Native speakers: do you also struggle with English grammar?

Grammar isn't really were we have problems. Spelling is usually what gets us (to/two/too, or there/they're/their, or it's versus its), because we learned the language as sounds. Issues with grammar for native English speakers are typically things like: * The biggest uncertainty of course is whether to use "...and I" or "...and me". In school they beat into us it's almost always supposed to be "and I" like "Bob and I (went to the store...)" but there are legit cases where it's "and me" like "Give the ball to Jim and me". * *If XYZ were...* = correct. It's 50/50 on whether people say "If XYZ was...". This is the subjunctive mood and so should be 'were' * Should've... School doesn't teach us the should/would/could've contraction. People sometimes write this as "should of" as in "I should of done that". because " of" and "-'ve" are spoken identically. It's "should've" from "should have". * Verb plurality mismatch because the subject is singular but there's a description with plural in between the single subject and the verb. An example I can think of at the moment are things like: "The garden with hundreds of flowers are open" or "The museum full of paintings cost $10 to get into." People hear the plural words and then speak the verb for plural, when really "the garden" and "the museum" are the subjects. * How to handle talking about an unknown single individual, can lead to clunky wording. When I was in school the 'correct' thing to do was to say "his or her" like "Each passenger should pick up his or her luggage at the baggage carousel". Traditionally teachers hated it when we use "they" in that place but it sounds fine. * Rules that have gone away * Whom, people use "who" for both "who" and "whom" situations * "It is I" is correct, but people will say "It is me" or "It's him". Neither of these sound correct or wrong. * School traditionally stressed not ending sentences with prepositions, but the people who made traditional grammar loved Latin and phrasal verbs are a Germanic thing so there are lots of cases where you end up with sentences that end in "prepositions", which are really just the non-verb word of the phrasal verb Otherwise things like articles and verb tenses and irregular words don't really get us because we just have a sense of what sounds right, like you do in your native language. Little children often get tripped up by irregular verbs but that goes away as they get older and hear the language more, like a kid saying "The car goed away". Some of the irregular verbs sometimes make people stop and think about them. Like what is it for "drink"? Obviously "I drank" but "I have drunk?" or "I have drunken?" or even "I have dranken?" all of these sound ok. There are non-irregular verbs that seem like they should fit the vowel change pattern but they don't, and stuff like that.

What's your native language? Do you struggle with its grammar?

‘the’ is used when talking about a specific thing that the person you’re talking to knows about. ‘a’ is used for something unfamiliar. I don’t know if I explained it well but for example: ‘There was a banana on the table. I ate the banana’ = the reader or the person you’re talking to knows about this banana. it is a specific banana they already learned about in the first sentence. ”There was a banana on the table. I ate a banana’ = the banana you ate and the banana on the table are two different bananas. If it’s okay with you, what’s your native language?

It comes naturally. There are still mistakes, but big grammar mistakes are not that common. Minor mistakes sometimes even go unnoticed by others. For the last part, what’s your native language? It would be easier to help you if I knew.

No native speaker of any language has issues with grammar of their own language (and dialect).

"A" is non-specific. When you either don't know or don't care which specific one we're talking about, that's "a." >What's that? >It's a dog. We don't care which dog it is. It's just a dog. There are many dogs in the world, and this dog is one example of them. However, "the" is specific. It's an identified, particular one. >I think I've seen that dog before. >Which dog? >The dog by the fire hydrant. Now we're specifying one particular dog, so it becomes "**the** dog." We care which dog. It's **the** dog that we already know, **the** dog that we recognize. It's this one specific dog. >Did you do the English homework? There is a specific assignment for English class that we were expected to complete. I want to know if you have done that exact assignment. Not some other assignment, just that one specific one. >Can I get a glass of water? I would like you to bring me a glass with water in it. I don't care which glass you use. It's not specific. >Can you pass me the glass of water on the counter? I want a glass of water, but this time, I specifically want the glass that's sitting on the counter. I don't want any other glass of water, just that one in particular. So, yeah: "a" is any, doesn't matter which, but "the" is a very specific one.

