English Grammar (English grammar)

I already talked about this a little in the very first lesson. When I said that English is generally easy for those who want it. And he explained why easily. In particular, he explained it due to this. What did I tell you about English grammar? One of the best in the world. Was? And the following was said. It really is much simpler than Russian, much. Moreover, it is much more logical, and much easier in form, because everything is written in formulas. And what is very important. One and the same grammatical law, which we will lay down in these small lessons. On the fifth today. And in the 40th lesson we will remember this same law in the grammar of a super sophisticated, high-level grammar, but there this law works the same way as it works here. It is very important.

Well, now the main thing. Why do we need grammar at all? For what? Despite the fact that she is so smart, so fluffy, it’s a pleasure to just sit and pet her. Well, stroked, stroked... Even this gets boring. So why are we teaching it? Remember the main thing. There was not, and I doubt that there will ever be at least one person in the world who could speak English fluently without knowing grammar. This does not apply to those born there.

Listen carefully to what I am going to say now. There are two ways to come to the English language, to perfect knowledge and mastery of the English language. The first path is instinctive, but for this you need to be born there. And from the first days, or rather, scientists have proven that even in the womb, the child already hears language and begins to form it in himself. And so by the age of three or four he speaks excellent English/American.

I'm sorry. But he will look at me like I’m a complete idiot and say: “Uncle, I don’t know what it is.” presentperfect" Although he just used this phrase. He works on instinct. Remember. This has already been proven by scientists. And I assumed this before, although I am not a scientist at all in this direction. The human brain has two hemispheres, as is known. Everyone works for themselves and everyone works according to their own laws. So, for the first seven years (some say six, some nine) of a person’s life, mainly only the left hemisphere works. And he perceives everything in the world around him through this left hemisphere. And at the same time, this hemisphere works with him on instinct, on images. Right down to the intonation and color. The child perceives language not analytically, but intuitively. And this, of course, is much easier for him. He unconsciously takes it, this tongue. But, I repeat, at about seven years of age this hemisphere, or rather the center in it, which works on the tongue, physiology has proven that it closes and stops working. And everything switches for this same child to the right hemisphere. And for the rest of his life, he comprehends everything new in the world around him only with this half. And it works according to a completely different law, on an analytical level. That is, he must understand why this is so and not otherwise. Then it becomes clear to him. In the left hemisphere he did not ask “Why is this?” He said: “so, so, so.” And on the right he says: “No, I have to understand.”

Why did I say this? There is not a single seven-year-old among you sitting here. No one. This means that that first path is closed for all of us. That’s why our freaks are freaks, and that’s why they can’t teach language, because they mechanically try to instill that level, that path in us as adults, but we reject it, the body won’t accept it. This is the same as being fed your mother's milk all day now. You'll be blown away, sorry, that's all. And you will say: “Here you go. Give me some sausages." Understand, this is the truth. We can all get used to it, or rather come to fluency in the language, but we will take a different path. We will go through understanding language, through the laws of language, which the child does not need, he took them on instinct. He doesn't know them, but he uses them.

Well, I ask you again. Here is a centipede running. Ask a centipede how it moves its legs, what will happen to it? She will fall when she starts thinking. This child is like a centipede. He runs, but he doesn't think why. We adults can't do this. That is why, by the way, there is a very difficult problem that our freaks do not understand and extol it. This is the principle of bilinguals. I'll tell you someday if there's a reason.

So, what is grammar for? In order to speak freely. And speak freely, understanding the language from the inside. It’s like climbing into a clock mechanism and saying “here everything turns like this and I remember it.” But then, when we learn it by heart, from the teeth, you will already speak English like a child speaks, without thinking. You see, what a tricky thing it is. In three or four years, you won’t say to yourself, “Oh, what time should I take there? Oh, probably Indefinite, or maybe Continuous?. You won't say that. You won't even tell yourself what it is Continuous. You can speak it right away, just as a child would say it. In short, if you memorize, in a good way with malice, you can consider that your passport has a new stamp “born in New York” or “born in Boston” or “born in London”. Therefore you will be reborn. This is true. But you need to take it with love, respect and a great desire for grammar. There is no other option. Don’t believe any bastard who says: “Why grammar? What nonsense? Don't believe it.

