Grammar... do I have to know...

[Silke]

...what the darn things are called?

Because I don't.
I haven't a clue what a past participle is, for instance. I know (but only through many people telling me) what an active verb is, an adjective, a noun... the basic stuff. But I have no freaking clue what the rest of the darn things are called.

I don't particularly want to read grammar books, either. They kind of bore me to tears lol.

Does anyone know of a FUN way to learn this stuff?

Man... I want my old teacher back. :) He was great with explaining things like that, but unfortunately I learned German grammar, not English. (Well, I did, but it's loooooooong gone and was nowhere near as fun to learn than the German bits, because the teacher didn't suck.)

Ergo... I want a fun way. :)

[Maeve]

[QUOTE=Silke;749]...what the darn things are called?

Because I don't.
I haven't a clue what a past participle is, for instance. I know (but only through many people telling me) what an active verb is, an adjective, a noun... the basic stuff. But I have no freaking clue what the rest of the darn things are called.

I don't particularly want to read grammar books, either. They kind of bore me to tears lol.

Does anyone know of a FUN way to learn this stuff?

Silke,
Grammar terms are like anything else. You don't have to know them unless you want to talk about the concepts they label. I don't think that "fun" has anything to do with it. Is learning how to drive a car fun? I didn't think so, but once I'd learned how, the knowledge translated to fun.

Much of the grammar contained in high school grammar books is irrelevant to the requirements of most writers. After thirty years of teaching English comp to high school and college students, I've narrowed down the essential concepts for a book I call Bottom-line English. Here they are: http://americanenglishdoctor.com/BLEnglish.html

As for that past participle...

A past participle is the form of the verb that goes with the helping verbs have and has.

Most English past participles end in -ed.

The few remaining irregular verbs have past participles that don't end in -ed.

The "three principal parts of the verb" are, in this order:
infinitive, simple past, past participle.

walk walked (have) walked
sing sang (have) sung
see saw (have) seen
go went (have) gone

The present participle, on the other hand, is consistent no matter whether the verb is, regular or irregular. The present participle is the form of the verb that ends in -ing: walking, seeing, singing.

[Silke]

http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/fragend/confused-smiley-009.gif

Glad I don't really need to know what they are called. But when someone tells me what I'm doing wrong by using grammar terms... I just give them a blank look. It doesn't help me and "people" seem to expect I know what all those words are called. Well. I don't.

See... I tune out when I see things like 'irregular' 'participle' 'reflexive pronouns'... stuff like that. It's not that I don't want to get it, I do, but the terms themselves make me tune out the explanation of how to use them.

Maybe I should enroll in an English class lol.

(Oh btw - I once named my villain "Wasthat Ingly" (to be later replaced by find and replace) due to my tendency to overuse those ing, ly, was and that's :))

[PurrfectPeach]

Well, learning a foreign language often teaches you a lot about the grammar of your own language. I was especially amazed to find how many irregular words English seems to have (compared to Romance languages at least) and was very grateful that I'm a native speaker!

Also, grammar books don't have to be boring; try "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" or "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire."

[Silke]

You know... I've been eyeing Eats Shoots & Leaves for ages.
Gonna have to look if they got it at the library. :)