Is anyone else disappointed that they didn't learn more about grammar in school?

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Lumpy-Marzipan-857@reddit

Nope. Learned it, abandoned it. Totally good without it. I also don’t work in a professional job anymore so I can live on the edge without my grammar

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Jorost@reddit

Odds are that you learned about that in school and just forgot about it. How many of us could diagram a sentence once we have been out of school for a while, for example?

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

I definitely didn't learn about it because I wanted to learn more about it at the time but didn't.

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Jorost@reddit

In Massachusetts auxiliary verbs (usually called helping verbs) are part of the 4th grade literacy standards. (Assuming you went to school here.)

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

I did but I went a private middle school

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SWAGGIN_OUT_420@reddit

This is most likely why. It'll vary state by state but after knowing some people who went to private schools, the curriculums were very very different compared to public schools.

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inbigtreble30@reddit

We called them "helping" verbs rather than "auxilliary" verbs.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

They’re also called auxiliary verbs. I taught ESL for years and we called them auxiliary verbs.

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inbigtreble30@reddit

Yeah, I just thought OP might remember having learned a different term since auxilliary verb was not a term they remembered hearing.

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jujubeans8500@reddit

you might have learned about them as "helping" verbs? That's how I did - verbs like would (have) should, do, does did, other modal verbs, etc.

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mst3k_42@reddit

I remember diagramming sentences… can’t remember the grade, but it was probably 1988. Second grade? third?

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moraango@reddit

I never diagrammed sentences. Maybe it’s an age thing?

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smugbox@reddit

I never did either. I went to a private “gifted” school and learned grammar in fourth grade in the mid-‘90s.

Despite not diagramming sentences, my teacher was still incredibly thorough. We had to take turns going up to the blackboard and marking each word in a sentence, and then the class would have to come to a consensus about whether they agreed or disagreed with our work (and why). We had punctuation drills as well.

She was great. The skills I learned in her class have stuck with me for 25 years.

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max_m0use@reddit

I'm 42, and I remember doing it during the last week of 7th grade, almost as if it was a treat. Never did it again after that.

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Suppafly@reddit

I'm 42, and I remember doing it during the last week of 7th grade, almost as if it was a treat. Never did it again after that.

This, I thought I was hot shit for the couple of weeks we did it in middle school, but never used that information again in school or otherwise.

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moraango@reddit

I’m 21 and never did it

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Jorost@reddit

I was curious so I looked it up. Apparently diagramming sentences is no longer a required part of the curriculum in Massachusetts, but some schools still see it as a useful tool and continue to teach it. I work in a public school system, and they still use it at our HS.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

Explicit grammar instruction in ELA has been out of vogue for a while.

I’m a high school Spanish teacher and I have to teach students what a verb or noun is because they never got that in ELA.

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Jorost@reddit

That depends a lot on the state and the school system.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

There is variation but there are also definitely nation wide trends in education.

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Jorost@reddit

We still teach it in Massachusetts (at least in our district). I can't speak to other states or school systems.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

I think MA generally has higher education standards than the nation at large tbh.

I think the CA ELA standards have some language about students being able to use correct grammar and spelling and punctuation conventions but they don’t say how grammar is to be taught. I’m not entirely sure because I’m not an ELA teacher I just know when students come to me they have no idea what a verb or a noun is. It’s possible they’re learning and forgetting but it’s like all of them.

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robertlanders@reddit

I did it in Ohio. We learned grammar meticulously. That’s not to say my grammar is perfect, but I do have a pretty good understanding of it.

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EntildaDesigns@reddit

I taught college freshmen an academic writing class in grad school to get a stipend. Let me tell you, as teachers we feel the lack of this training. Trying to teach basic writing to freshmen was harder than writing my own damn dissertation.

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fromwayuphigh@reddit

Holy shit, do I feel this. I too taught comp classes to first and third years, in another life. I think the bigger factor is that you can almost immediately tell which students grew up as readers, and which didn't. The overall facility and comfort with how the language can be manipulated was absolutely the #1 predictor of success.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

As a Spanish teacher I frequently have to teach all the grammar the grammar terms that were not taught in ELA.

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SeaLeopard5555@reddit

my 2 MA kids both had to do it. but not in HS, I think it is in the middle school. I'll ask later!

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Jorost@reddit

Oh what town, if I may ask? I'm in Ipswich.

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tyamar@reddit

It could be both an age and location thing. I went to school in Missouri in the 80s-90s, my kids go to school in Texas (last one graduates next year). I was surprised they didn't learn cursive, they were (oddly) surprised I didn't learn Texas history.