I told parts about expectations people about how to teach.
in this part I will outline the principles how to best study foreign languages. knowing this,
you can choose a tutorial, courses, tutor.

general idea: language is a system. in any system everything is connected to something else
and is reducible to centers. Knowing the key things in the system, you can use it easily.

1* image: city map. it clearly shows where the center is and other important places,
how point A relates to point B and where you should go first.

on business: language consists of words and the rules of grammar by which words
understandably assembled into sentences. you should have an idea
O word map And grammar map. or rather, your teacher should show it to you,
what is very important, what is good and what can be done without.

2* image: when a city is built, electrical wiring, water,
heat and gas supplies. and only then - buildings, trees, painted fences.

on business: grammar is pipes, cables, roads. words - houses and shops.
First, you should learn grammar by learning about 300 of the most popular words.
and only having mastered the grammar by 60-80% - not just any, but the most important rules,
Without going into subtleties and exceptions, take the words.
if the brain does not know what to do with information, it will refuse to remember it:
The more grammar rules you know, the easier it is to remember words.
what if this is done in parallel?- and if you lay the foundation in parallel,
and bring furniture into the house? You can, of course, just waste a lot of time and effort.

3* image: In the city, the most important buildings seem to be large and beautiful buildings.
but in fact, such buildings are gray concrete in color and are not always in the very center.

on business: when I say "grammar" people often associate it with
verb tenses. in cool foreign books, verb tenses are given
about 10% of the total volume of grammar. so that you understand how little important
tenses of the English verb, here are 2 examples of expressing the same thought.
Americans Bill and Neil have been learning Russian for a long time. says Bill:

"I called friend is my sister and asked to him help my neighbor mom
yesterday the day after today"Bill got the tenses absolutely right and
made grammatical mistakes with other things.
says Neil: “Yesterday I call my sister's friend and ask his to help
to my neighbor’s mom tomorrow.” Bill got other things right
and made mistakes with verb tenses. other things, among others, are:

word order in a sentence, cases: Mother friend - mom's friend, sister, sister,
sister, sister, sisters. these are prepositions and excretory constructions:
I gave books to my sister. I gave my sister a book. sister I gave the book. incentives to action,
friendly and persistent advice, exclamations: what a wonderful day!
these are requests: call me back?, And regrets:if I had known then...

4 * image: “but people live in villages without the tedious digging of ditches
for all those pipes and cables. After all, it often happens that you need to build quickly.”

to the point: grammar is not a lofty matter, if anyone hasn’t understood it yet. This:
“you call me” instead of “you call me.” These are the rules for putting words together.
. After all, we speak in phrases, not words.
maybe without these rules you will master something fast, but it will stand not for long,
And come through it will come from all the cracks. Grammar can be learned in 2 ways:

1) so-called in a progressive Western way and 2) humanly.
1) this is when the teacher does not understand the students’ native language.
method: if a normal person is given 50 examples for the future tense,
then he will notice that they all contain the word "will". and still he will make mistakes,
because in Russian there are 3 ways to show the future.

2) this is when the teacher shows the students these three methods and says,
that in all these cases the English word will be "will".
when the teacher and students are native speakers of a common language,
the teacher knows in which direction the student’s mind wants to slide
and at this point it immediately taxis. example: I want you to tell me tomorrow called.
called in such cases ours strive to write in past tense - called.
and the American teacher will think “what the fuck! How can you make such a mistake?”
if ours transfer I want to... How I want that...then there will be a double fuck.

1) this way you can teach any Papuans, but only simple expressions.
if I then knew, so I would like you helped:
If I had known then, I would have helped you. - you can’t explain it that way.
and it takes a lot of time and effort. but at least you can brag without fumbling for anything
to friends: “my teacher is American!”

2) this way you can teach people from 12-13 to 80 years old, quickly and effectively.
but it doesn’t look very impressive: the teacher said a couple of phrases - the topic is clear.
a couple more phrases - another topic is clear. so you understand that English is primitive
simple and that you were fooled for years at school. this is very disappointing.
so some people touching learning humanly, choose
so-called progressive Western methodology.

