'll hand it back over to youwhile I think about ants.
Marina (22:31):
Remember the famous bee dance?
Jeremiah (22:33):
Oh my God,
Marina (22:33):
Since I brought up Please Dance.
Jeremiah (22:35):
Since I brought up ants, I will explain the bead
ants really quick, which is thatone of the first things you
learn in linguistics, and I'mreally sorry if this is burst,
bursting, somebody's bubbleabout animal language.
To be clear, I am not antianimals.
I'm vegan.
I love animals.
But they do not have language.
I'm sorry.
They don't.
And then I know you're thinkingmaybe what, what about the bee
(22:57):
dance?
Don't bees dance to likecommunicate?
Isn't that their form oflanguage?
And the answer is no, because.
You know, bees don't have, likewhat?
What do bees not have?
They don't have, they don'thave, they don't have any of it.
They don't have any of it.
They don't have syntax, theydon't have morphology.
Marina (23:12):
They can't use it creatively.
Jeremiah (23:13):
They can't use it creatively.
That's really the key thing isbeing able to use the language
to communicate about thingsother than what is in the
immediate environment.
Language is also like a system.
It's a very complex system ofsymbol symbols.
Which animal language isn't.
And then I know you're thinking,what about Coco the gorilla who
learned sign language?
(23:34):
And if you actually look thatup, Coco, the gorilla did not
actually learn sign language.
Gorillas are really, really,really smart.
And Coco learned that, if shedid all these really specific
things with her hands, then shewould get things that she
wanted, like food and playtime,whatever.
Coco was never able to get thewhole grammar thing down, like
(23:57):
how to actually producegrammatical constructions.
Um.
I don't have all the knowledgeabout cocoa in my head, but I
get, I promise you, if you lookthis up or if you look at a
linguistics textbook and don'tjust look at like whatever the
tabloid headlines say, becausethey love saying like, oh,
animal this language.
Same with dolphins.
(24:17):
Again, I'm digressing, but beesdon't have language.
Cocoa.
La Gorilla doesn't havelanguage.
I'm sorry.
You know.
Marina (24:23):
The point that I was trying to make about
grammatically is that it's notthe end all be all, and if it's
not actually as important aspeople think it is, then maybe
it's not such a big deal to getit wrong sometimes.
Jeremiah (24:38):
Yeah, I would completely agree with that.
What do people think?
Will happen if we say somethingwrong.
Like, what are people so afraidof?
And then what actually happens?
Just people know like, okay, ifI take this advice and if I do
make grammar mistakes, what'sgonna happen to me if I make a
grammar mistake in aconversation?
Marina (24:57):
Well, for me, I think there's a fear that if you say
something wrong in your secondlanguage, the person you're
talking to will not understandyou.
Which never feels good.
Or worse, they'll laugh at youor think that you're stupid.
I think most people know thatintellectually this probably
(25:19):
won't happen.
Most people are just nice andhappy that you're learning their
language at all.
Jeremiah (25:25):
Except for French people.
Except for, yeah.
And that's actually not true.
Most French people are totallychill and nice.
It's really just Parisians frommy experience.
And if there are any Parisianslistening to this and are like,
suck, that's not true.
I don't care.
If you had been nicer to me whenI was in Paris, then I wouldn't
have said that.
You know, just because for me,like I know that there are no
(25:48):
ghouls or creatures in ourhouse, uh, in the night.
It doesn't make me any lessscared of the dark and, you
know, yeah.
That's me admitting to beingafraid of the dark.
And, if I can do that, you canhave a conversation with your,
uh, Brazilian neighbor inPortuguese.
Marina (26:05):
This reminds me of that time we were in New York.
And we were talking to this guy,I think he was from Puerto Rico,
and we were talking to him inSpanish, and I made the most
basic ass mistake.
I said, California,
Marina (2) (26:24):
oof.
Marina (26:25):
And I just wanted to crawl under a rock when I said
that.
Jeremiah (26:29):
Yeah, it's honestly, it's usually the small things
that you learn in year one.
Of a language learning programthat still trip you up years
later.
Yeah.
That's why they teach it to youin year one.
Yeah.
Um,
Marina (26:44):
but I'll never make that mistake again.
Jeremiah (26:46):
That's what you think, even though
Marina (26:47):
it was mortifying.
You're right.
I'll promise you that mistakeagain.
Jeremiah (26:52):
Yeah.
If it makes me feel better, Ididn't notice at the time, but
I'm sure he did.
I'm sure he did.
Um, but
Marina (26:58):
that's a good example because.
He totally under probablyunderstood what I meant.
Mm-hmm.
Like he did not derail theconversation at all, but in his
head he was probably like, thatsounds funny.
Maybe.
I'm not totally sure why, but itsounds funny.
Jeremiah (27:13):
Yeah.
And he probably like didn't skipa beat because he was like, this
white girl just said Stans byCalifornia.
Like at least she's trying.
Marina (27:22):
that was embarrassing,
Jeremiah (27:24):
but, you know, that just proves our point.
And you know, it is true thatsometimes you will say something
so wrong that the person you'retalking to will not e will not
even understand you at all, andyou will have to rephrase.
But you know, guess what?
That is an indispensable part ofthe learning process.
Not only that, but can you tellme that there haven't been
countless times when you saidsomething in your first language
(27:46):
that someone didn't understand,like be real.
People misunderstand each otherall the time.
Misunderstandings areunavoidable in human language,
whether it's your first languageor your second.
That's one of the things that'sinherent to that, to the whole
adaptation of language.
That is also why I, I would saythat the most important skill in
(28:07):
any language is negotiation formeaning.
I think we've talked about itbefore a little bit.
We should have a whole, a wholeepisode on it at some point,
because every interaction thatyou enter into is a negotiation
for meaning because you aretrying to make yourself
understood.
You're also trying to understandand.
You know, the only basis foryour mutual understanding with
somebody is your sharedexperiences that provide the
(28:30):
kind of background of theinteraction and the language
that you're using to communicateis always gonna be imperfect
because you cannot have asymbolic system that perfectly
captures material reality.
So that's just like a permanent.
Contradiction in language.
That's part of why it's so cool.
So every interaction is anegotiation for meaning and
(28:50):
being better at a language amongother things just means being
more proficient at negotiatingfor meaning in that language.
So arriving at mutualunderstanding faster, but it's
never gonna be instantaneous.
I'll tell you.
Marina (29:06):
Did we just like discover a new definition of
proficiency?
I agree that that's awesome.
Sure.
Are we better than Noam Chomsky?
Jeremiah (29:17):
That was never in doubt.
Marina (29:21):
but you know, that's just the times when people don't
understand you.
Most of the time.
If you say something that's.
A little bit ungrammatical.
Most people will stillunderstand what you're trying to
say, just like me and Stans.
But they'll usually be very kindand very patient enough to not
hold it against you unlessyou're talking
Jeremiah (29:41):
to a Parisian in French.
Oh my God.
In which case, good luck.
