# Is studying formal grammar helpful to master your native language



## Ben Jamin

*Moderator note: Moved from this thread.
*


Einstein said:


> I actually think that "present perfect" is a reasonable term, but I shudder when I see attempts to analyse English grammar starting from Latin. Analogies can be useful (but only where valid!) but the Latin scholars went too far; there was/is even a school of thought that said you need to study Latin in order to understand English grammar!


I met recently an English lady who is a teacher. She told me that grammar is *not* taught in English schools. She got her first informatiom about grammar while studying other languages. So yes, you have to learn for example Latin (or another language), to understand English grammar.


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## Einstein

Ben Jamin said:


> I met recently an English lady who is a teacher. She told me that grammar is *not* taught in English schools. She got her first informatiom about grammar while studying other languages. So yes, you have to learn for example Latin (or another language), to understand English grammar.


I was lucky enough to learn English grammar meticulously and scientifically before this absurd theory arose and I'm eternally grateful for it. The modern idea is that you will pick up the rules "by ear". If we apply the same logic to mathematics we can say that children may learn to count by themselves but will need help with differential and integral calculus! In reality the idea of not teaching grammar is a cover-up for teachers who themselves do not know grammar and therefore wouldn't know how to teach it.


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## Ёж!

Einstein said:


> I was lucky enough to learn English grammar meticulously and scientifically before this absurd theory arose and I'm eternally grateful for it. The modern idea is that you will pick up the rules "by ear".


 The thing is, it may work. I mean, if people can learn to speak "by ear", then why can't they learn to write "by eye", through lots of reading? It worked for me, more or less, in the case of my native language: the rules that we were taught I always found them confusing, and always forgot them very quickly.


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## Einstein

Ёж! said:


> The thing is, it may work. I mean, if people can learn to speak "by ear", then why can't they learn to write "by eye", through lots of reading? It worked for me, more or less, in the case of my native language: the rules that we were taught I always found them confusing, and always forgot them very quickly.


Well, I agree that it may work at a basic everyday level and certainly reading helps enormously, but consider my analogy with mathematics; at a certain level of complexity things are not so spontaneous. If you don't understand the rules of grammar (and they should be taught well, so that they are comprehensible and logical) then you will have trouble in writing a legal document or a scientific article in clear, unambiguous language. It often happens to me that I have to stop, go back and re-read a passage to understand what it means because a sentence is badly constructed or badly punctuated.


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## bennymix

Note to Einstein.

You said, //If we apply the same logic to mathematics we can say that children may  learn to count by themselves but will need help with differential and  integral calculus!//

I'm not sure about this analogy.  People can learn lots of math (applied) by seeing it done while 'apprenticing' so to say, and copying procedures (assuming they are understood).  If you watch and participate in a surveyor's doing his job, you'll learn basic trigonometry;  how to apply sines, etc. to get distances, without exposure to trigonometric theorems and proofs.  (Analogy: learning to write legal documents through apprenticeship). Similarly, you'll learn applied calculus if you participate in calculating rocket trajectories, fuel requirements, etc, without ever being taught,  "This is the fundamental theorem of calculus, and here is its proof."

I partly agree with Yozh, that through immersion in speech and reading, one can learn 'the rules', implicitly, and that applies to fairly complicated ones.   The problem, of course, is that reading is one-way;   one has to do writing.  But again, with an experienced mentor who merely says,  "this isn't clear", or "have you considered this way of putting things,"  you can learn, I think;  I mean to say that the mentor's explicitly teaching rules is often not needed.

That said, my own *understanding* of rules has benefited immensely from learning French, and looking at English grammar books and material.   They help teaching, in that one can *explain* rather than just saying,  "One does not write, 'I do come not,' it's always, 'I do not come.' "


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## myšlenka

Einstein said:


> Well, I agree that it may work at a basic everyday level and certainly reading helps enormously, but consider my analogy with mathematics; at a certain level of complexity things are not so spontaneous. If you don't understand the rules of grammar (and they should be taught well, so that they are comprehensible and logical) then you will have trouble in writing a legal document or a scientific article in clear, unambiguous language. It often happens to me that I have to stop, go back and re-read a passage to understand what it means because a sentence is badly constructed or badly punctuated.


