English Grammar makes more sense when you see how it is used naturally.
A good way of doing this is to watch authentic videos. After watching, do the grammar activity to check your understanding. Watch it again so that you can better understand how real people use the grammar point in real life.
Choose a lesson
Here are some of the grammar points covered in our English video lessons:
Basic Verbs
is / are / have / has – What is AFL? (sport)
be / do – Out Of Touch | Kevin James Short Film (funny)
come / go – The David Beckham Statue Prank (funny / sport)
Questions
What – The Power of Words – False Memories (language)
Tenses
past tense – The Ed Sheeran $2 Peep Show Experiment (music)
do / did / have done / be doing (past simple / present simple / present perfect / present continuous) – Are Crows the Ultimate Problem Solvers? (nature)
did / have done / will have done (perfect aspect: past simple / present perfect / present perfect continuous / future perfect) – Confronting High Street Shoppers [water used for growing cotton] (Shopping)
be -ing / be -en, be -ed (present participle / past participle) – The Empty Pot read by Rami Malek (picture books)
-ing (progressive aspect) – Old Woman Is Master Sea Snake Catcher! (Japan, skills)
make / made (when to use the past participle) – Gordon Ramsay Struggles to Make Sushi (food)
did / had done (past simple and past perfect) – Warrnambool’s wombat street art is a happy accident
active and passive sentences – Did Somebody Say ‘Snowball Fight’? (sport)
active and passive sentences – Japan: The new World Heritage Site in Osaka (Japan)
Modal Verbs
will / be going to (talking about the future) – Justin Willman Makes This Guy Think He’s Invisible (funny / magic)
will (meaning and use) – 10 Ways JAPAN is 10 Years Ahead of the World (Japan / science and technology)
can – The Wind Rises Movie CLIP – Beautiful Dreams (2014) (movie clips)
can: can I / can you (offers and requests) – Air Travel In Real Life (funny)
won’t / can / can’t / must – Robot spy gorilla infiltrates a wild gorilla troop (nature)
should / supposed to – Michael Buble in Disguise (music)
Conditionals
if (if… it will do / it does: zero, first and mixed conditionals) – To Scale: The Solar System (science and technology)
Verbs and Nouns
to / -ing (infinitives and gerunds) – How to eat a chicken wing (food)
uncountable / singular / plural – Saving Coral Reefs (nature)
Articles
a / the – Eating Balut for the First Time. (food)
a / the – (including “a” with names) – How Urban Farming Saved a Dallas Community
Conjunctions
and / but – Ramen Culture Shock USA vs Japan (food / Japan)
Prepositions
of (common phrases) – This Is Why Eating Healthy Is Hard [Time Travel Dietician] (funny)
of / to – PREVIEW: Volkswagen I.D. R vs McLaren 720s | Top Gear: Series 28 (cars)
to / for – Surname – Bored Ep 117 (When customers don’t listen) (funny)
in / out / on / off / through – Fastest People in Slow Motion (skills)
in / at – Shredding the World’s Highest Sand Dunes on Skis (sport)
for / since – Stunt Driving Family (cars)
in front of / next to / underneath / over (prepositions of place) – Cat cuddles kittens and adopted ducklings (Nature)
Phrasal Verbs
in / out / on / off / up / down – How to fillet a fish | Buddy Oliver (food)
in / on / at / to / with (prepositional verbs) – Still Face Experiment: Dr. Edward Tronick (parenting)
Adjectives and Adverbs
–ly / -ed / -ing (meanings of suffixes) – MRI of Lesley Garrett singing (language)
almost / the most – How Hevesh5 Builds Amazing Domino Chain Reactions (skills)
Pronouns
I’m / you’re / they’re / it’s(pronouns and forms of be)- She Was the Best Female Rock Climber In the World By Age 14 (sport)
this / it – The Robot That Gives Humans a Job (social issues)
here / it – A Tour of Aquarius Reef Base (tour)
we / our / us – Emil & Dariel: Cello Players Rock With Jimi Hendrix Cover (music)
Other
gonna / got cha / gotta / ya (short forms) – The Secret Life of Pets 2 – Cat Lessons Scene (funny / movie clip)
word order: there it is / it is there – Top Soccer Shootout Ever With Scott Sterling (sport)
word order: putting a time or place first – A tour of Toronto (tour/travel)
just (position in the sentence) – How to Open a Can without Can Opener (how to)
If there is an English grammar point that you want to understand better, do the video lesson and see how people use this grammar in real life.
Grammar for communication
Many resources focus on grammar rules and judging which sentences are correct and which are not. Here we take a different approach.
Instead of starting with grammar rules, we start with the grammar that people in videos use naturally.
We have grammar activities and explanations to help you understand the grammar that they are using and understand more of what they are saying.
Once you understand how English speakers put their sentences together, you can use this understanding to make your own sentences.
Grammar activities
Our activities are a little different from ones you will find on other websites.
There are often many ways people can say things. We trust the speaker.
The answer to each grammar question is whatever the person in the video said.
The people in these videos form English sentences that communicate their ideas clearly. As a learner, I’m sure you want to better understand how they do it.
The grammatical forms presented in the grammar activities on this site are correct forms in English. Instead of worrying about which forms are correct and which are not, we focus on communication.
You practice choosing which words fit best.
We focus on what the people said and have activities and explanations to help you better understand how and why it works.
The right kind of grammar
If you want to learn English to communicate with English speakers you need to understand what people say.
Understanding what people say is very important. However, many grammar resources focus on a different side of grammar: they focus on rules for forming correct sentences.
Remembering rules and using formulas to make sentences is one way, but we don’t think it’s the best way.
When you communicate with people, the most important thing is understanding each other.
For this reason, we recommend grammar that helps you understand what English speakers say.
When you understand people, you can use this understanding to choose which words and phrases you use, make your own sentences, and communicate.
What about grammar rules?
In the past, grammar study was about rules. And rules can be helpful if you want to make sure your writing is perfect.
However, now there is software that can help you tidy up your writing. So when you study grammar, you can go back to basics and think about what it means and how it helps you communicate.
Small things like if you forget to use an ‘s’ don’t matter as much because tools like Grammarly: the World’s Best Grammar Checker can help you spot these in your writing and help you become more aware of the common patterns of English.
Software like this will offer suggestions. It is good to have your own knowledge of what the grammatical parts mean so that you can consider these suggestions and choose whichever phrasing you feel is the best to say what you want to say.
What is Real Grammar?
Real Grammar is a book and website that we have developed. It presents grammatical words and parts of words and helps you understand what they mean. Instead of telling you when to use each grammar point, Real Grammar encourages you to understand these grammatical parts and use them because of their meanings.
And, when you look at grammar this way, there are no exceptions! You understand the meaning that each grammatical word or part adds to each sentence.
People use “correct grammar” naturally because these small grammatical words and parts of words help others understand. People think about expressing meaning. And when they express this clearly, as a consequence, it is grammatical.
So with Real Grammar, understanding grammatical meaning comes first.
We hope this approach helps you make sense of English grammar and form better English sentences.
Please check it out and let us know what you think.
