Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla
I'm from Canada, Cinasjoy. And I have to disagree that English is the most complicated language. Do you speak any other languages?
What grammar did you learn in school? We focused on spelling and basic punctuation. That was all that was needed. Maybe other levels were taught other stuff.
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The teaching of grammar in U.S. schools tends to be, like math, quite variable from year to year. I'm not a good source for comments, though, since I attended many different schools between the ages of 6 and 17, and skipped a full grade in which the basics of grammar were imparted. I originally learned mostly from being a voracious reader, from the age of four to the present day.
I first became aware of verb conjugation in high school, when I began learning Spanish. Then many mysteries about English began making themselves clear to me.
My wife, who is six years younger than me, had a completely different treatment of the subject. And our sons had it different from either of us.
Today's approach, it appears, doesn't attempt to teach it at all. Apparently youngsters are expected to learn it from TV and the Web. And most do, to at least an acceptable level, but with no rigorous foundation for it.
I don't consider Canada to be speaking a foreign language unless we're referring to Quebec. I find the dialects of the deep south USA to be much less comprehensible!