Is Refold actually going to make me fluent?

[anon9067898]

he literally defined what he means by traditional method. traditional methods are those that …

it’s not like non-traditional language learning methods have only existed for four years. it’s an old field (as old as language dare i say). what is a traditional method is really ill defined. he probably takes traditional as “habitually done, used, or found”. Thanks to the education system in many part of the world, bad language classes are way too common.

@Leebo

I got my start at a language school, and I’d probably do it again if I started over.

that’s exactly the point, you can’t learn everything in class. not that you can’t learn anything in class. I took english class and i’m glad i did.

[Nemuitanuki]

I started sentence mining for the +1 word sentences. That was pretty revolutionary. Then I throw those in Anki.
Will it work???
No idea

[Leebo]

@yukinet

that’s exactly the point, you can’t learn everything in class. not that you can’t learn anything in class. I took english class and i’m glad i did.

I read this part…

If you use traditional methods, your speaking will forever be clunky and unnatural.

…as implying there is some lasting, damaging effect of using traditional methods. I suppose it’s just an ambiguous sentence.

[anon9067898]

@Leebo

I suppose it’s just an ambiguous sentence.

i guess your “interpretation” is more true to the text, i’m probably projecting my ideas into ambiguity points.

[Jonapedia]

@Naphthalene

Well, it’s an everyday occurrence for me, since it seems either me or my spouse are always looking for something

Hahaha. May you always find what you’re looking for then. It’s assuring to know it’s so useful as a phrase.

@Naphthalene

Edit: thinking about it, I think it’s just a contraction of XYZ[ってどこにあるか]知ってる・知らない？

Yes, I was thinking of something like that. Or XYZ（のことを）知ってる・知らない？(Far from a clear way to phrase it, but what I mean is it feels like you’re asking about XYZ, and context just tells whoever you’re talking to that you’re looking for XYZ.)

By the way, can you use this phrase for animate things or people? I would imagine no, but I’m not sure.

@Sorrymasen

To be honest I have no idea, what disturbed me in that quote I found on their website is how their formulation could lead beginners to fall in the “literal translation trap”.

Hm… well, given the fact that 知る really is used that way, and that it doesn’t seem to have any dictionary definitions that match ‘see’ or ‘discover’ or anything similar… I’d say it’s probably accurate to translate the sentence that way. ‘Have you seen…’ is a translation that’s accurate for context, but not for meaning. A good ‘middle ground’ translation might be ‘do you know where my phone is?’, but that doesn’t capture the difference between English and Japanese phrasing. Plus, precisely because that translation sounds strange in English, I think it would discourage literal translation, and possibly even show learners that even literal translation can only go so far, since even words that are ‘the same’ in terms of their core meaning are used differently in each language.

PS: I honestly use literal translations all the time to understand the ‘Japanese thought process’. Afterwards, of course (if I feel like translating), I’ll see how to say it naturally in English. I’m definitely aware that literal translations rarely make perfect sense, but I can use them to bring the concepts that appear in a sentence together, knowing that they make sense together in Japanese, but not in English. I don’t think it’s that bad.

@Tahazameel

He claims that one of the major weaknesses of WaniKani is that it provides premade mnemonics, which is a bit hypocritical considering RTK does that for about the first 500 Kanji.

What’s he going to do about books that provide etymology for everything? I’ve used websites like that to memorise/learn complex new kanji, and it works. There isn’t even a mnemonic. I literally just find out what all the components mean and read the explanation for why the whole kanji means something or other. How is that bad? And it’s not like WaniKani doesn’t allow people to replace its mnemonics.

@Tahazameel

He claims that WaniKani is an out-of-context method to learn Kanji and RTK is a more in-context approach to learn Kanji.

@yukinet

to be fair he said that sentence mining + RTK is better than WK(IMO it’s better if RTK works for you).

I think sentence mining + any kanji learning method is better than any kanji learning method alone. I’d argue that with vocab words and example sentences, WK provides context, just perhaps not enough to absorb a particular kanji or vocabulary word on one’s first go. From what I’ve seen of RTK, RTK provides no context. I think it doesn’t even provide readings, so how are you supposed to do any ‘context’ work? Studies of speed reading have shown that not vocalising/pronouncing words tends to decrease comprehension, and just assigning basic meanings to two kanji isn’t going to make seeing the link within a kanji pair intuitive: it’s quite clear from some of the questions on WK forums that breaking kanji pairs down and figuring out their meaning as a whole doesn’t come easily even though WK also assigns keywords to each kanji. And that’s normal, because making those links requires lateral thinking.

