Singing to Improve Grammar

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi.

Who’s this?

This is Marquis Todd from San Diego, California.

Hi, Marquis.

Marquis.

What’s going on?

Well, I had a question on grammar for you guys.

Okay.

Shoot.

So this is a question that may be a little different than you’ve gotten in the past.

I was listening to your show a couple of weeks ago where people were talking about correcting other people’s grammar and the best way to do that.

I’m one of the people that have been on the receiving end of having my grammar corrected.

And I’ve been very appreciative, actually, when it has been corrected.

And I have been trying to correct a specific grammar problem that I’ve had for many, many years with no success.

So this is really to get both of your advice on how maybe I can go about correcting this problem.

Okay. Let’s hear it.

So I don’t know the official name of the tense, but it’s when you say something like, I have eaten or I have gone.

And what I do instead is I say, I have ate or I have went.

And did you grow up saying it like that?

Yes.

So both of my parents do this.

And so I can hear them doing it now.

And that’s probably the most interesting thing.

I’m a scientist by training, so I find it all quite fascinating that I can hear when other people make the grammatical error.

I also do not write the grammatical error.

So in other words, I do it correctly always when I write.

But when I speak, particularly in casual situations, I make the error probably about 80% of the time, even though I am aware that I have the issue.

I can’t seem to hear it.

How do you find out that you did it?

Because I have asked my husband to correct me because I’ve been trying to correct the problem.

How good is he about that?

Is he reliable?

So he will correct me when we’re alone.

He does not correct me in front of others, which is very kind of him.

Yeah, good for him.

And he does correct me pretty frequently.

But even with that, I just can’t.

Very occasionally I’ll catch myself.

But it’s rare.

Boy.

So what we’re really talking about is correcting a habit of speech.

I mean, something that’s really, really ingrained in there.

You understand the grammar.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah, and I noticed there’s something significant about the two verbs that you’re talking about.

These are both irregular verbs, right?

-huh.

So go becomes went is really irregular, and eat becomes ate is very irregular.

Well, and one thing, I was talking to my husband, and he suggested that part of it is that those two particular phrases are used a lot in common speech.

So probably I was exposed a lot to those two in particular growing up because you just say it a lot.

Your parents would say it a lot. You say it a lot.

It is incredibly widespread, by the way, for the past form and the past participle forms of those two verbs to be confused.

To say the same thing that you’re talking about.

Exactly that. It’s very widespread.

Now, that doesn’t make it grammatical, and it certainly is seen, as one grammar authority put it, as low dialect and uneducated.

But it does happen quite a bit.

I’m not surprised that you have it in your speech.

It doesn’t make you rare or unusual.

But probably what’s most significant about you is the fact that you want to fix it, and this may be the hardest thing of all.

Right, and that’s why I thought it was an interesting twist, right?

To talk to somebody who says, okay, I’ve been corrected.

I want to correct it.

Now, how do I do that?

Well, it’s good that you recruited your husband to do that, but he’s probably not with you all the time when you’re speaking casually, right?

No, and I did ask him today, because I’ve never asked him this before, if he has observed me doing it in front of others.

Because I didn’t know if I was with others and maybe I was being a bit more formal.

I might not do it.

And he said, no, I do it in front of others as well.

I’m afraid my best advice for you seriously is going to be rote exercises where you come up with a series of dialogues from a variety of circumstances and you literally write out a script that you practice with your husband when the two of you are alone.

Interesting, like doing piano scales or something.

Yeah, seriously.

Or maybe singing even.

Singing can help. Singing can actually ingrain things more firmly in your brain than talking can.

Yeah, and my husband actually is a musician and singer, so he might be able to come up for a little jingle with four minutes.

Yeah, get him to write you a song.

That’s it.

I’m absolutely serious.

I think that’s a great way to learn a foreign language and to probably improve your grammar.

Yes, please.

Yes, send us an update, will you, in a few months?

Yes, I will.

I’m definitely going to try these techniques and see if I can get this corrected.

Okay.

Thank you.

Let us know.

Thank you.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to help you with your grammar.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.