Are you afraid of studying English because of complicated grammar rules? This article will tell you how to learn English without grammar.
Learning English without grammar sounds impossible. However, there are many studying techniques that you may apply to learn English. As you know, studying grammar is more about reading and writing and passing examinations. But, if you only want to be fluent in speaking English, then you should try to study English without grammar. It will help you improve your skills as you delve deeper into learning everything about this language!
Keep on reading this article, and master speaking English with our proved and tested tips and tricks!
HOW TO LEARN ENGLISH WITHOUT GRAMMAR: Effective Way of Learning English
English, the universal language, has played a dominant role in almost all fields in the current globalized world. The English language is our significant means of communication; further, learning the English language can help you in getting a job easily. As it has become the language of many fields, it automatically increases the chances of landing an excellent job in a good company.
If you are an English learner or want to study how to speak in English but find it hard because of tons of rules in grammar, then this article is perfect for you. But make sure to dedicate yourself to learning the English language because speaking English will naturally occur as you do these tips and tricks.
Know Your Purpose in Studying English
Before you submerge yourself in studying English, you have to know for yourself that you have a purpose and so start asking yourself, “why do I want to learn English?”. Whether for academics, business, or even for fun, you must have a purpose. Or else, you will find yourself struggling and burning out in the long run of studying. And you don’t want that to happen.
Studying how to learn English without grammar will give you a lot of headaches, especially if you’re going to start from scratch. You have no idea about the English language, and you don’t know the basics. And most importantly, it is common for everyone to be afraid of speaking the English language, and so are you.
And so having a purpose will save you from getting bored and will give you the motivation to look forward and go beyond in studying depth in English. Knowing and sticking to your purpose makes it easier for you to learn because you have a plan and goals, and you’ll be clinging to it as long as you know your whys.
In your journey in English, we can’t promise it will be a bed of roses. No, your experience will be a rough road for sure. Therefore, don’t forget why you started; you may rest, but don’t quit!
Find the Perfect Learning Materials
Every person has a natural interest in learning and is capable of learning. However, it’s another problem you might encounter in studying English without grammar. There are a lot of English materials available online and offline. And if you look at the wrong material, you will find learning English harder than it should be.
As English learners grow and develop academically and linguistically, they rely primarily on the materials and resources provided by the teacher, online courses, or school. Many ELLs (English language learners) may stick to teacher-provided material because they can review it later on at a comfortable pace. But since you are about to study how to learn English without Grammar, this is not your best option.
Since we are talking about options; one example of it is studying news, and many ESL learners do this. This might be okay for them, but not for you. Studying news or news articles are more advanced lessons that you should study after learning the fundamental basics of English. This will cause you confusion. The content of this kind of material is more formal, and it will, of course, restrict slang and colloquialisms. This is more political or technical and not used in regular life. That is why it is essential to understand what materials you should use.
There are many elements surrounding choosing the right materials and resources for English learners. These elements include:
- Time
- Cost
- Level
- Need for approval/oversight
Alternative Materials and Resources
You may know and want the materials you’d like to use in your journey on how to study English without grammar. But if they are too expensive, unavailable, not appropriate for your level, or are not to be approved for purchase or use by your teacher, you’ll need to explore and find other options. You have to have more consideration yourself when assessing and using the material and resource selection strategies.
Once you’ve decided on an appropriate difficulty level for yourself and addressed any critical issues related to the materials and resources you are selecting, your next step is to provide a variety of learning mediums. In addition to books, magazines, and other printable media, consider using visual and audio materials such as:
- Presentation slides
- Videos
- Audio recordings
- Other graphic representations
A variety of learning materials can help you maintain your attention and increase your retention and comprehension. Different students have different learning styles. So it would be best if you found what is the learning style for you.
For example, while one student may learn best by reading a text, you may benefit more from seeing graphic representations such as pictures and videos of the same learning material. Finding an appropriate balance of various material delivery approaches can go a long way toward your growing knowledge. If you feel like it’s fitting, allow yourself to explore it, you don’t have to always follow the general rule in studying the English language.
Don’t Study Grammar Too Much
You may find the following tip unusual or crazy, but it is true that you don’t have to spend a lot of time and put all your effort into studying grammar for you to be fluent in English. And it is one of the most important rules. It’s a fact that flies in the face of a world of failed study methodologies for foreign language education and misconceptions among students about how we cultivate language. You will not become a fluent speaker of English by studying its grammar.
The primary reason we need to learn grammar rules is not to make us better speakers. Learning grammar is vitally important, and it is an integral part of the learning of any language. However, as a new language learner, it’s dangerous for you to prioritize studying grammar and its rules. Yes, no matter what the grammar villain keeps on whispering to your ear, don’t listen!
There is an opportunity cost to everything. In other words, by spending time studying one thing, you have to sacrifice something else. As you know, grammar is very complex, and learning correcting grammar is highly time-consuming. Studying grammar will definitely slow you down and really confuse you. If you will think about the rules when constructing sentences instead of naturally speaking a sentence like a native. If you spend too much time studying grammar rules, you will find yourself losing your spontaneity in speaking or expressing yourself.
Now in the next tips and tricks you get, weI will tell you more about how to learn English without grammar in an easy and effortless way, without studying a lot of rules.
