Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World

Dealing with Grammar
One of my favorite aphorisms is that grammar is like a really powerful
pharmaceutical: it’s helpful in small doses but fatal when overprescribed.
And indeed, the most intimidating aspects of learning languages for so
many people is all that grammar. I was trying to get my head around
German in school, and to this day I only remember the language as
consisting of nothing more than mind-boggling der, die, das tables;
accusative, dative, and nominative adjective-ending lists; and many other
things that seemed way too robotic to inspire me to communicate with
people.
Many years later, I rebooted my project to learn German using the
strategies in chapter 5 and progressed much more quickly to make
wonderful friends through German. But when I reached a certain level,
where pure practice couldn’t carry me further very fast, it was time to turn
back to those grammar books, and something very curious happened.
I found it incredibly interesting.
The problem with learning grammar at the start of our language
projects, or when we are not used to truly communicating in the language at
some level, is that we have nothing to attach all these boring rules to. It’s an
inhuman list of rules that can put us off a language before we get started.
But after we have learned some of this language, heard it used in real life,
tried to communicate in it, and been exposed to lots of real material and
genuinely tried to understand it, then we have some meat to attach to this
supportive skeleton.
When you already know a little of that language and then come across a
grammar rule, rather than see some dull explanation you’ll quickly forget,
your reaction may actually be “So that’s why they say it that way!” It’s
almost like putting in the missing piece of a huge puzzle or focusing a
camera. That missing piece is meaningless without the other pieces around
it, and that focus isn’t worth improving if you aren’t looking at something
specific with your camera.
This is why I suggest only learning grammar in small chunks for the
absolute basics, or going through courses that are much more conversation
focused and sprinkle a little grammar into it in interesting ways. For most
language learners, going for pure grammar or taking grammar-focused
courses at the start is a mistake.

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But when you do speak the language fairly well, then you can actually
turn grammar lessons into your mini-mission.
This approach to studying grammar—applying it to what I know,
making sure that I can start to form correct sentences, using it to help me
understand replies in the context of what each part of a sentence is—
ultimately allows me to bring my level up a notch. Thanks to this, I have
been able to bring my conversational B1 level up to a fluent B2 many times,
because I can express myself much better and understand what is being said
to me in ways that purely learning words and phrases can’t help with.
With continued studying, and of course plenty of practice—especially
focused on the grammar points you have studied—you will soon absorb
what you need. There will always be something left to learn, but I find that
with most (European) languages, the bulk of the grammar is something that
brings you up to a good fluent level. This is why I study as much grammar
and do as many book-assigned exercises as I need to until I am sure I
understand what I learned (with teachers or by running some of my
exercises in traditional courses past native speakers, if possible), since this
is a major part of my strategy to improve from my basic conversational
level.