Saturday's Self-Study Language Learning Tip "How Do I Stop Making Grammar Mistakes?"
First, some comforting news: Even native speakers make grammar mistakes. Sometimes they start a sentence one way and finish it another. Sometimes they repeat forms they hear around them. Sometimes they overgeneralize patterns. In English, for example, you'll hear many speakers say "let him alone" rather than the traditionally preferred "leave him alone." Depending on region, social group, and dialect, certain forms become common even when they differ from what grammar books prescribe. Children do this constantly while acquiring their first language. Russian-speaking children, for example, often apply genitive endings more broadly than adult grammar permits. As their language develops, those overgeneralizations gradually disappear. (This raises fascinating questions for language learners. Should a 17-year-old learner speak textbook grammar or include some of the features common among native-speaking 17-year-olds? Should learners adopt regional dialect features ...