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I have a question for you. Do I need to study English grammar to be a fluent English speaker? Sometimes, it makes me mad when I get into it. The funny thing is that we,English learners,become so careful that we know each grammar rule very well but some native speakers even don't know what is an adverb,a preposition but still they are better than we are. Why is that sir??

Blue Jay · Accepted Answer

Did you learn to speak your own language without knowing what an adverb is? Of course you did. It's the same for us. We learned English from hearing it spoken every day from the day we were born, and imitating what we heard.

Cool Breeze · Answer

tenjingDo I need to study English grammar to be a fluent English speaker?

For most people, it helps, but each person is an individual. A child learns up to three languages naturally by just living in an environment where the languages are spoken. This innate ability disappears when one approaches adulthood. There are huge differences in grown-up people's abilities to learn foreign languages. I know someone who has lived in Finland for more than 50 years, is married to a Finn and has definitely done her best to acquire a good knowledge of Finnish. And yes, she is fluent and has a large vocabulary, but she only has to utter one sentence and I can tell Finnish isn't her native language.

Another foreigner, an Englishman called Neil Hardwick, who is well known in Finland owing to his TV and theatre work here, arrived in Finland in the late 1960s. By the mid-70s, he spoke Finnish like a native speaker. An amazing achievement!

Even if you have studied English grammar to help you master the language, it's a good idea not to think of grammar whenever you speak English. Try not to pay too much attention to grammar even if it is a useful tool.

Those who don't know even the grammar of their own language may not benefit that much from studying the grammar of a foreign language for the simple reason that they may not understand it very well. Your native language may be completely different in structure and grammar from English, which poses major problems. There are no verbs in some languages, for example.

Even if you have studied English grammar, you may encounter problems because grammatical terms and meanings differ from country to country. A term such as predikat / predikaatti / predicate which you may think must have identical meanings throughout the world even if the spellings differ a little can lead to confusion.

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