Marina (29:47):
You know, other than that though, most people are
excited when someone is tryingto learn their language and
they'll be more than happy toindulge you a few mistakes.
If you think about it, whenyou're talking to, someone who
is speaking your language andit's their target language, and
they say something that soundsfunny, they use the wrong
preposition.
They use the wrong objectpronoun.
(30:10):
You don't think any less ofthem.
You think, wow, this person ismultilingual.
Of course they're bound to makesome mistakes sometimes that's
part of the learning process.
And you need to be able to,accept the same level of
forgiveness for yourself.
Jeremiah (30:25):
Yeah, I completely agree.
But you know, for those of uswho do want to get better at
grammar, you know who wanna getbetter at negotiating for
meaning by having the tools inyour toolbox to be able to
produce in a way that is easierto understand for your
listeners, how do you get betterat that?
Marina (30:45):
I mean, that's like the whole question of language
learning, like there's no secretanswer.
The biggest thing and the mostresearch based answer is just to
practice.
It's really that simple.
And also not as simple as wewish it was.
You might think that it's allabout memorizing rules or,
(31:09):
knowing, your textbook insideand out, but knowing grammar
rules and being able to use themwithout having to think about it
are two completely differentthings we say in pretty much
every episode, chunking can helpwith this in case you're just
joining us for the first time,and we haven't talked your ear
(31:30):
off about chunking.
Chunking refers to learning setphrases and groups of words
rather than just individualwords on their own.
A very simple example in Spanishwould be learning, which means,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, is anotherchunk in English.
(31:50):
Instead of just learning theInfiniti verb, centi, um, you
learn the whole thing as one.
So you don't have to think aboutconjugating the verb every
single time.
Some other examples of chunks inEnglish.
Are gonna be like, as you know,without a doubt, I couldn't tell
(32:12):
you if you say so.
My bad.
What are some other ones?
Jeremiah (32:20):
How about that?
How bad?
A lot of these are likeexpressions, but chunks can be,
not even expressions, but justlike words.
In linguistics, they're calledcolocations.
Which means like they'refrequently located together.
You frequently find themtogether.
Marina (32:36):
all day long.
Jeremiah (32:37):
That's good.
Good one.
That's a really good one.
See you tomorrow.
Marina (32:40):
See you tomorrow.
That's a good one.
Um.
The most important thing.
Jeremiah (32:46):
Yeah.
Anything that it's like, likethings like that.
Marina (32:48):
You just say a lot.
Jeremiah (32:49):
Yeah.
Marina (32:50):
you just say it and then move on with like the creative
part of your sentence.
Jeremiah (32:55):
Yeah, totally.
You can almost think of it likethe, the, it's, the chunk is
secretly a word because it veryrarely gets like broken up or
altered.
Marina (33:03):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (33:04):
Yeah.
But it's not technically a word,but it behaves like one inside
your brain.
Marina (33:09):
It takes A lot less mental energy, to produce a
chunk than it does to thinkabout every single individual
word that you're using.
So like in Spanish, anotherexample would be, you say that a
lot ahead of things, it's reallyeasy to just be able to insert
that into whatever you're sayingand without having to worry
(33:30):
about Its grammatically
Jeremiah (33:33):
I love chunks.
Marina (33:34):
Yeah.
They really are.
If if there is like a secretspice to learning a language,
it's chunks
Jeremiah (33:39):
I think so too.
But yeah, when you are learninga language, you know what else?
There are other things that areimportant besides grammar, which
I think we've.
Illustrated to some extent.
So what else is important otherthan grammar?
I think pronunciation is anotherone that maybe we could do a
whole episode on, honestly,because that is another thing
that people hyper fixate on.
(33:59):
I think they're really afraid ofsaying words wrong, like you
mentioned earlier.
Um, but one thing I'll say isthat there's a lot more to it
than just sounding like a nativespeaker.
And we did have an episode onnative speaker.
Early on.
Marina (34:14):
And accent reduction.
Jeremiah (34:15):
And accent reduction.
So if you're interested inpronunciation, go back and
listen to those episodes.
Relatedly, there's also cadenceand intonation, which is similar
to pronunciation, and I thinkpeople conflate them sometimes.
But cadence is just about theway that words flow together
from a sound perspective.
(34:36):
So like.
How you're emphasizing words ina sentence, how part of the
sentence is faster and part ofthe sentence is slower.
The rate and the flow of yourspeech, which isn't so much
about the syntax, which is, youcan kind of think of it like the
rules of how words fit together.
(34:58):
Cadence is much more like.
It's what people mean usuallywhen they say fluent, I think.
Because your speech is flowing,which is what fluent means.
Would you agree with that?
Marina (35:11):
Yeah.
I mean, it's hard to define.
It's definitely more of a highlevel pragmatic, almost
paralinguistic.
Jeremiah (35:22):
Sure.
Yeah.
Marina (35:23):
Aspect of language, but still very important.
Jeremiah (35:26):
Yeah, it's hard to learn.
It's hard to practice.
Yes.
Other than just speakingbecause, and actually chunking
helps a lot with this becausechunks have built in cadence, I
think
Marina (35:37):
if you say so exactly,
Jeremiah (35:40):
like in, in a chunk, like if you say, so the cadence.
Is that every word gets likemore or less equal emphasis if
you say so.
Mm-hmm.
With maybe you slightly moreemphasized, you wouldn't know
that if you learned those fourwords separately.
And then tried to string themtogether on your own.
So that's something that helps alot with cadence is, is chunks.
(36:04):
And then another concept whichis similar to cadence.
Intonation is kind of just likecadence, but I, I think, but for
the word, I don't know why I sayintonation.
That is kind of an unscientificterm, I think.
Emphasis.
Emphasis where, where on theword do you put the emphasis?
Mm-hmm.
And in a language like English,good luck, because it's very
(36:26):
hard to know without.
Just memorizing like, oh, is it,you know, is it, what's an
English word?
Marina (36:37):
Like are you talking about like conflict versus
conflict?
Jeremiah (36:41):
Conflict, yeah.
There are words where theemphasis changes the meaning,
but there are also words whereif you put the wrong emphasis on
it.
English speakers, firstlanguage, English speakers.
This is something that I'veheard reported from, English
learners, is that if you mess upon the emphasis in an English
word, people will not know whatyou're talking about.
(37:01):
I say people first language,English speakers will not know
what you're talking about.
Like if you say like vacation,people are like, yeah, vacation.
I'm going on a vacation.
If you say I'm going on a v.
A vacation.
A vacation, people are like,don't know what you're talking
Marina (37:15):
about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, but that, that's gonnabe a thing across all languages.
Like, especially like in Chinesewith the tones.
Jeremiah (37:30):
Yeah, tones are a little different as much about
emphasis, but it is similarbecause tones being like what we
call, phonemic, right.
In Chinese, it can actuallychange the meaning of the word.
You're right.
Nevermind.
It's not an example.
It's similar in Englishspecifically for words, for
(37:50):
specific words where emphasis isphonemic because it isn't
always, it's like partlyphonemic, like the example you
gave conflict versus conflict.
