Is the sentence, ' I want to learn skateboard.' , grammtically right?

Solution 1:

In a comment beneath the posted question, a commenter says this:

You have hit upon one [o]f the major differences between Brit[is]h and American English. ’I want to learn skateboard' is not acceptable in British English, where ‘to learn to skateboard’ or ‘to learn skateboarding' are fine. I believe that does work in American English. That’s quite similar to “learning piano or guitar” which in American English seems fine and even in British English is moving that way but for now, British still demands should be “the piano or guitar”.

The commenter is correct that U.S. English treats "I want to learn violin" as idiomatically acceptable—but that form doesn't extend indiscriminately to all nouns similarly situated. For instance, "I want to learn violin," "I want to learn Portuguese," "I want to learn embroidery," and "I want to learn baking" all pass muster in idiomatic U.S. English, but "I want to learn skateboard," "I want to learn bicycle," "I want to learn photographs," and "I want to learn cookies" do not. A look at how these two sets of expressions differ may help clarify why members of the first set are acceptable in U.S. English and why members of the second set are not.

Here is how we might spell out the first four expressions in longer form:

I want to learn [how to play the] violin.

I want to learn [how to speak the] Portuguese [language].

I want to learn [the art of] embroidery.

I want to learn [the art of] baking"

In each of these examples, the longer form of the expression reveals that the person is talking about a unitary activity involving a noun identified with a definite article ("the violin," "the Portuguese language," "the art of embroidery [or of baking]." In many instances, U.S. English permits the reduction of expressions involving this sort of definite noun to a short form of the type "I want to learn [noun]."

Now let's consider how we might spell out the four expressions in the second set of examples in more complete form:

I want to learn [how to ride a] skateboard.

I want to learn [how to ride a] bicycle.

I want to learn [how to take] photographs.

I want to learn [how to bake] cookies.

In each of these examples, the noun is not preceded by a definite article. The first two examples involve singular nouns preceded by "a," and the second two involve plural nouns with no lead-in article—but the crucial point of distinction between the four examples here and the four examples presented earlier is that these four involve a particular instance of the thing to be learned, not a unitary idea of the thing to be learned as a kind of eidos of all particular instances of that noun.

In the case of "I want to learn how to play the violin," the term "the violin" doesn't refer to "that particular violin over there," but rather to "the category of musical instruments known as violins." It is idiomatically acceptable in U.S. English to say instead "I want to learn how to play a violin"—meaning one randomly selected violin from the category of violins"—but it isn't acceptable to telescope that idea into the short form "I want to learn a violin." Going one step farther, reducing the wording to "I want to learn violin" implies the acceptable slightly longer short form "I want to learn the violin," not the unacceptable slightly longer short form "I want to learn a violin."

Returning to the poster's original question, I note that U.S. English doesn't have a widespread notion of "the skateboard" as "the category of modes of transport known as skateboards," and it doesn't have a related idiomatic expression of the form "I want to learn the skateboard." Rather, it has the particularized notion of "a skateboard" and "skateboards"—and as in the case of "a violin," "a skateboard" doesn't work idiomatically when rendered in the shortened form "I want to learn a [noun]." To comport with normal idiomatic usage, you would have to say "I want to learn how to ride a skateboard" or (treating skateboard as a verb) "I want to learn how to skateboard" or (treating skateboarding as an art or special skill) "I want to learn skateboarding."