@Tahazameel

However what he doesn’t talk about is how some of the meanings written by James Heisig, in an attempt to achieve individuality for each Kanji, are really far off from the actual meaning.

I took a brief look at a copy on some… university website, I think? It was OK at first, but things started getting weird after a while, like saying 召 should be remembered as ‘seduce’ even though it means ‘beckon’ (even according to Heisig). What’s he going to do for 誘, I wonder, which appears in 誘惑 (temptation). Just go with ‘invite’? 誘 is so much closer to ‘seduce’ than 召. It’s not like saying 召し上がってください at a restaurant involves any seduction on the part of the client or the waiter.

@yukinet

while he does exaggerate, never have i known anyone who just went to class and got good at the language

True, but what’s so revolutionary about this idea? It’s the same for almost any field of knowledge: going to class alone won’t make you an expert unless the class is outstanding or the material is very easy. However, if he’s attacking textbooks and saying that people who just memorise textbook phrases are going to have a hard time… ok, fair enough.

Anyway, I think Refold’s encouraging immersion as much as possible is good. One simply shouldn’t forget other components of language learning. I detest having to study grammar and vocabulary lists, but I’m quite happy with studying such things if I’ve seen them used in a text or video, because I want context. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to have to look up a grammar point/common expression at some point and learn what it means.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot: Merry Christmas, everyone!

[Starker]

@Jonapedia

True, but what’s so revolutionary about this idea? It’s the same for almost any field of knowledge: going to class alone won’t make you an expert unless the class is outstanding or the material is very easy. However, if he’s attacking textbooks and saying that people who just memorise textbook phrases are going to have a hard time… ok, fair enough.

I took English classes in some form or another for about 16 years or so and never once have I heard anything resembling the idea that you should only learn English by going to class. In fact, in any language class I’ve ever been the teachers have heartily recommended that you should read and listen to native material as much as possible in your free time.

Conversely, there is a hard limit to where you can get with immersion. When I became a translator, I had to study quite a lot both via traditional means and on my own before my output became good enough to submit as professional work. And that’s in a language I’ve been immersing myself in since birth and that I was already fairly proficient in after high school.

Likewise, I have acquired German through immersion alone and I can say I couldn’t submit a paper in it or give a lecture if my life depended on it, despite having immersed myself in thousands upon thousands of hours of German media, simply because I have had no experience speaking it and no formal study of grammar and orthography. (Though, I’m sure I would be able to get up to speed quite quickly if I put my mind to it.)

Oh, and also, in language classes you learn about things you would have never even thought of asking and that you would never be able to figure out through immersion alone, but that’s a separate topic on the merits of formal study, I guess.

[DIO-Berry]

@Tahazameel

My view of traditional methods isn’t just being in a classroom, it’s also self studying and interacting with natives to delve deeper into the language. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past ten months. That’s what the likes of Dogen did as well, and that’s probably what Matt did too.

My understanding is that he even lived with a Japanese host family for a bit but refused to speak with them because of some nonsense about not being able to speak “perfect” Japanese with them.

[DIO-Berry]

@Nemuitanuki

I have so many complaints with Japanese classes.
They should teach casual conjugations alongside polite conjugations.
They also need a soft intro to keigo a lot sooner.

I’m taking classes now. There’s some good points too. I can listen to my teacher and learn some vocab words.

There are so many different ways to teach Japanese though, teachers will have their own styles and directions. I feel like it’s a bit odd to say you have complaints with Japanese classes in general, but the classes you’ve taken/are taking don’t account for all types and styles of Japanese classes.

[jonmoxley]

That’s absolutely ridiculous. What kind of mindset is that? Won’t the host family be offended with that type of BS? It’s like refusing to go to school until one has PHD level knowledge.

[DIO-Berry]

Right? It along with some other behaviors I’ve observed of Matt make me cautious of him.

[Jonapedia]

@CDR-Strawberry

There are so many different ways to teach Japanese though, teachers will have their own styles and directions. I feel like it’s a bit odd to say you have complaints with Japanese classes in general, but the classes you’ve taken/are taking don’t account for all types and styles of Japanese classes.