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JudgmentalRavenclaw@reddit

My entire 10th grade year I diagrammed sentences as warm up in English. Hated it. I am 36. Not sure if they still do it.

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SevenSixOne@reddit

Odds are that you learned about that in school and just forgot about it.

Probably true for MOST of the stuff you "didn't learn in school"-- you DID learn a lot of it, but you made a dismissive jerkoff motion as you wondered aloud "when will I ever need to know this?!?!", loaded it into your short term memory long enough to pass a test about it (or not), then didn't think about it again.

Grammar stuff is especially fraught, because native English speakers have an intuitive understanding of what "sounds right" just from a lifetime of exposure and repetition and ✨vibes✨, even if they don't know what an "auxiliary verb" is.

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Jorost@reddit

It's like how no one ever taught us adjective order, but we instinctively know that it's a big, old, red barn and not a red, big, old barn.

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TheBimpo@reddit

I remember we had years and years of grammar and technique lessons. Then, after college, I never had to use any of it ever again and then the Internet and texting came.

I probably couldn’t figure out basic pre-algebra anymore either.

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Avasia1717@reddit

i can still do it, 30 years later

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WampaCat@reddit

Same! I don’t know why but I found it really fun

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whatevendoidoyall@reddit

We had to do a sentence diagram every single day in my English class and I hated it because I did not understand it at all lol. I definitely remember it though!

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BaseballNo916@reddit

Nah, a lot of schools don’t explicitly teach grammar anymore in English classes. It’s been an educational trend for a while.

What happens is down the line when students take a foreign language then that teacher has to teach them basic grammar like what a verb or noun is.

Source: I am a high school Spanish teacher.

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Sinaz20@reddit

I remember diagramming sentences and getting kind of hooked on the process.

I remember asking my teacher for more sentences, and she says, "dude. Books are literally filled with them."

Me: duh.

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Academic_Profile5930@reddit

I agree with this. Unless you have a job that requires you to use these skills (like having to teach them) you have no need to remember them and probably won't.

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EntildaDesigns@reddit

I don't know about this. It certainly gives them a better understanding of the anatomy of a sentence. Have you ever taught writing to freshmen? As I mentioned above, it was harder than writing my own dissertation :)

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Intelligent_Host_582@reddit

I concur. I write for a living and still don't need to know.

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According-Bug8150@reddit

I went to elementary school in the 1970's. As an occasional, special treat, we were allowed to ditch the lame Language Arts books and learn how to diagram sentences.

We legitimately looked forward to it.

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Adriano-Capitano@reddit

I remember I couldn't wait for English grammar to be over. I never felt like they lacked at all teaching it to us. Also went to a private school though, so.

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Asparagus9000@reddit

I had like 2 weeks of that. Definitely don't remember it.

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Jorost@reddit

Usually they are called helping verbs.

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Asparagus9000@reddit

I was talking about the sentence diagrams.

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DefinitelyNotADeer@reddit

I’m always shocked by posts like this because I absolutely learned grammar in school. I feel like whenever I have a conversation like this with my siblings where they say things like this it’s because they didn’t actually pay attention in class.

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

I learned a lot of grammar, but mostly because I observed it and then sought out the rules. I'm the only one of my friends who uses semicolons, for instance.

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Butterbean-queen@reddit

Did you have to diagram sentences?

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

No

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Butterbean-queen@reddit

Maybe that’s where the hole in what you learned is coming from. Diagramming sentences has fallen out of favor because apparently it doesn’t teach punctuation or spelling. But it does help with learning the grammar and sentence structure. Some districts still teach it through.

I feel like I got a pretty well rounded education regarding grammar but I’m old.

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Far_Silver@reddit

Wait, are they trying to teach punctuation without teaching grammar? How does that work? Do they just say, "This is a question mark, and this is a comma," and leave it at that?

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Suppafly@reddit

Wait, are they trying to teach punctuation without teaching grammar?

The grammar they don't teach anymore is the diagramming sentences stuff where you really need to know what a past participle and parts of speech are. It's probably useful for language learning, and things like professional writing, where usage is important, but native English speakers mostly intuitively know how to use the language parts correctly even if they don't know the name of the individual components.

It also tends to be a little unnecessary because English is a fairly simple language when it comes to things like conjugation and the differences between tenses are less distinct than other languages and we don't really use things like inflection and such.

