Do Not Study Chinese Grammar Rules
Now I know, this is a tough rule for some people. Because, most of your life, learning Chinese, you have been told to learn grammar rules. In middle school, In high school, In university, In language school, everywhere in the world; grammar, grammar, grammar. So, my first question to you is: Did it work? Was it successful?
If you are watching this TOPIC, you have studied Chinese before in school, somewhere. And probably, you focused on grammar rules. So, my question is: Can you speak Chinese easily, quickly and automatically right now? If the answers no, Why not? Because you have studied Chinese for many years already. Why can’t you speak Chinese quickly, easily and automatically, why not?
Well, it’s not your fault actually. The reason, the answer for most people is that you study grammar rules too much. You focused on, grammar rules. Why? Because your teachers told you to do this.
Why is it bad to study grammar rules? Well because, when you study grammar rules, when you focus on grammar rules, you focus on analyzing Chinese. In other words, you think about Chinese. You think about the sentence structure, subject, predicate, object everything.
Now for writing Chinese, that’s Okay. Why? Because when you write Chinese you have time. You can go slowly. You can write very slowly, you can think about it, you can erase your mistake, it’s okay. You don’t need to write fast. But for speaking, there is no time. You do not have time to think about rules, the sentence structure in Chinese when you listening and speaking. There is no time. Someone asks you a question, you must answer immediately. You have no time to think about propositions, you have no time to think about subject, predicate, object everything., all the stuff you learned, there is no time.
How do native speakers learn grammar? Well, I am a native Chinese speaker and I can tell you, I never studied grammar rules. Not until high school. And we studied grammar rules for writing. In college native speakers study grammar rules again, why? For writing. But for speaking, we don’t. So how do we learn grammar rules? We learn through listening. Through hearing correct grammar again and again a lot of correct grammar.
So the best way to learn Chinese grammar is through imput. Another word, Chinese coming in mostly through your ears. But reading is also okay but don’t read textbooks, don’t read grammar books. Just read easy Chinese books, easy novels. But most of all listening. Now, in the next TOPIC that you get, I will tell you exactly how to learn grammar and easy way and effortless way, without studying rules. Not just writing. But for now, for today,I want you to remember that "Do Not Study Grammar Rules" If you focus on grammar rules it will hurt your speaking. Your speak will more slowly, your understanding will be more slowly.
So if you have grammar books, throw away! Put them in a trash, good bye grammar books. If you want, you can burn it. Burn them in a fire. Because, they are useless. They will not help you with your Chinese speaking or your Chinese learning or listening. So good bye grammar books. No more grammar rules yeaaa. That shoud make you happy. Okay, good enough.