It's phonemic in that case, butin other cases, I think part of
the problem is that in Englishwe have the secret rule that I
don't really know if they teachit.
But it is lowkey a rule inEnglish phonology, which is that
(38:12):
most vowels when they're not em,when they don't get the emphasis
in the word just turn into, uh,So like, Like here's a word,
elementary.
If you were to look at it asit's written, you might think
it's elementary.
But when you say it, it's ary,right?
(38:34):
And so if you say elementary,people are gonna be like, what?
If you say, if elementary peopleare, so I think English, the
cards are stacked against you ifyou put the emphasis in the
wrong place.
Marina (38:49):
Yeah.
And then like Spanish.
English doesn't have aconsistent pattern that tells
you where the emphasis is goingto land.
Jeremiah (38:58):
yeah.
And then other things that areimportant, vocabulary and set
phrases like if you.
It helps to have the biggestvocabulary possible.
If you're gonna be like sittingdown and wrote, memorizing
something, it's worth it tomemorize, like vocab words.
Not always A lot of the VABwords that you're gonna learn
over the lifetime of you knowinga language are gonna come later
(39:21):
when you're already proficientand you just get them from
context just like you do withEnglish.
But early on particularly, um,it helps to give yourself the
biggest vocabulary possible.
And a lot of that is just like.
Learning the words, not justtrusting that you'll figure it
out.
Marina (39:38):
And that can include learning chunks.
Jeremiah (39:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Marina (39:41):
I would say that something like siento is a vocab
Jeremiah (39:44):
word, definitely.
Marina (39:46):
Even though it's technically two
Jeremiah (39:47):
words.
Definitely.
Yeah.
When we say vocab, don't assumethat it's just individual words.
It's absolutely chunks.
Probably more importantly.
Especially for, you know,cadence and having
conversations.
Although it is frustrating whenyou're having a conversation and
you can't remember a basic wordlike bathroom.
Marina (40:07):
I don't think that.
Anything that we said will getrid of learner anxiety entirely.
Because, like we talked about,you can know all this stuff
intellectually, but that doesn'tstop your body from having a
visceral reaction to the idea ofspeaking and sounding stupid.
But, you know, it is somethingto to think about and hopefully
(40:32):
it will help you feel.
Even just a fraction, lessnervous about having bad
grammar.
You know, and encourage you to,Think about grammar in a little
bit more nuanced way.
Jeremiah (40:51):
Yeah, definitely.
I agree.
And as far as the anxiety goes,I know we say this every time,
but like you, you just gottapractice.
You gotta do it.
You gotta talk to people.
And one thing that I findhelpful for that is to
compartmentalize, temporally.
And what I mean by that is ifyou right now decide that you
are going to go talk to thatperson over there in your target
(41:16):
language, the you that is makingthat decision.
Time is different from the youthat's actually gonna be doing
it.
And then once you are thatfuture self, your past self has
done this to you.
And now you can't back out ofit.
So like, try to think ofyourself as like multiple selves
who are freak, who areconstantly like putting each
other in situations that youdon't wanna be in.
(41:37):
Mm-hmm.
And then once you're in thatsituation, just do it.
Marina (41:42):
Just disassociate.
Just disa.
Exactly.
Disassociate.
Kill yourself.
An ego, ego, death, ego, death,
Jeremiah (41:50):
meditate for 16 hours, experience ego death, and then
go order at the Mexicanrestaurant.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of how to Language on
the topic of grammar andgrammatically in particular, if
you like what we do.
(42:10):
Follow us on, Instagram at howto lang to keep in the loop
about things that we have comingup and new episodes and whatever
fun stuff we have coming yourway.
Marina (42:22):
Bye
Jeremiah (42:23):
bye.
Thanks for listening.
Except for French people.
Except for, yeah.
And that's actually not true.
Most French people are totallychill and nice.
It's really just Parisians frommy experience.
And if there are any Parisianslistening to this and are like,
suck, that's not true.
I don't care.
If you had been nicer to me whenI was in Paris, then I wouldn't
have said that.
(00:22):
Hello and welcome to How ToLanguage a podcast about
grammar.
Question mark.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:28):
And I'm Marina.
Jeremiah (00:29):
And today on how to Language we're gonna be talking
about, uh, you could probablyguess it.
Grammar.
I.
Again, question mark.
And, uh, the reason for that isbecause it is probably one of
the biggest topics that peopleworry about when it comes to
learning another language andfrankly, about their own
language when they're writing init, especially, uh, which I see
frequently in my job.
Marina (00:50):
So we wanna break down what grammar actually is, and.
Explore the loaded term of badgrammar and what it actually
means in a language learningcontext.
Jeremiah (01:05):
So, I'll just, throw out a question for you.
Feel free to answer.
You're the only other one here.
What, what, what would you sayis the source of most language
learner anxiety?
I think that's a good inroadinto talking about grammar
specifically, and maybe thatkind of answers the question,
but Yeah, I think you
Marina (01:23):
answered it.
I mean, it, it's gonna vary fromperson to person, what?
Causes them the most anxietywhen they're speaking their
target language.
We talk about it a lot on hereabout like, oh, learner anxiety.
But I think it's good to talkabout it in more detail and, and
get at the source of it.
(01:44):
It could vary.
Like I said, it could be kind ofgenerally sounding stupid.
We don't, we don't like to feel.
Like we're not smart.
And when you're speaking yourtarget language, when you don't
feel very proficient in it, youcan kind of feel a little bit
almost like a child.
I was just
Jeremiah (02:04):
gonna say like a child.
Yeah.
Marina (02:05):
Yeah.
You're having problemsexpressing yourself.
You might be sayingungrammatical things.
You might be pronouncing thingswrong.
Oh yeah.
You're worried about youraccent, you're worried about
just totally butchering words.
And then a big part of it isalso gonna be having bad
grammar.
Saying something ungrammatical,saying something that sounds
(02:26):
unnatural.
Things like that.
Jeremiah (02:29):
Those bullet points are good.
Those capture really like.
The, the vast majority of whatpeople worry about, when they're
learning another language.
So you mentioned grammar for thelast point, and I think it's
worth defining our terms herebecause grammar in particular is
a word that people just usewilly-nilly.
And I think it's not actuallyclear to most people what
(02:50):
specifically grammar is.
So how would you maybe definegrammar for the purpose of this
discussion?
Marina (02:57):
Grammar is a hard thing to define in linguistics.
That's not really something thatwe talk a lot about in
linguistics.
Instead you're gonna hear moreabout things like syntax, which
is sentence level, language atthe sentence level, or
morphology, which is language atthe word level.
And then whether or not certainconstructions are grammatical.
(03:18):
But for this discussion we cankind of.
Say that grammar is the logic,and the patterns of how words
are created and strung togetherin a language or in an
utterance.
So it's gonna be a mix ofsyntax, so like sentence level
mix of morphology, which is wordlevel.
(03:39):
And all of that combined createsa coherent language.
We can distinguish the two.
Syntax and morphology to makeunderstanding grammar as a
concept more manageable.
