Grammar is a Pain? Tips to Ease the struggle

Not a few of the people who learn English think that grammar is difficult to understand. This is evidenced by research conducted by (Tambunsaribu & Galingging, 2021), which resulted in 66% of respondents choosing grammar as the most confusing material, especially for students and college students. Several factors make it difficult for students to learn grammar, including a lack of basic understanding such as the function of subjects and predicates, confusion in understanding the differences in structure between the native language and the language being studied, demands or pressure both from oneself and the surrounding environment that requires being able and fluent in using English to cause mental fatigue, and the learning methods used are less interesting. 

Grammar plays an important role in communicating in English, especially when English is applied as a language to publish papers, in public, in the world of work, and others. In this article, the author will provide some tips that can help make it easier for you to learn grammar:

1. Build strong intentions and reasons. If you learn grammar just because you think English is cool, then it is likely that you will stop and lose your enthusiasm for learning. Strong intentions and reasons can encourage you when you encounter difficulties that can discourage you. 

2. Expand your vocabulary. To be able to learn grammar smoothly, of course, you need to increase your vocabulary so that it becomes easier to classify a word into a sentence. This can be done by reading more books in English and listening to English videos or movies. 

3. Practice speaking and writing more. It is undeniable that the more practice, the more knowledge you have. Practice helps someone who is learning a new language to be able to filter out the right and wrong parts of communication, and can be stored in the memory in a longer term than just writing it down because practice is learning directly. 

4. Having a study buddy. Some people feel more comfortable with studying alone, but some also find it more effective to have a study buddy because of the many benefits obtained, one of which is as an encourager, exchanging knowledge, and a practice friend to communicate, as well as a corrector. These tips can be adjusted to your learning method.

5. Understand the basics of grammar. Some important components to know in learning grammar:

   1. Tenses. Learn the three basic tenses well, namely simple present, simple past, and simple future before learning complex sentence structures. These three modals can make it easier for you to learn grammar because tenses are the underlying time information of a sentence. 

   2. Part of speech. Understand the basic rules of word types based on their function before taking grammar into the more complex aspect of part of speech. Part of speech includes:

      • Noun: Examples include person, place, idea, and thing. Examples of "Apple", "Chair", "Cellphone", etc.  

      • Pronouns: pronouns are used as pronouns for nouns, which consist of personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, relative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, then there are reflexive and intensive pronouns. 

      • Adjective: an adjective is a word that describes a noun, for example, age, color, size, opinion, type, purpose, physical quality.

      • Verb: verb is a word that describes actions, for example dynamic or action verb, stative verb, auxiliary verb, modal auxiliary verb, and phrasal verb. 

      • Adverb: words that describe an adjective, a verb, another adverb, or a sentence.

      • Preposition: a word that tells you when or where something is in relation to something else.

      • Conjunction: a word used to connect clauses, sentences, or words together. examples include coordinating conjunction, correlative conjunction, and subordinating conjunction.

      • Article: consists of two types, the first being definite articles such as "the" and indefinite articles such as "a" and "an".

   3. Subject and predicate. Subjects and predicates working together serve as the basic structure of a sentence. The subject is who or what is involved, while the predicate provides information about what happened or the action performed by the subject. For example:

      • Simple sentence: "The dog sleeps".

        Subject: The dog (describes who the actor involved is).

        Predicate: sleeps (describes a state about the subject).

      • Descriptive sentence: "Soobin is sad". 

        Subject: Soobin (the person who is the topic of conversation).

        Predicate: is sad (describes information about the subject).

      • Complex sentence: "The students in the library are studying for their exams". 

        Subject: The students in the library (the group of people who are doing something).

        Predicate: are studying for their exams (the action the subject is doing).

      • Passive voice (more often used when the main focus is the action or object of action rather than the actor): "The homework is being done by the students".

        Subject: The homework (the object involved).

        Predicate: is being done by the students (the action performed by the doer). 

The tips described above can direct students and college students to learn grammar to be easier and more structured. Grammar takes time to master, it requires patience and consistency in doing so, so that in the end it is no longer a "pain", but a process that produces essential skills to communicate better.  

REFERENCE

Tambunsaribu, G., Galingging, Y. (2021). Masalah yang dihadapi Pelajar Bahasa Inggris dalam Memahami Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris. Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra dan Budaya, 8(1), 38-39. https://shorturl.at/xrBEr