Hi! This is Abbe from MosaLingua.
In this video, I'm going to show you one of the best ways to learn English grammar.
You may have already started to learn English grammar with boring textbooks and tedious exercises.
You're not alone, if you find these methods difficult or confusing.
What if I told you there's another way to learn it?
A way that makes everything easier to understand
and remember. Let's jump right in!
We all know and can use the grammar of our mother tongue very well
even if we never spent time learning it with lessons and exercises
As a child we learn our native languages grammar
through practical examples and only when we feel we really need it
or are corrected by our parents. The good news here is that you can use
this same method to learn English grammar or any languages grammar.
You simply need to learn it in context, the way a child learns when he or she is
first beginning to speak. The first thing you need to do is immerse yourself in
English to make sure you can recreate context. In this video's description,
you'll find a link to another video that will help you learn how to do this.
As you start learning English with these immersion activities you'll start
noticing patterns that show up repeatedly. It's important to start with
the most common patterns you encounter. There is surely a grammar rule to
explain these patterns but before you go straight to your textbook, try to guess
what the rule might be based on sentences in their natural context.
Let's take two sentences as an example: "the big black wolf" and "the black big wolf".
The word order is different but which one is correct?
The first one is!
There's a grammar rule for that but it's somewhat difficult to remember.
Now let's say you are reading a book in English and you
come across these three sentences "the small white house", "the short green dress"
"the large grey rock". You know for sure that these three sentences are all correct
since you read them in an English book. Now time for another
question: "the tall white man" or "the white tall man", which one is correct?
The first one, of course! You know that because of the previous sentences you read.
Based on those sentences you can guess that size comes before color in adjective placement.
Let's look at another example. Here we want to express a large quantity.
Let's read these expressions first: "many apples" "much luck" "many cars" "much water"
"many birds" "much love". After reading these examples, can you guess whether we should
use "much" or "many" with the word milk?
If you answered "much" you guessed correctly
without even knowing the rule. In general we use "much" for quantities
we cannot count, and many for quantities that we can count.
This is a small grammar rule
but you can use your intuition to understand it.
That is why when you start to learn English
instead of spending hours hunched over grammar textbooks,
instead, try reading and listening to as much English as possible
in natural contexts. After a while you will start
picking up rules intuitively like children do. Another tip I can give you
is to only study a grammar rule when you feel you cannot express yourself without it.
For example, instead of learning the future tense and then waiting months or
weeks to actually use it, wait to learn it until you feel that you need to speak
in the future tense. Putting the rule into practice immediately will help you
memorize it. So learn while using the language, not before. And of course you
can still consult grammar rules when you feel like you're still not understanding
a concept but you'll see that if you really throw yourself into this grammar
hack, you won't need to consult your grammar books very often.
That's it for today! If you liked this video, subscribe to our channel so that you don't miss
out on any of the rest of our English grammar hacks. You can also post any
questions you may have in the comment section. We're here to
help! Happy learning and see you next time!