English Grammar Boot Camp
Overview
Improve your grammar competence and confidence by learning the essential elements of English grammar and usage, led by an award-winning linguist.
Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language. In fact, most of the grammar “rules” you think you know are not really rules at all, which is why there is often debate over common grammar issues.
In English Grammar Boot Camp, linguist and popular Great Courses professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan takes you on an enjoyable exploration of the essential aspects of English grammar. These 24 spirited and accessible lectures offer you a comprehensive core training—a linguistic “boot camp,” by which we mean a thorough immersion in all of the key elements of English grammar and usage, in their most immediate, practical application.
The delightful and superbly insightful lectures of English Grammar Boot Camp offer you a unique opportunity to explore the linguistic riches of the English language and to significantly deepen your mastery of grammar, usage, and style. This mastery will enable you to use English more competently and confidently in every context.
Course Structure
- Why Do We Care about Grammar?
Duration: 33 min
Learn what conflict is, why it is inevitable even in successful relationships, and why dealing with it constructively is essential and beneficial. - Prescriptivism: Grammar Shoulds and Shouldn’ts
Duration: 31 min
Investigate prescriptive grammar and the history of specific grammatical rules. - Descriptivism: How Grammar Really Works
Duration: 32 min
Dive into descriptive grammar and observe the wealth of grammatical knowledge you know intuitively. - Re Phrasing
Duration: 29 min
Define and categorize words into parts of speech and understand their syntax. - Fewer Octopuses or Less Octopi?
Duration: 31 min
Investigate countable and uncountable nouns and their modifiers. - Between You and Your Pronouns
Duration: 33 min
Explore personal, interrogative, and indefinite pronouns and their complexities. - Which Hunting
Duration: 29 min
Learn the rules governing the use of “that” vs. “which.” - A(n) Historical Issue
Duration: 30 min
Understand determiners and their key functions in English. - Funnest Lecture Ever
Duration: 30 min
Study adjectives and their comparative and superlative forms. - Going, Going, Went
Duration: 32 min
Clarify past tense vs. past participle and explore irregularities. - Object Lessons
Duration: 29 min
Examine how we categorize verbs based on their function within a sentence. - Shall We?
Duration: 35 min
Explore auxiliary verbs and their usage in English. - Passive Voice Was Corrected
Duration: 32 min
Define the passive voice and its benefits in writing. - Only Adverbs
Duration: 33 min
Discover the rich world of adverbs and their functions. - No Ifs, Ands, or Buts
Duration: 33 min
Learn about conjunctions and their roles in sentences. - However to Use However
Duration: 27 min
Identify the range of conjunctive adverbs and their significance. - Squirrels and Prepositions
Duration: 31 min
Explore the use of prepositions and their common usage issues. - Stranded Prepositions
Duration: 27 min
Understand the debate around ending sentences with prepositions. - The Dangers of Danglers
Duration: 31 min
Investigate dangling modifiers and their implications. - Navigating the Choppy Paragraph
Duration: 32 min
Learn how to make your prose flow and avoid choppiness. - What Part of Speech is Um?
Duration: 34 min
Study the distinction between involved and informational discourse. - Duck, Duck, Comma, and Duck
Duration: 33 min
Review modern punctuation rules and their importance. - Its/It’s Confusing
Duration: 31 min
Examine apostrophe usage and common errors. - Trending Language
Duration: 34 min
Explore new grammatical expressions and their impact on language.