I agree, but in fairness, it’s true that casual/plain conjugations are rarely taught early on. My textbook introduced plain forms in lesson 29 of 98, and you were supposed to do one lesson every day, meaning you’d get that introduction one month into the course. (I did 21 lessons in 3 days instead, but I’m a little crazy, and the first 20 lessons were short.) However, my textbook is from a French publisher (the English edition is called ‘Japanese with Ease’, but I think legal copies are almost impossible to get now, unless you buy them second-hand), and it seems most textbooks in English don’t do that. However, even if it’s not the natural order in which to learn the conjugations, I don’t think it’s harmful or problematic to start with the masu-forms. Honestly, for anyone who might be intimidated by conjugation, starting with the masu-forms makes Japanese seem easy. The stem never changes, and all you need to do is change the endings. Plus, if you know the masu-form and the て-form, it’s relatively easy to transition to plain conjugations afterwards: the masu-form teaches you how the godan and ichidan stems work (one changes forms, the other doesn’t), and the て-form uses the same stem as the た-form for completed actions. I do think that plain conjugations should be introduced sooner, but if you want adult students to have language that they can use for any kind of conversation practice as adults… they probably should be taught the masu-form first. However, OK, this depends on how tolerant the teacher is as well.

As for keigo, I’m not sure what to think because I’m not sure what sort of keigo we’re talking about. I agree that basic keigo verbs should be introduced fairly quickly, like もらう→いただく、あげる→差し上げる、くれる→くださる、行く・来る→いらっしゃる and （で）ある→（で）ござる. However, keigo increases the number of forms to remember by quite a lot, and so it’s not going to be easy for most students to deal with everything at once. That’s probably why teachers wait until students seem more comfortable with the basic/usual masu-forms before introducing keigo (if they do at all). Furthermore, the problem with introducing keigo early is that it’s basically useless knowledge for students who are studying outside Japan: who in the world would they use keigo with? Their teacher? They could, but probably not all the time, because that might be too much to ask, and even if they did that, it would probably make the teacher-student relationship artificially distant. They could do keigo conversion exercises, but I don’t know how long the average student would remember everything if that practice stops. They might even mix up honorific and humble speech. That could be quite offensive in the wrong circumstances. Finally, teachers have more important things to cover, like grammatical structures that you can use in anything from casual Japanese to extremely formal Japanese, or common slang/contractions/untranslatable expressions used by Japanese people.

@Tahazameel

Won’t the host family be offended with that type of BS?

That was my reaction too. Apparently he isolated himself in his room. I have no idea how he got away with it. Even Japanese hospitality has limits, surely.

[mrahhal]

@CDR-Strawberry

My understanding is that he even lived with a Japanese host family for a bit but refused to speak with them because of some nonsense about not being able to speak “perfect” Japanese with them.

It’s not very fair taking things out of out context. Matt talked about this when he admitted how arrogant he was at the time and how much his thoughts have changed. You’re mentioning it as if it’s something he is proud of.

I’m all up for scrutinizing the Refold approach and the opinions of its founder, but make sure you know the whole situation before you mention something like this about the guy. This can very much lead to unintentional slander.

We all have been idiots at some point in our past, the guy himself admitted it. It’s not fair putting this kind of thing upfront when we’re talking about Refold.

[DIO-Berry]

I’m glad to hear he acknowledged that he was arrogant at the time. He still seems to talk in quite arrogant ways about various things though.

I haven’t seen any acknowledgment in the refold method about the importance of practicing producing language though, which leads me to think that he might still encourage people to wait an exceptionally long time before trying to speak or hold conversations.

@mrahhal

I’m all up for scrutinizing the Refold approach and the opinions of its founder, but make sure you know the whole situation before you mention something like this about the guy. This can very much lead to unintentional slander.

Just about any conjecture can lead to slander. I’m not going to go through every single video of his to “know the whole situation.” I see a history of certain behaviors and claims that he makes that make me cautious of his ideas about learning. These are so far present in the methods he’s proposed.

[DaisukeJigen]

A few years ago I’d often walk ~1.5 miles to and from work. I tried listening to Japanese podcasts on my walk. It didn’t work at all. I’d just end up daydreaming about other things. The podcasts just became pure background noise.

[Jonapedia]

@mrahhal

It’s not very fair taking things out of out context. Matt talked about this when he admitted how arrogant he was at the time and how much his thoughts have changed.

Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.

