Welcome to this Grammar Hero Review where I go in-depth of the new product, which has been developed by Olly Richards from I Will Teach You a Language.
Grammar Hero Review Table of Contents
- What is Grammar Hero?
- Languages Available
- Who is Grammar Hero for?
- How Grammar Hero works
- What you learn with each language
- Pros and Cons
- Conclusion
- What does Grammar Hero Cost? (+AF Bonus!)
What is Grammar Hero?
Grammar Hero is a series of grammar courses, helping you to learn the most tricky grammar of 6 different languages in the context of interesting and entertaining short stories.
In each Grammar Hero, you undertake a mission to ‘defeat' a series of challenges (grammar points) particular to the language you're learning. If you succeed and master each point you're officially a Grammar Hero!
Languages available
There are 6 languages currently available for Grammar Hero:
- French
- German
- Italian
- Spanish
- Russian
- Brazilian Portuguese
Who is it for?
While Grammar Hero is useful for a wide range of learners, you will get most out of the courses once you have a solid foundation and are approaching the lower intermediate stages of the language.
To use the common European framework somewhere around A2-B2 would probably be ideal. Learners may find Grammar Hero highly useful well into the advanced levels in case there are some grammar points still causing trouble.
How the course is built up
Each Grammar Hero course follows the same structure. For each short story (there are 15 in total) you have the following 4 learning activities.
Although the names might be self-explanatory for some, I'll just quickly explain what each of these activities actually do.
Step 1 – Discover
In this step, you simply consume the short story so you understand it completely. The relevant grammar points are underlined, all you have to do in this stage is just to notice them and their place in the story.
Step 2 – Learn
In this step, there are briefing notes on the grammar point in question, succinctly teaching you exactly what you need to know.
Don't worry about memorising each rule completely, as long as you understand how they work you can move on to step 3.
You will probably refer back to these continuously as you work through the materials.
Step 3 – Internalise
Read/Listen to the story again, paying particular attention to the underlined grammar points.
To help you internalise the concepts (hence the name of this step) there are grammar notes attached to the margin, pointing at each underlined word.
These notes help you fully understand any of the uses, that were not completely clear before.
Step 4 – Activate
Through 5 exercises you are tested on your newly acquired knowledge. The exercises go from very simple (fill in the blanks) to long-form writing.
What you learn with each language
Since grammar differs between languages, each Grammar Hero comes with its own unique set of grammar points to master the tricky parts of your focus language only. You won't waste time learning grammar rules you won't need.
In the below section you will find all the grammar points taught in each language.
Grammar Hero French
The French version of Grammar hero contains 15 short stories, like the rest of the languages available.
Here's the journey you will go through as you complete the course.
What you'll master with Grammar Hero French:
- The Pronoun Y
- The Pronoun EN
- The French Past Tenses
- The Conditional Tense
- Prepositions A & DE
- The French Phrase “Il y a”
- The Subjunctive Mood
Grammar Hero Spanish
The Spanish version of Grammar Hero likewise contains 15 short stories.
Here is the selection of grammar difficulties you'll be mastering as you go through the Spanish course
Here are the stops, in list form
- The Spanish Past Tenses
- Ser vs Estar
- Por vs Para
- Direct Object Pronouns
- Indirect Object Pronouns
- The Conditional Tense
- The Subjunctive Mood
Grammar Hero Italian
For Italian we have 15 short stories as well, each with a specific grammar point as their focus.
Here's the journey you'll go on if you are brave enough to embark on Grammar Hero Italian
And here in list-form for easy reading:
- Italian Past Tenses: Past Simple vs Imperfect Past
- Present Perfect Tense
- Prepositions IN & A
- Prepositions DI & DA
- Reflexive Verbs and Pronouns
- Direct Object Pronouns
- Indirect Object Pronouns
- Pre-nominal Particles “CE” AND “NI”
- The Subjunctive Mood
Grammar Hero German
For Grammar Hero German we have 15 short stories as well!
Here is the journey you'll take on the way to mastering German grammar
And in list form:
- Prepositions which trigger the akkusativ (case)
- Prepositions which trigger the dativ (case)
- Two-Way Prepositions
- The three types of IHR
- Personal & Possessive Pronouns
- Verb Position
- Relative Clauses
Grammar Hero Russian
In Grammar Hero Russian we'll find 15 short-stories as well!
Here's the map of what you'll discover on your way to Russian grammar mastery
And as a list again:
- Verb Aspects – Perfective vs Imperfective
- Verbs of Motion – идти/ходить
- Verbs of Motion – ехать/ездить
- Verbs of Motion – лететь/летать – плыть/плавать – бежать/бегать
- Verbs of Motion – вести/водить – нести/носить – везти/возить
- Verbal Prefixes – в-, вы-,при-,у-
- Verbal Prefixes – за-, об-, до-, с-, раз-,
- Verbal Prefixes – под-, от-, про-, пере-,
- Cases and the Prefixes they Trigger
*Note: As a Russian learner I have struggled and still struggle with all of these points. They are perfectly aligned with what I found difficult about Russian Grammar. Very exciting to see them packaged up here.
Grammar Hero Brazilian Portuguese
For the Brazilian Portuguese version we have 15 short stories as well, each teaching you parts of the tricky grammar.
Here are the different grammar points you'll master:
And in list form:
- The Portuguese Prepositions A & EM
- Por & Para
- Prepositional Pronouns
- Key Verbs and the Prepositions they Trigger
- Direct Object Pronouns
- Indirect Object Pronouns
- Reflexive Pronouns
- Ser vs Estar
- The Subjunctive Mood
Pros and Cons
Advantages of Grammar Hero
- Immersive Grammar in context – forget tables and memorising rules!
- Solves the common grammar problems learners face
- Beautifully designed and presented, everything is printable for convenience
- Insane amount of materials that will keep you busy for a long time
Disadvantages of Grammar Hero
- It's not cheap – definitely a significant investment.
- Requires independent studying, there is no hand-holding in Grammar Hero. You have to do the work yourself.
Conclusion
Grammar Hero is a new and exciting way of teaching the complex grammar of languages, without the old-fashioned grammar tables, and boring, endless memorisation.
Not only that, but it also teaches the difficult and relevant grammar for each language, instead of wasting time going over every single grammar rule and point of a language (most of them you probably know already!)
I cannot see a better way for the upper beginner or intermediate learner to solidify and master grammar than Grammar Hero today.
The only downside is the price, it's definitely not cheap. But, if you can look past that you're getting a truly great product for your learning.
4/5 stars.
What does Grammar Hero cost?
Grammar Hero has simple pricing of $197 per language. Lifetime access, and 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy.
Click here pick your language and become a Grammar Hero!
Grammar Hero Alternatives
At the point of writing this grammar hero review I'm not aware of any courses or products that expose you to the grammar of a language in context like Grammar Hero does, so I have a hard time suggesting anything else.
Your only bet might be to try language-specific grammar courses, but in my opinion, these are often boring and theoretical, which makes it hard to adapt to your own language learning skills.
This concludes my Grammar Hero review. I hope you found it useful.
For all my other reviews please check out the category here.
Full Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate and advisor for Grammar Hero and will receive a referral commission on purchases through this post (at no extra costs to the buyer).
Kris is the founder of Actual Fluency, and has spent the last 8 years becoming an expert in language learning software, methods, and techniques.
Originally from Denmark, he now lives in Portugal and speaks 5+ languages at varying levels. His other interests are Wine, Online Marketing, and Travelling.