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Far_Silver@reddit

Part of learning when to use a comma is learning about the various clauses. You can do that without diagramming but diagramming is absolutely a useful way to teach it. It also has nothing to do with tenses (which have very little to do with diagramming).

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Suppafly@reddit

Part of learning when to use a comma is learning about the various clauses.

I suppose if you take a really restrictive approach to commas. I think most people, even professionals, agree that comma usage is mostly intuitive and the various ways of trying to teach them don't really reflect all the times they can be used. I'm not a linguist or a teacher though.

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chococrou@reddit

My high school teacher taught us one lesson on diagramming sentences, just so we’d know what it is. Then she said she wasn’t going to teach us more about it because we’ll never use it, and she was right.

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YaKnowEstacado@reddit

Yeah, when I was in upper elementary and middle school we did Shurley Method grammar lessons probably a couple hours a week. And when I was student teaching about 15 years ago I taught a two-week grammar unit at a middle school, and as a tutor I often helped kids with grammar homework.

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smugbox@reddit

I had to look up the Shurley Method. This is how I learned! I had no idea it had a name.

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GF_baker_2024@reddit

A lot of people who complain that "school doesn't teach anything useful" were the kids who never paid attention in class. If one of my Catholic elementary school classmates ever claimed that we didn't learn grammar, I'd probably laugh for a full five minutes.

I absolutely remember regularly diagramming sentences on the board, writing short compositions with proper syntax and formatting, and being assigned prepositions and other parts of speech and having to write them into proper sentences in elementary and middle school. I didn't necessarily retain the correct terms for everything (e.g., gerunds, auxiliary verbs), but I've remembered how to use them correctly.

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Gone213@reddit

Not just that but madlibs was the rave of the day too.

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Far_Silver@reddit

Like the ones, who slept through math class, and then say they wish schools would teach kids how to balance a checkbook.

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cluttered-thoughts3@reddit

A result of no child left behind maybe? Kids passing but not paying attention/ learning

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anclwar@reddit

I learned grammar but probably couldn't give you a dictionary definition of most words at this point. I do know that I understand English grammar and spelling a lot better after I started taking Latin in high school. Learning necesse est was a lightbulb moment for remembering how to spell necessary, though I couldn't tell you why.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

It could be your age. Are your siblings younger? There actually has been a shift away from explicit grammar instruction in English classes.

I am a high school Spanish teacher and I have to teach all the grammar terms that aren’t taught in ELA anymore.

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DefinitelyNotADeer@reddit

We’re all over 35. I’m the middle. My brothers were not good in school, though. I graduated top of my class, they both actively did summer school.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

Well I mean I’m that case they probably just didn’t pay attention. But for younger people it is true that many schools have deemphasized grammar.

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Klutzy-Painting885@reddit

Yeah I actually feel like I got a great grammar education. It’s weird when people use their personal experience to crap on an entire country.

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DepressoExpresso98@reddit

No. I think the basic Noun, Verb, Adjective, etc. are good enough for children. Learning about them is really more useful for reading and writing, and even then, not so much until you start writing essays. I’ve never really read a book and thought “wow, this author sure is a big fan of gerunds.”

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VentusHermetis@reddit

very much so. i probably would have found it tedious, but now i wish we had studied it more in depth. i think it might even be a good idea to learn a language like latin in school to learn more about linguistics.

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dontforgettowriteme@reddit

I write professionally, so I still work closely with spelling and grammar. I recognize my perspective is skewed.

I learned grammar rules through school, but of course that education was supplemented and strengthened by college courses and constant exposure in my career.

I do wish that more people learned grammar rules, though! I imagine most people assume that they can write well in their native language, so take it for granted that their communication is coherent. I am here to tell you that is definitely not the case and every day, I feel our situation getting bleaker.

Writing well (which includes grammar!) feels like a lost art and I can't help but despair a little when I see what passes for "good writing" in the next big-hit novel or copy/paste TV show. People gush over poorly constructed stories and characters, god-awful syntax, and corny vocabulary. It hits the NYT Bestsellers list or must-see TV, while talented authors and screenwriters with unique stories and characters, and fresh perspectives languish in obscurity or struggle to survive a single season. I struggle not to gatekeep reading or watching TV but I confess it's hard.

I bet you weren't expecting a soapbox. Lol I wasn't either. I just see strong grammar and vocabulary as foundational to appreciating better art and your question triggered my ire.

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Tricklaw_05@reddit

My seventh grade teacher was passionate about diagramming sentences, and we spent a good half a year on it. It’s been well over 30 years since that school year, but I think I could stumble through some basic sentences.

