Grammar pedants - help please.

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ChrisHB Mar 2021 6:18pm, 19 Mar 2021 20,761 posts	0 ChrisHB You can get textbooks called "English Grammar for the Student of (another language)" - my Italian teacher recommends it very highly for the member of our class who hasn't got the first clue.
Evangel Mar 2021 9:27pm, 20 Mar 2021 3,321 posts	0 Evangel I also learned (learnt?) and understood much more about English grammar after learning other languages - yes French and German, but especially Latin, although I didn't particularly enjoy Latin!
Columba Mar 2021 9:16pm, 21 Mar 2021 20,944 posts	0 Columba Same here - as regards English grammar and Other Languages. I quite liked Latin. And it has proved very useful.
larkim Mar 2021 1:01am, 22 Mar 2021 13,830 posts	0 larkim I wonder if it was a generational thing; primary school in the 1970s for me didn't teach much grammar, but as soon as I started French at high school in the early 1980s I suddenly became exposed to these things which I'd never really thought about before and I still find interesting. Sadly my level of actual knowledge is pretty low and (putting aside the criticisms of the "Gove" curriculum offer) I think I'm stuck in between my father who knows his grammar from his Grammar School education in the 1950s and my youngest son who is steeped in fronted adverbials from the 2010s.
SarahWoo Mar 2021 8:09am, 22 Mar 2021 13,912 posts	0 SarahWoo I think I learned most of my grammar from Latin. We had a great teacher so I did enjoy it and it's surprising how often that O Level knowledge has been useful.
Diogenes Mar 2021 9:31am, 22 Mar 2021 58,595 posts	0 Diogenes I'm another who doesn't remember being taught any grammar at my grammar school (78-85). I didn't get to do Latin (not that I would've wanted to) as I wasn't good enough at French. At the time I thought that knowing the names of the elements of language was a waste of time as I knew how to read and write perfectly well without having to understand all that technical nonsense. I'm not sure my feelings on the matter have changed much (although I do follow this thread...).
Northern Exile Mar 2021 9:46am, 22 Mar 2021 7,485 posts	0 Northern Exile This seems to be a common theme. I just sneaked under the comprehensive wire and went to grammar school in 1973, but I'm damned if I can remember being taught any proper grammatical structure in English. French wasn't an option, we were taught German in the first year and if you showed promise you could go on to study Latin or Russian in the second and subsequent years. I showed no promise whatsoever, so didn't get the option. Funny how things turned out, to my knowledge I'm the only product of that erstwhile establishment that went on to get a Russian degree
RichHL Mar 2021 11:45am, 22 Mar 2021 15,668 posts	0 RichHL My vse govorim po russkii zdec'. Russian transliteration is hard.
Northern Exile Mar 2021 12:54pm, 22 Mar 2021 7,486 posts	0 Northern Exile Do it in Cyrillic then Мы все говорим по-русски здесь. Неужели?
Northern Exile Mar 2021 12:55pm, 22 Mar 2021 7,487 posts	0 Northern Exile Apologies all, that last word means "really"?