It is very common to spend many years studying grammar but to still struggle even with the language points that you have studied several times. This article aims to help with that by giving advice on how to solve some of the most common issues with studying grammar.
I get confused between different tenses
There are lots of suitable materials and tips online if you search for “What’s the difference between Past Simple and Present Perfect?”, etc. Perhaps the most useful advice to learn from those and other sources is which tenses tend to go with certain key words, e.g. that “at the moment” usually goes with Present Continuous and “since” generally goes with Present Perfect.
People can also sometimes get confused between two forms because they haven’t really mastered either of them first. For example, some people try to use Past Perfect before they can use Past Simple well, and so have problems with both. It is therefore often a good idea to use one of the tenses as often as you can for a month or two, switch to doing the same with the other tense, then try to combine the two a couple of months after that.
I make lots of mistakes with grammar
It’s not possible to suddenly stop making all grammar mistakes, so the best approach is probably to choose one grammar point and to try to stop making mistakes with that before you move onto the next one. For example, you could work on always including third person -s in “says” etc for a couple of weeks, then move onto not forgetting -ed in past verbs for the rest of the month.
If your grammar mistakes often happen during writing, it can be very useful to turn off grammar check until you have finished the writing, in order to make you think more carefully about what you are putting on the page. It may also help to write down some of the changes that grammar check then suggests, in order to remember those errors next time and to be able to avoid that mistake without any help in the future.
I still don’t understand…
If you’ve tried to study mixed conditionals, adverb word order, etc and still feel confused, tactics include googling specific questions like “What’s the difference between… and…?” and “Is… the same as…”, looking for explanations in your own language, trying other media such as videos, and taking a one-off lesson to have it explained to you face to face.
I find grammar boring
Ways of making learning grammar more interesting include using language learning apps, watching videos on grammar points, and setting yourself motivating grammar goals to aim for such a certain number of pages in a grammar book in one month.
I have too much vocabulary to learn to have time for grammar
It is possible to put the grammar you want to learn into your list of vocabulary, with blanked sentences (“I __________ seen many of those places”), sentences with mistakes to remember the corrections of (“I haven’t seen him for 1994” X), key words to make sentences out of (“ever/ New York”), etc.
I can’t use the grammar that I know when I’m speaking
This is natural, as can be seen in children learning their own language who have heard and understood irregular verbs like “spread” but still make mistakes like “spreaded” X. The main thing you need to do is therefore to give it time after studying a grammar point before you get stressed about not being able to use it in speech. As well as being patient, you should do lots of reading and listening and notice real examples of that grammar point as you do so. If the grammar still isn’t coming out (well) after six months or so, it might then be worth taking a different approach.
I have problems with prepositions
It can be useful to study patterns with prepositions such as “at” usually meaning a time or place which is more precise than “in”, and “with” often meaning together. However, there are also many “dependent prepositions” which are just decided by going together with other words like in “satisfied with” and “in love with”. These should be treated as vocabulary and simply learnt one by one, perhaps with gapped sentences on your vocabulary list (“I’m more afraid ________ spiders than lions”).
I have problems with phrasal verbs
Similar to prepositions, phrasal verbs have a few patterns which are something like grammar (word order, some common meanings of “up”, “off”, etc), but are usually best seen as vocabulary that has to be learnt one by one with flashcards, a list of vocabulary to learn, etc.
I need a higher English test score but I stick to easy grammar when I speak/ write
Using mostly basic English grammar is probably a good idea in international communication, but can mean that you don’t show your real level in speaking tests and writing exams. One basic tip is to remember that in many tests the range of language that you use is at least as important as the number of mistakes that you make. This can be practised by trying a speaking or writing task with no help, writing out a more complex answer with the help of model answers, then trying to remember and use that language when you try the task again.
In the longer term, you can build up your range of language by picking one more complex grammar point such as relative clauses that you will spend a couple of weeks trying to use as much as possible. Then switch to another type of impressive language such as reduced relative clauses to do the same thing with.
I never finish the grammar books that I buy
There is rarely any need to study the grammar on every page of a grammar book, so you should instead be choosing the most useful pages and working through them from the most vital of those. This will also mean that you will be able to finish those most useful pages much more quickly, and so in a way finally finish a grammar book!
If you still find yourself giving up when there are still top 20 most useful grammar points to learn, it is probably time to start trying to learn grammar in a completely different way, e.g. through studying for an English exam or with video tutorials.
I’ve researched it, but I can’t still can’t find out if… is correct or not
This tends to be because traditional written English and modern spoken English are different. If that is the problem, you could search for “Is… used in modern spoken English?”, “Is… okay in academic writing?”, “Is the use of… changing?”, etc, to find out when it is and isn’t okay.
I can use… perfectly when I’m writing, but make mistakes when I’m speaking
This is natural, and even native speakers can make mistakes with “There is/ There are”, “a/ an”, etc in natural speech that they would rarely make while writing, or at least would have time to fix before anyone read it. You shouldn’t worry too much about this, as concentrating too much on spoken accuracy tends to affect fluency, and so make listening to you more difficult. As mentioned above, such mistakes in speaking should probably be dealt with one by one, for example by spending a month on trying to always include “a” or “an” when they are necessary, then spending the next month on “the”.
I can’t understand grammar explanations in English
You shouldn’t give up on trying to read and listen to explanations of grammar that are only in English. This is because doing so provides some other useful English practice, teaches you grammar words that can also be useful in class and when searching for information on grammar, will give you access to a wide variety of the best language-learning resources, and might help you avoid explanations that are too influenced by your language or education system.
If you have problems with a particular grammar explanation, try turning on subtitles if it is video, searching for explanations for lower-level learners (e.g. “Past Continuous for Elementary learners”), or reading one in your own language and then trying an English-language one again.
In the longer term, it is well worth learning a list of English grammar words like “noun” and “present simple”.
I’m not sure which grammar points I should study first
In general, lower-level books such as Pre-Intermediate grammar materials tend to have more important grammar points that should be dealt with first. You can also work on points that you have the most difficulty with, for example by doing a diagnostic grammar test that shows you which kinds of questions you made mistakes with.