Do you ever read a piece of text and think to yourself, “There’s something wrong, but I can’t quite put my finger on it?”
That’s your mental grammar working, a set of rules that you know instinctively, as a result of years of use of your particular language. Apart from letting you make out what others are saying, it’s the same property that allows you to produce sequences of words that folks around you can understand. In many ways, it’s the “knowing” part of grammar – that little voice that tells you something is wrong even when you can’t explain the reasons behind it. The more you use a language, the richer the map of your mental grammar becomes.
For most of us, it’s all we really need for daily use – a cognitive type of linguistic competence in using English, as opposed to knowing the details of each rule for sentence construction. Here’s the problem, though. When all you have is mental competence, you rarely have the ability to correct any flaws in your current language skills.
When you’re writing a very important business email, for instance, and are reviewing the text before sending out, you may be alerted to something that sounds wrong in the first paragraph. However, since your mental level of competence doesn’t cover the particular problem, you can’t figure out how to fix it. You have three options: seek the help of a colleague with better language skills, open up a grammar book to try and find a solution, or use a writing software to help you correct the problem.
We’ve long recommended the latter of the three options for the simple reason that it’s the most efficient. A colleague won’t always be around to help you and it will likely take you a long time to find the solution in a grammar book. An English writing software, on the other hand, will help you shape that email up in no time. For such a small one-time investment, we can’t imagine one proving a better solution for you.
Tags: English competence, mental grammar
