On its surface, Google Images is a humble image search engine. But hiding beneath that surface is a language-learning goldmine: billions of illustrated example sentences, which are both searchable and machine translatable

How do you learn all the complicated bits of “My homework was eaten by my dog”? Simple: Use the explanations and translations in your grammar book to understand what a sentence means, and then use flashcards to memorize that sentence’s component parts, like this:

n every single language, grammar is conveyed using some combination of three basic operations: grammar adds words (You like it -> Do you like it?), it changes existing words (I eat it -> I ate it), or it changes the order of those words (This is nice -> Is this nice?). That’s it. It’s all we can do. And that lets us break sentences down into grammatical chunks that are very easy to memorize.

2-3 months Now it’s time to crack open your grammar book. And when you do, you’ll notice some interesting things: First, you’ll find that you’ve built a rock-solid foundation in the spelling and pronunciation system of your language. You won’t even need to think about spelling anymore, which will allow you to focus exclusively on the grammar. Second, you’ll find that you already know most of the words in your textbook’s example sentences. You learned the most frequent words in Stage 2, after all. All you need to do now is discover how your language puts those words together.

In this book, grammar refers to the manner in which the language functions, the ways that the blocks of speech and writing are put together. Usage refers to using specific words in a manner that will be thought of as either acceptable or unacceptable. The question of whether or not to split an infinitive is a consideration of grammar; the question of whether one should use literally in a nonliteral sense is one of usage."

grammar Parser { rule TOP { I <love> <lang> } token love { '♥' | love } token lang { < Raku Perl Rust Go Python Ruby > } } say Parser.parse: 'I ♥ Raku'; # OUTPUT: ｢I ♥ Raku｣ love => ｢♥｣ lang => ｢Raku｣ say Parser.parse: 'I love Perl'; # OUTPUT: ｢I love Perl｣ love => ｢love｣ lang => ｢Perl｣

Definable grammars for pattern matching and generalized string processing

Machines understand languages, that are formal and rigid, with unique and unambiguous instructions that are interpreted in precisely one way. Those formal, abstract languages, and programming languages in general, are hard to understand for humans like ourselves. Primarily, they are tailored towards the requirements of the machine. The user is therefore forced to adapt to the complexity of the formal language.

Instead of forcing humans to understand the complex inner workings of machines, we should construct machines in a way, so they better understand us humans!

En dashes, which are about the width of an upper-case N, are often mistaken for hyphens. But, traditionally, en dashes function as a kind of super hyphen. They’re meant to give you a little extra glue when you have a compound modifier that includes a multi-word element that can’t easily be hyphenated. For example, the phrase Elvis Presley–style dance moves uses an en dash because Elvis-Presley-style dance moves is awkward; “Elvis Presley” isn’t a compound modifier, so hyphenating it looks odd. But, keep in mind, not all readers will notice en dashes or understand what they mean. Sometimes, it’s better to simply reword the phrase. Elvis Presley–style dance moves or: dance moves like Elvis Presley’s pre–World War II buildings or: buildings constructed before World War II En dashes are also used to show ranges of numbers, such as times, page numbers, or scores (I’ll schedule you from 4:30–5:00). But, outside of formal printed publications, this type of en dash is commonly replaced with a simple hyphen.

Lie: I felt sick, so I lay down.Here’s where it can get a bit tricky. The past tense of lie is lay, but not because there is any overlap between the two verbs. So when you say, “I lay down for a nap,” you’re actually using the verb lie, not lay, despite the way it sounds.

the Corpus was also used as a basis for grammar and language reference titles as well as dictionaries.

the singular form of the string (note that it can be used for numbers other than one in some languages, so '%s item' should be used instead of 'One item')

This will of course depend on your perspective, but: beware Finnish and other highly inflected languages. As a grammar nerd, I actually love this stuff. But judging by my colleagues, you won’t.

If we’re speaking of garden-variety errors, the most common error I’ve observed that manages to get past any number of sets of expert eyes and wind up printed in books is the use of “lead” where “led” is meant—that is, the past tense of the verb “to lead.”

They mistake the apostrophe for a piece of punctuation when it is a spelling issue. 

I still firmly believe that copy editors need only enough grammar to get them through the demands of their particular manuscripts; being a grammarian is entirely beside the point. Or to put it another way, grammar is part of what you do as a copy editor, but only a part. That said, it’s fun to know about the subjunctive, so I’ll concede that particular pleasure.

Chinese, says Bacon, is written "in Character� Real, which express neither letters nor words ... but things or notions;

his grammar feud