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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   921 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why is second language education so routinely terrible in the United States? (not sure if it is like this in other countries as well, but speaking to what I know). Not only do students almost never achieve fluency after nearly two decades in the system (grade school through college), but the entire academic structure seems completely in denial about what actually is effective at generating fluency. Research on second language acquisition has consistently shown that immersion based approaches with a small amount of grammar at early levels is much more effective than the grammar/translation method. Yet every language class I've been in, from middle school on has been laser focused on verb conjugations, and direct translations. I can excuse this at the high school level because teachers aren't exposed to the latest pedagogical research. But at universities where part of the job of many of these instructors is pedagogical research, this approach is frankly embarrassing and a huge waste of student's time.

I have two theories on why this might be the case. Firstly, immersion learning doesn't really lend itself to test-taking, which is a necessary part of the academic system. Secondly, there is no incentive to actually teach language effectively at scale: Americans don't need to understand foreign languages, and the ones that do want to become diplomats or do business in other countries eventually seek out immersion approaches on their own.

I think this applies in a lesser sense to the entire educational structure in the US, baring maybe doctorate level education. There's so much useless crap in the system that doesn't help with the learning or retention of relevant information. Bryan Caplan makes a compelling case in The Case Against Education that this is by design because the point of education is signaling. I think he's mainly correct, which is why the lib bandying of education as a panacea to society's problems makes me want to tear my hair out.

Imo, most people's grasp of grammar and structure in their native language is not great. One advantage of the grammatical approach is that it forces people to finally confront the structure of language in general and thus also their own.

Imo, most people's grasp of grammar and structure in their native language is not great.

They might not know any grammatical terms, but native speakers speak grammatically in their dialects.

If only that were true. Native speakers have incorrect grammar all the time. For example, people who say "him and I went to the store together". Not all the rules are something you pick up naturally, and a decent number of people simply do not care about using the language correctly.

It's not intrinsically incorrect to say "him and I went to the store together," though it's not standard American English. It's also not intrinsically incorrect to say "I and Bob went to the store" - even though grammar textbooks will tell you that "Bob and I" is correct, even SAE speakers usually don't find anything wrong with "I and Bob" and will use it.

Not all the rules are something you pick up naturally

Language is an emergent phenomenon and there is no central authority controlling what is acceptable and what isn't, especially in English. What's grammatical is defined by what is accepted as grammatical speech by native speakers of that dialect.

It's not intrinsically incorrect to say "him and I went to the store together," though it's not standard American English.

What's grammatical is defined by what is accepted as grammatical speech by native speakers of that dialect.

We are going to have to agree to disagree here. You seem to be a descriptivist, and I am very much a prescriptivist. So I think that "him and I went to the store together" is intrinsically incorrect, no matter how many people say it that way. They are using an object in place of a subject, which is incorrect grammar.

I think prescriptivism has its place when it comes to helping individual people communicate more smoothly or socially appropriately, but trying to apply it on a larger scale is basically nonsensical. If enough people have start saying "him and I went to the store together" then the analysis of the language simply updates to recognise "him" as functioning as a subject pronoun in that context (or more realistically, acceptable in a certain register of the language, but that's another topic). I'm fairly sure you already do this sort of thing: for instance, I'm going to bet you say "It is me" when you answer the telephone, rather than "It is I", despite the latter being technically "correct", according to prescriptivists.

I get a lot of the motive behind prescriptivism, particularly in an era when it seems like it's difficult to recognise the value of certain standards in behaviour, dress, or indeed language without some relativist going all "akshually" about how it's all just some cis-heteronormative construct or whatever. And if I'm helping a younger relative write a university or job application letter I'm definitely going to make sure they get their "he and I"s the right way around.

They are using an object in place of a subject, which is incorrect grammar.

Hopefully ye are always careful to use "ye" when ye mean the second person singular subject, and reserve "you" for the second person singular object - as was intended by our forefathers. "You" as second person singular subject is a sixteenth century corruption of English grammar.

In that case we can also say beginner-level students don't make mistakes, they just speak in beginner dialect.

It's not a real dialect because there are no native speakers.

Now, if you had, say, generations of people brought up speaking in ""beginner dialect""...

What even is a native speaker? Children have to learn their language too.

A native speaker is one who learned a language as a child.

People have been able to tell if kids are speaking grammatically since long before there were grammar books, so the relevance is not clear to me.

A native speaker is one who learned a language as a child

That's way too loose of a definition. I learned English as a child, and while I consider myself fluent, I'm definitely not a native speaker.

People have been able to tell if kids are speaking grammatically since long before there were grammar books, so the relevance is not clear to me.

My point is just that the kind of deconstruction games that are used to argue against prescriptivism can be used to argue against descriptivism as well. I think each of those frameworks has a grain of truth to it, trying to make sense of the world with just one of them will lead to absurd results.

That's way too loose of a definition. I learned English as a child, and while I consider myself fluent, I'm definitely not a native speaker.

When I say "as a child", I mean in the critical period. I don't mean as a twelve year old.

My point is just that the kind of deconstruction games that are used to argue against prescriptivism can be used to argue against descriptivism as well. I think each of those frameworks has a grain of truth to it, trying to make sense of the world with just one of them will lead to absurd results.

It's simply a fact that language rules are an emergent phenomenon determined by the, let's say, ummah made up of speakers of each language or dialect, and when Internet people say a particular construction is "incorrect English" they usually mean "incorrect SAE" even though it's grammatical in some other dialect. None of this should be construed to imply that there aren't tremendous benefits to being fluent in SAE or the local standard dialect. If you've got an argument against this, let's hear it.

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Imo, most people's grasp of grammar and structure in their native language is not great.

Yes!

One advantage of the grammatical approach is that it forces people to finally confront the structure of language in general and thus also their own.

Nooo...

Only a few language nerds find topics like present imperfect or the dative case interesting and understandable. The rest treat it like algebra; arcane nonsense that you have to memorize just long enough to pass the exam and then never use for the rest of your life. And they are right. Nobody learns to speak a language like that. Nobody writes like that. It's useless knowledge.

Only a few language nerds find topics like present imperfect or the dative case interesting and understandable. The rest treat it like algebra; arcane nonsense that you have to memorize just long enough to pass the exam and then never use for the rest of your life. And they are right. Nobody learns to speak a language like that. Nobody writes like that. It's useless knowledge.

It might be useless knowledge (unless you're a language teacher) to know what "present imperfect" means. It is not useless knowledge to know how to use it correctly.

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