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Sharp_Ad_9431@reddit

I purposely forgot the grammar I was taught.

Diagramming sentences was horrible. I hated it. Give me math any day over that.

My kids didn't do that in school and not in basic college classes. Definitely dumbing down the population.

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Gertrude_D@reddit

I learned more about English grammar in Spanish class than in English class.

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xivilex@reddit

I seriously learned more about the English language from German than anything else. It’s insane

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cmadler@reddit

Same here. I definitely remember units on subjunctive case in German and frantically trying to figure out what that was.

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xivilex@reddit

I took both Spanish and German in high school. I know that some people will say how similar Spanish is to English and that German isn’t that connected to English anymore, but I feel like that statement oversteps reality too far. German was insanely helpful to learn about random stuff in English:

-weak verbs. If the verb is weak in German, it’s weak in English. This is a good rule of thumb and is not just coincidental, but historically linked in certain cases.

-Do you know what letter the apostrophe substitutes in possessive cases in English (Ex: John’s dog)? If you learn German, you learn that.

-Word order similarities also lurk under the hood. Flipping the verb placement after a phrase, and flipping the order of DOs and IOs when they are substituted with pronouns is the exact same. The connection hasn’t (entirely) been lost.

-Pronouns in subjective and objective forms are very similar.

Idk. I just feel like there were some really fundamental things lurking under the hood that German sometimes explains.

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Suppafly@reddit

-Do you know what letter the apostrophe substitutes in possessive cases in English

It doesn't substitute for anything, it's just how we show possession in English. I assume you're implying that it substitutes for E since most German words add ES for possession, but they also just add S sometimes. John's dog in German is just Johns hund, there isn't anything being substituted for.

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AbruptMango@reddit

I learned more in one semester of Latin as a senior than I did in 12 years of English, 3 years of French and one year of Spanish.

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llamadolly85@reddit

Same, but French and Latin.

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curlyhead2320@reddit

Same but French.

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beenoc@reddit

Same - I can say for sure that I had never heard the words "conjugate" or "participle" until Spanish I.

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PacSan300@reddit

I think that is because English doesn’t really have an extensive pattern for verb conjugation as Spanish does.

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

Same! WTF

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Lamballama@reddit

Spanish has way more explicit and regular grammar than English, since each verb conjugation has tense, while English has two basic conjugations with maybe some irregulars for third person singular

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MagicalPizza21@reddit

Same but Latin for me.

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SV650rider@reddit

I also studied Latin in NYS. Very good experience.

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MagicalPizza21@reddit

Probably varies depending on the school and the teacher but I also had a very good experience.

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apgtimbough@reddit

Same. Then I took Latin in college and really had to learn English grammar and sentence structure.

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Suppafly@reddit

No, beyond the basics, being able to recognize specific parts of speech is mostly only necessary if you are a professional writer or learning a foreign language. If anything I feel like I learned too much grammar, but then forgot most of it because it hasn't been particularly relevant in my life.

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ApprehensiveBasis262@reddit

Still blown away how americans confuse your and you're

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EmploymentEmpty5871@reddit

Nope we learned all about it. Plus my mom taught English for a while, so i didn't have a chance as a kid. I gotsted good Grammer, but my spelling is atrocious. So when I read comments herGrammer. other sites I still cringe at some people's grammer.

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Live_Badger7941@reddit

No...I think the amount of time dedicated to grammar was about right.

In high school they're balancing a whole lot of different subjects, so of course you don't learn everything there is to know about any one topic.

If you go on to study something in college and/or end up having a career in a field where you need to know more about grammar, you can learn it then.

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Accomplished_Mix7827@reddit

We do actually learn a lot of grammar in school, we just tend to forget unless we're learning to speak a second language because we speak our native language by intuition, not by thinking about it.

The only reason I remember what the subjunctive tense is or the difference between the past participle and the imperfect tense (and even then, I had to think a moment to remember the English words, since I'm more used to thinking of them in terms of le passé composé and l'imparfait) is because I learned French in high school and had to think in those terms to conjugate verbs properly.

In English, I don't need to think about it, I just know when to use was running vs ran, and using the wrong one just feels weird.

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sundial11sxm@reddit

I can still diagram a sentence. I majored in a language as part of my degree. I'm good.

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The_Lumox2000@reddit

Did you go to an APS school? Did y'all do the little grammar rules chant?

A Sentence, sentence sentence

is complete, complete, complete

when 3 simple rules it meets, meets meets...

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sundial11sxm@reddit

No.

