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Hi Arneon,
English is my native language and as with everybody, their own language is something that is almost involuntary like breathing, you dont know that you are writing or speaking in 'tenses'.
I did not realise until i read your comment how difficult and complex it is and to be honest a lot of people whose first language is english, myself included, are not even aware that they are using these rules when writing or talking.
Don't worry too much about it, im sure you will eventually get the hang of all these things, the more you write and talk in english the more natural it will become for you.
You should be proud of yourself, your english is a lot better than you realise.
Well done
Ruby
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Hi Arneon,
I agree with Ruby your written English is good, but bear in mind the following:
Last year the study of grammar was abolished from all educational institutions. Educationalists announce that all people should write and speak excellent English without learning rules, and that useless and defunct grammar, is exhaustively dull.
Of course none of this is true. Everyone starts to learn simple grammatical rules from a very early age. The small child who talks about "two mans" instead of "two men" has clearly perceived the rule about the formation of the plural; and when he speaks about the "two mans" speaked to him he is applying another rule about past tense verb formation. Consciously or unconsciously, we all grasp the basic principles of language and grammar simply defines these principles and gives terms which make explanation easier.
It is too easy to charge Grammar with being dull. After all, the same accusation could be levelled at almost every subject in the curriculum. Geography, history, science, mathematics all could be made to appear boring, tedious or interesting depending on its presentation. Grammar is built on argument rather than imagination, but logical reasoning need not be dull. Unlike Latin and Greek both dead languages with rigid and definite rules, English is a living language in a state of continuous change. As such the grammarian does not dictate the rules to millions of speakers but rather tries to keep pace with a language constantly changing by trying to reduce it to some sort of order.
Grammar will always be a subject of discussion, particularly among writers whose understanding of certain words often differs. There will always be exceptions to the rules, much overlapping, and point stretching, but there is no ultimate authority to whom an appeal can be made.
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Grammer and Punctuation is a nightmare for me too. I don't like to keep going back and re-editing since that's not what I'm good at. Pluse, I'd got to spend so much of this time, starting it all over again. I
I'd had to literally restart the whole "Chapter#1: Torment Past" in my book. On the bright side, it least brought out a better exposition.
So all you do, is just keep going at and hope for the best.
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