@CDR-Strawberry

I haven’t seen any acknowledgment in the refold method about the importance of practicing producing language though, which leads me to think that he might still encourage people to wait an exceptionally long time before trying to speak or hold conversations.

I think part of the reason for that is that he (or whoever’s helping him) hasn’t written the ‘output’ section of the Refold site just yet. What I can tell you is that as late as the latest section that has been published (Section 2C), he still uses the expression ‘delay… output’, in the context of such phrases as ‘if you are OK with delaying your output’, which appear in sections suggesting more complex forms of immersion like ‘pure listening’ (i.e. without the help of visual cues, like with videos) and ‘reading a novel’. This means that Refold continues to espouse waiting before outputting. How long exactly? We don’t know. We also don’t know how important output is to Refold, because again, the output section isn’t out yet. (‘Delayed output’ indeed! ) One mildly positive sign might be this sentence: ‘Reading literature is not a prerequisite for learning to output.’ Perhaps this means output is now seen as an objective?

However, one thing I will praise about Refold’s roadmap (I never thought this day would come!), especially in the ‘late’ stages (Sections 2B and 2C), is that Refold encourages learners to transition to a monolingual dictionary and claims that this will accelerate language acquisition. Based on my experience with French, this is completely true. Even so, I still don’t like how much Refold relies on Anki (even for the dictionary transition!), because to me, if you need flashcards, that means you’re not getting enough exposure (aka immersion) or you’re not absorbing the material deeply enough the first time. However (especially since I know everyone else here is using WK’s flashcard/SRS, which clearly is effective), I recognise that not everyone has sufficient time for continuous, massive exposure, and that immersion is difficult at the lower levels, so flashcards are a good substitute in the meantime. Also, my personal approach might actually be less efficient than flashcards, because I just read definitions in order to improve retention, and then wait until I see the word again in the wild to see if I remember it, possibly using the word in conversation in between. I don’t do any active, regular revision at all.

I think one thing to note is that Refold is probably meant for one particular type of learner: a self-taught student with no teachers and probably no conversation partners either. It’s an extremely low-budget, high-personal-investment system. I see quite a lot of similarities between Matt’s suggestions and what I did while studying French on my own outside of class, and how I immerse myself in Japanese is fairly similar, minus any intentional ‘passive immersion’. That makes sense, because aside from textbooks, I’ve categorically refused to spend money on anything for the languages I learn outside of school/university. The main difference is that so far, for all the languages in which I’m able to express myself fairly confidently, I did output practice, Japanese included. Which is again why I doubt Refold’s overall effectiveness, even though the immersion principles are sound. Native speakers simply need to repeat after their parents when they start speaking, and they make lots of mistakes at first. They’ve experienced nothing other than immersion at that point. As such, I don’t see how extended immersion is going to help learners avoid errors when they start speaking.

[esutasan]

I tried self-study when I was in high school, I didn’t get the adjective conjugation and also how the て-form works… somehow it didn’t click.
Two years later, I took classes at university which definitely gave me a good foundation. It was very fast-paced (1 textbook per semester) and I didn’t retain all of what I learnt there but I somehow understood better how the language works - not only grammar but also politeness levels.
I mean, I still had many classmates whose pronunciation was very off, but idk, if you listen to Japanese content at the same time, you know how it needs to sound. Plus, my Japanese teacher was a native and she corrected everyone all the time.

They didn’t offer B1 classes, so after that I switched to italki and I use Tobira with one of my teachers, with the other I practice speaking.
Besides the classes, I do Wanikani, BunPro and iKnow.
Wanikani I started a year ago because I felt that learning Kanji only by context doesn’t work as well because

1. I don’t feel motivated to read content where I read like “… Kanji…Kanji…Kanji” => frustrating
2. if I don’t feel motivated, I don’t read
3. If I don’t read, I don’t learn new Kanji
   I mean, there might be people, who could learn Kanji by just reading them somewhere, but when only learning the meanings, you still need to have a source to see how it is pronounced. It might work if you enjoy reading content digitally, but I prefer physical ones as I can’t concentrate as well on solely digital ones.

BunPro is a good enforcement to learn sentences and how it works. Tbh, I don’t pay much attention to the rules that are written in textbooks and rather try to read all the example sentences. I don’t see why this is less effective than picking it up from native content only.
Also with iKnow (I know I can download an anki deck, but I like their UX better and for me, that’s worth it), I also listen and read all the example sentences. So technically, it’s still in context-learning, the only difference is, I don’t have the effort to mine all the sentences myself.

