ＴＯＥＩＣ９５０点をめざして！

Words and the usage of words have been changing, so sometimes it is difficult for English learners to catch up with those words, and decide which one to memorize. I think, however, English learners should learn the basic patterns first, then go on to variations.

The other day, my husband and I were invited to my friend’s home, and I heard an interesting story there. My friend’s husband, who teaches at college, said that nowadays a lot of English native speakers say “maked” instead of saying “made.” His students had been very excited to hear that and had said that they did not have to memorize the troublesome table of irregular verbs, and all they had to do is just put “ed” or “d” at the end of verbs without thinking. He told the students that they still had to memorize them, because fundamental grammar was very essential; however, students did not look satisfied with his explanation. They said, “All we need to know is to learn how native speakers speak in real life, not the unrealistic grammar in the books! We were tired of stupid grammar in the books!” He said that it took him a while to make students understand.

There is another example.

Some time ago, my private English teacher told me the phrase “It's all the way at the end.” It is grammatically correct to use the word “at”, because the thing always exists as a point, not the area. For example, we may ask somebody, “Where is your car?” and he or she may answer, “It is all the way at the end”, because the car can only exist as a POINT, not the area.

However, one of my friends told me that she was not sure of using “at”. She told me that she had never heard anybody say “It’s all the way at the end.” What she always hears is “It’s all the way to the end.” She also googled both “It’s all the way to the end.” and “It’s all the way at the end.” She found much more web pages including “It’s all the way to the end.” She asked me which was the correct way to say, “It’s all the way to the end.” or “It’s all the way at the end”? Moreover, she said that she would choose to use the phrase “It’s all the way to the end,” not “It’s all the way at the end.” I think it is very interesting. What should English learners do?

My opinion is that I should not get rid of “It is all the way at the end,” because it is grammatically correct and makes perfect sense. Then, I also memorized the phrase “It is all the way to the end,” because a lot of people use it.

I did not grow up in an English-speaking country, so for people like me, in other words, people who try to learn English without having spent their childhood in an English speaking country, need to learn the basic ideas and the correct grammar first, then should go on to learn how native speakers speak.

Languages are always changing. So, in fifty years, people may say “goed” instead of “went”. However, if I know the fundamental grammar of saying “go-went-gone” I can change easily to what native English speakers say in the real world. If you know the basic ideas, it is very easy to understand variations, but never vice versa. If we pick up the variations of each ease, our ideas are not organized, so we can not handle the changes easily, and may waste a lot of time.

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英語ブログをやっている方の中には経験がある方がいらっしゃるかもしれませんが、時々「私の友人のネィティブは〜と言います。」というご意見を頂くことがあります。
そういうことに対する常々思っているわたしの意見を書いてみました。


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私も参加しています。よろしくお願いします。

いろいろな方の英語の勉強方法がこちらに！


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