1. Watch and Learn
Have you tried to copy someone’s accent or use phrases or sentences from the song or movies you’ve heard or seen? And I’ll bet you love the way you speak the English language with that natural accent of yours. People who love watching movies and children who like to watch cartoons and with the subheadings are most likely the same people who sound like natural English speakers. Seeing the subheadings and actions in the movies will make you understand some conversations or scenarios, and you can also learn the accent used in that particular movie. With this tip, you will not feel bored. Instead, you will gain more interest in watching, listening, listening, and learning.
Watching will also help you understand what some expressions and the way of speaking are about. Humans have many essential ways to communicate and understand information as we speak. We are naturally born with ears and are never honestly taught how to listen—it’s understood how to do it; we just begin. As kids, we learn how to speak by listening to the people close to us and imitating others. Almost everyone enjoys listening to the radio, watching videos, and talking on the phone. This shifting help develop these skills by doing them repetitively, but how frequently do you concentrate on these skills that you take for granted? How do you often purposely think that we are memorizing to read when we listen?
You must hear different types of English repeatedly and continuously if you want to communicate properly, meaningfully, and naturally. Why is listening good? When we listen, we are somehow reviewing a lot of English usages, such as grammatical structures, sentence structures, vocabularies, intonations, accents, stresses in words, and of course, our interpretation. New expressions, words, idioms, and phrases are one of the assets we can get from listening. Imitating what we hear and applying it with great confidence is what you can practice when you listen. Listening is such a time saver, it could be a hobby with no hassle, and the feeling of you are studying.
2. Listen Carefully
The best way to improve English speaking is indeed speaking through listening activities. But don’t listen to textbooks’ Cd, complicated and tedious materials. You must listen to easy and exciting materials again and again. Well, you can use some lessons to improve your listening and speaking skills fast. These are the lessons that should be unique interactive stories that will make you practice listening and speaking with the TPRS method. So, you can practice speaking English anytime and anywhere by listening to easy stories.
You can also follow along with TV shows, Youtube videos, or other natural English speech to practice sounding natural! Find some short clips that you are interested in or that use words that you would say in real life, then repeat them line by line. Now that you have a reference try to match their tone, speed, and if you want the accent. It doesn’t matter if you mispronounce a few words; it is important to keep talking and practicing. Try to sound just like the native speakers you’re listening to.
Singing along to your favorite song will help you become more fluent, just to be sure they are English songs. This is a tried-and-true language learning method that Science proved. Once you sing along to pop singers like Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa, you can test your listening skills with something fun but a bit more complicated; for example, listening to a rap song.
But if you’re more serious about using the listening method to study more about how to learn English without grammar, then this step is for you. You can use ESL podcasts. It will help you have good muscle work of your mouth to adopt some accents and give you a piece of knowledge about the content. There are also many audio books available that you may use to develop your English skills.
3. Learn the Phrases and Words Combinations
Many students like you learn to build their sentences through combining words and phrases. But most of the students, surprisingly, cannot create sentences properly. One of the better ideas to improve English is to learn word phrases, not just words. You might master the grammar and vocabulary but still don’t know how a native speaker says it.
One example is you can say, “how do you feel today?” but a native speaker might say, “how’re you doing?” or “what’s up?” instead. Combining words with phrases and expressions can help you sound more natural when you speak.
It would be best if you also stopped doing Google Translate or any translation. Instead, you may find idioms and slang more interesting than boringly translating stuff. When you’re trying to create your own sentences, avoid translating the words from your Mother tongue. The ordering of words is likely completely different; thus, you will be slow and incorrect by doing this. So to learn phrases and sentences, you don’t have to think about the words you are saying. It should be reflexive. Another problem with using a translator is that you will be trying to incorporate the grammar rules. This is incorrect and English learners should avoid this practice. Idioms and phrases will improve your way of speaking English in more expressive and impressive ways. Slangs, Idioms & Phrases are naturally used in conversations to make it effective and appreciative.
4. Be with English Speakers
Talking with English or native speakers might sound intimidating to everyone. But to speak English fluently, you need to practice speaking.
When you surround yourself with English-speaking people, you don’t have a choice but to overcome your fears. Everything that stands in the way of your language learning will be gone. Being forced to speak helps you overcome fears of making mistakes, being shy, and sounding foolish. And this will help you to realize that English speakers don’t care if you make mistakes and is willing to reach out and build your language skills in a very natural and authentic way.
Key Takeaways
Grammar is very important, especially if you’re going to improve your writing skills or if you want to sit for an exam. You need to know grammar rules to write with excellency. However, if you’re going to study English, then we believe you should try to learn English without studying too much grammar.
Remember that only a tiny fraction of English speakers know more than 20% of all the grammar rules. When you speak a foreign language, only 20% of the meaning is conveyed through grammar. Yet, the other 80% is conveyed through words or phrases. On the other hand, you will think about English itself. You will think more about the past tense, the present tense, the future tense, the present perfect, and the past perfect.
Therefore, if you’re an average person whose purpose is to know how to learn English without grammar, it is not wise for you to worry too much about grammar education because you will spend an unnecessary amount of time on something that is relatively unimportant. So, if you want to learn grammar instead, it is through input. In other words, English comes in mostly through your ears.