Also, I don’t get, why one should neglect grammar studies. It’s not true that Natives learn only through immersion. In the first years until school, yes, but later, you do a lot grammar studies. At least in my country (Germany). In the first class, we learn about all our tenses and conjugation forms and we also had tests on it. In the 5th or 6th grade there was even a huge grammar test that the whole area did to compare the grammar knowledge of students. With time, you forget all those theoretical concepts, because you kind of internalize them. But still, tbh, I do look up concepts in my native language, e.g. when writing essays for university, etc. and there are many, too many concepts, where even Natives disagree with and in the end, we look it up in an online grammar dictionary (one recent discussion was e.g. whether you capitalize verbs when used like a noun or not (in German)).

So in the end, if you really want to get to that native-like language ability, I believe, you need a good mix of all. Immersing a lot, studying grammar a lot and also talking a lot. It takes a long time and there is no hack and there is no “best way”. Claiming that the other methods won’t make you fluent, isn’t true necessarily.
I did become fluent in English by speaking early in school and by studying grammar and after 2 years of formal study, immersing. I also realize that speaking early didn’t harm my speaking abilities.
I feel that it depends a lot on with which people I interact frequently.
Some years ago, I spoke almost only to American friends from a certain region, so my accent became very American. Before it was German-British (influenced by school, which teaches British English spoken by Germans). Some time later, I started working in a German company which uses English as the company language, but we have many Germans with quite a thick accent. Hence, after some time, my English accent also became more German again and also grammar got a little worse than before.
I found that my language is influenced a lot by the people I interact with and not much from what I hear because I don’t need to fit in anywhere when only watching videos.

And it is the same with my Native language. I used to live in the south and spoke the dialect with my friends, then I moved and my language changed slightly towards the language used in this area. I still keep my dialect slightly because I still have friends from my hometown with whom I talk occasionally, but I am sure, if I wouldn’t have that, I might loose it. However, when I go back to my hometown and stay there for a while, my language changes and I notice it that when people point it out when I come back

I think, while it’s easy to form bad habits when speaking early, you will be able to loose them all if you interact a lot with other people. (E.g. the dialect example; a friend’s aunt used to live in southern Germany, then moved to Northern Germany in her 20s and lived there until retirement and never really came back. Before, she had the local dialect of her hometown and now, she speaks like the people in her current area, like the Northerns. I never guessed she ever spoke the dialect of her hometown, until you see a video of her speaking that way. Now, she cannot speak like that anymore).

Tldr; Take everything what you read about “the best and only” method with a grain of salt, don’t postpone stuff (e.g. talking) if you enjoy it. If you continue what you enjoy, you will get fluent. It takes time and it will take years. In the end, if it takes 5 or 7 or even 10, well, it is a individual process and hurrying won’t get you anywhere if you burn out.

[anon9067898]

@Jonapedia

o how are you supposed to do any ‘context’ work?

by looking it up . then making a flashcard out of the word if it feel useful. like that thing people do when they finish wk or any other method

@Jonapedia

True, but what’s so revolutionary about this idea?

Nothing really, it’s just pile things that have been around for a really long time. It’s just really neatly organized with tangible outcomes(see his understanding levels for an example). There is a big difference with normal classes tho, he doesn’t encourage production.

While this may be common knowledge, at least school classes [that i’m aware of](for a common example) usually don’t try to equip people with ways of breaking out of the class framework.

[Jonapedia]

@esutasan

Tbh, I don’t pay much attention to the rules that are written in textbooks and rather try to read all the example sentences.

I think reading these rules is important. But I agree that they don’t make sense until you read the examples.

@esutasan

I don’t see why this is less effective than picking it up from native content only.

Immersion provides more examples than textbooks alone if you do a lot of it. Also, sometimes, textbook examples are not as complex as ‘real’ examples. Otherwise, I think it’s the same thing.

@esutasan

It’s not true that Natives learn only through immersion. In the first years until school, yes, but later, you do a lot grammar studies.

Definitely. Same thing for English in Singapore. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere: all natives are taught what is standard and ‘correct’ in school. We all have to study grammar.

I like your point about accents, and I think it’s happening to my French. I learnt it in Singapore and had a few immersion trips in France, but when I stop speaking it for a long time, study another language a lot or travel to the south of France (which I did once), I think my accent changes.