  I am not so sure this is a very good analogy at all. First of all there is a huge difference between mathematics and grammar. The former has to be taught explicitly while grammar in your first language is acquired automatically. Second, it seems that your definition of grammar includes labelling of word classes and verb tenses as well as characteristics of various types of text genres. That definition is a bit too generous. I really don't see how knowing rules of grammar helps in writing legal documents or scientific articles.


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## Einstein

myšlenka said:


> ...it seems that your definition of grammar includes labelling of word classes and verb tenses as well as characteristics of various types of text genres.


I don't know where you got that idea! To me, learning grammar means understanding the logical connection between words, phrases and clauses.
Is grammar in your first language acquired automatically? Yes, up to a point, but above a certain level of complexity, when we go outside everyday life, we need to analyse more carefully what we are writing.


myšlenka said:


> I really don't see how knowing rules of grammar helps in writing legal documents or scientific articles.


If you now understand what I mean by grammar, this shouldn't seem so strange. As I said earlier, 





> It often happens to me that I have to stop, go back and re-read a passage to understand what it means because a sentence is badly constructed or badly punctuated.



I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm as much against the mechanical, unthinking learning of the rules of the language as anyone else and of course a large part is picked up in practice (my own learning of Italian has been helped enormously by reading). I was mainly disputing the idea that you have to learn other languages (particularly Latin!) _in order to understand English grammar_. It seems that the non-teaching of grammar has not caught on in other languages, but I was only saying that _if _you want to analyse English grammar you don't have to make a detour through some other language.


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## myšlenka

Einstein said:


> I don't know where you got that idea! ! To me, learning grammar means understanding the logical connection between words, phrases and clauses.


This is where I got it:



> If you don't understand the rules of grammar (and they should be taught well, so that they are comprehensible and logical) then you will have trouble in writing a legal document or a scientific article in clear, unambiguous language.


Maybe I misread this but I still don’t see why rules of grammar have to be understood in order to write. The clear, unambiguous language you want in legal documents etc is not really part of grammar.



Einstein said:


> Is grammar in your first language acquired automatically? Yes, up to a point, but above a certain level of complexity, when we go outside everyday life, we need to analyse more carefully what we are writing.


I have to disagree here. What levels of complexity in the grammar of your first language have to be taught explicitly?


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## Ben Jamin

First of all: I have not formulated the title of the thread, it was done by the moderator. Actually, I thought about something else, but now, after the discussion has got it's own momentum, then I would also like to let myself be heard.

In my opinion learning grammar is not a prerequisite for mastering your own language (mother tongue), but it helps. Some people can manage without it, but others can't. 
I read regularly texts written in different languages and I am often stunned by the inability of the authors to write unambiguously, logically, coherently and understandably.The poor construction of the sentences is often due to the lack of understanding how the language functions, call it grammar if you will.


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## Einstein

myšlenka said:


> I still don’t see why rules of grammar have to be understood in order to write. The clear, unambiguous language you want in legal documents etc is not really part of grammar.
> ...
> What levels of complexity in the grammar of your first language have to be taught explicitly?


The complexity is not necessarily in the grammar but in the ideas and concepts you are trying to express. Here you need precision; a poorly written sentence can create problems where it wouldn't in ordinary life.
Although I began by disputing what Ben Jamin said, I think his answer here is perfect (my emphasis):


Ben Jamin said:


> ...In my opinion learning grammar is not a prerequisite for mastering your own language (mother tongue), but it helps. Some people can manage without it, but others can't.
> *I read regularly texts written in different languages and I am often stunned by the inability of the authors to write unambiguously, logically, coherently and understandably.The poor construction of the sentences is often due to the lack of understanding how the language functions, call it grammar if you will.*


Perhaps we have different ideas about what grammar is.


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## Ёж!

Einstein said:


> Perhaps we have different ideas about what grammar is.


Sure. Incoherence of thought is not a language problem.


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## Einstein

Ёж! said:


> Sure. Incoherence of thought is not a language problem.


Thinking coherently is one skill; knowing how to communicate your thoughts is another.


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## marrish

Not answering any particular post: of course ''native speakers'' can speak their languages but when it comes to legal language or good writing, the knowledge of grammar helps a lot. I use the Indo-Iranian languages forum the most and it has emerged that grammar knowledge is essential for resolving some disputes, over and over again.