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The_Lumox2000@reddit

Damn, this shit still lives in my brain years later lol

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bubba1834@reddit

I was in catholic school my whole life up to 2014. Sr Francis rolls over in her grave when I make a grammar mistake lol.

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lovimoment@reddit

If you study linguistics, you have to unlearn half of what you're taught in grammar classes. A lot of it is just someone's opinion, and then it changes by the time you're an adult.

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standardtissue@reddit

I certainly learned about grammar in school ... I retained the amount I needed in my life, which is not particularly much in my case.

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GSilky@reddit

Turns out people can write well without knowing what they did. It's also one of those things like multiplication tables most internalize without realizing that they just went through two years of grammar education. I remember diagraming sentences in elementary school at some point, I doubt I could do 'A' work today, but I have yet to unintentionally write an incomplete sentence since then. BTW what is an "auxillary verb"?

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1029394756abc@reddit

Considering the number of people that don’t know the difference between you’re and your it’s definitely disappointing.

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CantHardlyWait414@reddit

Do you really need to be taught it? I just learned it from reading books. If somebody can’t figure out how grammar works from reading books then there’s really no saving them.

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coysbville@reddit

I learned sufficient grammar in school, and I still apply it every day. I suppose it's a case by case basis

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CODENAMEDERPY@reddit

I learned tons of grammar in school. Everything I’d need.

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SunShine365-@reddit

I’m old, so I learned about grammar. I also have two Gen Z kids who also learned about grammar. So go yell at your local school board

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nmacInCT@reddit

I actually had very good grammar lessons in my public schools.

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oligarchyreps@reddit

I learned a ton of grammar. I love it still!

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DenMother8@reddit

I’m more disappointed in my memory

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curlyhead2320@reddit

Ouch, I feel that. I had so much knowledge crammed in there at one point, but so much is fuzzy or gone now. And these days my brain just doesn’t retain new info the same way. 😢

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Terrible_Role1157@reddit

I’ve had people who sat next to me in class tell me they never learned stuff that we definitely were taught. You’re not learning it doesn’t mean it wasn’t taught. I do not believe you were never in class while auxiliary verbs were being taught, sorry.

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HippieJed@reddit

It ain’t no problem

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bigscottius@reddit

We were taught grammar very in depth in school. I think the issue is how long it has been for you and how much you tried to learn the material.

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rynnietheblue@reddit

A bit. Not really worried about the terms, though. Reading a lot helps.

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fromwayuphigh@reddit

Must be a generational thing. We had to memorize an entire list of auxiliary verbs, and I can still recite most of it, I think. I can also remember diagramming sentences and how easy I found it, while other kids acted as though they'd been asked to safely disassemble a pipe bomb with mittens on.

But yes, I learned much more about English studying other languages as an undergrad and even more when I studied the history of English in graduate school.

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therealgookachu@reddit

No, but I am an old, and grammar was taught. We had to diagram sentences back in elementary school.

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Subject_Stand_7901@reddit

What level of "school?"

Elementary/Middle School? Don't remember it.

High school - I took a bunch of honors English classes, so yeah, we did some diagramming.

College - pretty much all I took, given I was an English major.

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Itchy_Pillows@reddit

My family was far more instrumental in my grammar usage...... very called out instantly when we'd get stuff wrong. Made correcting teachers, for me, impossible not to......I definitely got some poor "behavior" marks in Elementary bc of it.

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Squippyfood@reddit

Why bother? Reading high level literature and writing essays on them in high school is sufficient. You'd only need more if you're going into a writing-heavy career which prob requires a bachelor's anyways.

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Sea-Cicada-4214@reddit

Mmmmmm they definitely taught us considering English is a required subject every single year of (public) school education. It just depends on if you retained the information

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Vivid_Witness8204@reddit

I learned some grammar but have forgotten most of it. My mother was an English professor and she believed that custom and practice was more important than rules. If most people are grammatically incorrect in any given usage than it isn't really wrong because clear and effective communication is what really matters. Vocabulary is of greater value in life than rules that most don't fully understand or abide.

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MainVehicle2812@reddit

I learned it - I just learned it so young that I completely forgot the terminology for it.

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Kwaashie@reddit

Nope

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neoprenewedgie@reddit

I am disappointed that OTHER people didn't learn more about grammar in school. I was in another reddit thread about grammar and I was shocked to see how many people didn't know what a complete sentence was.

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BigNorseWolf@reddit

No. The amount of time trying to learn it would be miniscule compared to the time just explaining what they mean. Doctors need very precise very complicated language because sometimes you need to denote the exact spot and you don't always have time to explain it. When is a grammar issue so pressing that you don't have time to look it up?

