Proper Structure In English Grammar Explained
When you slip up on your grammar, you will look like you are uneducated. If you are in a position such as a job interview, you could easily sacrifice your hard work in getting the interview because of a lack of training in grammar. Luckily, English grammar is easy to get down.
Contractions are hard to get down for some. Perhaps one of the most common mistakes is the use of “your” and “you’re.” When you see the contraction “you’re” you should be able to replace it with “you are” and the sentence should make sense still. “Your” is instead used to show ownership of an item. An example could be “She said you’re welcome to have a cookie, so make your decision.” As we can see, the sentence makes sense when using “you are” in place of contractions.
“There” and “their” is another grammar just waiting to happen. When you use “there” you are indicated a location, while “their” is used to shown ownership of some sort. This one is easy to get down, and an example sentence would be “There are three brothers in the family, but each of their personalities is different.”
There are many different levels of English grammar mistakes in terms of difficulty. One of the more difficult ones, even for professionals, is discerning between “affect” and “effect.” When using “effect” it is done when using an adjective or adverb, such as with “The effect of using good grammar is appearing more intelligent.” With “affect,” it’s a verb instead, and a sentence would appear as “Learning affects the way others perceive me.”
When migrating to English from another language, you will agree the change isn’t easy. Some grammar structure is hard to get down, such as using “a” and “an.” When using “an,” you should verify the next word either starts with a vowel or sounds like it does. It’s easy to see that a word starts with a vowel, but a word such as “hour” could throw newcomers off. The best bet would be to learn different words and how they sound to prevent making a mistake.
Last but not least, we have the debate of using “good” and using “well.” Good is an adjective, but is incorrectly used as an adverb much of the time when saying something like “I am feeling good.” This is incorrect, and should instead be “I am feeling well.” Note that the word “well” can also be an adjective in some cases.
Final Thoughts
Practice English grammar all you can, and your efforts will pay off. It will take a fair amount of time to get all of it down. But once you do, you will appear intelligent and will be able to converse with others without having to sacrifice your self image in the process.
Learn more about English Grammar Learning and Online English Tests.