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## myšlenka

Einstein said:


> To me, learning grammar means understanding the logical connection between words, phrases and clauses.





> Perhaps we have different ideas about what grammar is.


Our ideas about what grammar is are the same.


> The complexity is not necessarily in the grammar but in the ideas and concepts you are trying to express. Here you need precision; a poorly written sentence can create problems where it wouldn't in ordinary life.


You are right about that.


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## olaszinho

marrish said:


> Not answering any particular post: of course ''native speakers'' can speak their languages but when it comes to legal language or good writing, the knowledge of grammar helps a lot. I use the Indo-Iranian languages forum the most and it has emerged that grammar knowledge is essential for resolving some disputes, over and over again.






I totally agree. If native speakers didn't need to learn grammar we would not have such disputes in every language forum. As for the  Italian forum I can say that there are even controversies on the easiest aspects of Italian grammar.


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## merquiades

I cannot imagine not studying grammar in school.  I learned so much from my 7 odd years of studying grammar I think I would be crippled without it.  Grammar was also a plus for learning foreign languages because I already knew what tense, modals, articles, even subjunctive were.  But it is also necessary for mastering your native language.  When I hear people say "I've went there before", when I read "He must of fell asleep" I know what subject they didn't have and what was lacking in their education.  Thank goodness I was conjugating verbs at the same time I was reciting mathematical tables.


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## Ёж!

merquiades said:


> When I hear people say "I've went there before", when I read "He must of fell asleep" I know what subject they didn't have and what was lacking in their education.  Thank goodness I was conjugating verbs at the same time I was reciting mathematical tables.


   But such mistakes are easily corrected by reading, aren't they? It is enough to know that written English differs from vernacular English, the rest you can just pick up by reading. Not everybody does, true; but, as far as I can see, people either do punctuate properly (in Russian, punctuation is a part of grammar, not of style as in English, and is the major aspect of grammar that people commonly have trouble with, others include writing words together or apart and some misspellings, like the «не»/«ни» problem (the first, roughly, means 'not', the second means 'neither'/'nor')), or they don't, even though they had their formal learning.


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## merquiades

Ёж! said:


> But such mistakes are easily corrected by reading, aren't they? It is enough to know that written English differs from vernacular English, the rest you can just pick up by reading. Not everybody does, true; but, as far as I can see, people either do punctuate properly (in Russian, punctuation is a part of grammar, not of style as in English, and is the major aspect of grammar that people commonly have trouble with, others include writing words together or apart and some misspellings, like the «не»/«ни» problem (the first, roughly, means 'not', the second means 'neither'/'nor')), or they don't, even though they had their formal learning.



Interesting you have brought up punctuation.  I never learnt it formally, so more often than not I don't know how to punctuate and I guess.  And I probably have read thousands of books.  So I'm not sure how much you can learn from passive reading.  At any rate people don't read much anymore and in English more grammatical mistakes seem to be tolerated in the press now than before.  There seems to be some correlation between less grammar, less reading, less writing too, I think, and general decline in quality.  
If people in England study zero grammar, they must not even know the basics like "parts of speech".
I think in Russian you absolutely must learn rules for perfective-imperfective verbs in school, and when you write o and a.  Ah, and all those cases.  If you don't learn them!


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## Ёж!

merquiades said:


> I think in Russian you absolutely must learn rules for perfective-imperfective verbs in school, [...]


        The funny part is that you mustn't. The use of tenses, as well as aspects, and cases, in written Russian is exactly the same as in vernaculars. It's a matter of style, rather; but one can't learn style formally. When people get cases incorrectly, it's always because of lack of care, never because of lack of knowledge. Like you edit the sentence and forget to edit a part of it, because the sentence is convoluted.

We only learn to distinguish grammatical categories that we already employ, and the method that they use to teach this skill to kids – with grammar questions – assumes preexistent ability to choose grammar forms properly. Nobody talks about _why_ the grammar forms are used the way they are; if you ask me, this is silly. As for orthography (this is the name that we use for _spelling_) – you're right, exactly. Writing unstressed vowels and some consonant letters makes troubles. But you can't quite feel it browsing the Internet, though, because of the spellcheckers. 

As for the English punctuation — well, it looks to be rather a matter of style, so it is complex. More complex than in Russian, I would say.


