1st Question

Hello everyone!

Today, one of our readers sent in a question. Let's see what he posted:

Question: Hello Sarah 先生
May I ask?
What do you recomend or　what is important?　for beginner　to study English？
Vocabulary, grammar, conversation？

Answer: Thank you very much for asking! You know you're always welcome here.

I think it's important first to know basic or simple words. As we know, language is symbol. The words & letters (alphabet) represent an idea. The word mother, when we analyze it, is just a combination of the letters 'm-o-t-h-e-r.' But English speakers have chosen to use that word to mean the person who has given birth to us and takes care of us. So before we study the structure or the form (grammar), we need to know the basic words that make up the language to help us study more complicated topics.

Without knowing the words, we wouldn't be able to tell which is the subject, the verb or the predicate. And essentially, those elements (subject, verb, predicate) are parts of grammar.

Let's take, for example, the case of a baby. The baby doesn't understand anything at first. Do you think it's reasonable if we immediately teach him the grammar? We couldn't tell the baby: "Oh baby, in constructing sentences, you have to include the subject, verb and predicate. The subject has to agree with the verb." Oh no!

In the natural order of things, the baby first learns the basic words that he often hears. Most babies learn to speak 'Papa' or 'Mama.' These words mean or represent something and the human brain learns it faster. Only when the brain learns to attach a meaning to the word, is it ok for it to move on to more difficult tasks, one of which is grammar. So this means that we need to memorize or remember simple words first.

Grammar and conversation can be studied at the same time. But ideally, grammar should be studied ahead. Because if we went straight to conversation, we might be able to speak, but the grammar might end up wrong. And, I think it's very hard to correct a mistake if you are already used to it.

So, try to study simple grammar first, and then be brave enough to practice speaking. As much as possible, try to talk to someone who has good command of English because if you hear grammatically incorrect sentences, you'll learn them. And, as I've said before, it's better to learn the correct things at first than to correct mistakes later when you are already used to them.

Did I answer your question? I hope it helped. Just keep the questions coming...