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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Table of Contents
3—Learn A Common Trap That You May Face When Using Plural Or Singular Verbs......13
Prepositional phrase.........................................................................................................................................13
Prepositional phrase and plural/singular verb.......................................................................................13
Afterword................................................................................................................................. 18
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Welcome, and thank you for downloading my free guidebook 4 Ways to Improve Your
Grammar Fast!
As the name of this guidebook suggests, you will learn 4 ways you can use to improve your
grammar immediately.
I sincerely hope that you will get the most out of these tips to improve your grammar fast.
They were vital in helping me to understand grammar more deeply as I studied more
advanced grammar concepts.
You may wonder why you are learning such basic grammar concepts, as you think to yourself,
“I know what a sentence, adjective, and adverb are”. But do you really know?
Yet we are expected to know all these basics, when we are actually relying on our intuition to
know if a sentence or phrase is grammatically correct.
But our intuition is not very reliable. So why not rely on a solid understanding of grammar
instead?
Knowing these fundamentals will help you understand deeply how English grammar works,
giving you the flexibility to write beautiful sentences without fear of getting them wrong
grammatically.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
You write better. Your essays improve. You get better grades in English. You achieve the goals
you want.
All these are possible when you have a solid grasp of grammar.
If you don’t improve your grammar, you will continue feeling frustrated and confused when
you write. You will continue to avoid writing. And you will continue to have poor English
grades.
But fret not, these 4 tips that you’re learning will start your journey towards better grammar,
fast!
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
I was brought up from young thinking that grammar is hard. In primary school, I did lots of
grammar exercises and memorized grammar rules.
I thought doing those would help me ace my English exams. Indeed, I did well in my primary
school exams.
But ever since I entered secondary school, I felt lost. I got B to C grades for my essays.
When I read my essays, I could feel that a few of the sentences I wrote were wrong, but I
could not pinpoint what those mistakes were.
By then I hated memorizing those complicated rules about ‘proper English expressions’.
In an important English exam, I got a D. From that moment, I accepted that it was a clear sign
I would never be good at English.
I completed my first 2 years of university writing essays filled with grammar errors, which my
tutors tirelessly corrected.
I still did not know exactly if most of the sentences I wrote were grammatically correct.
Sometimes they looked correct, but they were wrong. Other times, they seemed wrong, but
were actually correct.
I learnt and practised it for a couple of months. I had fun with it too!
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
The best of all, I could finally understand how the English language work at a deep level. I
could pinpoint exactly what was grammatically wrong about the sentences I wrote in essays.
My essay scores improved. My teachers marked me with fewer grammar mistakes as well.
In my final year thesis, I got an A, which was given only to the top 10% of students. It was a
rare feat accomplished, in no small part, by better writing.
From this experience, I realized I was being lied to the entire time.
I thought being good at English demands lots of hard work and many years of practice.
All these are MYTHS. There is a simpler and much more effective way to master English
grammar.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
What is a sentence?
Once you understand what a sentence is, you will never make the mistake of writing
incomplete sentences when you don’t mean to ever again.
Or you can choose to deliberately break the rules so that you can create a stylistic effect.
What is a sentence? Well, a sentence is a statement that contains a subject, which is a noun,
and a verb. With a few exceptions, every sentence must have a subject and a verb.
But let me pause a bit here and explain what a subject is. A subject is the doer of an action, or
a person, place, or things that is being discussed.
Examples of a sentence:
John (noun) runs (verb) in the park every day.
By then, Mary (noun) was (verb) a teenager.
Remember this when you are checking if something you wrote is a sentence or not.
One exception is the imperative sentence (e.g. “Go to this place”), where no subject can be
found.
In this case, the subject is implied. The sentence “Go to this place” actually means “(You) go to
this place”.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Exception: Interjection
It is neither a part of a sentence, nor a sentence on its own. But it stands alone like a sentence.
Interjections are more often said than written. They most often appear in dialogues and
informal communication. They are rarely used (if at all) in formal essays.
In contrast, a phrase contains only a subject, a verb, or neither subject nor verb. Just
remember, if a statement that is at least 2 words long is not a sentence, it is a phrase.
When you need to know if you have written complete sentences in your essays, check if each
of your sentences contains a subject (or implied subject) and a verb.
