{"id":2886,"date":"2014-12-17T08:40:34","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T13:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=2886"},"modified":"2020-10-02T13:04:31","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T17:04:31","slug":"entering-the-grammar-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2014\/12\/17\/entering-the-grammar-cave\/","title":{"rendered":"Entering the Grammar Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Itchy<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGrammar Cave: Curse of the Syntax\u201d should be an Itchy Feet-themed text-based adventure video game, don\u2019t you think? Old timey graphics, midi music\u2026the many sequels, including \u201cGrammar Cave III: The Conjunction Malfunction,\u201d and \u201cGrammar Cave VI: Detective Dative Makes the Case\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Anyway, what were we talking about?<\/p>\n

Right, grammar. While speaking, grammar can be a double-edged sword. Damned if you do, damned if you don\u2019t. If you don\u2019t pay attention to grammar while speaking and just wing it, you run the risk of being misunderstood, insulting, or just plain incomprehensible. Most native speakers will let grammar mistakes slide if they know you\u2019re learning the language, but secretly it\u2019s chiseling away at their souls every time you do it.<\/p>\n

But if you do<\/em> pay attention to grammar, and it doesn\u2019t yet come naturally to you, you\u2019ll end up stalling your sentences halfway through to check your work or prepare for what you\u2019re about to say, and freeze up like our poor man in the comic above. This is also a fine tool for use in the soul-chiseling of native speakers (\u201cGrammar Cave XII: Soul Chiseler\u201d\u2026I like where this is going).<\/p>\n

Alternatively, you could do what I do, which is: don\u2019t think about the grammar until you know you\u2019ve screwed it up. Then, go back and repeat what you\u2019ve said five times until you get it right. That way you kill two birds with one stone: you chisel the souls of your unfortunate listener, and<\/em> you stall the conversation. There\u2019s nothing that thrills native speakers more than when you stop in the middle of a sentence to query them on conjugations.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for you (and me), that\u2019s just the way the cookie crumbles<\/a>. If you can\u2019t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Practice makes perfect, and so forth. This article brought to you by: \u201cGrammar Cave XXVI: When Idioms Attack\u201d!<\/em><\/p>\n

How about yourselves? Do you get stuck on grammar, or do you just blow right past it? Do you spend hours boning up with exercises, or do you just learn it over time from context? What\u2019s your<\/em> favorite \u201cGrammar Cave\u201d video game?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"Itchy

\u201cGrammar Cave: Curse of the Syntax\u201d should be an Itchy Feet-themed text-based adventure video game, don\u2019t you think? Old timey graphics, midi music\u2026the many sequels, including \u201cGrammar Cave III: The Conjunction Malfunction,\u201d and \u201cGrammar Cave VI: Detective Dative Makes the Case\u201d\u2026 Anyway, what were we talking about? Right, grammar. While speaking, grammar can be a…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":2887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[542801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2886","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived-posts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2886"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8231,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886\/revisions\/8231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}