{"id":3540,"date":"2014-02-21T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=3540"},"modified":"2017-06-09T05:39:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T09:39:04","slug":"first-rule-of-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/first-rule-of-english\/","title":{"rendered":"First Rule of Learning English\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme.png\" aria-label=\"Fight Club Meme\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3541\"  alt=\"Fight Club meme\" width=\"500\" height=\"329\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme.png 500w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme-350x230.png 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I know many ESL learners get frustrated by English grammar, spelling, and pronunciation rules because it often seems like there are no rules or at least the rules are often broken. If you ever feel this way then the picture above probably sounds about right to you. This picture, and a similar saying, is taken from the movie <em>Fight Club. <\/em> The movie clip that corresponds to this saying above is here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Fight Club - First Rule of Fight Club...\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i2lmFCqbJcI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For this post I wanted to make a list of English grammar rules that have NO exceptions, that is rules that are ALWAYS followed, but I couldn\u2019t think of any! So, instead I have a short list of bad grammar rules in English. These are rules that are broken all the time and when they are broken it is not a big deal. So, go ahead and break a few rules now and then, because the first rule of English should be: THERE ARE TOO MANY RULES!<\/p>\n<p><strong>English rules that should be broken:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Don\u2019t split infinitives.<\/strong><br \/>\nTo split an infinitive means to put a word between \u2018<em>to<\/em>\u2019 and the verb that follows it,\u00a0 like \u2018<em>to go<\/em>.\u2019 English speakers split infinitives all the time, for example a common saying from the show <em>Star Trek<\/em> is \u201c<em>to<\/em> boldly <em>go<\/em> where no one has gone before\u201d \u2013 with \u2018to\u2019 and \u2018go\u2019 split by \u2018boldly.\u2019 When infinitives are split no one gets hurt, so go ahead and split an infinitive or two!<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Never end a sentence with a preposition.<\/strong><br \/>\nIt is commonly said that sentences should not end with a preposition, but when native English speakers talk they often end sentences with prepositions and everyone still understands each other. Even though English teachers may not like it, it is just more common to say, \u2018What did you put that there for?\u2019 instead of saying \u2018For what reason did you put that there?\u2019<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.\u00a0 The passive voice is bad and shouldn\u2019t be used.<\/strong><br \/>\nThe passive tense is a tense like all other tenses and you shouldn\u2019t be ashamed to use it. It is considered a bad tense to use in writing by many English teachers, but it is no worse than any other tense really.\u00a0 You probably shouldn\u2019t write all your sentences in the passive tense, but every now and then it won\u2019t hurt anyone. The grammarians will be upset by it, but you will still be understood.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it is your turn, what is the silliest, worst, or hardest English grammar rule that you can think of?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"230\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme-350x230.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme-350x230.png 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2014\/02\/Fight-Club-meme.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>I know many ESL learners get frustrated by English grammar, spelling, and pronunciation rules because it often seems like there are no rules or at least the rules are often broken. If you ever feel this way then the picture above probably sounds about right to you. This picture, and a similar saying, is taken&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/first-rule-of-english\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":3541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[134956],"tags":[304875,304876,3343,2419,304877,304880],"class_list":["post-3540","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-grammar","tag-fight-club","tag-grammar-rules","tag-passive-voice","tag-preposition","tag-rules-to-be-broken","tag-split-infinitve"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3540"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6100,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions\/6100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}