Are you a grammar nerd?

Does the term "grammar nerd" describe the way you think about language correctness?  If you are unsure, you may want to test yourself on these signs from Grammarly (available on Facebook and Twitter).

As much as I hate to admit it, I checked off nine of the ten signs.  (I had to look up No. 6, "what an Oxford comma is," and yes, now I have an opinion about the Oxford comma - completely unnecessary.)  

The realization that I act like a grammar nerd clashes directly with my image of myself as a linguist, that is, a person interested in studying human speech.  Linguists scoff at those who spend their lives slavishly following what are known as prescriptive grammar rules. 

Prescriptive grammar rules are rules for the "proper" use of language.  They generally appear in written form in grammar textbooks, editing manuals, and can be heard coming from the mouths of English instructors and diligent parents of young children. A well-known grammar rule (broken every day by countless speakers) is, "Don't end a sentence with a preposition."

Linguists are interested in descriptive grammar rules that are explanations of real language everyday people use.  As a matter of fact, linguists find "errors" fascinating. They are interested in what people say and how they say it, not in order to correct it, but to learn more about how language works in the human brain.    Somehow that goal seems more worthy of my efforts than fretting about the use of a double negative, for example.  After all, how would the Rolling Stones sound if they belted out, "I can't get any satisfaction"?  A bit wimpy, I think

So even though I occasionally get a strong desire to dig down in my purse for a red pen and circle an "it's" used as a possessive (as in the incorrect *"The city had it's problems." Shocking, don't you think?), I will take a linguist's view and consider the usage interesting.  Let's investigate.  

In English, we use an apostrophe s to make a singular noun possessive.  We say "Mary's trombone, John's saxophone, and the child's trumpet."   Because our brains are constantly creating grammar from the language we use, a logical generalization of the possessive rule would be to put an apostrophe s on "it" to show that "it" owns something. The problem arises because "it" is a pronoun, not a noun, and belongs to the category of words like "his," "hers," and "theirs," which all indicate possession without the apostrophe. An added difficulty is that "it's" is already something else in the language - a contraction for "it is."  

The English language is constantly changing.  It is like shifting sand beneath our feet.  Who knows if in the future so many English speakers will decide that they want to use *"it's" to show possession that it will become the standard form.  It may make some of us nervous, but it could happen, you know!    

Is there an easy way to learn a foreign language?

Is learning a foreign language on your to-do list?  If so, would you like to discover an easy way to learn that language?  Despite many claims that appear on the Internet, I am convinced there is no easy way to learn another language.  My apologies for the discouraging answer!

Some learning methods may be more pleasant than others, but easy, as in 'minimum effort required,' I don't think so.  Now if we could take a time machine back to our childhood and be raised in a multilingual environment...

But some of us are well over 21 years of age and want or need to learn a foreign language.  I discovered I was not the only person pondering this issue when I read a recent question posted on Quora. "What are the best ways to learn a language as an adult?" Quora is a question and answer website where creating, answering and editing are done by the Quora community. Quora has a wide range of topics and is available online and with apps for mobile devices.

A Quora participant,  David Bailey, wrote a detailed answer to the question of learning a language as an adult, describing how he achieved enough French fluency in 17 days to have a conversation with a French speaker in a Paris coffee shop and receive a compliment on his language skills.  David had racked up 700 upvotes on Quora.  I was intrigued and read on.

As I understand it, David, who was already a fluent speaker of Spanish, spent 17 days visiting a friend in a small village in France, during which time he carried out a self-imposed language learning regime. Here are some of the main components of his daily study plan.

(1) David immersed himself in French.  The friend he was visiting and her friends only spoke to him in French.

(2) He spent from 1.5 - 2 hours each morning writing out verb tables in longhand.

Amazing self-discipline!

(3)  He listened to a purchased language learning program on his mp3 player.

(4)  He ran every day and listened to French music on his run through the French countryside.  (Sound idyllic, doesn't it?)

(5) He participated in playful activities in French, like darts or Boules, with French friends.

(6) He read easy children's books in French.

(7) He spent about an hour every day writing essays about himself which he asked his friend to check for errors.  He commented that essays helped him have ready answers about himself when he was getting acquainted with others.

(8)  He memorized French filler words that gave him time to think about what he was going to say and increased his confidence.

I must admit I was impressed with David Bailey's language learning plan, especially because of the self-discipline required to carry it out. The inspiration I received was not about following David's specific activities (I'm getting a picture of me running through the French countryside!), but tailoring a language study plan to my own liking and then, the difficult part, sticking to it.  Life has so many distractions!

A responder to David Bailey, Philip Jones, wrote of his own language learning achievement, "In the end it was a case of getting down to some serious study and then going out and talking to people." And David, who now speaks five languages (all learned after age 21) and does business in three countries, says, ..."who says adults can't learn."

Encouraging words, n'est-ce pas? 

Please note:  Language Lover's blog will be on vacation until October 28th!