“Your grammar is a reflection of your image. Good or bad, you have made an impression. And like all impressions, you are in total control.” – Jeffrey Gitomer.
Learning English can be a major challenge for any people who are not native English. English grammar is complex and has many rules that often seem overwhelming to an amateur learner. If you want to master speaking and writing in English, you first need to understand English grammar then about proofreading service tool. Grammar is important to learn while learning a new language because it forms the base of all the aspects of a language. Grammar can be termed as a set of guidelines that forms the foundation of a language. On that note, we try to offer some expert tips that can improve your grammar skills–
- Pay close attention to apostrophes
The apostrophe mark (‘) may seem like a small thing; however, it has a very important role in English grammar. This seemingly tiny punctuation mark helps form possessive cases and contractions. Missing out on apostrophes can change the meaning of a sentence. For example, a brother’s book signifies that a single brother owns the book. However, if we remove the apostrophe, it will signify multiple brothers instead of one. Similarly, writing “their” instead of “they’re” or “its” instead of “it’s” also signifies two different things.
- Always use a comma after introductory phrases
Although this sounds complex, the concept is rather simple. A prepositional phrase is a simple combination of words, where the main element is a preposition. Typically, an introductory or prepositional phrase starts with a preposition and ends with a pronoun or a noun.
For example,
- Under the big pile of leaves, we discovered the wallet.
- After a tiring day at the office, Jack prefers to chill in his garden.
In these sentences, notice how we put a comma to distinguish the beginning and end of the sentences for english coursework help.
- Memorise homophones and suffixes
Homophones or heteronyms are those words that have different spellings but are pronounced the same. A few examples can be your, and you’re two and too, except and accept. There are several homophones in English that you should memorise to avoid common grammatical errors.
You should also understand how to use the right suffixes. Not every suffix can be placed after every word. For example, we can add the suffix “able” after the word “fashion”, but it won’t make any sense after another word.
- Understand the articles
There are two kinds of articles in English grammar – Definite (the) and indefinite (an/a). Understand where to place the correct articles.
For example, “the” is placed while referring to anything specific.
- “Someone call the doctor who lives down the road.”
Again, an/a is used to refer to something generic.
- “Call a doctor.”
- Understand “appositives”
This word has been derived from the Latin word “apposit”, which means “placing near”. An appositive can be either a noun or a pronoun that sits alongside another noun/pronoun to identify or explain the former. Appositives are important in grammar because it helps to explain a sentence in detail easily.
For example,
“Einstein was a genius, short, yet sharp, with a head full of white curly hairs and sparkly black eyes.”
- Use commas to classify Who, Which & That
English grammar permits you to use commas to separate different words like who, that and which. However, you can only do this if the phrase contains nonessential information. That means that even if you omit this information from the sentences, it will not affect the true meaning of the sentence.
Let us explain this concept with two examples –
- Mr Hardy, who always wears a black coat, announced his presidential nomination last week.
- No one likes to speak with someone who always lies.
Notice how the comma separated the word “who” in the first sentence. However, inserting a comma was impossible without altering the sentence’s meaning in the second example.
- Use a semicolon to separate independent clauses
A semicolon (;) separates independent clauses in a long sentence. It is also used to separate two sentences. So, it is often used while writing fiction pieces in English.
You can understand the concept better with an example –
“We have never seen our boss so mad before; all of us thought he would have a heart attack.”
- Know the difference between countable and uncountable nouns
A countable noun is a noun that we can express clearly in a quantifiable manner. We can put a value to it to measure its value. It can be singular or plural. For example, a dog, ten oranges, seven books, etc.
The exact opposite of this concept is called an uncountable noun. These nouns cannot be expressed in a plural form because we cannot quantify them. For example, water, milk, air, money, etc. For example, we cannot say that “he drank many waters” or “the airs in the room smelled foul last night.”
However, there are exceptions as well. You can sometimes use phrases like “a lot of” to describe countable and uncountable nouns.
- Work on your vocabulary
Detailed knowledge of English vocabulary can help implement correct English grammar. There is no age or educational barrier to stop learning new vocabulary. You can read various books and even dictionaries if you want to train yourself with new vocabulary.
- Spell-check what you write
Use an online spell-checker to verify everything during the initial days. That way, you can gain more confidence and learn how to use the correct grammar.
Summing Up:
It is not easy to sharpen your grammar skills. But regular practice is the best way to improve your skills. So take help from experts or go through these ten points to learn English grammar easily.
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Author Bio:
Henry Stark was a professor in a reputed university for twelve years. He has recently joined MyAssignmenthelp.com as an assignment writer.