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## Peterdg

Ёж! said:


> But such mistakes are easily corrected by reading, aren't they?


I don't agree. There are simply things you cannot understand unless it is explained to you; and... explaining these things is called "grammar". 

Let me take French as an example: many different verbal forms in French end with the "é" sound but are written differently depending on the function:

e.g. 

chanter: infinitive
chantez: second person plural of the indicative present
chanté: past participle, masculine
chantée: past particple feminine
chantés: past participle, masculine, plural
chantées: past particple feminine plural

There is no difference in pronunciation whatsoever between these forms.

Then you have the rules for the agreement of the past particple: if a verb is conjugated with "avoir" as auxiliar verb, then if the direct object appears before the verb, the participle has to agree with the direct object.

There is NO WAY you can grasp that without it being explained to you, even when you read tons of books.

And this is painfully visible when you read French texts written by French native speakers of let's say, under 35 or so. 

The necessary explanation is, of course, part of what is called "grammar".

Moreover, understanding the grammar of your own native language is a prerequisite to be able to learn a foreign language.


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## Ёж!

Peterdg said:


> There is NO WAY you can grasp that without it being explained to you, even when you read tons of books.


Per this logic, you couldn't learn to use _subjonctif_ on certain occasions, and _indicatif_ on others. How spoken language is different from written one? As for 'a prerequisite to learn a foreign language', I'm not sure. You probably mean that one has to learn some terms, some lingo, in order to discuss the constructs of the foreign language, and probably use some analogies between the foreign language and the native; but what if the foreign language is Chinese, for example? I'm not sure our grammar terms are the best fit for it. As for texts written by the native French speakers – well, they had formal education, but it didn't help, maybe because the teachers failed to stress the importance.


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## Peterdg

Ёж! said:


> Per this logic, you couldn't learn to use _subjonctif_ on certain occasions, and _indicatif_ on others.


Exactly, that's what I mean. If your native language does not know the subjunctive, there is no way you'll learn to use it correctly without a formal grammatical training on the subject. In some cases, you will use it correctly and in other cases you will hopelessly get lost in space.

I'm pretty active in the Spanish forums. The subjunctive is a hurdle for everyone, even between native speakers. There is no way you can grasp it as a non-native speaker without knowing (and being able to identify and understand) what a noun subordinate is or a relative subordinate or a temporal adverbial subordinate. This is not just a question of "lingo" and knowing some terms. You have to understand what it is to be able to identify it and hence to be able to understand the mechanics of the subjunctive. And I can tell you: this is one of the most complex issues in Spanish grammar.



> ... but what if the foreign language is Chinese, for example? I'm not sure our grammar terms are the best fit for it.


I'm not saying that our grammatical model is suitable for Chinese. But even if you have to learn a different type of grammar, it is essential to know your own grammar in order to understand the differences with the other grammar.



> As for texts written by the native French speakers – well, they had formal education, but it didn't help, maybe because the teachers failed to stress the importance.


That's exactly it: they didn't get a formal grammatical education anymore. No more grammar in French schools; they apply your method.


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## Ёж!

Peterdg said:


> There is no way you can grasp it as a non-native speaker without knowing (and being able to identify and understand) what a noun subordinate is or a relative subordinate or a temporal adverbial subordinate.


But the question is whether you can grasp such things as a native speaker, when you already understand nuances of meaning and only need to learn some further disambiguation.


> That's exactly it: they didn't get a formal grammatical education anymore. No more grammar in French schools; they apply your method.


    Anyway, what I can tell you (just facts) is that in Russian schools they do tell how to use punctuation marks, still the Runet, including most RuWikipedia articles, is full of grave punctuation mistakes: not just some border cases, but real punctuation incoherence. Maybe because people just don't realise why right grammar is important. Maybe because the teachers tell badly. I don't know the cause.


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## myšlenka

Peterdg said:


> I don't agree. There are simply things you cannot understand unless it is explained to you; and... explaining these things is called "grammar".
> 
> Let me take French as an example: many different verbal forms in French end with the "é" sound but are written differently depending on the function.