Jeremiah (03:52):
Yeah, grammar.
Yeah.
Grammar is a term, like youmentioned, we don't really use
it in linguistics.
It's kind of like accentactually, where.
It's more of like a lay person'sterm or like a general term
that, that people use.
It's not quite as scientific,which doesn't mean that we can't
speak about it scientifically.
Marina (04:11):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (04:12):
Like you just did.
Marina (04:14):
The idea of grammar comes up a lot more in language
learning and languageacquisition studies and so I
don't think it's likeinappropriate to talk about
grammar.
Yeah, so true.
I guess I'm just, it's hard todefine.
Yeah.
Jeremiah (04:25):
I'm linguist pilled.
You'll have to excuse mylinguist pilled brain.
And I mentioned earlier how Isee this a lot come up in my
work, working in a writingcenter and in a writing center
context, what that looks like isoften writers who come in for a
writing appointment will saythat they want help with
grammar, quote unquote, even ifthey don't actually know what
(04:46):
grammar means.
And the way that I know thatthey don't actually know what
grammar means is that they willcome in and on their.
Intake form, they'll say, I needhelp with grammar.
And then they'll start askingabout like, citations or
punctuation or something.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so the word grammar kindagets used as a shorthand for
everything from like flow, youknow, very sentence level and
(05:06):
even almost paragraph levelwriting all the way down to
punctuation.
Which is kind of funny becausepunctuation isn't, isn't even
like a natural thing in, inlanguage.
Which arguably, well, notarguably, grammar is a natural
thing in language.
We've talked about writingbefore, so I won't get into
punctuation, but it brings up a,an important point, which is
(05:26):
that the grammar of a languagehas a lot of similarities
between its, uh, spoken and itswritten form, you know, of the
language.
I.
But not a hundred percentoverlap.
For example, spoken languagedoesn't have punctuation like I
just said.
And so what, and also what youwould call like flow, not you,
but what a normal person wouldcall flow.
(05:50):
Rude.
Uh, you know, what a personwould call flow.
Which again, is also not alinguistic term, is different in
writing versus in speech.
And there are differentexpectations in particular, in
writing versus in speech.
So for example, again, it's okayin speech to use a certain
amount of filler words like, youknow.
(06:12):
Obviously not too many becausethat can annoy people.
But if you're having a normalconversation with somebody,
nobody is going to be shocked ifyou say, you know, a couple
times or if you say like acouple times.
Some people like to make a stinkabout that, but those are the
people that don't understand thedifference between spoken and
written writing, in writingthese, you know, filler words
(06:32):
tend to be a lot less tolerated,let's say.
From audiences, and again, thatcan vary depending on the type
of writing.
But just to say that, as alanguage learner, it's worth
distinguishing between writtenlanguage and spoken language for
purposes of thinking aboutgrammar and how important it is
to have like really precise,quote unquote correct grammar.
Marina (06:56):
Especially when we're talking about learner anxiety.
Yeah.
'cause when you're writing, evenif it's in your target language,
you generally have a lot moretime to think through your
answers When you're writing, youhave a lot more time to think
about your.
Sentence constructions and whatwords you're using to make sure
that what you're saying isgrammatical.
(07:18):
But when you're speaking in yourtarget language, it's like, it's
kinda like improv.
Like you're, you're flying bythe city to your pants.
You are more likely to makemistakes because you're
producing language in real time.
And so I think, you know, that'spart of the reason why people
feel a lot more anxiety whenthey're speaking versus writing.
(07:38):
So today we're gonna be focusingon speaking.
Jeremiah (07:42):
I love that it is exactly like improv, in more
ways than, than one.
I don't, maybe I don't need tobuild off of that, but I kind of
want to because like how animprov, I've never actually done
improv to be clear, but myunderstanding of it is that a
big part of it is someone elsesays something or does
something, and you build off ofthat to continue the skit.
(08:05):
Is that?
Marina (2) (08:06):
I think so.
Jeremiah (08:07):
Yeah.
That seems to be right.
And weirdly, that's actually alot of what spoken language is
because another thing aboutspoken versus written language
is that spoken languagetypically has an immediate
audience, whereas writtenlanguage has a remote audience.
Usually in writing, you can'tget feedback from your audience
in real time.
(08:27):
Whereas in speaking, you can.
And also, whereas in writing,the flow of information goes one
way and speaking typically theperson you're talking to has
something to communicate to youas well.
Even if you are giving them alecture or a speech, you're
still getting importantinformation from them in the
form of feedback, even if it'snot verbal.
Which you're also basing yourproduction on.
(08:49):
So it's an added dimension thatyou have to think about when
you're speaking, which I guessI'm getting a little far away
from grammar, but that's yetanother reason why it's totally
expected, especially forlanguage learners, that there
will be, less grammaticalproduction from you.
Like that sentence I just said,which was a really weirdly
(09:09):
worded sentence, because of allthose things that you're
juggling as a speaker.
Marina (09:16):
So bringing it back to a language learning perspective.
When people say grammar, they'reusually referring to a set of
rules that you learn whenlearning the language about how
sentences are put together.
So, for example, in Spanish,you're gonna learn that object
pronouns come before the verbunless it's in the infinitive,
(09:38):
in which case they can beattached to the end of the verb,
right?
That's a grammatical rule thatyou learn.
Um, which brings up anothergrammar point actually, when,
when people think of grammar,they often think of all these
words that a lot of people findhard to remember and know what
they mean.
Like parts of speech objects.
(10:00):
Adverb, subjective, reflexiveaspect, so on, that can be
pretty daunting, which is a partof why people can struggle with
explicit language instruction.
Meaning that, you know, whenyour teacher says, put the
object pro down ahead of theverb, elicits an definitive, and
you don't know what any of thosewords mean, you're, you're gonna
(10:22):
wanna say yourself on fire.
Like, that's not a fun learningenvironment.
On the other hand, people whohave been learning a language
for a long time and are veryproficient in it, um, which
applies to native speakers morethan anyone else, honestly, will
often tell you that they can'texplain why a certain sentence
is grammatical or ungrammatical.
(10:43):
They'll just say, oh, it soundsright.
Um, for first language, Englishspeakers listening, I could say,
me the lake, go.
Me the like to go and maybe youcouldn't explain in grammar
terms what, what's wrong withthat sentence, but you know,
it's not right because itdoesn't sound right.
(11:06):
At the same time, even thoughthe construction is wrong, you
probably still kind ofunderstood.
Could at least guess what I wastrying to say,
Jeremiah (11:16):
yeah.
So that raises, brings up thequestion of like, what is bad
grammar?
'cause people are afraid ofhaving bad grammar, you know?
So, you know, what, what doesbad grammar look like?
Is that even a real thing?
And I guess my.
Thoughts on that?
Is that when you're trying to goabout things in a scientific
way, as we strive to do on thisshow, an important thing to do
(11:38):
early on as we did above, is todefine your terms.
So, you know, what do we meanwhen we say we're afraid of
having bad grammar?
