English is considered to be a global language. It is widely spoken as a first, second, and even third language in large parts of the world. People from non-English speaking countries go through a lot of trouble to pass tests like the IELTS in order to get admission to universities and colleges in the UK, Australia, and the United States.
According to Babbel, approximately 1.35 billion people in the world speak English and out of those only 360 million are native speakers.
So, it should be obvious how important English is seeing as so many people learn to read, write, and speak it. If you are also someone who is trying to learn English, then you should know that grammar is the most important thing while learning English.
In this article, we will list reasons and explain to you why Grammar is so important and how you can start improving your own.
Grammar is important in English because without it clear communication is not possible. It helps you to formulate sentences properly and teaches you when to use certain words or not.
A good understanding of grammar lets you craft new sentences, and write professionally. Bad grammar on the other hand creates confusion and ambiguity.
We will see what are the effects of bad grammar later, but before that, we will check out what is grammar in English.
Grammar can be referred to as the rules and regulations that govern how words and phrases are strung together to form coherent and meaningful sentences. That part is true for all languages. However, the rules for each language are different.
In English, grammar consists of using words and parts of speech in the correct order to form a coherent sentence. Some of the most important parts of English Grammar are listed below.
These are all various parts of a sentence that come together to form a meaningful statement. This is the basics of communication in English. Now, let’s see how bad grammar can affect your English.
Bad grammar can lead to many problems. As you know, language is a means of communication, and grammar rules are there to facilitate clear and unambiguous communication.
However, with bad grammar, this clarity and unambiguousness is lost. In this section, we will show you examples of how poor grammar results in incorrect, non-sensical, or meaningless sentences.
Punctuation refers to various symbols that clarify the meaning of a sentence. They are an important part of grammar. Common punctuation marks are:
We will not explain all the punctuation marks, except the most common ones. But you can read more about them in detail in this article. For now, let’s discuss periods, commas, and question marks.
Period signifies the end a of sentence. It is used to show that the statement has finished. Commas are used to join two clauses together.
Usually, one of the clauses is dependent and one is independent. Questions marks show that the statement is interrogatory.
Now, we will show you how incorrect punctuation alters the meaning of a sentence.
Here is the correct sentence.
“I enjoy cooking, my family, and my pets.”
This sentence means that the person enjoys three things in their life, cooking, and spending time with family and pets. Now let’s see the example with incorrect punctuation.
Incorrect Sentence
“I enjoy cooking my family and my pets.”
This sentence has missing commas which removes the distinction between cooking, and family as separate activities. Instead, we get a horrifying meaning that suggests that the person in question is some monster who enjoys cooking their family and pets. So, even a simple comma is important. These are the kinds of things that English learners should pay attention to.
Homophones refer to words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. It is easy for an English learner to mix homophones together and create an incorrect sentence. This mistake counts as a grammar mistake due to the spelling error involved.
Here is an example showing how homophones can make a nonsensical sentence.
Correct sentence
"I need to buy some new flowers for my flower garden."
Incorrect Sentence
"I need to buy some new flours for my flower garden."
Flours and Flowers are homonyms yet they refer to completely different things. Flour is processed wheat, and flower is a plant, they are completely different things. However, they are pronounced the same way which can be very confusing for an English learner.
Only a good grasp of grammar and spelling can help a learner avoid this kind of mistake.
Subject-verb disagreement occurs due to numbers. For example, if a sentence has plural subjects yet the verb does not reflect this plurality then it is considered a subject-verb disagreement.
Here is an example to showcase this.
Incorrect Sentence
“The cats is sleeping in his cot.”
The plural “cats” is referred to as singular in the entire sentence; that is a mistake. To correct this either the plural “cats” should be changed to its singular form, or the rest of the sentence should be modified. Here are two correct versions of this sentence.
Correct Sentence
“The cat is sleeping in his cot.”
“The cats are asleep in their cots.”
There are many such examples, but this would make the article too long, but you should have a good idea as to how bad grammar can hurt your English.
So now we are going to see how you can learn and improve your grammar.
Improving and learning grammar can be done with some persistence and dedication. If you are willing to do that then here are some steps you can take to improve your grammar.
There is no way around this step. If you haven’t learned English in your childhood, then you need to start with its grammar rules. To learn the grammar rules you can consult resources online, or buy a book that explains the rules in detail.
The best resources are those that show examples for everything, so always try to find such resources. It is best to start by using resources that are aimed at children because they are much easier to read and understand.
Imitation is an effective way of learning grammar. By reading books, articles, and journals an English learner can see how to use perfect grammar. They can start by copying and imitating the content that they read.
However, be sure that you do not read things that use incorrect grammar deliberately for artistic effects. As such sticking to newspapers and classic novels is the best way to improve grammar by reading.
Simply reading about the rules and seeing them in action is not good enough to master grammar. English learners should also practice applying these rules in their own writing. They can start by keeping a digital journal in which they write about their day in English.
Then to check whether their writing is grammatically correct they have to proofread the write-up with a grammar checker. They have to conduct an online grammar check with a tool because as English learners, they are not good enough to detect mistakes themselves.
You can see how a grammar-checking tool can detect and correct mistakes…this can teach English learners to recognize their most common errors.
Even if you rely on tools for proofreading, having a native speaker converse with you in proper English can do wonders for improving grammar.
The very same person can also proofread your journal writings and teach you about your frequent grammar errors.
English learners can look to their colleagues and teachers to play this role. If the learner is at an institution, then no person is better for this than their teacher.
We covered the importance of grammar in English learning by highlighting common mistakes that learners make. We saw that having a good grasp of grammar can reduce those mistakes as well.
Then we checked how English learners can improve their grammar and the various tips amounted to reading, learning and practicing the rules, and getting tools and experts to provide feedback. With all of these tips combined English learners can improve their language learning process.