I think language is like music.
Imagine words are like musical notes and the grammar describes which notes go together, like in English it describes which words go together. As simple as that.
Grammar describes the language, but it is not the language.
It’s a way of talking about it.
You may find that you started to get bored with grammar when your teacher introduced lots of complicated names and labels, like the ‘present perfect conditional’ or ‘possessive determiners’. As well as lots of rules followed by lots of exceptions.
And slowly, the word grammar meant ‘headache’!
You see, I think you need to start with listening to and loving the music, as well as repeating it, but not by first learning the rules about the order of notes.
Likewise with language. When learning English, start by listening to and loving the language, as well as repeating it. Don’t start with the grammar.
As a teenager, I learnt to play the piano by myself. I didn’t buy a music book, I just listened to music and tried to imitate it.
After some months, I played something to my friend, who had had music classes.
He said, that’s great, you know the major scales, arpeggios and minor blues scales. I had no idea what all that meant, but I could play them.
I was passionate about it and loved it.
In fact, I then became curious about all these names or labels and what they meant. So I leant them and it helped me.
In conclusion, I found the best way to learn was to combine learning by listening and repeating, with the discovery of some labels and rules.
I have successfully learnt Chinese and Spanish the same way. First by listening, loving and repeating, and then by learning some names, labels and rules.
This is how to make English grammar easy.
I believe the grammar should always come second, as a clarification, rather than a basis for learning.
With this in mind, I offer you this lesson as a reference.
As a way to clarify some basic English grammar you may know, and a way to review and deepen your understanding.
In this lesson, I will look at the following 8 most important parts of speech you should know as a part of basic English grammar for beginners.
Here in Part 1, we will look at the following:
- Verbs
- Adverbs
- Nouns
- Articles
In Part 2, we will look at the following:
- Adjectives
- Pronouns
- Prepositions
- Conjunctions