Quote:
Originally Posted by Realism
I don't know a thing about grammar in my own native language. Yet I speak it perfectly.
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No, you DO know about grammar. You have internalized this knowledge, which allows you to speak "perfectly". Without any knowledge of grammar, you would not be able to speak properly.
A lot of people confuse knowledge of grammar in use with knowledge of grammar in the academic sense (ie. Knowing the terms and reasons for why something is what it is)
Just as you don`t have to know the inner workings of a car engine to drive it, you don`t have to be actively aware of the inner workings of grammar to use it. But you DO have to know how to drive a car, just as you have to know how to use your language (grammar).
As for thinking about vocabulary vs. grammar while speaking - as a native speaker you shouldn`t be actively thinking about either. You should just "naturally" know what the words mean, and "naturally" know how to put them together to form a coherent sentence. The thing is, this "natural" knowledge is something you did indeed learn at one point - not some inherent ability.
As for which is better when learning Japanese - it depends on what you plan to do, and what your future holds.
If you want to be able to read something - go for basic grammar with extensive vocabulary. You can often pick up and learn new grammatical patterns in writing from the context, but it is harder to pick up new words that way.
If you will be communicating with real people, and speaking - go for a basic vocabulary with more grammar. It is easy to pick up new words if you are in an interactive situation, but without a foundation of proper grammar it will be hard to interpret the new words.
I started with very basic vocab and very basic grammar - then worked my way up from there while in Japan.