What Is Grammar?

Grammar is the set of “rules” that govern the words, sentences, and other parts of speech that you use and how you put them together. Think of grammar is the road map of any language. Without grammar, you could just throw random words together and communicate with other people. For example, you could simply say: “dog park throw ball at it is the”, which makes no sense at all to anyone. However, with the right grammar, you can make a sentence that looks like this: “Throw the ball at the dog park.” This way, the sentence makes more sense and you can convey your meaning to someone else.

In languages throughout the world, every different one has it’s own grammar rules to go by so that you sound like a native speaker when you are reading or writing it. While you do not have to study grammar to be able to speak the language, it helps to act as a signpost to show you how to speak and what to say. Learning grammar will help you learn the language as well, and can help you learn faster. When you understand the grammar rules for a language that you are learning, it can help you figure things out easier on your own later on.

The thing about grammar is that it is constantly changing and evolving over long periods of time. Every language evolves as generations change. The same is true for English and every other language out there. Think about it this way, two hundred years ago, we said “thee” and “thou” instead of “me” or “you”.

There are a couple of different “definitions” of grammar itself. One is that it’s the “systematic study and description of a language”, the other is that it is “A set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and word structures of a language, usually intended as an aid to the learning of that language”. With the first definition, it applies to the way that we actually use, speak, and learn about our language. The second applies to the overall structure as most people think that our language should be.

Both definitions of grammar mean that it’s the way that we speak, the way that we write, and the way that a language is used overall to help us speak and communicate clearly with other people that speak our language.