For the most part, no, unless it's some really obscure grammar rule. Of course everyone messes up sometimes, but that's mostly misspeaking, not misunderstanding the rules. That's what being a native speaker means; it comes naturally. We also learn grammar in school, so it's common to hear children make mistakes, but much less so for adults. I do make a lot of mistakes in other languages though! 'The' is used when referring to one specific object, 'a' is used when referring to a single, unspecified object of a certain type. For example: "I want a banana." - The speaker isn't talking about a specific banana, they just want one. "I want the banana." - The user wants one specific banana, and it's clear through context which banana that is, because said banana was already the topic of conversation, or because the speaker otherwise indicated it (such as through a gesture). Use 'the' when the specific instance of the object you're talking about is important, or if there's only one in existence (E.g. 'The United States of America'. 'A United States of America' doesn't make sense because there's only one United States of America). This goes for almost all proper nouns in most cases, as there's usually no confusion as to which you're talking about. For certain things, there is one instance that is so much more well known that you can refer to it as 'the (object)' and it will be obvious which one is being talked about. For example, if you say 'the Moon' it's obvious you're talking about Earth's moon. There are a few weird cases, as with anything. The is used when referring to a type of environment ( 'the ocean', 'the beach', 'the woods', 'the desert', 'the city,' etc.) Think of these as the concept of the type of area not instances of them. 'I love the beach' is equivalent to 'I love beaches', but people will nearly always use the former. 'The city' refers to cities in general, not a specific city. A few other things follow this pattern as well, such as types of weather (the rain), temperature (the cold), and light level (the dark).

I work with a bunch of people from all ages and classes who can't spell basic words or use tense properly. A couple of them can barely string a sentence together when they have to, it's like reading gibberish. I think plenty of native speakers struggle with it. I have a couple of university grads in my wider team who can't use apostrophes, it's painful to see.

Be happy that you don't have to learn German. English is a simple language and the faults native speakers struggle with draw a mild smile on my face.

With the exception of teachers or students of the language, the biggest problem native speakers have when discussing English grammar with a non-native speaker is the terminology. As we become familiar with the language even from the moment of our birth and become increasingly competent over many years with constant practice, we rarely encounter terms such "subjunctive clauses" and "present perfect tense", if at all. Our skills develop over time and the standard we achieve is largely dependent upon the quality of our reading material and those with whom we routinely converse.

Yes, many of us make mistakes often. The thing is, we often make *different* mistakes than non-native speakers. If you grew up in a rural area outside academia you may go making the same mistakes for years, and nobody brings it up.

I suggest you learn to diagram sentences! It's the easiest way to get a handle on the crazy English language. grammarrevolution.com is a wonderful website for learning and teaching English grammar!

Use “a/an” when talking about something in general, use “the” or “that” when talking about a specific thing. Did you eat an apple today? (Did you eat any Apple) Did you eat the apple that was in the fridge today? (Refers to a specific apple) If you simply said “did you eat the apple today” or “did you eat that apple today”, a native speaker would respond, “which apple are you talking about?” I hope this helps. And to answer your question, native speakers do not get these mixed up, it comes naturally. What is your native language?

Natives of any language will grasp the language better than any learner could, that's just the way it is when you've grown up with it all your life.

Even as a native, English still feels like trying to play chess with a pigeon. It knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and struts around like it won.

“The” implies it’s one specific thing “A/an” implies it’s one of many We learned the language as sounds so it’s not a problem for us. We literally think in English grammar rules. We just do. We have to be formally taught what it looks like on screens and paper but we can speak it sometimes rather fast easily. It’s easy and automatic for us. What I will say is that some of the hard parts for you are core to the language and you will just have to learn them. As English is becoming more Germanic as time goes on. This is just because phrasals are more common Than Latinate forms. They just flat out are.

I struggled a lot in the beginning, especially with words like “am, is and are” we don’t have that at all in my language we just use the same word no matter the pronoun. Irregular verbs are also hard. I found article usage easy once I understood the concept, we bend the substantive instead of using “the”. I use a/an when I would have used one in my language for example “I have a cat” instead of “I have one cat” The is when you talk about a specific thing for example “the cat is black” then you mean one specific cat not cats in general.

For the most part we learn English grammar as we're learning to speak, so it becomes natural and intuitive, not something we have to think about to get right. I assume native speakers of your language are similar. Though there are some common mistakes.

It’s like math, some folks are good at it, others not. I am better at grammar than math by a mile.

when u grow up learning a language, grammar is the first thing u get the hang of and master because it ALL pattern recognition and the human brain is a pattern recognition learning machine. so we don’t struggle with grammar, but we do struggle with spelling or certain words or pronunciation at times.

Both of my parents were English teachers, and I often find myself correcting the grammar of others. It’s my super power. I’m no fun at parties though.

There can be several sources of native speaker "mistakes": * Sometimes when we speak we accidentally say something wrong for various reasons -- this isn't a case where we genuinely think what we said was correct, it's just a mistake * Dialect differences are often called "mistakes" by people who insist on a single correct form of English * If someone is trying to write or speak in a dialect that is not their native one, or trying to do a more "educated" or "formal" type of English that they aren't skilled at, they may make mistakes. * Finally, over the years self-appointed usage writers or grammarians have essentially invented "rules" that never reflected the way any native speakers naturally used the language -- of course if you invent a rule that doesn't match the way native speakers talk, you can easily find tons of "mistakes".

