improving one's grammar and vocabulary

Hi everyone. I need some curial and clear advice right about now. as you could tell from some post I done in the past, my grammar looks like a guy with English as his second language wrote this. I tried countless times to expand my word knowledge but my learning style is hindering me from comprehending anything. By the time I read a tutorial, article or a blog explaining about it, I forget it the next day.

edited 12th Sep '15 6:28:48 AM by ewolf2015

I think there are websites out there that can check grammar in your writing, like Grammarly (except I think that specific on is not free). A simple google search for grammar check websites give a bunch of free options.

About learning for the long run, find worksheets online and do them. Reading something once isn't going to do anything for you. Practice, practice, practice. Then find online quizzes to check yourself. But, in order for this to work, you have to really want to learn English grammar, because without it, you'll just quit.

But remember, most slip up on grammar even though English is their first language, me included. English is complex (but so is every other language, really). I wish you luck.

I'm a non-native and I must agree with what electronic said, practice. Read books, novels, novellas if the word count of a novel overwhelmed you, or online articles. Chatting with other English speakers also helps.

Also, have a dictionary/thesaurus ready at all times. Personally, I recommend The Sage (software, offline).

And I will repeat what had already been said. The way to improve your understanding of a language and thus also your ability to use it without mutilating it at the same time, is to read, as much as you can, with the caveat that you should only (or mostly; it is acceptable to read things which aren't perfect for as long as you do not let them poison your ... let's say "knowledge base", with their imperfections) read things that have proper grammar and vocabulary. And then test it by doing quizzes and stuff like that.

So books (in general), yes, articles which were proof-read, yes, and conversing with people who know the language also helps. But when reading "stuff" on the internet in general, and especially when it comes to fan-fiction, beware for many a trap for the language can be found there.

And never, and I repeat, never, think yourself above using a spell-checker and proof-reading what you wrote. Those who do it ... well, some do happen to be right, but most people who think themselves above that tend to have nothing outside of arrogance as far as writing is concerned, and that is not what one needs to succeed. And with that goes the note that one should, if possible, try to be consistent about it: even if what you are writing is not something for which you'd need perfect grammar and spelling, try to keep it as close to perfect as you can, that's good practice.


Oh, and I'll second what electronic-tragedy said. Most people trip regardless of whether some language is their first or second or bajillionth. But in most cases that's because they don't really try, because they don't really have a reason to try as even mutilated as it sometimes is the language they use is enough for them to communicate. Had they been trying to write, seriously write with the intent of releasing what they wrote after passing it through an editor's hands without being ridiculed, had they had pride in their ability to use this-or-that language correctly, then they might have actually had a reason to try and not mutilate the language. But most people aren't and so most people don't, and pride in one's own writing, genuine pride rather than arrogance, is fairly uncommon anyway (and always was, contrary to what some people think).

There's a proofreading program called Ginger. It helped me a lot. :)

I tried each of your suggestions but they couldn't fix my grammar.

Read a book for an hour every day. See what effect that has after several months.

I dunno, I don't really think good grammar is that big a deal. Like, once you have good spelling and punctuation, then achieving good grammar is really just a case of reading back what you've written, and hearing if it sounds natural or flows smoothly. The hard-and-fast rules of grammar aren't really all that important compared to one's gut instincts about whether a sentence feels "right".

hmmmm. i'll take that into consideration.