Tom n' Jerry & how natives understand bad grammar...
My question is: how well do native Spanish-speakers understand bad Spanish grammar when foreign learners are trying to speak Spanish ?
When I did Michel Thomas’s audio course on Spanish, Michel went to great pains to stress the importance of correct grammatical structures and pronunciation without which, he would often emphasise, ‘you shall not be understood’, ‘a Spanish person will not understand you’, ‘you will mean nothing to Spanish ears’.
However, I recently watched an interview with a different language expert, and something he said has made me query whether Michel was right in being so demanding of correctness in structure and pronunciation.
The point is this. If we listen to how little children speak our own language, when they are learning it, they often use incorrect structures or mispronounce words, yet we can still understand them. Because I currently live with two small children, I have the privilege of listening to their language evolution every day (my son just turned 5 and my daughter is 2½). To take the example of the English verb ‘to see’, which is irregular, my daughter is still at the stage of using this in a very basic way, e.g. ‘see Tom n’ Jerry, see Tom n’ Jerry, wan’ see Tom n’ Jerry n’ TV now’, which, of course, means, ‘I would like to see (watch) Tom and Jerry on the television now (please)’. My son can use ‘to see’ more expressively, yet still hasn’t quite mastered it, thus he might say something like, ‘I already seed that cartoon yesterday’, which, of course, means, ‘I already saw that cartoon yesterday’. Maybe 18 months ago, he would’ve expressed the same sentiment thus, ‘I did see that one’, meaning, ‘I’ve seen that one’, and eventually this became, ‘I did seed that one’.
Therefore, clearly at some point my son picked up the word ‘did’ as a useful handle for expressing the past tense (children are much more logical than ‘correct’ language), on to which he would simply attach the infinitive, then eventually he began adding ‘d’ to the end of the infinitive, then eventually he began dropping ‘did’, which is more or less where he is now.
I expect by the end of the year he might have moved on to saying, ‘I saw’ and/or ‘I’ve seen’ (although perhaps not since ‘I seen’ is very common vernacular parlance even among adults in Scotland, as indeed is ‘I’ve saw’, both of which are, of course, non-standard regional variations, or what some folk might call ‘wrong’).
In any event, to return to the interview with the language expert, the point is that native speakers understand little children’s bad grammar (and pronunciation) all the time. And, furthermore, if you won’t allow yourself to make these kinds of mistakes when learning a new language, i.e. if you won’t allow yourself to sound like a little kid, then there’s a good chance you’ll never learn. You’ll become paralysed by the fear of sounding like a 2-year old.
Imagine if we refused to listen to little children because they don’t use correct grammar. Pretty soon they might become frustrated, disillusioned and dumb… Or maybe, as in the case of my hijita diabolica, just throw a tantrum till we relent and put Tom n’ Jerry on the TV anyway 
10 Answers
I couldn't help myself to post this one.
As a native Spanish speaker, I can tell you that I can understand almost everything you post in the threads, in spite of your grammar or spelling mistakes.
And as Gringo said, I think grammar is more important in written language than in oral language.
Maybe you won’t sound as a 2 year old native Spanish kid but as an adult foreigner speaking Spanish, as Daniela said. For the same reason I don´t use the grammar as Falda's son. I mean, maybe I wouldn't say: I did see instead of I saw. But maybe I would say: 'I seed'. Maybe it is because we don't use the auxiliary verbs to form the past tense.
But don't be afraid of committing those little mistakes. I think native Spanish speakers will understand you most of the time.
In my experience in SD, the most common grammar mistakes are related with the wrong use of prepositions (a, de, en, por, para...), the inappropriate use of the gender (feminine / masculine), and the inappropriate use of the indicative or subjunctive mode. No one of those mistakes make the sentence impossible to understand.
Besides, the grammar of most native Spanish speakers is quite poor.
Sometimes I think I sound like Tonto, the Lone Ranger's friend, trying to speak English, but I´m sure you can understand my Tonto's language pretty much of the time. 
A while back I said to my young son "Behave Andrew"
back came
"I am being have". 
"hayve"
I had no problem understanding that but had an adult said it I would have been confused.
I do agree that there are problems in Spanish when correct grammar and/or pronunciation are not used - these tend to be less of a problem in English because correct grammar is not needed to make oneself understood.
Example.
Say to a baby "Do you want?" enough times and the baby will eventually say "Want".
In Spanish "Quieres?"
Baby immediately has to conjugate to
"Quiero".
As a native Spanish speaker and as a teacher who has to deal with Impossible Spanish from English speaking students every day, I will have to disagree with almost every thing posted this far. Sorry.
The real fact is that when a child make a mistake in his native language, it is a mistake typical of that language. For example: If a child attempts to say, "I walked to the store", he might say "Andé a la tienda." instead of, "Anduve" a la tienda. He hasn't assimilated some of the irregularities of Spanish verbs as yet. Some still say "sabo" instead of "sé"
Now when some of my students impose their English grammar upon the Spanish language, the result is often disastrous. When they are assigned a written task of several paragraphs or more, I ask for their English version so that I might have an idea of what they are trying to say.
Here's a short example of a non-understandable Gringo mistake.
"No tengo dinero izquierda." Now if I weren't fluent in English I would have NO idea. But he was trying to say, "I have no money left."
Which in Spanish you have to say "No money remains to me." or "No me queda dinero."
The following is an example of when Gringos with one semester of Spanish try to make up a regulation sign. If it weren't for the English version, I would have absolutely no idea of what the Spanish was all about.
I often wondered that before I had even heard of Michel Thomas. Having just listened the second time to the Michel Thomas advanced course, I still wonder how true his statements to that effect are. I imagine it would depend on the context and the extent of one's abilities and level of learning.
