Why does grammar seem so difficult?

Well, mainly because it doesn’t make sense.

Did I get your attention? Then bear with me a little longer because this needs explaining.

We rarely hear a child say, “I don’t like grammar” in their own language, right? And why does that happen? Children understand, intuitively, that the grammar they are learning at school is important for their life, it starts preventing the constant corrections from parents at home and it helps them be understood in important situations. They understand that communication is key and grammar is helping them with that.

So, what happens after some years, when we finish school and now we have to learn a second language?

Grammar seems to be so hard to understand that we end up making excuses for not understanding it, like: “I’m too old to learn a new language”, or “English is not for me”, and this happens, mainly, because we question grammar.

And that’s the biggest difference we have with that child who’s just started school. Children’s minds are like blank canvas, so they will believe anything you say, and if they are in a trusted environment, they will absorb every piece of information given to them. Most of them aren’t developed enough to question their surroundings, what they are being taught and why they have to learn it. Therefore, when learning, they just recognize the patterns, start using them and memorize exceptions. Yes, the infamous exceptions. So now, you know there is nothing wrong with you. The only reason we have a hard time learning grammar is because our questioning always ends up in “it is the way it is” or “it’s an exception”.

And that is one of the reasons grammar is challenging, because grammar has rules that were created a long time ago and with the passing of time we now struggle to understand why some rules are the way they are. Many times students say “that doesn’t make any sense”. Which is true, because we were never explained why the rules are the way they are. We simply repeat them, learn them, and teach them. And it’s not just the rules to memorize, because a structure could be simply repeated, but the problem is in all the irregularities once it seems that for every new rule a student understands, there is an exception to memorize.

Everybody makes mistakes in their own language. That being said, the first thing a learner from a new language should internalize is to stop trying to achieve perfection. This creates a fear that stops people from developing all the skills needed to speak. Grammar is just a path for communication, it doesn’t really need to be fully understood if you start recognizing and using its patterns. That is exactly what a child does. And that is why we have no idea how to answer any syntax or morphology questions of our own mother tongue. Cause we don’t remember grammar and we make tons of mistakes on a daily basis.

The other type, prescriptive grammar, are rules for how a language should be used, like not using a double negative. It's prescriptively incorrect to say “I don’t want no vegetables”, but descriptively it makes perfect sense to a native English speaker, we automatically know what the person meant, even though it's technically incorrect.

The other type, prescriptive grammar, are rules for how a language should be used, like not using a double negative. It's prescriptively incorrect to say “I don’t want no vegetables”, but descriptively it makes perfect sense to a native English speaker, we automatically know what the person meant, even though it's technically incorrect.

Or, if we consider conjugation: it's prescriptively incorrect to say “I seen him at the store”, but then again, we all know what that means.

This is the type of grammar that native English speakers have trouble with, because much of it is learned after people have already been speaking English for several years. Whereas fluent non-native English speakers often have excellent prescriptive grammar, because they learn the rules at the same time they're learning the language.

Basically, it can be hard for people to follow what seem to be random rules, when you know that if you say “I don't want no vegetables” or “I seen him at the store” you’d be perfectly understood.

So take grammar as the road you need to walk, to achieve the level of communication you desire, without being too demanding on yourself along the way. After all, when we go down a road in life, we don’t stop at every corner to ask why the road is built the way it is… We focus on the destination!

Our advice for you, who are learning a new language, is to have an open mind. Stop questioning all the rules as if they were identical to your own language, because grammar came from different origins and different perspectives. In order to feel comfortable and confident on speaking English properly, learn grammar in the easiest way possible with those who can teach you like that. It doesn’t need to be that hard. By doing that, you will save yourself from a lot of disappointment because once you become completely proficient in an idiom, you will only find yourself speaking like an old scholar with many native speakers frowning to understand you.