The bad quote unquote, impliesthat making grammar mistakes is,
some kind of like a moralfailing on the part of the
speaker.
And hopefully if you've beenlistening for a little while,
you'll know that we don't reallyget down like that.
So our first major takeaway foryou today is that there is no
(12:02):
such thing as quote unquote badgrammar, as in like bad frowny
face.
Um.
You know, negative, um, immoralgrammar.
Uh, what I mean by that is thatbad grammar is not like a crime
against the language or somekind of a sin, and it's not
something to be ashamed of,which, you know, is easy to say,
(12:25):
hard to put into practice.
So yeah, there is no such thingas bad grammar.
What there is such a thing as isungrammatical constructions so
Ungrammatical Construction isjust a fancy way of saying that
there are ways of saying thingsthat fit the established
patterns in the language, andthen there are ways of saying
things that break theestablished patterns.
(12:47):
Language.
And what does it mean ifsomething is an established
pattern?
It just means that people areexpecting you to phrase things
in that way.
And if you don't, it's gonnasound weird, quote unquote, like
we talked about above.
So what we're talking abouthere, the, the, the concept that
you can put in your notebook isgrammatically nice, long word.
Marina (13:07):
Take notes.
Jeremiah (13:07):
So that's our keyword for today, grammatically.
Feel free to write it down.
And it is, on a spectrum more sothan being a yes or no.
So grammatically, grammaticallyis on the spectrum.
Something can therefore be moregrammatical or less grammatical.
And if you're thinking, well,that's not true, there's just
(13:29):
right and wrong.
I got proof for you.
Listen to the followingsentences.
Oh my, One, she's talking to me.
Two.
She's talking on me.
Marina (13:39):
Hmm?
Jeremiah (13:40):
Three.
She talking me.
Four, her talk I five, I talkher six talk.
Seven I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,I, I.
So, uh, marina, what do younotice about the sentences that
(14:00):
I, that I just said?
Marina (14:02):
Um, some of them sounded fine.
She's talking to me is a totallyperfectly grammatical sentence
in English.
Same with just talk as animperative.
I, I would argue that that'sgrammatical potentially,
depending on the context though.
That's, that
Jeremiah (14:19):
is interesting.
'cause the context here is thatI'm saying that she is talking
to me.
Ah.
So if I just say talk, it's notgrammatical for the intention
that I meant it, but it isobjectively grammatical in the
sense that it is a grammaticalconstruction.
Marina (14:31):
That's interesting.
Jeremiah (14:32):
It's kind of fun, right?
Mm-hmm.
Marina (14:33):
So you're, all of these sentences are trying to say the
same thing.
Jeremiah (14:36):
That's what I was going for.
Okay.
Got it.
But no, that's a really goodpoint you raised about talk,
being perfectly grammatical,just meaning something totally
different.
Marina (14:43):
Right.
Okay.
And then the rest, well, almostall of the rest were just
totally ungrammatical.
Like her talk, I, that's a wordorder that's completely
ungrammatical.
In English,
Jeremiah (14:56):
not to mention the pronouns are in the wrong case,
but,
Marina (14:59):
right, right.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
The object pronouns are in thewrong case.
Jeremiah (15:03):
Would, would you say it's still understandable in the
same sense that the first oneshe's talking to me.
Like, would you say that,depending on the listener, it's
possible to still get thatmeaning from that her talk?
I,
Marina (15:16):
I mean, I think you could guess.
Mm-hmm.
You could guess that, but youget a, you could, I think that a
more.
A more common guess that youwould get is that you're trying
to say, I talk to her because,interesting.
The pronouns are in the objectcase.
Jeremiah (15:32):
That's interesting.
'cause yeah, the next one I talkher
Marina (15:35):
mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (15:35):
Sounds more like that.
Marina (15:37):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (15:37):
And what I was going for here is that it's the same
words as her talk I, but becauseof English word, word order.
Mm.
Um, it sounds like it means theopposite.
And so even though the wordshaven't changed, the order
changing makes it lessgrammatical.
Mm-hmm.
Relative to what I was trying tosay, but equally on grammatical
rel like ob objectively,
Marina (15:59):
right.
And then she's talking on me isinteresting because it's like,
it's close, right?
It's close.
The on is wrong because we, inEnglish, we don't really have a
well.
Not for this situation.
You could talk on a subject.
Jeremiah (16:17):
Right.
But I'm saying like she'stalking to me.
Right?
So if I'm a learner of Englishand I want to say she's talking
to me, but instead I say she'stalking on me'cause I use the
wrong preposition, which issuper common because
prepositions in every languageare really complicated to
remember.
Marina (16:31):
I feel like this is a good example of like an actual
utterance that an Englishlearner would, would, would do.
Mm-hmm.
So
Jeremiah (16:39):
is she's show is I think also she talking me is
also an utterance that anEnglish learner might use.
Marina (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
So,
Jeremiah (16:46):
but one is they're both ungrammatical, but one is
more ungrammatical than theother.
Marina (16:50):
Yeah, I would agree.
But I think like for all threeof those, she's talking to me,
she's talking on me, she'stalking me.
I think that those are like.
Like you could understand whatthey're trying to say.
Mm-hmm.
Even if some are moreungrammatical than others.
Jeremiah (17:05):
Yeah, exactly.
That's, and that's what I wasgoing for, which is, you know,
way more grammatical than I, I,I, I, I, that one's just
Marina (17:12):
funny.
Jeremiah (17:13):
Yeah.
Um, and is not an utterance thatsomeone, whatever actually say,
but it gets at the point thatlike exactly what I was saying,
which is that grammatically ison a spectrum, and at some point
on that spectrum, you veer outof what is intelligible.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
Marina (17:32):
I remember like our syntax professor in college
talking to us aboutgrammatically,'cause this is a
big thing that comes up insyntax is grammatically tests
where a syntech ian willconstruct a sentence that is
somewhere on the spectrum ofgrammatically and show it to
first language users and belike, does this sound right to
(17:55):
you?
And then the responses are.
Really interesting aboutrevealing things about the
spectrum of grammatically Mm.
In a, in a given language.
It's really interesting.
It's not, it's not as, textbookgrammar as people expect.
Like I think people expectgrammar to be like, there's like
(18:17):
this to somewhere that containsall of the rules.
And then linguists just likelook at those to determine
what's grammatical.
But we look at what peoplethink.
Yeah.
And how people perceive thesethings to determine if something
is grammatical or not.
Something that was grammatical along time ago is no longer
grammatical and vice versa.
(18:38):
Mm-hmm.
You know?
Jeremiah (18:40):
Yeah.
Like, I feel like that is kindof the contradiction at the core
of like understanding whyAfrican American vernacular
English is.
Is a dialect and not just likea, a series of mistakes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let's, let's use the sentencethat we just used for the other
example.
She's talking to me.
Mm-hmm.
In aav.
(19:00):
If you wanted to be like, she isregularly talking to me, you can
say she'd be talking to me.
Marina (19:05):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (19:07):
And then if you wanna say that she's talking to me
right now.
She talking to me.