5 * image: the city has a couple of large avenues and many small streets.
to be able walk repeatedly without stumbling along these streets, you need to at least once
walk on them with your feet. If you rely on the map, you can get confused.

on business: need to do homework. and do them in writing.
otherwise, it went into one ear and out of the other.

6 * image: when music plays on the streets of the city, it immediately lifts your spirits,
and the city seems nice and sunny. although in fact you won’t find a job there,
and store shelves can be either empty or expensive.

on business: pronunciation. With this there is the most misunderstanding and fiction.
but in fact: do you have it or test, or no-pass. If you don't pass, work hard.
example: if you are a word apple pronounce it like Apple, then this is a test. If apple- no credit.
in fact the first letter is the average between A And uh, but more uh.
that is, you need to know the general rules of reading and not bother with beauty.
when you reach an average level of language proficiency, then you can practice
pronunciation. I discovered a way to “make” average pronunciation in 3 days
in any foreign language, spending 40 minutes a day. all those pictures with the sky and lips -
bullshit. I'll tell you separately sometime.

7 * summary: when I take up another language - the last one was Chinese, then:
1) I master the basics of reading and pronunciation and about the most important 300 words.

2) I quickly master 60-80% of the most important grammar rules.
quickly - so as not to have time to forget what you have learned. because everything is interconnected.

3) I begin to study words and speech patterns, going to such sites,
and I read these books, where is the concentration the most important words - maximum.
for intermediate level you need to know 40-120 speech patterns, 1000 words
and a developed ability to “jump” to other words when you have forgotten the ones you need.
or 2-3000 words without such skill. like, smell -> what you smell with your nose.

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Closed 2 years ago.

I asked biology, physics, and English teachers - no one knows what “clause clauses” are. They are all very good teachers. They studied at school, and do not remember, do not use their knowledge of grammar in practice.

Do you know any adult (not a specialist) who knows Russian grammar? If not, then why are students tortured at school? I looked at the Unified State Exam tasks - even there there is very little grammar, more tasks on understanding and spelling.

Niemand, sines and cosines are in the Unified State Examination and even in the Federal State Educational Standard (solving trigonometric equations is one of the graduate’s skills). There are no “subordinate modifiers” in the Federal State Educational Standard, and not even in the Unified State Examination, i.e. the state standard does not require this knowledge (and it is not checked at the exit).

To all “voters”: the issue of motivation is the central issue of any teaching methodology. How to explain to a student the need to study certain areas of knowledge if a) adult, cultured people do not possess this knowledge and b) even the state does not require them to be included in the curriculum?

Lyudmila, here is a link to the Federal State Educational Standard, which I studied: http://Ministry of Education and Science.rf/documents/543 - on this page you can download the document itself (ORDER dated October 6, 2009 No. 413 “On the approval and implementation of the federal state educational standard secondary general education"). There is nothing in the document about the syntax of a complex sentence. There are many different requirements (for example, " possession of the ability to analyze a text from the point of view of the presence in it of explicit and hidden, primary and secondary information"), but specifically about syntax - nothing.

To clarify: I studied the assignments Unified State Exam(not OGE) and Federal State Educational Standards secondary general education. The Unified State Exam does not have tasks on the syntax of complex sentences (although there are tasks on punctuation).

I studied the OGE (GIA) tasks last year - there were no terms like “definitive” or “explanatory” there either, it was about sentences with “consistent and homogeneous subordination of subordinate clauses.” I looked now at the above page of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Federal State Educational Standard basic general education- there is also no specifics about the syntax.

Sibylla, can you give an example illiterate use of subordinate clauses? " We learned to speak and write according to the rules" - You, Sibylla, learned; 90% of other students are not.

behemothus, good: here you are, not a specialist (as I understand it, without special education), let’s say, you have a good understanding of Russian grammar. This happens when a person is simply interested in a subject; you seem to like studying grammar. I think this forum is where these people mostly gathered. But do you know someone who knows grammar (distinguishing “expository” from “definitive”) - a person not from this (or from another linguistic) forum?

