Why is English grammar important?

Just take a look at the cover of this magazine about celebrity Rachael Ray. The texts says:

“Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog”

Of course, what the sentence is supposed to mean is that Rachael finds inspiration in her dog, her family and her cooking. Instead, the sentence sounds like Rachael likes to cook her family and her dog for dinner!

Good grammar can save you from misunderstandings like that. Grammar involves a set of rules you use to form sentences in any language. Grammar rules tell you things like why you walk slowly (not “slow”), and when to say “they” or “them.” Without grammar, it would be very difficult for people to understand one another.

So learning English grammar is important, but it’s not always easy to start. Where can you get all the information you need, and how can you learn all of the rules (and the exceptions to these rules)?

Well, you can start right here with this list of 14 English grammar learning websites!

Smart Steps for Learning English Grammar

Even with a list of great resources, learning will be easier if you follow specific steps.

1. Have a goal. Having a goal helps you create focus. Choose a specific goal for your grammar learning, such as feeling comfortable for a job interview, or fixing your spoken mistakes in the past tense.

2. Break that goal down into smaller goals. Now that you know what you want to achieve, you can figure out how to get there. Let’s say that you want to fix your past tense mistakes. First you will need to figure out what those mistakes are. To do that, you can ask others to point out your mistakes when you speak, record yourself and listen carefully, work on the past tenses you’re less familiar with and more.

Whatever you’re working on, you should find a way to break it down into smaller chunks.

3. Focus on one topic at a time. Don’t try to learn everything at once. Instead, learn one rule at a time and practice, using and reviewing that rule until you know it so well that you could teach it to someone else.

4. Study a few minutes a day. You don’t need to study for hours to learn English. All it takes is five to 10 minutes a day, as long as you use them wisely.

Each day, you can read a grammar rule, do a few exercises and then practice it for the rest of the day. The next couple of days, use that rule while writing and speaking to make sure you didn’t forget it. Look for examples of that rule while you read, watch or listen to anything in English.

Follow these steps, and before you know it you’ll feel much more comfortable with English grammar.

How to Use This List of English Grammar Resources

We’ve put together a list of some awesome websites where you can find grammar rules, test your skills or quickly look up a grammar question. This list is not comprehensive, which means it doesn’t contain every single grammar website on the internet. That would be one huge list!

Instead, you’ll find a good mix of useful resources for any kind of grammar learning you want to do. You will not (and should not) use all the websites. Instead, look around and find a couple of sites that you like.

Then, and this is important, actually use them. Bookmark the website on your computer and your phone, download the app if there is one and include one or two in your learning schedule. Doing so will make sure that you visit the websites regularly and continue to learn from them.

Grammar Bytes

Grammar Bytes has bite-sized (mini) grammar lessons and exercises presented in a really friendly and sometimes silly way. Interactive exercises let you test your skills, and they also contain easy-to-understand explanations with the correct answers.

The site also posts a daily grammar workout on its Twitter account.

5 Minute English

The design for 5 Minute English might not be very fancy, but its explanations are clear and to the point. The site has some great information about common grammar questions and mistakes, like this page, which explains when to use “listen” and when to use “hear.”

FluentU

One of the best ways to learn English grammar is by hearing it used in real situations. The more English you listen to, the more grammar you learn—without even memorizing the rules first (although that definitely helps).

On FluentU, you have access to a huge library of real-world English videos, along with clear definitions, examples and more for all words used in the videos. The more you watch, the more you learn!

While browsing our hundreds of awesome videos, you’ll have the freedom to choose which ones are most relevant to your personallearning experience.

FluentU actively teaches you new words and grammar rules while you watch. There are interactive subtitles—click on any word for an instant definition, grammar info and examples.

FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.

For example, if you tap on the word “brought,” then you see this:

You can learn any video’s vocabulary with FluentU. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.

FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.

Keep practicing with these videos, and you will see great improvement in your ability to use English correctly, the way native speakers do.

Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet, or download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play stores.