@yukinet

by looking it up . then making a flashcard out of the word if it feel useful. like that thing people do when they finish wk or any other method

I completely agree that that’s what people logically do after finishing a method or after covering one kanji in a particular method. My point is that since RTK forces you to look up readings, you’ll probably learn other real meanings in the process… meaning that RTK gets reduced to a list of kanji with hints on how to learn them. Doesn’t that make RTK almost pointless? Or at least, wouldn’t that make WK objectively better than RTK (cost aside) since it streamlines the process by providing learners with kanji readings and usage examples? Do you see my point? The ‘context work’ required by Matt’s methods make RTK’s contents almost obsolete, the order of kanji aside. I know there isn’t really a point arguing about this because Matt has already retracted the claim that RTK is ‘the best’ method, but I wrote that post before finding out.

@yukinet

Nothing really, it’s just pile things that have been around for a really long time. It’s just really neatly organized with tangible outcomes(see his understanding levels for an example).

I actually meant the idea that ‘going to class alone doesn’t lead to fluency’. I thought everyone should know that since practically every person who’s proficient in some skill does lots of personal work. However, if we’re talking about Refold, yes, I’ll concede that it’s well organised. I can’t really be bothered to go through everything, but it does seem well explained. The ‘understanding levels’ remind me of the CEFRL developed by the EU, but this is my first time seeing anyone trying to illustrate what it really means to understand at different levels. I don’t know if that was necessary for learners to use their framework, but it was a very good explanation.

@yukinet

While this may be common knowledge, at least school classes [that i’m aware of](for a common example) usually don’t try to equip people with ways of breaking out of the class framework.

Ah, OK. THIS is an excellent point. I didn’t consider that. Perhaps I’m a little blind to the benefits of Refold organising all these ideas because

1. My personal immersion approach already looks very similar, just without any flashcards or SRS. I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion to transition to a monolingual dictionary ASAP. I might even have said the same thing on these forums a while back, or on the Duolingo Forums.
2. I’ve spent much of my life as a student complaining about how bad my teachers were for almost all subjects, so self-learning is my default approach. For languages specifically, I’ve been doing this stuff for a long time (6-7 years?), and with multiple languages. I guess I’ve forgotten what it feels like to not know how to improve in a language on my own. For instance, my first foray into monolingual French dictionaries was a decision I made based on a vague idea that it would force me to think in French more often, and I didn’t know it would turn out so well.

A lot of the vocabulary learnt in class is only useful for the classroom and academic environments anyway, so I guess some people do need something like Refold to explain what else they can try.

I still disagree with avoiding production, so long as you have someone to correct you or you know you’re imitating a very basic sentence. But I can accept Refold as a very helpful toolbox for immersion and self-learning, especially for people who are doing it for the first time.

[mrahhal]

Just passed by this right now by chance

[roym3456]

@Jonapedia

Definitely. Same thing for English in Singapore. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere: all natives are taught what is standard and ‘correct’ in school. We all have to study grammar.

I personally never studied English grammar in school. I guess school systems around the world are set up differently but in Canada (specifically Manitoba) we were encouraged from a young age to read and write. I remember back in elementary school we primarily focussed on reading easy chapter books from the library individually and later writing book reports to help us get a better grasp of what was going on in the books. Sometimes we would occasionally read our book reports in front of the class so I would always make sure that the report made sense. Basically my grammar studies didn’t come from the teacher but from rewriting my reports and short stories until all the blue, red and green underlining from Microsoft Word disappeared. I found what helped me the most growing up was when the whole class focussed in on one book where we either read along together while the audio book was playing or when the teacher read it aloud. This allowed us to really work together on trying to understand the dystopian nature that many of these books were based around.

I never felt like I had lesser abilities than someone who had studied English on a grammatical level as i have found that the vocabulary and knowledge I had gained up until high school was much more important than a few rules that people use to judge whether a sentence makes sense or not. I found more often than not, pushing myself to be more creative writing short stories, poetry or film scripts was the biggest contributing factor in understanding the written language. In the end I scored the highest grade in my high school for English and history, so I think ignoring grammer and just writing out what you think sounds good mixed in with a little bit of negative feedback and A LOT of reading isn’t a bad way to learn your native language(history class was highly essay based and less focussed on multiple choice fact memorization). In the end it brought me all the way through university and I never felt held back because even though I couldn’t describe even the simplest of grammatical concepts.