I am not sure French is a good example of this considering the fact that a relatively big amount of the verbal morphology of Standard French is artificial, i.e. it has no phonetic reality. No wonder object agreement in French has to be taught explicitly as it doesn't manifest itself in the spoken language. The feminine _-e_ has at least some independent motivation form a handfull of verbs where the pronuncation _is_ different (they are few) but the plural _-s_ is as far as I know never pronounced. So, when discussing whether formal grammar should be taught explicitly, it's a lot easier if we stick to the grammar that has a reality and keep the spelling conventions out of it.


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## JustKate

I've trained a lot of writers (reporters) in my time, and my conclusion is that while extensive reading and writing are probably the most important steps in becoming a good and fluent writer, the study of grammar helps a great deal as well. 

First, it gives you the vocabulary so that instead of saying to yourself "I'm not sure what's wrong with the sentence 'Frightened of vampires, the church was Mina's only refuge,' but *something* is," you can instead identify the problem by name. 

Second, knowing the names of structures and parts of speech (and errors) helps you to think about them in a coherent way. Lots of good writing flows out with little or no thought about grammar, but sooner or later everybody runs into sentences, paragraphs or even whole sections that just won't come together. Being able to analyze the grammar can sometimes - not always but sometimes - help you to figure out what the problem is.

Third, knowing what's correct allows you to know when it's a good idea to break the rules. I had a teacher who loathed sentence fragments and graded us down for using them. She probably shouldn't have done this because there are in fact times when writing a sentence fragment is absolutely the right thing to do. But at least her "rule" against them forced me to learn what is and isn't a complete sentence, and so now, when I write a sentence fragment, I do so deliberately, knowing exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Fourth, it's a fallacy to say that good writers can write everything by ear. Most things, perhaps, but sometimes what sounds right is in fact wrong. Sometimes what sounds wrong is in fact right. And sometimes there is no right or wrong answer. But in spite of that, for most of us there are times in life when we need to write something - a cover letter for a resume, a letter to the editor, an article for a journal - that needs to be absolutely, irreproachably correct. Maybe some people can figure out on their own what verb to use with compound subjects and when a series of modifiers needs to be separated by commas and when it does not...but most people can't, not without specific training in grammar. Or at least most people who write the things *I* edit certainly can't. 

There are a lot of bright, talented people out there who can't write worth a damn, and as I read their writing, it's so clear to me that the problem is that the way they were "taught" grammar is through the big lie that they'd learn everything they need to know about writing just by doing it. Well, it didn't work. It might work for the select few, but most people need actual instruction to learn a difficult skill, and why should English be any different?


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## Peterdg

Ёж! said:


> But the question is whether you can grasp such things as a native speaker, when you already understand nuances of meaning and only need to learn some further disambiguation.


I could give some examples of misinterpretation due to the use of the subjunctive/indicative, but it would be too complex to explain in this thread.

But I do have an easier example. I recently participated in a thread in the Spanish forum about some sentence: some native speakers claimed that it was definitely wrong; other native speakers said it was completely right. The thread was about the use of the little word "se". Now, in Spanish, this little word has many, many grammatical functions. One of them is that it is the reflexive pronoun of the third person of pronominal verbs. But, it can also be used to construct a passive voice (pasiva refleja). 

Now, the people arguing that the sentence was wrong said that this was because the verb with which it was used could not be used pronominally (which is true). However, they forgot about the passive voice that can always be used with transitive verbs, which was the argument that was used by the people saying the sentence was correct.

This is clearly a case of lack of grammatical insight in the own native language from the people claiming that the sentence was wrong; they simply didn't consider the passive voice possibility that is offered by "se".

(Note: "se" has even more functions, but they are of no direct importance for this discussion apart from the fact that it sometimes causes confusion, even for native speakers).



myšlenka said:


> I am not sure French is a good example of this considering the fact that a relatively big amount of the verbal morphology of Standard French is artificial, i.e. it has no phonetic reality. No wonder object agreement in French has to be taught explicitly as it doesn't manifest itself in the spoken language. The feminine _-e_ has at least some independent motivation form a handfull of verbs where the pronuncation _is_ different (they are few) but the plural _-s_ is as far as I know never pronounced. So, when discussing whether formal grammar should be taught explicitly, it's a lot easier if we stick to the grammar that has a reality and keep the spelling conventions out of it.