Simple? Do keep in mind what a phrase is, because it is important in understanding grammar
in a deeper level as well.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
An adverb is a word that describes a verb (remember ad-verb), adjective, and other adverbs.
Contrary to what you may think, an adverb is not any word that ends with -ly!
An adjective describes a noun only, while an adverb describes a word that’s not a noun!
Adjective in a sentence
Clever is an adjective. Notice that the adjective must be placed next to the noun for the
sentence to make sense.
However, an adjective may be placed near the noun if other adjectives have taken all the
available spots.
Young is an adjective describing the noun girl, but another adjective clever is already beside
the noun, so young takes the next best spot, beside clever.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Note: There is another exception to this placement rule. For example, in the sentence “The
dress is beautiful”, the adjective beautiful is not beside the noun dress, which it is describing.
Instead, the sentence implies that the dress is ‘equal’ to beautiful.
Adverb in a sentence
Really is an adverb. It is describing the adjective capable. From what we learn from the
sentence, Tom is not just capable; he is “really capable”.
Also notice that an adverb is placed beside the adjective when it is describing that adjective.
Similarly, an adverb that describes another adverb is placed beside that adverb.
The adverb really is describing Tom’s state of being, represented by the verb is.
Also notice from the sentences below that the adverb can generally be placed at any part of
the sentence if it describes the verb.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
In other words, the adverb is describing the verb if it doesn’t seem to be describing anything
else.
Once you find out (from a dictionary) if a word is an adjective or adverb, you will be able to
place this word in a sentence correctly.
You will know to only use an adjective when describing a noun, and place it beside this noun.
You will also know to use an adverb when describing an adjective or adverb, and place it
beside the described word.
Finally, you will know to use an adverb when describing a verb. Sometimes, with the freedom
to put an adverb in multiple suitable places in a sentence when describing a verb, you will be
able to choose the most optimal one.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
You might have heard that preposition is a word that gives direction or something.
A preposition is a word that tells you the relationship between words or phrases, usually in
the form of time and space.
Prepositional phrase
A prepositional phrase contains both the preposition and an object (a noun) that usually
comes after this preposition.
Examples include at (preposition) home (object of the preposition), in New Zealand, from the
afternoon.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Now let me ask you. Which is correct in the sentence above, travel or travels?
We’ve to find out what travel refers to, the truck or the wheels.
If you think that the sentence above is grammatically correct, then you are tricked by the word
wheels.
Instead, match the verb travel with the singular subject truck at the start of the sentence! The
noun wheels just before travel is an object of the preposition (“with eight wheels” is a
prepositional phrase), not a subject.
Remember, don’t get tricked by the plural or singular noun just before the verb; look at the
subject instead!
Many people in the park under the cheerful sunny weather is enjoying the concert performance.
There’s something wrong. The verb is is pointing to the subject ”Many people”, not the word
weather!
There are 2 prepositional phrases, “in the park” and “under the cheerful sunny weather”.
Weather is the object of the preposition for “under the cheerful sunny weather”.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Many people in the park under the cheerful sunny weather are enjoying the concert
performance.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Let me introduce you a powerful technique that will speed up your understanding of grammar
and sentence structure fast.
What is it? Basically, you draw grammatical relationships between words in a sentence. This
allows you to understand grammar using the power of pictures. After all, a picture speaks a
thousand words!
This is the secret technique that improved my grammar and writing dramatically during
university, after I learnt and practised it.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
It may look complicated now, but representing grammar concepts with a picture is much
simpler and more fun than learning technical definitions and memorizing them.
If you want to improve your grammar and writing significantly in the fastest way possible,
consider learning sentence diagramming and other writing secrets from my guidebook: 30
Days to Great Grammar and Writing.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR FAST
Afterword
Thank you for reading this guidebook 4 Ways to Improve Your Grammar Fast!
I hope that learning these 4 ways to improve your grammar helps you in your journey to
master English grammar and writing.
I sincerely wish you the best in all your writing and grammar-related endeavours. :)
If you have any questions related to this guidebook, please feel free to email me at
lee@smoothwriter.com.
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Copyright © 2019 by Lee Y. H. www.smoothwriter.com