Grammar or no grammar? p1

ME HATES GRAMMAR

I’ll declare it bluntly. I HATE GRAMMAR. I do dislike it enough to ignore what the heck a subjuntivo is and a post pretérito (one of the many Spanish tenses) must be some bug living under a rock. Future, present or past? I might be able to explain the tense but no idea of the rules. Accents? If is ain’t aguda, it is es an esdrújula… And you must have noticed it already. I have no idea of grammar in my own mother tongue.

I used to teach English as a foreign language. English as a language books are filled with grammar, phonetics and cultural explanations. Thus I’m more or less good at grammar and I can for sure explain comparatives to a nine y.o.

Nonetheless I still hate grammar.

HOW DO I SURVIVE WITH A PASSABLE GRAMMAR IN SPANISH THEN?

I survive with a copy paste compass I acquired when young and that’s incorporated now to my, sometimes, elephantine memory. We all have one. The memory that keeps anything useless and superfluous to others but us since we like the topic. Such as the 121 chemical elements, Beatles covers’ graphic reticules, name of the album plus director of the MV of each song by Depeche Mode, animations titles, scientific names of the favourite plants ( cyclamen persicum, sinningia, calathea makoyana, pelargonium…), tour and concert or statements by Justin Bieber (you can interchange Bieber for BTS[1]).

Some people use mnemonic techniques and can access bigger databases but we all have access to one.

Mine storages plots, titles and phrases. That’s how I can write passably well in Spanish, navigating that sea by sonar (dictionary and text correction turned on in the word processor).

TO BE CONTINUED…

[1] Not saying they’re the same, just that the name of the artist is irrelevant when the point is how we storage what we like and not what others do.