Most of the English learners I help spent years studying and memorizing grammar tables.
In fact, many of them still learn with more grammar tables right here on YouTube.
But they still have trouble using correct grammar automatically in conversations.
So let me give you a better way to think about grammar, so you can express yourself automatically.
Imagine a little boy sitting at a kitchen table.
He sees a beautiful vase of flowers on the table that he really wants to touch.
So he climbs up on the table and he reaches for the vase, but as soon as he touches it,
he tips over the vase, the vase rolls off the table and breaks on the floor.
Well, the boy's mother comes into the room after hearing the crash asking, "What happened?"
And without thinking, the boy says, "The vase broke."
Now, most kids would say the same thing in this situation, but the interesting thing
is why, since there are two equally good ways to explain what happened.
Number one, I broke the vase.
Number two, the vase broke.
Now, a three year old child has no idea about transitive or intransitive verbs.
In fact, they've never even seen a grammar textbook.
But what they're really thinking is, how can explain what happened without it being my
fault?
How can I explain what happened without it being my fault?
Does this make sense?
Children learn nuances of grammar like this very quickly, but not because they study any
rules.
Children learn to connect vocabulary with situations by watching others.
Maybe they're watching family members or some friends or teachers or classmates at school
and they're seeing how people communicate, what do they say in certain situations.
So if maybe something breaks or you spill something or you hurt something or someone
and you want to take responsibility for that, so that's the idea, the situation is I want
to take responsibility.
I did that.
I broke the vase.
Or if they see someone break something or do something bad or maybe hurt something,
even if it's not intentional and they don't want it to be their fault or they're trying
to diminish that, then they say, "Well, the vase broke.
The vase broke.
The vase broke."
And this is how children really understand grammar.
So the point of this video is really if you want to understand grammar, and more importantly,
use correct grammar the same way natives do, you have to stop trying to manage rules in
your head and start connecting vocabulary with situations.
You see what natives do when something happens, something breaks, or, you know, maybe something
good happens or whatever.
Whatever that situation is, you understand the vocabulary by connecting it with the situation,
and you could even think about the situation at different times.
So today I will go to the park, but yesterday I went to the park.
And you'll see that children start developing these patterns.
They develop what people call a sense of understanding, a sense for correct grammar, so they know
what to use.
And as they develop these patterns, they start to maybe clean out the incorrect grammar that
they use.
Maybe they learn irregular things like, uh, go and went rather than something like walk
and walked.
So as they get these examples and they hear corrections from the people around them, that's
where they really start developing that sense and start communication fluently.
But it all begins with that first thing, connecting the vocabulary with the situation, or connecting
the grammar with the situation.
If you'd like to learn more about this, if this has been helpful for you and if you can
start seeing that how maybe powerful this really could be for you and you'd like to
learn a lot more grammar this way and a lot more vocabulary as well, but not only just
learn it like you're trying to get a bunch of definitions or translations, I'm talking
about actually helping you understand it like a native, because when you understand English
like a native, you speak like a native.
It's really that simple.
So if you'd like to do this, you can click on the upper right of this video, and if you
have any question, you can post them in the comments down below.
Have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye bye.