English grammar and foreign languages

[lulalu]

How important is formal English grammar when several foreign languages are learned? The languages are different from English in structure and really stretch thinking (well the one at least)

Edited December 9, 2017 by lolo

[Guest]

DS has had French, Korean, Hebrew, some Spanish, Japanese and Russian. He is in 4th grade this year and this will be his first real English program. I've noticed that he is picking things up very easy and diagramming seems to be almost busy work. I think you could easily put it off until later grades (DS has other issues with English so I wanted to start a little earlier than middle school).

[Arcadia]

As usual all kids are different. Some are linguists while some like my youngest need a lot of effort. My kids did formal grammar until 3rd grade. That help when they started German classes in K and 2nd because of knowing parts of speech well. When we add on Chinese in 5th and 6th, their English grammar being firm helped in translation. When they translate from Chinese to English, they make sure the English translation is grammatically sound instead of just a literal translation.