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CantHostCantTravel@reddit

Education really is unthinkably horrendous in most of the US. Utterly shameful.

Here in Minnesota, we had DOL (Daily Oral Language) every single day from 3rd-6th Grade where we had to work out spelling, syntax, and grammatical mistakes in example sentences. Decades later I still retain that knowledge.

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ScreamingLightspeed@reddit

I wish we were taught the truth about phonemes.

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IPreferDiamonds@reddit

I wish my teachers would have taken more time on "who" and "whom".

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

Just think about when you would use he and him, and replace them.

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IPreferDiamonds@reddit

So he would be who, and him would be whom?

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AntaresBounder@reddit

As a HS English teacher, teaching grammar is about as much fun as a root canal. It's bland, complex, and filled with contradictions.

If a handbook for how to construct a language were made, English would be held up as a warning for how not to make a language. It's a mess. We steal words, regularly butcher sentences in writing and speech, and there's no central authority to say what is and what is not acceptable. Remember, the dictionary describes the language... it doesn't dictate it.

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llamadolly85@reddit

All of this is so true (I say as a former HS English teacher)! I'd add that so much about grammar actually just doesn't matter for the average person speaking or writing in their native language. The rules of grammar generally exist so that we can make ourselves understood to each other.

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IPreferDiamonds@reddit

I'm not an English teacher, but certain grammar mistakes really bother me. Especially if it is a new media article or a journalist (or someone of other importance) speaking.

"Her and her husband are going on vacation."

No! She and her husband are going on vacation!

So many people (people who should know better) make that mistake! Drives me crazy!

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ViolettaHunter@reddit

This is peak r/badlinguistics.

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BaseballNo916@reddit

Yep. English pronunciation is inconsistent but the grammar isn’t, imo.

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Ignorantmallard@reddit

They're our know words!

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Algaeruletheworld@reddit

Personally I’m much more disappointed in my history education.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

Yea. It's hard to try to learn other languages without knowing what an 'interrogative' is.

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Yankee_chef_nen@reddit

Why do we even call it Grammar School?

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WichitaTimelord@reddit

I learned more about English grammar in my German classes than I did in my English classes. English classes were mostly about literature.

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KimBrrr1975@reddit

Most grammar stops being specifically taught by high school, most if it is elementary-middle school. I remember lots of diagramming sentences. I even write as part of my job, and I write well. I couldn't tell you what an auxiliary verb is, or most of the other terms. Our brains are efficient, unless we need to know information and use it in some way on a regular basis, we forget. So we remember what is needed for forming sentences, but not what all the parts are called because unless you are a writer/editor/similar, it simply doesn't matter.

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illegalsex@reddit

We learned a ton about grammar, but it was painfully boring and I forgot a lot of it by now.

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OrdinarySubstance491@reddit

You very likely did learn about it, you just didn't retain that information.

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MartialBob@reddit

You have no idea how much this made me angry by the time I got to college. My degree required me to take up to a 4th level in a foreign language. That's reasonable but the problem was that I didn't understand English grammar enough to apply it to the Spanish grammar I was being taught. I remember being told "you use the verb this way when it's transitive and this way when it's intransitive." What the fuck is transitive?! I was completely lost.

I very distinctly remember my English class being like every other class I had in school until about 6th grade or so. We'd always build on what we'd learned before. Then after that English class became a literature class and I, along with everyone else, basically forgot basic grammar. I remember a highschool English teacher teaching us again elementary school grammar lessons that I hate to admit we all needed.

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hobokobo1028@reddit

No. I learned grammar well in like 5th grade?

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jastay3@reddit

I had way to much grammar and much of it was unneeded. I would have liked it better if I had done 18th and 19th century political speeches (as an analogy to using Cicero for Latin), and kept diagramming sentences to a minimum.

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CuriosThinker@reddit

Almost all of the grammar I learned was during a summer ACT prep class rather than in school. My school teachers only seemed to want to teach literature. I guess grammar is boring. I have no idea.

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MantisToboganPilotMD@reddit

I was taking college level russian classes in highschool, i learned more about English grammar there than in any English class.

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LunaGloria@reddit

The schools I attended covered grammar well but still inculcated bad grammar at a few points. For example, it is not always “X and I” because sometimes it’s “X and me.” Take out “X and” and read the sentence to; if “me” is correct, it’s “X and me.” “He gave the ring to Frodo and me” is correct.

