My last post addressed our goal in learning grammar. In brief: it doesn’t matter what you know about grammar, the important thing is that it comes out (and goes in) right. You need an internalized knowledge of grammar. Let’s think about that last sentence…

I can explain how to drive a manual transmission in one sentence: “When the engine is working too hard, push the clutch in, move the gear shift to the next highest gear, and release the clutch as you give it some more gas.” That’s head knowledge. You can’t drive a car with that knowledge. You have to go through a tortuous process of stalling and jerking over and over and over and over. Somehow you figure it out, and it starts happening. If you’re fortunate, you’re still on speaking terms with your parents at the end. Our goal in the sequence below is to start with the head knowledge (Steps 1 and 2), and get it into our internalized knowledge (Steps 3 and 4).

Step 1: Find out what you need to know

Any of these is a good way to find out what you need to learn.

• Keep a running log of things you hear or read that you don’t understand. This is a very efficient way to identify holes in your knowledge.
• Look through the Glassman book, or through these grammar descriptions, to find something unfamiliar, or something you think you might do wrong.
• Write out a story or speech, and bring it to a language lesson. Revise it, and take note of the kinds of mistakes that you make. (Of course you can write in phonetic transcription or Dari script.)
• If you can take it: record yourself having a conversation. Go back through it with a teacher and note down the kinds of mistakes you make.
• Ask your teacher what you need to improve. Encourage honesty.

Step 2: Get the head knowledge

Find out how what you should be saying. You can do this as formally or as inductively as you like.

• Look it up in a grammar book. Look for examples that sound like what you want to say. Or browse through the topics and look for something that seems relevant.
• Negotiate meaning with your teaching to communicate what you want to say, and get the teacher to say it the correct way. (You may need to put it in the context of a short story.)
• Ask the LCP consultant!

Step 3: Get some practice with the form

• Try to generalize on the sentence. If you’ve figured out how to say, “I wish I had come to the party,” make up other variants of the same sort of sentence:
  • I wish I had studied Pashtu.
  • I wish Ahmad had gone to Kabul.
  • Ahmad wishes Razia was in Herat.
  • …
  • I don’t know whether Ahmad has gone to Kabul. [Is that the same grammar? I don’t know, try it out!]
• I envision this happening in a language lesson so that you can be corrected.
• Do this until you’re comfortable with the construction. Be deliberate in getting it right, and only then try for fluent production.

Step 4: Make a mental note to pay attention to that form in the future

• I’ve found that simply being aware of a form makes me notice it more when I encounter it “in the wild”
• If you have written or recorded texts that you listen to, make a note whenever this form appears, and re-read it or re-listen to it later.