by Lesley Mason

Created on: July 15, 2007   Last Updated: November 24, 2010

English is renowned for being the easiest language in which to make yourself understood, but the hardest to learn correctly.

Even in standard English (if there is such a thing given British, American & Australian variants) there are virtually no rules of pronunciation; for example the same combination of letters "ough" could be pronounced "ow" (as in bough or plough) or "uff" (as in rough) or "off" (as in cough) or "oh" (as in the British pronunciation of furlough) and so it goes on.

For every rule of spelling you learn "i before e except after c", there are numerous exceptions: weight, sleigh.

Then we come to punctuation, word order, subordinate clauses, tenses and conjugations.

GRAMMAR

In all languages grammar is a minefield of complications and exceptions. In the mongrel language we know as English which derives from so many other linguistic traditions and adopts and adapts them all freely, this is more so than in any other tongue.

This is the one area where, if you want to get it absolutely right, there is no alternative but to sit down and learn the rules.

Then sit down again and learn the exceptions.

And then, f you're anything like me, spend the rest of your life ignoring half of them.

The wonder of English is that you can ignore the rules and not only still make sense, but actually improve the quality of the text. To do so effectively, however, you must (a) know the rules in the first place and (b) know when it is acceptable to break them.

In an article such as this one, for example, I may use punctuation in a free-form fashion to aid my emphasis. Similarly, I may start a sentence as I did just now with a conjunction. I would not dream of doing either of these things in formal report or a business letter. Context matters.

How then do you set about learning the subtleties that mark the master of a language from the beginner or the slovenly journeyman?

Whether you're a native speaker or not there are five key elements to improving your English: Grammar we've spoken of - there are no shortcuts with that one. It is rote learning and practice. The others are much more fun. They are: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking.

READING

Read, read, read. Anything and everything. The broader your list, the more styles of English you will come across and the more you will learn to differentiate between them. You will learn the differences between legalese and ordinary business language. You will garner conversational writing from magazines and tabloids. Serious

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