Contents
Many people may find grammatical terms difficult and therefore not good at grammar. There are many reasons why grammatical terms can be difficult, but it's also true that you can't avoid them just because you're not good at them.
This article aims to eliminate the consciousness that you are not good at, and explains the reasons why grammatical terms are difficult to understand, the merits of memorizing terms, and the fact that "this is the only thing you can't miss".
Why grammatical terms feel difficult
The biggest reason why grammatical terms are difficult is that there are many words that you are not familiar with in your daily life.
Even in Japanese grammar learning, "Why do I have to learn grammar to know if there is a sentence or not?" "Isn't it necessary because there is no problem with Japanese even if I don't know the grammar terms?" "Grammar terms I don't think it's difficult and I hate it. "
The grammatical terms in both English and Japanese are a list of Chinese characters. If you have hiragana in between, it will be a little easier to get to the image, but it is natural that all the Chinese characters are lined up and it is difficult to use words that you do not use in everyday life.
However, when you look at the meaning of each Chinese character, it's actually not that difficult. For example, "auxiliary verb" is "a word (verb) that expresses an action" as it means in Chinese characters. In Japanese, the auxiliary verb is "to be eaten" and "to be eaten" by using "eat". If you replace it with English, you can say "I can do it". Even in English, it helps the verb sing like I can sing. And changes the meaning of the sentence.
Knowing the meaning of each grammatical term in this way makes it much easier to remember. For terms that are particularly difficult to remember, try dividing the terms to capture their meanings or replace them with Japanese.
Benefits of learning grammatical terms
You don't have to memorize all the many grammatical terms, but at least you need to have enough knowledge to understand them when you see or hear them. If you don't know the terms, learning grammar will be very difficult. There are two major benefits to learning grammatical terms.
Understand how to use vocabulary
The first advantage of learning grammatical terms is that you can imagine how to use the words you see.
When you look up the dictionary, you can see what kind of properties the word has, such as "adverb" and "adjective", along with the word and its meaning. Let me give you an example.
The word "walking" in Japanese has only the property of a noun, and the verb uses a different word "walking". However, the English word "walk" is both the noun "walk" and the verb "walk", and the dictionary explains both terms, their meanings, and how to use them. If you don't know the grammatical terms "noun" and "verb", it's difficult to immediately understand how the word is used.
By knowing grammatical terms in this way, you will be able to use the words correctly.
Deepen your understanding of grammar learning
The second advantage of learning grammatical terms is that you can immediately understand the composition of a sentence when you explain it.
The purpose of learning grammar is to know the origin of a sentence. If you do not understand the structure of the sentence, you will not be able to speak correct English and write. Also, even if you read the English text, it will be difficult to understand exactly what it is written.
When we speak our native language, Japanese, we usually don't care about the composition of sentences. But when you read or listen to a sentence, you instantly know if it's grammatically correct. This is because I have naturally acquired correct Japanese from the time I was born by reading aloud to the people around me and books.
Babies and toddlers often say grammatically incorrect sentences, but when they go to school, they practice a lot of reading and writing correctly in Japanese language classes. Also, as you get older, the difficulty of reading will increase and you will see more sophisticated sentences.
In this way, you will be able to intuitively understand "what is right and what is wrong" without being aware of your native language. However, we have not learned English as our mother tongue from an early age, do all our lives in English, and do not read and write a large amount of advanced sentences, so we need to "learn" grammar firmly as a study.
Understanding grammar terms is essential for learning grammar. Without the term "verb", you would have to say "things you use when you move" or "nouns" such as "people's names or things that don't move", which is very difficult.
Grammar terms should be the same for everyone, whether they are learning English from someone or learning it on their own. It plays an important role in being able to explain the nature of words and the structure of sentences in one word, without the need for roundabout and long explanations.
Typical English grammatical terms
Learn the main grammar terms used in English grammar. All the terms are enormous, and there are many things you don't need to know unless you are studying English professionally. Here are some terms that you should at least remember.
Noun: The name of something such as a person, thing, or concept
Proper noun
Represents a specific thing and starts with a capital letter
Example: Mary, Tokyo, IBM
Common noun
Common names
Example: book, river
Count noun
Countable nouns
Example: apple, tree
Uncountable noun (mass noun / uncountable noun)
Nouns in which the singular and plural are not counted in the same form)
Example: water, music
Pronoun: What is used in place of a noun
Personal pronoun
Pronouns that distinguish people
Example: he, she, him, me
Indefinite pronoun
Pronouns for unspecified people and things
Example: somebody, many
Reflexive pronoun
Pronouns ending in -self or -selves used when the subject and object are the same or when you want to emphasize the subject
Example: herself, myself, ourselves
Demonstrative pronoun
Pronouns that indicate close (this / these) or far (that / those) to the speaker
Example: this, that, those, these
Relative pronoun
Pronouns used to modify or add clauses to describe a phrase
Example: who, whom, whose, which, that
Interrogative pronoun
Pronouns used to form questions
Example: what, who, when
Possessive pronoun
Pronouns for ownership
Example: mine, yours, his
Article: A noun that limits and clarifies the use of the noun and is placed before the noun.
Definite article
Items that limit or specify nouns
Example: the
Indefinite article
Before countable nouns
Example: a, an
Verb: A word that expresses an action or state, and may be both an intransitive verb and a transitive verb.
Intransitive verb
Representing the action or state of the subject
Example: work, live
Transitive verb
Example with object
: sell, like
Auxiliary verb
Add tense, negation/question meaning, etc. to the main verb
Example: have, be, may, can, do
Adjective: A word that modifies a noun
Example: big, beautiful, deep
Adverb: A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Example: quickly, really, well, often
Preposition: Placed before a noun phrase to represent a meaning such as "in" or "by"
Example: on, in, by, to, against
Conjunction: A word that connects words or phrases
Example: and, but, because
Interjection: A short word that expresses a feeling of admiration
Example: Oh !, OK, Ouch !, oops
Affix: A word that changes its meaning before or after a word
Prefix
Examples at the beginning of a word
: un-, in-, ex-, pro-
Suffix
Examples after words
: -ness, -ly, -ful, -ist
Noun case: Functions of pronouns and nouns
Subjective case
Form that works as the subject
Example: I, who, everybody
Possessive case
Form of ownership
Example: mine, whose, everybody’s
Objective case
Form that works as an object
Example: me, whom, everybody
Person Identifies a person in a conversation
First person (1st person)
Singular/plural speakers
Example: I, me, we, us
2nd person
Single / Multiple Listeners
Example: you
3rd person
Singular/plural third parties
Example: he, him, they, them
Conclusion
Grammar terms can be painful until you get used to them, but it's surprisingly easy to think of the meaning of the words.
If you work while thinking about "what English words/phrases correspond to which terms" and "what position they are in the structure of the sentence", you can naturally remember them, so by all means "I don't want to do it because I'm not good at it". Don't say it, please learn little by little.
