AIBU to call in grammar pedants on this

[PlutoAjder]

A friend hasn't had a very good education and she's often embarrassed, asking me to explain something privately etc (a good example was she thought shaking hands with either hand was ok but someone at work sniggered about it so I had to explain, little things like that).

She often uses poor grammar and I can usually help as a native speaker.. e.g. you "threw" the ball,you didn't "throwed" it.

She's always done wierd things with the word "done" but I don't know how to help her, I'm not that hot on it myself! I've tried to print out some resources from English language websites before which she pins to the kitchen pinboard.. but I don't even know what I'm looking for with this "done" problem.

Examples of what she says:
I done the laundry (instead of I did the laundry)
I seen the dog (instead of I have seen the dog)
We done the dishes (instead of we have done the dishes or we did the dishes).

It's almost like she doesn't understand when a verb uses TO DO in it . You know, she says "I ate" but anything with "to do" in the sentence she uses the past tense of the verb.

Does that make sense to people on here with better grammar knowledge, and can you tell me how you might describe the problem so I can look for online help to print for her? (Or better yet point me in the direction of some?)

[FredaFrogspawn]

‘I just went shopping’ has a quite different meaning to, ‘I have just been shopping.’

The first one suggests the speaker is stating that shopping was the only thing they did in the period referred to. As in just shopping, nothing else. Whereas ‘just’ in the second sentence means in the very immediate past rather than only.

[Ofitck]

The problem comes from contractions.

With present perfect, we contract the have so you can hardly hear it and then some people don't know it's there.

It's the same issue with modal verbs, people writing "would of" because they only hear the contraction of "have."

Foreigners are better at speaking correctly as they know the rules, so they know you can't use a participle without an auxiliary or that modals need to be followed by infinitives. We native speakers just learn what we hear (or read) and if we never say HAVE you can't learn that we're supposed to.

[PlutoAjder]

Sorry I didn't mean to offend, I meant technically an English person speaking English but she grew up for a bit in Glasgow with her dad. So born in England to an English mum but spent a lot of time in Scotland with family during childhood. But sounds English.

Fuck it I should have just said British because it confuses matters here.that might explain why she's picked up this though if it's done in Scotland?

[PlutoAjder]

Sorry that apology was meant to @churchandstate

[BossAssBitch]

@churchandstate

Try not to be a snowflake, life will be so much less stressful

[Doobigetta]

I really resent that I went to school at a time (80s/90s) when it was considered unnecessary to learn English grammar in any depth. I know what is correct and what isn’t, but I can’t explain why. It’s a big gap and it becomes really apparent when you try to learn another language. What chance do we have of understanding all the different past tenses in French or Italian if we don’t know what they are in our own language.

[Pinkblueberry]

Often it’s to do with dialect as well - I have relatives who would say ‘I’m goin’ shop’ instead of I’m going to the shop - but they wouldn’t write that down. You don’t need to speak standard English to know it and apply it. I think it is a bit odd that she can’t get her head around it - lots of children learn to speak in a more colloquial way at home but obviously get corrected in their writing at school, hence why most people have a vague understanding of how to speak standard English even if they don’t use it out of habit/ because it’s not their dialect. Not sure what more you ca do for her really.

[WitheredfromtheLake]

I saw the dog - Simple Past
I have seen the dog - Compound Past (or Present Perfect)
I had seen the dog - Pluperfect (or Past Perfect)

I saw the dog (action finished)
I have seen the dog (expects some connection with the present: eg .. and I think he's gorgeous )
I had seen the dog (before something else happened: eg... before I slammed on the brakes).

[UterusUterusGhali]

I know a barrister who still can’t use done/did properly. (Raised in rural Hampshire so not a dialect)
What about suggesting she listens to radio 4? Knowing what past participle means won’t help a jot. It has to be heard often and repeated. Audio books too might help, as long as they’re not written in the vernacular.

My parents spoke well but I was raised on a council estate and I’m sure reading and listening to the radio helped me learn the metre and rules of RP.