If native speakers never made grammar mistakes there would be no need for proofreaders and copy editors. I think errors are more common in writing than speaking, probably because people try to be fancy and trip themselves up. A few more common mistakes Sometimes grammar is subjective and situational. I'm thinking here of data. Technically data is the plural of datum and you should say things like "the data are promising." If you said that in most contexts you'd sound like an idiot. So you have to correctly identify which conjugation is used for what context. Stuff like this is why publications have style guides. In old school grammatical rules, it was bad to end a sentence with a preposition. ("A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.") You were taught to say things like "of which there were many" instead of "which there were many of." The reason for this is actually fairly interesting but not very relevant. Nowadays people end up saying things like "of which there were many of" because they sort of know they're supposed to use the first construction but the second construction sounds right so they just use both. My favorite example of this ever is from the song Live and Let Die: "but in this ever changing world in which we live in." I also think most people, including probably me, don't really know how to use punctuation exactly correctly. Specifically quotations marks and parentheses, em dashes and en dashes, colons and to a lesser degree semicolons. I would argue however that most of this really doesn't matter in most contexts.

the = talking about specific item(s) a = not a specific thing, a thing in general \- Do you want the sandwich? (this specific sandwich, this one right here) \- Do you want a sandwich? (some sort of sandwich, or maybe one of several that are available) \- I read the book last week. (this specific book that we are discussing) \- I read a book last week. (any book, no particular book mentioned) \- He didn't buy the car. (the car we talked about, but he might have bought a different car) \- He didn't buy a car. (he didn't buy any car at all)

Some obviously do. Scroll through any social media and you'll see "your, you're, their, they're, there" used incorrectly. And then there are the "should of" "could of" folks .

No, native speakers rarely struggle with grammar in any language except for highly specialized, literary, or archaic contexts. The "mistakes" people are discussing here are arguably just linguistic drift. Ultimately, whether in grammar or pronunciation or vocabulary, if enough native speakers start using particular forms and patterns, they become standard ("correct," if you like) by default.

I always feel the need to commiserate with people trying to learn English. It’s quite mad, and defies logic. Usage is always changing and mistakes become acceptable. Honestly, i think that’s why it is also a supple and enjoyable language. Anyway, my advice is do not worry about grammar, just get your point across. Hopefully people will meet you halfway.

I have problems with grammar because my first language, besides English, is a creole. So I really struggled with labelling whether I can consider myself a native speaker when I get prepositions wrong and learned that subject-verb agreement was a thing after high school Spanish. I think of it closer as a ~ one and the ~ this/that. Not sure if it helps. One pen and that pen.

**Trick for when to use "a" vs. "the":** I like to think of "the" like using a pronoun; in fact, in a conlang I made a while back, I decided that "the" would be written using pronouns. It is a little similar to languages like Spanish. Example: >"A sefúar **lo** dehr." - I know the boy. "A sefúar **lo.**" - I know him. **The trick:** Use "the" if you can replace the noun with a pronoun. We use both pronouns and "the" when it is something or someone specific that will be clear to the listener. Examples for "the": * *A good place to eat* is nearby. Do you know ***the place***? (Do you know ***it***?) * ***The book I told you about*** is sold here. (***It*** is sold here.) * ***The person speaking to you now*** is yours truly, Taiqi! (***I*** am yours truly, Taiqi!) Examples for "a": * ***A good place to eat*** is nearby. **≠** ***It*** is nearby. >You could use "***The good place to eat*** is nearby" if you have already mentioned the place to the listener. If not, the listener might ask, "What good place?" * ***A book*** is in the library. **≠** ***It*** is in the library. >When you say, "***A book*** is in the library", you could be referring to any book, but if you say "***It*** is in the library", you mean a specific book. **Note:** Using "the *something*" can be clearer than using a pronoun, so sometimes, it might seem like a pronoun doesn't fit. For example, you might have mentioned many things that "it" could refer to, or you might be specifying one person out of many possible "he"s or "she"s. This trick can help you get started understanding when to use "the", but it isn't 100% foolproof in practice.

Native speakers *struggle* with past participles

grammar comes naturally to native speakers for the most part. spelling though?

Yeah you pretty much get used to it, although general grammar literacy isn’t always great depending where you are, especially here in the UK. For “a/an” vs “the” - if it’s a specific thing you’re referring to, it’s the. If it could be any example of the mentioned thing, it’s a. For example: “I want to buy a table” means I don’t have any specific table in mind but I want to buy one, whereas “I put it on the table” specifies that it’s on that table over there, not another one.