Marina (19:11):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (19:11):
Right.
And if you ask speakers of AAVs,this grammatical or not as this
grammatical, does this soundright?
Mm-hmm.
They would say, yeah.
and then if you look at thetome, yeah, it would say, now
you can't say that.
And it's like, too bad.
I, I just did, I just said it.
Marina (19:28):
Like two first language users of a language could look
at a sentence and one says Itsounds right, and one says that
it doesn't sound right.
Jeremiah (19:36):
You're right.
Which is gonna depend on theirdialect,
Marina (19:39):
right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
I, and I think that's justfurther, further shows that
like, this is a lot more messythan people, I think first
assume.
Jeremiah (19:48):
Do you think that grammatically is like the only
metric for determining whethersomething is appropriate to say
or do you think there are othermetrics that are as important or
more important?
Marina (20:02):
Yeah, so grammatically.
I would say is not the onlymetric for determining
appropriateness.
There's so much more to languagethan that.
I think that goes back to one ofthe learner anxieties of feeling
like what you're saying isn'tnatural.
Oh, this is grammatical.
Like, oh my God.
Like when you're talking to yourlanguage partner and they're
(20:23):
like, well, a native speakerwould never say that.
But it makes sense.
I get what you're trying to say.
Ouch.
It's grammatical.
Yeah, no, that doesn't feelgood.
But using.
A hyper grammatical sentencearound your best friend would
probably seem a little out ofplace.
Because grammatically is alwaysinformed by the social context.
(20:44):
Language isn't just a staticsystem of rules inside your
head.
It's a social behavior thatmediates human interactions to
allow us to communicateextremely complex information.
Jeremiah (20:58):
At a distance.
Because you can look at likeother forms of communication in
the animal kingdom.
Like do you know how ants rubtheir antenna together to
communicate things?
It's not language, but likethat's the basis of it is they
rub.
Did you know that they rub theirantenna together?
I did not know
Marina (21:12):
that.
No.
Jeremiah (21:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
So ants fun fact rub, like maybeit's only certain species of
ants, but like they're veryorganized, you know, Uhhuh, and
part of how they're able to dothat is.
By like communicating things byrubbing their antenna together.
Uhhuh with between ants.
Okay.
They also use scent trails, butanyway, um,
Marina (21:30):
okay.
Ant guy, I love
Jeremiah (21:32):
ants.
I love them.
They're cool, but it, that onlyworks like when they're
touching.
So language I think isn't justamazing because of its
complexity, but also because ofthe fact that it works from far
away.
That's like something thatpeople don't always think about
being cool about language, butit's really cool.
It's kinda like the invention ofthe telegraph, like totally
changed.
So much about everything fromlike war to, you know,
(21:54):
diplomacy, all kinds of stuff.
And language was like the OGversion of that because, it's
something, it's, it's just likea very useful.
Adaptation.
It's, I'm getting a little bitof a tangent, but it's, it's
cool.
I'm sorry.
Marina (22:09):
I didn't know you were such a freak about ants.
Jeremiah (22:11):
I love I'm You didn't know that.
I love ants.
They're awesome.
They're the coolest animalaround.
This is another reason that signlanguage is awesome because,
this is something they actuallyhave over spoken languages,
which is that you can sign a lotfarther than you can shout.
Depending on the vision acuityof the person you're signing to.
I'll hand it back over to youwhile I think about ants.
Marina (22:31):
Remember the famous bee dance?
Jeremiah (22:33):
Oh my God,
Marina (22:33):
Since I brought up Please Dance.
Jeremiah (22:35):
Since I brought up ants, I will explain the bead
ants really quick, which is thatone of the first things you
learn in linguistics, and I'mreally sorry if this is burst,
bursting, somebody's bubbleabout animal language.
To be clear, I am not antianimals.
I'm vegan.
I love animals.
But they do not have language.
I'm sorry.
They don't.
And then I know you're thinkingmaybe what, what about the bee
(22:57):
dance?
Don't bees dance to likecommunicate?
Isn't that their form oflanguage?
And the answer is no, because.
You know, bees don't have, likewhat?
What do bees not have?
They don't have, they don'thave, they don't have any of it.
They don't have any of it.
They don't have syntax, theydon't have morphology.
Marina (23:12):
They can't use it creatively.
Jeremiah (23:13):
They can't use it creatively.
That's really the key thing isbeing able to use the language
to communicate about thingsother than what is in the
immediate environment.
Language is also like a system.
It's a very complex system ofsymbol symbols.
Which animal language isn't.
And then I know you're thinking,what about Coco the gorilla who
learned sign language?
(23:34):
And if you actually look thatup, Coco, the gorilla did not
actually learn sign language.
Gorillas are really, really,really smart.
And Coco learned that, if shedid all these really specific
things with her hands, then shewould get things that she
wanted, like food and playtime,whatever.
Coco was never able to get thewhole grammar thing down, like
(23:57):
how to actually producegrammatical constructions.
Um.
I don't have all the knowledgeabout cocoa in my head, but I
get, I promise you, if you lookthis up or if you look at a
linguistics textbook and don'tjust look at like whatever the
tabloid headlines say, becausethey love saying like, oh,
animal this language.
Same with dolphins.
(24:17):
Again, I'm digressing, but beesdon't have language.
Cocoa.
La Gorilla doesn't havelanguage.
I'm sorry.
You know.
Marina (24:23):
The point that I was trying to make about
grammatically is that it's notthe end all be all, and if it's
not actually as important aspeople think it is, then maybe
it's not such a big deal to getit wrong sometimes.
Jeremiah (24:38):
Yeah, I would completely agree with that.
What do people think?
Will happen if we say somethingwrong.
Like, what are people so afraidof?
And then what actually happens?
Just people know like, okay, ifI take this advice and if I do
make grammar mistakes, what'sgonna happen to me if I make a
grammar mistake in aconversation?
Marina (24:57):
Well, for me, I think there's a fear that if you say
something wrong in your secondlanguage, the person you're
talking to will not understandyou.
Which never feels good.
Or worse, they'll laugh at youor think that you're stupid.
I think most people know thatintellectually this probably
(25:19):
won't happen.
Most people are just nice andhappy that you're learning their
language at all.
Jeremiah (25:25):
Except for French people.
Except for, yeah.
And that's actually not true.
Most French people are totallychill and nice.
It's really just Parisians frommy experience.
And if there are any Parisianslistening to this and are like,
suck, that's not true.
I don't care.
If you had been nicer to me whenI was in Paris, then I wouldn't
have said that.
You know, just because for me,like I know that there are no
(25:48):
ghouls or creatures in ourhouse, uh, in the night.
It doesn't make me any lessscared of the dark and, you
know, yeah.
That's me admitting to beingafraid of the dark.
And, if I can do that, you canhave a conversation with your,
uh, Brazilian neighbor inPortuguese.
Marina (26:05):
This reminds me of that time we were in New York.
And we were talking to this guy,I think he was from Puerto Rico,
and we were talking to him inSpanish, and I made the most
basic ass mistake.