No spelling is purely fonetical (not even Spanish). Why would it be necessary that the way something has to be written, should be obvious by the way something is pronounced (look at English, just to mention an abritrary example)

This doesn't mean there is no logic behind the French spelling of verbal forms. It is based on analogy.

"Les chansons qu'ils ont chantées" is written this way because they also say "les chansons qu'ils ont faites entre 1940 et 1945", where you defintely hear the additional "e" and (depending on the speaker) the "s".

This phenomenon (the analogy) does not only occur in French, but also e.g. in Dutch, my mother tongue.


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## myšlenka

Peterdg said:


> No spelling is purely fonetical (not even Spanish). Why would it be necessary that the way something has to be written, should be obvious by the way something is pronounced (look at English, just to mention an abritrary example)
> 
> This doesn't mean there is no logic behind the French spelling of verbal forms. It is based on analogy.
> 
> "Les chansons qu'ils ont chantées" is written this way because they also say "les chansons qu'ils ont faites entre 1940 et 1945", where you defintely hear the additional "e" and (depending on the speaker) the "s".
> 
> This phenomenon (the analogy) does not only occur in French, but also e.g. in Dutch, my mother tongue.


 I wasn't looking for purely phonetic writing, this isn't about the way you choose to spell things so the comparison to English doesn't really work. I was just saying that if you decide to codify grammatical functions and meanings in the written language, it would be good if you found some reflex of it in the spoken language. Also, I know very well the logic behind the French spelling and I mentioned the independent motivation for the feminine _-e_ but I have never seen that Standard French allows for the past participle plural _-s_ to be pronounced. If English had anything similar, a possibility would be putting case endings on nouns which happen to be pronounced the same way as the nominative, i.e. case expressed in the written language but not in the spoken language. And of course, such a grammar has to be taught explicity because it would be foreign.


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## Peterdg

myšlenka said:


> Also, I know very well the logic behind the French spelling and I mentioned the independent motivation for the feminine _-e_ but I have never seen that Standard French allows for the past participle plural _-s_ to be pronounced.


It was never my intention to insinuate you didn't know the logic behind it; I only wanted to make it clear for other readers of this thread that there is logic behind it (your comments might have led people to believe this part of the the spelling was arbitrary).

What concerns the pronunciation of the "s" in "... faites entre...". That may be due to my age; I agree the pronunciation of the "s" in this case has become rare, but it used to be part of  the "standard" pronunciation when I was young. Hence, it is still there in the spelling.


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## Ёж!

Peterdg said:


> This is clearly a case of lack of grammatical insight in the own native language from the people claiming that the sentence was wrong; they simply didn't consider the passive voice possibility that is offered by "se".


     So, this was a 'false negative': a rule was learned that made the sentence 'wrong', but the rule was applied wrongly. As for border cases of grammar, I do agree that studying is essential for grasping them. But few native speakers grasp fine points of language use anyway; what is in question is overall language coherence which, I hope, is what is needed by a lay person (sometimes I have an uneasy suspicion that many don't need even that). I'm not sure it can't be learned through reading and writing, if there is wish and readiness to learn them. The problem in investigating this issue is, of course, that we never know when wish and readiness is there, and when there is no such.


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## marrish

olaszinho said:


> I totally agree. If native speakers didn't need to learn grammar we would not have such disputes in every language forum. As for the  Italian forum I can say that there are even controversies on the easiest aspects of Italian grammar.


Good to know it's the same situation elsewhere! I reckon the 'easiest' aspects are the most treacherous.


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## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> When I hear people say "I've went there before", when I read "He must of fell asleep" I know what subject they didn't have and what was lacking in their education.



Careful with the first example. "*I've went* there before" is, if not standard, very current in Irish, Scottish and Northern English English. I'd find myself using it and I have a university level grounding in French and English grammar.


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## Einstein

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Careful with the first example. "*I've went* there before" is, if not standard, very current in Irish, Scottish and Northern English English. I'd find myself using it and I have a university level grounding in French and English grammar.


But would you write it in a thesis?


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## Pedro y La Torre

Einstein said:


> But would you write it in a thesis?



Well, no, but I wouldn't agree that those who use it have no grounding in grammar.


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## Peterdg

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Well, no, but I wouldn't agree that those who use it have no grounding in grammar.


But those who have a grounding in grammar know what they are doing (wrong) and why.


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