Grammar comes completely naturally to native speakers, provided they’re speaking in their native dialect. Whether the speakers have proper standard grammar depends a lot on their socioeconomic class and education level, but native speakers don’t struggle with their native dialects. It comes just as naturally to us as your native language comes to you. As natives, we don’t have to think about it at all when we speak. But remember, native speakers do make mistakes when we’re acquiring our native dialects. We just made the them as children. Just like non-native speakers, we had to practice and learn the language, even though it looked slightly different for us. The more exposure you get to native speech, the better your grammar will become. You have to understand that native speakers have had years to decades (depending on age) of constant exposure and immersion, beginning even before birth (fetuses can hear in the womb) and continuing through critical developmental years, so we really don’t make mistakes in our native dialects past a certain age. That doesn’t mean you’re any less intelligent or anything, though. In fact, us natives learned English on easy mode. As long as you keep with it and put in active effort and immerse yourself, you’ll get to a point where you’re just as fluent as a native speaker! It just takes time.

I've forgotten a lot of grammar rules (and a lot of the grammar terms) that we went over in school, partly from laziness, but it was always more instinctual (based on hearing and reading things) than learned for me anyway... As for a/an vs the, it has to do with whether you're talking about one specific thing or

a vs the is actually quite simple (in my opinion! i dont understand how that trips people) a: there are multiple of something, but you are only referring to one if you say "can you hand me the towel", there are multiple towels, but you only want one. the: there is only one of something, and you are refferring to that one thing if you say "i want THE towel" there is only one and you want it.

I don't think grammar is an issue for any native speaker of any language. We are exposed to so much of the language, it just becomes natural except for a few mistakes here and there. Native speakers might struggle to explain how the grammar works because it's based on intuition.

In the sense that I have to think hard when using it, very very rarely. But in the sense that I mix up my tenses or spelling or make other minor slip ups then yes.

"the" is for something specific, and "a" is for something general. "A book on English grammar," could be any book. "The book on English grammar," is referring to a particular book.

Short answer: no. When you've been learning a language from 1 year old, the grammar just gets baked in and you never even think about it.

Explaining it can be a struggle. With adults in particular because they whine about it and say, "why???". The reason it's that way usually isn't all that important. But they focus more on that instead.

As a native speaker, I rarely have problems with grammar. One slightly tricky grammar thing is complicated tenses. - Next week, we will have had to have had our injections. - Remember the days when we used to have to have our bags with us at all times? - To hear you, I would have had to have been in the same room as you. There are also some examples where there are proper ways of forming grammatical sentences, which differ from the way people often talk. - He, you, and I are a family (correct grammar) versus You, me, and him are a family (commonly spoken) - There are a lot of dogs here (correct grammar) versus There's lots of dogs here (commonly spoken) - I want fewer pieces than that (correct grammar) versus I want less pieces than that (commonly spoken)

Native speakers have an intuitive understanding of when and how to use articles. That said, it’s totally understandable that they may be confusing for you if your language uses them differently (like, e.g., Spanish) or lacks them altogether (like, e.g., Mandarin or Russian). The same is true for phrasal verbs; they’re so common in everyday speech, we don’t normally think about them. Most native speakers could not tell you what a phrasal verb even is. However, there are other grammar “mistakes” that natives make, which are most noticeable in formal speaking and writing. For example: - using “of” rather than the contracted form of “have” (should of vs. should’ve) - using “there’s” rather than “there’re” with plural subjects (There’s two apples. vs. There’re two apples.) - (especially as children) irregular plurals (two mouses vs. two mice; two sheeps vs. two sheep) - using incorrect verb forms (have ran vs. have run; I drunk vs. I drank) The extent to which these should be understood as mistakes or simply linguistic variation depends on the context. If you can give some examples that confuse you, I’d be happy to help you with articles (a[n] vs. the).

I’m a copyeditor and an English speaker. Can confirm: yes, a surprising number of native speakers struggle with grammar. I have some clients who didn’t learn English as a first language, and they often write better than those who did (both in terms of grammar and telling interesting stories - probably because their storytelling comes from a different cultural frame of reference that’s more ‘interesting’ to my British ears due to unfamiliarity!). In my generation (Xennial), at least in England, strict grammar teaching was de-emphasised in schools. So we learned a bit, but not in depth. Speaking is much more forgiving. Most people don’t speak with ‘totally 100% by-the-book grammar’ and that’s fine! We don’t even notice it. It only stands out if someone also has a non-British accent. Otherwise we gloss right over it or put it down to regionalisms.

My dyslexia coach has to listen to me complain about grammar rules all the time. I struggle with some rules about singular and plural verbs in complex sentences. As for a vs the, generic thing is a, specific thing is the. “There’s a dog!” Means some random dog. “There’s the dog!” Means a particular dog you’ve been talking about or is important to you. Like when we come into the house and our dog runs up we could say “there’s the dog.” Another example, “Charlie is a dog.” It means my dog Charlie is a generic dog. Same with “Charlie is a Staffie cross.” Means that he’s a generic cross bread dog with some Staffie. Hope my bad explanation helps :)