British Council

The British Council is a great resource for all language learners, especially if you’re learning British English. There is a huge amount of information here about any kind of grammar you may need to know.

Just choose your level and then you’ll get several specific grammar topics to explore.

Grammar Girl

Grammar Girl is both a blog and podcast that provides short, friendly tips to improve the grammar in your writing. Grammar Girl (also known as Mignon Fogarty) makes learning grammar fun and simple with memory tricks. This makes it easier to remember and use difficult grammar rules.

Grammar Girl is used by native speakers as well, so you can be sure it will help your English sound more natural. You’ll learn about English grammar rules as well as punctuation, writing style and even business tips.

You can find her podcasts on Apple and Spotify, or you can get a free month when you sign up with the code GRAMMAR using Stitcher.

English Grammar 101

Do you prefer learning with a textbook, but don’t want to carry one around all the time? You’ll love English Grammar 101, which is set up like a grammar textbook.

Each easy-to-understand lesson (or chapter) only covers one topic at a time, and is followed by an exercise section to test your understanding of the topic. The short length of the chapters means you can spend a few minutes a day on one grammar rule, and learn a lot within just a short time.

Alison English Grammar Courses

Not everybody likes to learn alone. For those of you who would prefer to learn in a classroom, you might to try an online course. Alison has a number of free online courses for learning English grammar. These courses usually involve watching videos and then doing assignments.

The best part is that you can often interact with (talk to) the other students and the teacher. So if you have a question or want to practice with someone, you can.

Education First’s English Grammar Guide

Education First’s grammar guide is very well organized, and is a good starting place to learn how to use parts of speech. The rules themselves are short and use many example sentences to show how everything works.

If you learn better through examples than through rules, this is an excellent place to start.

Oxford English Grammar Course

This website is meant to be a companion to the Oxford English Grammar books. Even if you don’t use those books, this is still a good place to practice your grammar.

There are no explanations of the grammar rules, but there are many interactive grammar exercises to make sure you really understand each rule. Use this website to practice the rules you’re learning somewhere else, or to find out what you need to study more.

Daily Grammar

Daily Grammar is simple both in look and content. The website has over 400 lessons on parts of speech and parts of sentences, which you can go through in order, or you can use the glossary to look up a term.

Daily Grammar also posts lessons to their blog, along with exercises for practice.

EnglishClub

EnglishClub is another website with grammar lessons, and the writing on this one is especially easy to understand and friendly. Some lessons have quizzes, and others have special tips that explain commonly misunderstood facts about each topic.

Grammarly Tips

You may have heard of the Grammarly spelling and grammar checker. It doesn’t just check your mistakes in your writing, but will also explain them to you so you don’t make the same mistakes again.

They’ve also collected a ton of rules, facts and tips on every possible grammar topic you can imagine. Explanations are written in a blog-like way: personal and using full paragraphs instead of a few lines. Because of its more advanced English usage, it’s a fantastic resource for more advanced learners.

Grammarly is not an English learner website—it’s a website for native English speakers who want to improve their grammar. Because of that, the tips might be a bit overwhelming for beginner/intermediate learners.

English Page

English Page is not organized as well as some of the other websites on this list, but it has some of the best English grammar exercises you’ll find. The exercises here don’t just ask you to choose a correct answer from a list—you have to write the answer yourself.

This gets you to actually use what you learned, and to practice instead of just memorize. There’s an excellent section with grammar rules as well, with lots of sample sentences.

YouTube

Visual learners, we haven’t forgotten about you! For those of you who prefer to watch someone explain the rules instead of reading them, YouTube has plenty of lessons to offer.

Some great English grammar lessons can be found on EnglishLessons4U, Let’s Talk and many other channels. For lessons on something specific, search YouTube for “[topic] grammar lesson” and you’ll find many options.

Which of these websites will join your bookmarks/favorites? Hopefully you’ve found a couple of sites that you’re excited to start using. Remember to use these websites together with other English learning methods. Good luck!

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