MT also said at the end, in sending off the students with tidbits of advice, that no one will correct you blatantly, but they will replay it so you pick up the correct way. His example was, if someone says to you, "I'm not hungry, I already eated," you would not say, "No, no, you should say 'I already ate.' " Instead, you would say, "Oh, you already ate? That's fine, we can just have coffee."
An example I used once was, if you meet someone on the street who asks you, "Where can I get a bear?", you might not know what he wants, but if you are in a bar or restaurant and he asks, "Where can I get a bear," you'd have a pretty good idea he wants a beer.
As they say, "¡Depende!"
"No tengo dinero izquierda."
There is nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence. Just poor vocabulary choices.
Well I just have to answer this post because I often say "Vocabulary is King and grammar is the Handmaiden".
After seven years living in Mexico and speaking Spanish 90% of the time my grammar is still terrible. My vocabulary is strong. Every day I meet and speak to strangers and several times a week I am complimented on my Spanish. This is in spite of my grammar which I know is lackluster at best.
I agree that grammar is much more important in written language but in spoken language it can truly be a hinderance to communication and learning. Don't be afraid to sound like a 2 year old. It is part of the process. Spoken language provides immediate feedback and misunderstandings can be cleared up immediately.
I have a 4 year old granddaughter who uses the subjunctive. Kids minds just absorb things that go right past me. It can be frustrating until I remember that I can communicate with anyone with very little trouble. And no my grammar will not be perfectly correct but I am always able to make myself understood.
Lenguaje del cuerpo para Ian. Esta es una rabieta:
Body Language for Ian. This is a tantrum:
Two additional comments. First Winkfish said that no one will correct you directly yet rather restate it so that you can see your error. This is absolutely true, it happens all the time, and for me it highlights the different ways that a native English speaker and a native Spanish speaker think because sometimes the response is formulated the way a native would say it and once hearing it I think, "Duh, of course". Which leads to the second comment. We bring our English background with us and while we do not intentionally "impose our English grammar" on our Spanish it does happen and is a large part of why I think it is almost impossible to become fluent in another language as an adult (especially an over the hill one like me). But this does not mean as Falda pointed out that we all make stupid and lazy errors.
My weak points are:
- Getting the person correct when responding. I tend to repeat the conjugation that is spoken to me. I immediately correct this but not before making the error.
- Matching gender. Inanimate objects having gender drives me nuts. In spoken conversation no one cares. In written conversations I look up a lot of nouns that I know jsut to get the gender correct.
- The subjunctive. I need not say more about this.
- Endings on adjectives and adverbs. Mostly because I have an extremely difficult time deciding if I am using an adjective or an adverb. Blame my grade school teachers and myself.
- Finally as Luis said, the prepositions: con, en, a, de, por, para, etc
Finally a funny point: there is conmigo, contigo, consigo. And so I find myself saying without thinking sinmigo, sintigo. Again I catch it but not before it is out of my mouth.
Daniela as for your two examples about having no money left and turning off the showers those students are lazy and should be failed. But both show an absolute lack of Vocabulary. The King. Without the proper words it is impossible to communicate even if you have perfect grammar.
'Por favor vuelta lejos chaparrones cuando usted es hecho' presumably means something like 'please turn back far away from the torrential rains when you are in the nature of fact'. Dani, I can't understand why this doesn't make sense to you
'No tengo dinero izquierda' reminds me of an example of bad French that my school French teacher cited to me when I was a teenager. One of my peers had translated 'I can do it' as 'je boîte faire le', which I guess in Spanish would be something like 'yo lata lo hacer'.
Well, that really is just dumb. The kid in question I knew, and was a friend of mine, but obviously couldn't care less about French or any kind of language learning, and just looked up words in the dictionary. Yes, that is stupid.
However, it's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about when I use 'fue' instead of 'fui' or 'ser' instead of 'estar', that kind of thing.
Last month I moved on from listening to audio courses to working with a native Spanish tutor and so far have had four one-hour lessons. Two things are abundantly clear: (1) When she and I speak Spanish, each of us sounds very different, and not just in terms of pronunciation (I guess my accent is still extremely broad, although she has actually said I sound slightly French when I speak Spanish), but also in terms of syntax and choice of vocab, yet (2) notwithstanding (1), she seems to understand me very well (indeed, considerably better than I understand her). This isn't just flattery, because she does tell me when she doesn't understand me, but by and large she seems to know what I'm trying to say, no matter how clumsily I'm doing it.
And this is liberating. It's one thing to try and memorise and master formulaic and, frankly, dull phrases on courses like Michel Thomas or Pimsleur, which teach conversational or 'small talk' Spanish, but to try and break out of 'beginner level Spanish' one needs to enjoy the freedom of being able to express one's own ideas.
Dani's choice of words, 'impose their English grammar' is interesting. I would never wish to try and pervert Spanish grammar, but at the same time I don't expect myself to start thinking like a native Spanish-speaker. Like it or not, one's native language in part helps shape how one sees the world and reacts to it linguistically. As a native English-speaker, this is always going to influence what I wish to say, and how I say it, no matter the language in which I am attempting to say it. This week while chatting with my tutor I was bemoaning the amount of paperwork in my job and said 'conduzco un escritorio'. She complained that this is not a Spanish expression. I retorted that it's not a common English saying either, but we both agreed that she knew what I meant. Maybe a native Spanish-speaker would never come out with this kind of utterance, but it does still convey the idea (indeed, her translation of 'hago mucho papeleo' seems quite quotidien by comparison).
¡ Viva la diferencia !