I said, California,
Marina (2) (26:24):
oof.
Marina (26:25):
And I just wanted to crawl under a rock when I said
that.
Jeremiah (26:29):
Yeah, it's honestly, it's usually the small things
that you learn in year one.
Of a language learning programthat still trip you up years
later.
Yeah.
That's why they teach it to youin year one.
Yeah.
Um,
Marina (26:44):
but I'll never make that mistake again.
Jeremiah (26:46):
That's what you think, even though
Marina (26:47):
it was mortifying.
You're right.
I'll promise you that mistakeagain.
Jeremiah (26:52):
Yeah.
If it makes me feel better, Ididn't notice at the time, but
I'm sure he did.
I'm sure he did.
Um, but
Marina (26:58):
that's a good example because.
He totally under probablyunderstood what I meant.
Mm-hmm.
Like he did not derail theconversation at all, but in his
head he was probably like, thatsounds funny.
Maybe.
I'm not totally sure why, but itsounds funny.
Jeremiah (27:13):
Yeah.
And he probably like didn't skipa beat because he was like, this
white girl just said Stans byCalifornia.
Like at least she's trying.
Marina (27:22):
that was embarrassing,
Jeremiah (27:24):
but, you know, that just proves our point.
And you know, it is true thatsometimes you will say something
so wrong that the person you'retalking to will not e will not
even understand you at all, andyou will have to rephrase.
But you know, guess what?
That is an indispensable part ofthe learning process.
Not only that, but can you tellme that there haven't been
countless times when you saidsomething in your first language
(27:46):
that someone didn't understand,like be real.
People misunderstand each otherall the time.
Misunderstandings areunavoidable in human language,
whether it's your first languageor your second.
That's one of the things that'sinherent to that, to the whole
adaptation of language.
That is also why I, I would saythat the most important skill in
(28:07):
any language is negotiation formeaning.
I think we've talked about itbefore a little bit.
We should have a whole, a wholeepisode on it at some point,
because every interaction thatyou enter into is a negotiation
for meaning because you aretrying to make yourself
understood.
You're also trying to understandand.
You know, the only basis foryour mutual understanding with
somebody is your sharedexperiences that provide the
(28:30):
kind of background of theinteraction and the language
that you're using to communicateis always gonna be imperfect
because you cannot have asymbolic system that perfectly
captures material reality.
So that's just like a permanent.
Contradiction in language.
That's part of why it's so cool.
So every interaction is anegotiation for meaning and
(28:50):
being better at a language amongother things just means being
more proficient at negotiatingfor meaning in that language.
So arriving at mutualunderstanding faster, but it's
never gonna be instantaneous.
I'll tell you.
Marina (29:06):
Did we just like discover a new definition of
proficiency?
I agree that that's awesome.
Sure.
Are we better than Noam Chomsky?
Jeremiah (29:17):
That was never in doubt.
Marina (29:21):
but you know, that's just the times when people don't
understand you.
Most of the time.
If you say something that's.
A little bit ungrammatical.
Most people will stillunderstand what you're trying to
say, just like me and Stans.
But they'll usually be very kindand very patient enough to not
hold it against you unlessyou're talking
Jeremiah (29:41):
to a Parisian in French.
Oh my God.
In which case, good luck.
Marina (29:47):
You know, other than that though, most people are
excited when someone is tryingto learn their language and
they'll be more than happy toindulge you a few mistakes.
If you think about it, whenyou're talking to, someone who
is speaking your language andit's their target language, and
they say something that soundsfunny, they use the wrong
preposition.
They use the wrong objectpronoun.
(30:10):
You don't think any less ofthem.
You think, wow, this person ismultilingual.
Of course they're bound to makesome mistakes sometimes that's
part of the learning process.
And you need to be able to,accept the same level of
forgiveness for yourself.
Jeremiah (30:25):
Yeah, I completely agree.
But you know, for those of uswho do want to get better at
grammar, you know who wanna getbetter at negotiating for
meaning by having the tools inyour toolbox to be able to
produce in a way that is easierto understand for your
listeners, how do you get betterat that?
Marina (30:45):
I mean, that's like the whole question of language
learning, like there's no secretanswer.
The biggest thing and the mostresearch based answer is just to
practice.
It's really that simple.
And also not as simple as wewish it was.
You might think that it's allabout memorizing rules or,
(31:09):
knowing, your textbook insideand out, but knowing grammar
rules and being able to use themwithout having to think about it
are two completely differentthings we say in pretty much
every episode, chunking can helpwith this in case you're just
joining us for the first time,and we haven't talked your ear
(31:30):
off about chunking.
Chunking refers to learning setphrases and groups of words
rather than just individualwords on their own.
A very simple example in Spanishwould be learning, which means,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, is anotherchunk in English.
(31:50):
Instead of just learning theInfiniti verb, centi, um, you
learn the whole thing as one.
So you don't have to think aboutconjugating the verb every
single time.
Some other examples of chunks inEnglish.
Are gonna be like, as you know,without a doubt, I couldn't tell
(32:12):
you if you say so.
My bad.
What are some other ones?
Jeremiah (32:20):
How about that?
How bad?
A lot of these are likeexpressions, but chunks can be,
not even expressions, but justlike words.
In linguistics, they're calledcolocations.
Which means like they'refrequently located together.
You frequently find themtogether.
Marina (32:36):
all day long.
Jeremiah (32:37):
That's good.
Good one.
That's a really good one.
See you tomorrow.
Marina (32:40):
See you tomorrow.
That's a good one.
Um.
The most important thing.
Jeremiah (32:46):
Yeah.
Anything that it's like, likethings like that.
Marina (32:48):
You just say a lot.
Jeremiah (32:49):
Yeah.
Marina (32:50):
you just say it and then move on with like the creative
part of your sentence.
Jeremiah (32:55):
Yeah, totally.
You can almost think of it likethe, the, it's, the chunk is
secretly a word because it veryrarely gets like broken up or
altered.
Marina (33:03):
Mm-hmm.
Jeremiah (33:04):
Yeah.
But it's not technically a word,but it behaves like one inside
your brain.
Marina (33:09):
It takes A lot less mental energy, to produce a
chunk than it does to thinkabout every single individual
word that you're using.
So like in Spanish, anotherexample would be, you say that a
lot ahead of things, it's reallyeasy to just be able to insert
that into whatever you're sayingand without having to worry
(33:30):
about Its grammatically
Jeremiah (33:33):
I love chunks.
Marina (33:34):
Yeah.
They really are.
If if there is like a secretspice to learning a language,
it's chunks
Jeremiah (33:39):
I think so too.
But yeah, when you are learninga language, you know what else?
There are other things that areimportant besides grammar, which
I think we've.
Illustrated to some extent.
So what else is important otherthan grammar?
I think pronunciation is anotherone that maybe we could do a
whole episode on, honestly,because that is another thing
that people hyper fixate on.
(33:59):
I think they're really afraid ofsaying words wrong, like you
mentioned earlier.
