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Hi there, Vladimir here with another video about how to learn English grammar
Should we study grammar?
Of course you should
Asking
I want to learn English, should I study grammar?
Is like asking:
I want to learn to drive, should I learn the rules of the road?
traffic signs, signals, street markings, right of way and all that
Ridiculous right
Of course you should study grammar, what kind of question is that?
Stop listening to people who have never mastered foreign language themselves
The question is not whether to learn grammar
The question is: how to study grammar?
How to learn grammar?
Answering that question is basically answering the question of
How to learn English how to learn a foreign language?
I’ve written a book about how to learn English
2 books
grammar being the focus of the second one
There is no way I can explain in a single video what I’ve explained in 330 pages
But I’m gonna give you the bullet points
The first thing is:
you need a system of learning, a method of learning English
learning vocabulary and grammar,
Vocabulary and Grammar
There is no such thing as studying vocabulary and then studying grammar.
Vocabulary and grammar as 2 separate things do not exist
There is no such thing as vocabulary without grammar
Grammar without vocabulary
Never study individual words, always in combination with other words
and in a sentence.
When you study words in a sentence you learn grammar too
context is king,
context and content
The focus is on the information, the content
and you extract the grammar from the context
You learn grammar in context
In my book English Grammar & Functions I talk about functions
Function = purpose
The purpose of the grammar in a particular context/situation
On the question of grammar books, do we need grammar books?
Yes, we do
that’s why I’ve written one
But how are you supposed to use it?
it is a back and forth between the
text you are reading and the grammar book
The text is first and the grammar book is for reference
Of course I recommend my grammar book
English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy
is also a good book
as well as the numerous forums on the internet
Focus on the information and extract the grammar from it
And when we talk about information Input
the big question is:
which is better Reading or Listening?
Reading of course
It is much easier to see the grammar when you read than when you listen
much easier and faster
prepositions, articles, verb forms
Don’t get me wrong!
Listening is important
but Reading is better for learning grammar
Read daily
Next is my favorite English learner’s dictionaries
As you read daily, you will always come across new words.
Use monolingual learner’s dictionaries,
Longman for instance
Longman is the best for grammar
it even has a grammar section/box
with some common grammatical errors
All grammar is conveniently highlighted in bold
Prepositions, articles, word combinations
what we call
Collocations
Longman has a collocation section too
Cambridge dictionary too
Longman and Cambridge
With plenty of example sentences with all the grammar you need
There are a few more things about grammar
personalize, visualize, harmonize, notice
things I talk about in my book Virtually Native
The book before other books
Please don’t read my book English Grammar and Functions
before reading Virtually Native
My grammar book is best used as a supplementary material to my first book
Grammar is not something that should be studied in isolation,
grammar is an integral part of one’s overall approach to language
and I've laid out my approach, my method of learning English
in my first book Virtually Native
Virtually Native and English grammar & functions
are available on Amazon and virtuallynative.com