Lyudmila:

But grammar itself, including syntax, is necessary for a student to improve his knowledge and skills in the field of punctuation, so that he can see the entire sentence and be able to explain and put punctuation marks.

No, Lyudmila, knowledge of grammar is not needed at all for putting commas! This understanding of the issue is precisely what destroys and emasculates school education. Even our government has already realized this. And therefore, the Federal State Educational Standard (FSES) (secondary general education) has long required from graduates not “punctuation”, but “communicative competence”. And “cognitive”: text recognition, understanding the author’s thoughts and the ability to express and argue one’s thoughts. And that is why I asked this question here - because a huge (colossal?) number of teachers (both good and experienced) do not see these changes.

Grammar is an element of language about which opinions differ radically. Many people believe that without knowledge of grammatical rules and repeated exercises it is impossible to learn a language well. But often English grammar becomes a real torture for beginners. They get confused in numerous tenses, place words incorrectly in sentences, and as a result come to the conclusion that learning grammar is not necessary, and they can do without this boring activity.

However, it depends on your knowledge of grammatical rules how correctly you can compose a phrase using your vocabulary. In other words, this knowledge determines how competently you can speak and write in English.

Why you need to study grammar

What is meant by this term? Grammar is a set of specific rules that must be followed when using a particular language. These rules are important and necessary just like the rules of any sports game, for example, football or basketball. If such rules do not exist, it becomes simply impossible to play. The same applies to language: if there were no rules of communication, people would not be able to understand each other. Therefore, teaching English grammar is one of the most important and significant stages of mastering a foreign language.

Of course, learning the rules of a language is much more difficult than learning the rules of a game. There is no single approach to the study of grammatical structure, because each specialist creates his own methodology, different from others. Some suggest memorizing the rules and doing a lot of exercises to reinforce them. Others believe that the easiest way to learn grammar is through various language games and situations. Whatever method you choose, remember some rules and recommendations that will help facilitate and speed up the learning process.

Sometimes students are perplexed: why do I need to know what a noun is, what adverbs there are, and what an auxiliary verb is? Do we learn a language in order to get into the jungle of grammar, and not in order to communicate?

That’s right, but you can speak freely and fluently only if you devote some time to grammar. Believe me, the time spent is worth it! But you will once and for all learn the habit of constructing sentences correctly. Relearning is always more difficult than learning.

Of course, so that the lesson is not completely dull, it will not consist entirely of grammar. 10-20 minutes, no more.

How I Present Grammar

• Video. On YouTube you can find a lot of videos that will help you understand this or that complex aspect of grammar: with diagrams, music, with illustrations in the form of funny scenes, with exercises that you can do right as you watch.
• Schemes on the board and in programs. Yes, you can simply draw a diagram and explain on your fingers how the Present Simple tense differs from the Present Perfect tense.
• Textbook (For example, Murphy). Still a necessary element of learning are books, namely specialized grammar textbooks. Don't be afraid, we won't memorize their chapters, we'll just sometimes do exercises from them.

Sometimes I think that one of the main advantages of a grammar book is its table of contents. You look at these 4-5 pages and see the entire structure of English grammar - tenses in one chapter, adverbs in another, prepositions in the third, etc.

• Examples from life, analogies with Russian. Nowadays it is believed that it is better to speak only English in class. Both teacher and student. To train speech and listening comprehension throughout the lesson. In my opinion, when explaining grammar, it’s not a sin to switch to your native language, as long as it’s clear.

What's next?

After we have sorted out the rule, we do exercises (insert missing words, rearrange words) - the most boring part, and only then we try to create our own sentences (so-called free practice).

If we go through adverbs of frequency (always, sometimes, never, etc.), I might ask you to say what you do often, sometimes, always on weekends. And your answer may sound like this: I SOMETIMES go shopping or I ALWAYS meet my friends. It would seem like a simple sentence, but it can sometimes be difficult to compose it yourself.

Learning a language is an intellectual activity that makes you remember long-forgotten knowledge and encourages your brain to work intensively. Grammar helps us with this; we shouldn’t neglect it.