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jujubeans8500@reddit

yeah "I" is a subject, "me" a direct (or indirect) object. It's definitely not always "x and I" - I hate reading sentences where "I" is used an the object!

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Quixote511@reddit

I had a Jesuit priest in 10th grade who lived and died by Warriner’s Grammar book. It helped me tremendously in Spanish and German. I can’t thank him enough

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Electrical_Feature12@reddit

Yes . I skipped a few grades and entirely missed those lessons.

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Adamon24@reddit

Not really

My grammar skills may not be flawless, but they’ve apparently been good enough that they haven’t impacted my career.

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evil_burrito@reddit

No, I feel like I spent an entire lifetime diagramming sentences.

OTOH, I also didn't truly understand grammar, even English grammar, my native tongue, until I studied a foreign language.

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tyoma@reddit

This brings back so many horrifying memories. Some teachers could just not get enough sentence diagrams.

I guess there are distinct schools of English language pedagogy since some teachers couldn’t get enough and others never did them.

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evil_burrito@reddit

It would be interesting to correlate age with sentence diagramming.

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kirklennon@reddit

I never knew about diagramming sentences until a junior or senior level college English class.

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

Yes! In 8th grade I was put in an ordinary English class and we were starting to learn to diagram sentences. Then I got pulled out and put into the "gifted" (I hate that term) English class. We spent most of our time reading and writing. I was happy.

The next year I decided to take Latin as an elective and I was stymied by noun declensions. Verb conjugations weren't hard because I'd been taking Spanish already, but direct object, indirect object, gerund, and all the rest through me for a loop! I then wished I'd stayed in the on-level English class and learned to diagram sentences.

I finally did learn Latin, but to this day, languages with noun declensions scare me, and I say that as someone who finds Chinese easy.

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Far-prophet@reddit

I’m still, confused about, the use of commas.

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Danibear285@reddit

Catholic elementary, I learned grammar and went more in depth in public middle school.

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IrianJaya@reddit

I'm willing to bet that you learned this and just forgot it.

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

No, as I mentioned to another commenter, I definitely didn't because I remember wishing I was learning more of it at the time.

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IrianJaya@reddit

I don't know. Maybe it was just your school. We called those verbs "helping verbs" instead of auxiliary verbs, but they are the same thing. We learned all about that in middle school. We had to diagram sentences and everything.

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Main-Feature-1829@reddit

No.

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lavasca@reddit

No.

Our school had us certify on certain aspects of grammar. We had to analyze and diagram sentences in front of our parents.

My husband is self employed and makes me edit his documents.

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Butterbean-queen@reddit

You learned about helping verbs. You just didn’t learn that they can also be referred to as auxiliary verbs.

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dangleicious13@reddit

Nope.

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nauticalfiesta@reddit

There's only so much you can learn about grammar. I distinctly recall learning about auxiliary verbs (but they were called helper verbs.) Learning French helped reinforce a lot of grammar rules.

What I wish we spent more time on, was spelling.

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mrsredfast@reddit

This may be generational. I graduated high school in the late eighties and eighth grade English class was focused on grammar. We had to diagram sentences in a huge packet every week and then did them in class on chalkboard.

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Material-Ambition-18@reddit

Nope…. What would the grammar/ spelling Nazis on Reddit son with their lives, I give them purpose!

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fakesaucisse@reddit

I learned a ton about grammar in school. Also, I started taking foreign language classes in first grade, and it's a great way to really teach yourself to pay attention to grammar rules and sentence structure. It also didn't hurt that my dad was a former English teacher so that shit was burned into my brain 24/7.

The thing is, that was all 30+ years ago so I don't remember the exact names of the rules, even if I inherently know the rules from decades of practice. Off the top of my head I can't recall what a past participle is but I know I use them in conversation and writing.

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Particular-Cloud6659@reddit

Yes. I am disappointed I didn't pay attention more. They were teaching it. I was not interested.

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TopHatGirlInATuxedo@reddit

No, I paid attention in class.

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

I did too. In fact I loved school.

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the_bearded_wonder@reddit

I had to look up what an auxiliary verb was and found out it’s just another name for a helping verb, which we definitely went over. I feel like I learned about grammar about the right amount and identifying every little thing in a sentence was tedious.

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Several_Bee_1625@reddit

Had to look that one up.

I did learn about it, quite a bit in fact, but we called them helping verbs.

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

Yeah, I think part of it is that I just didn't learn the nomenclature for some of these concepts.

