E-mail from JC, a Filipino freelance writer based in New Zealand (December 21, 2011):
I’m most thankful to you for sharing your knowledge about English grammar through your Forum. You’re helping me a lot. How I wish I could be as good as you! I’m a writer who’s always struggling with grammar. I have left my university job at the Central Philippine University for a freelance adventure here in New Zealand.
If I may ask, how do I improve my English grammar? What are your suggestions—apart, of course, from browsing your English-usage website and learning from it? Would going back to university for formal study help?
Merry Christmas!
My reply to JC:
Merry Christmas, too, JC! I hope your New Zealand adventure is proving to be a great and rewarding experience for you!
You ask how you might be able to improve your English grammar. May I suggest that you widen this objective to include English usage, meaning not just observance of grammar rules but the use of the language itself? And since you are a writer, I think you should specifically aim to make yourself a better, more readable writer in English.
To be a good writer, you need to have a respectably wide English vocabulary. As the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said about language, the limits of our language are the limits of our mind, and all we really know is what we have words for. You need not attempt to memorize the entire 750,000-word English lexicon, though; just make it a point to continually enrich your vocabulary with words or idioms that your target readers can easily understand. And each time you encounter a new word or idiom in your readings, resist the temptation to put off for later finding out precisely what it means. Check out its definitions and usage right away from a respectable dictionary.
Make sure, too, that you are using the right English words. Now that you’re abroad, keep in mind that American English and British English don’t have the same spelling and meanings for a sizeable number of words. In the Philippines where American English is the standard, use as your reference an American-English dictionary like, say, the Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary or the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. But in New Zealand where British English is the standard, get yourself an Oxford English Dictionary. Don’t just wing it with your English words and spelling from now on.
Next, make yourself thoroughly familiar with the various tools of English for putting words together into grammatically and structurally correct, coherent, and clear statements. Don’t be content with just being knowledgeable with the English content words—the nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and interjections. You absolutely need to master the rules for using them, but always remember that they only work as carriers of the meaning that reside in each of them. As important is putting them together with the English function words—the prepositions, the conjunctions, and the conjunctive adverbs. They are the logical operators of the language, and unless you are proficient in using them, you really can’t hope to graduate from jotting down just a few grammar-perfect sentences to writing coherent, logical, and persuasive narratives and expositions that people would want to read and pay for.
Now to your last question: Would going back to the university help to improve your English grammar? I don’t think so, JC. It certainly can broaden your outlook and teach you a respectable profession, vocation, or craft, but I doubt if it can improve your English grammar that much. University study just isn’t designed for that. I really think you’ll be much better off embarking on a purposive, no-nonsense self-study of English grammar and usage and doing lots of writing practice along the way.