Um, but one thing I'll say isthat there's a lot more to it
than just sounding like a nativespeaker.
And we did have an episode onnative speaker.
Early on.
Marina (34:14):
And accent reduction.
Jeremiah (34:15):
And accent reduction.
So if you're interested inpronunciation, go back and
listen to those episodes.
Relatedly, there's also cadenceand intonation, which is similar
to pronunciation, and I thinkpeople conflate them sometimes.
But cadence is just about theway that words flow together
from a sound perspective.
(34:36):
So like.
How you're emphasizing words ina sentence, how part of the
sentence is faster and part ofthe sentence is slower.
The rate and the flow of yourspeech, which isn't so much
about the syntax, which is, youcan kind of think of it like the
rules of how words fit together.
(34:58):
Cadence is much more like.
It's what people mean usuallywhen they say fluent, I think.
Because your speech is flowing,which is what fluent means.
Would you agree with that?
Marina (35:11):
Yeah.
I mean, it's hard to define.
It's definitely more of a highlevel pragmatic, almost
paralinguistic.
Jeremiah (35:22):
Sure.
Yeah.
Marina (35:23):
Aspect of language, but still very important.
Jeremiah (35:26):
Yeah, it's hard to learn.
It's hard to practice.
Yes.
Other than just speakingbecause, and actually chunking
helps a lot with this becausechunks have built in cadence, I
think
Marina (35:37):
if you say so exactly,
Jeremiah (35:40):
like in, in a chunk, like if you say, so the cadence.
Is that every word gets likemore or less equal emphasis if
you say so.
Mm-hmm.
With maybe you slightly moreemphasized, you wouldn't know
that if you learned those fourwords separately.
And then tried to string themtogether on your own.
So that's something that helps alot with cadence is, is chunks.
(36:04):
And then another concept whichis similar to cadence.
Intonation is kind of just likecadence, but I, I think, but for
the word, I don't know why I sayintonation.
That is kind of an unscientificterm, I think.
Emphasis.
Emphasis where, where on theword do you put the emphasis?
Mm-hmm.
And in a language like English,good luck, because it's very
(36:26):
hard to know without.
Just memorizing like, oh, is it,you know, is it, what's an
English word?
Marina (36:37):
Like are you talking about like conflict versus
conflict?
Jeremiah (36:41):
Conflict, yeah.
There are words where theemphasis changes the meaning,
but there are also words whereif you put the wrong emphasis on
it.
English speakers, firstlanguage, English speakers.
This is something that I'veheard reported from, English
learners, is that if you mess upon the emphasis in an English
word, people will not know whatyou're talking about.
(37:01):
I say people first language,English speakers will not know
what you're talking about.
Like if you say like vacation,people are like, yeah, vacation.
I'm going on a vacation.
If you say I'm going on a v.
A vacation.
A vacation, people are like,don't know what you're talking
Marina (37:15):
about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, but that, that's gonnabe a thing across all languages.
Like, especially like in Chinesewith the tones.
Jeremiah (37:30):
Yeah, tones are a little different as much about
emphasis, but it is similarbecause tones being like what we
call, phonemic, right.
In Chinese, it can actuallychange the meaning of the word.
You're right.
Nevermind.
It's not an example.
It's similar in Englishspecifically for words, for
(37:50):
specific words where emphasis isphonemic because it isn't
always, it's like partlyphonemic, like the example you
gave conflict versus conflict.
It's phonemic in that case, butin other cases, I think part of
the problem is that in Englishwe have the secret rule that I
don't really know if they teachit.
But it is lowkey a rule inEnglish phonology, which is that
(38:12):
most vowels when they're not em,when they don't get the emphasis
in the word just turn into, uh,So like, Like here's a word,
elementary.
If you were to look at it asit's written, you might think
it's elementary.
But when you say it, it's ary,right?
(38:34):
And so if you say elementary,people are gonna be like, what?
If you say, if elementary peopleare, so I think English, the
cards are stacked against you ifyou put the emphasis in the
wrong place.
Marina (38:49):
Yeah.
And then like Spanish.
English doesn't have aconsistent pattern that tells
you where the emphasis is goingto land.
Jeremiah (38:58):
yeah.
And then other things that areimportant, vocabulary and set
phrases like if you.
It helps to have the biggestvocabulary possible.
If you're gonna be like sittingdown and wrote, memorizing
something, it's worth it tomemorize, like vocab words.
Not always A lot of the VABwords that you're gonna learn
over the lifetime of you knowinga language are gonna come later
(39:21):
when you're already proficientand you just get them from
context just like you do withEnglish.
But early on particularly, um,it helps to give yourself the
biggest vocabulary possible.
And a lot of that is just like.
Learning the words, not justtrusting that you'll figure it
out.
Marina (39:38):
And that can include learning chunks.
Jeremiah (39:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Marina (39:41):
I would say that something like siento is a vocab
Jeremiah (39:44):
word, definitely.
Marina (39:46):
Even though it's technically two
Jeremiah (39:47):
words.
Definitely.
Yeah.
When we say vocab, don't assumethat it's just individual words.
It's absolutely chunks.
Probably more importantly.
Especially for, you know,cadence and having
conversations.
Although it is frustrating whenyou're having a conversation and
you can't remember a basic wordlike bathroom.
Marina (40:07):
I don't think that.
Anything that we said will getrid of learner anxiety entirely.
Because, like we talked about,you can know all this stuff
intellectually, but that doesn'tstop your body from having a
visceral reaction to the idea ofspeaking and sounding stupid.
But, you know, it is somethingto to think about and hopefully
(40:32):
it will help you feel.
Even just a fraction, lessnervous about having bad
grammar.
You know, and encourage you to,Think about grammar in a little
bit more nuanced way.
Jeremiah (40:51):
Yeah, definitely.
I agree.
And as far as the anxiety goes,I know we say this every time,
but like you, you just gottapractice.
You gotta do it.
You gotta talk to people.
And one thing that I findhelpful for that is to
compartmentalize, temporally.
And what I mean by that is ifyou right now decide that you
are going to go talk to thatperson over there in your target
(41:16):
language, the you that is makingthat decision.
Time is different from the youthat's actually gonna be doing
it.
And then once you are thatfuture self, your past self has
done this to you.
And now you can't back out ofit.
So like, try to think ofyourself as like multiple selves
who are freak, who areconstantly like putting each
other in situations that youdon't wanna be in.
(41:37):
Mm-hmm.
And then once you're in thatsituation, just do it.
Marina (41:42):
Just disassociate.
Just disa.
Exactly.
Disassociate.
Kill yourself.
An ego, ego, death, ego, death,
Jeremiah (41:50):
meditate for 16 hours, experience ego death, and then
go order at the Mexicanrestaurant.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of how to Language on
the topic of grammar andgrammatically in particular, if
you like what we do.
(42:10):
Follow us on, Instagram at howto lang to keep in the loop
about things that we have comingup and new episodes and whatever
fun stuff we have coming yourway.
Marina (42:22):
Bye
Jeremiah (42:23):
bye.
Thanks for listening.
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