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jenn_fray@reddit

I'm sure I learned it, but just didn't retain it. If you don't use it, you lose it. I started writing a lot of web content for my job, so I took some free grammar classes through my library's website for a mental refresh. I was surprised how much I forgot.

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Cacafuego@reddit

I don't think it's useful for anything other than learning foreign languages. You will improve your native tongue more quickly by reading good books, and it will be more pleasant.

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Square-Dragonfruit76@reddit (OP)

It's true; I have a pretty good understanding of how grammar works, even if I didn't learn the nomenclature for things such as "auxiliary verbs."

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hatred-shapped@reddit

Doesn't seem like something you should learn in school, outside of a college degree in a subject that is.

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GenericHam@reddit

Not at all. I don't really care about grammar, I care about communicating. The written rules and what people are able to understand are very different things.

If someone is able to correct your grammar this shows they understood what you were saying and the correction was not needed as it does not add clarity to the communication. I write to communicate, not to grammar properly and once grammar stops making me a better communicator it serves no purpose.

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heyitspokey@reddit

My very old school 6th grade language arts teacher loved grammar. I would have been a lot happier learning less of it.

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SaintsFanPA@reddit

No, I am not disappointed I didn't learn more about grammar in school. I learned what I needed to communicate effectively and being able to explain the difference between an action and modal verb has never once come up in my real life.

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FormerlyDK@reddit

I learned about it from reading a lot, and from being corrected by my mom. I heard her voice in my head, correcting me, for years.

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Medium-Complaint-677@reddit

My degree is in English with a writing focus - it's something I've always been interested in. I can tell you with relative certainty that you learned about auxiliary verbs at some point. For me it was in 6th grade when we spent quite a bit of time diagraming sentences. It's the kind of thing you forget if you don't care. For example I have no idea what SIN or TAN mean though I'm sure I learned that at some point.

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Rj924@reddit

I learned it. I forgot it. I can type a professional sounding email when needed.

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witchy12@reddit

No, because why would I need it? I obviously didn’t need it enough to remember it.

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wobbsey@reddit

english grammar made much more sense to me after studying latin.

in elementary school my teacher taught a foreign language’s grammar in that language and i understood nothing.

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Avasia1717@reddit

I loved learning grammar. It always made sense to me. Seems like we had spelling and grammar all the way to 9th grade, and after that it was more reading and writing.

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Prowindowlicker@reddit

Nope. I’m fine with what I learned and I’m glad I never have to learn it again. I will not diagram another sentence

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Oh_Hae@reddit

Honestly, what I learned and what I remember are two very different things.

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santoslhallper@reddit

My 4th grader is currently learning about "helping verbs" right now!

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GF_baker_2024@reddit

I realized when I switched to a language-heavy field that I'd absorbed a lot more grammar than I realized from the strict Catholic nuns at my elementary school. I'm sure that four years of Spanish and French language instruction also helped.

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grixxis@reddit

I remember learning a lot about grammar, I just didn't use any of it after finals so most of it didn't stick. You remember stuff that gets used. Grammatical structure and analyzing sentences didn't matter to me until I tried learning a second language, so it felt like a lot of stuff was being learned for the first time.

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demonspawn9@reddit

We learned a lot of grammar. I had a classical education. I can diagram any sentence. I absolutely hated it, as a kid, but I now see that it is essential.

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Appropriate-Yak4296@reddit

Yes. Later in life I had a friend that was an English teacher and we got a chalkboard and she taught me grammar.

Also there's a set of books called "English grammar for learners of (whatever different language)" that really helps full in gaps and reteach.

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MrLongWalk@reddit

Nope, I feel my school did a pretty good job.

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dosassembler@reddit

No, I learned plenty. More than people use or want to use. Mostly outdated and arbitrary rules with little bearing on how we communicate anyway.

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RosietheMaker@reddit

No, my grammar lessons were very thorough. I was an absolute grammar nerd on top of that.

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Pitiful_Bunch_2290@reddit

I have a minor in English, so I'm good. I also took AP English in high school. It is taught, but retention seems to be low a lot of times.

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sjedinjenoStanje@reddit

I think we learned it, but maybe a bit too early so it didn't sink in.

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angrysquirrel777@reddit

I learned about grammar quite an bit in school. It was boring and hard to retain as it makes little sense.

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rawbface@reddit

I feel like my 9th grade honors English teacher definitely tried to teach us things like Auxiliary Verbs and more in depth parts of speech, but me being an angsty 14 year old didn't really want to learn. If I wished that I learned more grammar, I'd have no one to blame but myself.

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