Why Learn Grammar?

I said before that grammar is the rules of a language that enable it to be understood to all who know that language. Learning grammar—even just knowing it "by ear" rather than knowing the strict rules—enables you to write so you're understood.

Even if you're clueless about where to put commas in a sentence, you still use grammar when you order your words. There are usually multiple ways to order words in order to express your meaning, like a math problem can be written a few different ways.

But certain things you have to keep in a sentence if you don't want to lose the meaning. For example, 5 + (2 · 10) = 25, but if you remove that +, you get 5(2·10) = 100. In the same way, "Betty ate, as did the dog." says something very different from "Betty ate the dog."

Grammar therefore lets you write so you'll be understood. It also aids in reading. Imagine if English lacked spaces between words, capital letters, or punctuation for sentences, and lacked paragraph breaks on top of it. It would be a whole lot harder to read and understand, wouldn't it?

That's why you learn grammar in any language. You don't toss numbers together in math and expect the problem to be understood. You shouldn't treat English that way, either.