As much as I appreciate that people are chill about mistakes, I'm not sure if I agree. To me, as an English language learner, the grammar is trivial to learn an

As much as I appreciate that people are chill about mistakes, I'm not sure if I agree. To me, as an English language learner, the grammar is trivial to learn and it is an anchor that gives me at least some reassurance. One of my most useful habits has been to pick a style guide and stick to it; I wish I'd done it earlier. People often say there should be no rules, but has anyone considered that rules ensure different regions don't develop dialects incomprehensible to each other? What makes English actually difficult to learn is its broad vocabulary of idioms. One needs to develop a sense for 'natural expressions' because often there are dozens of grammatical expressions, only one of which feels natural. This is something difficult to understand for a native speaker so let me give you an example. Which if any of these expressions are a natural way to get a teacher's attention? 'Can I have a question,' 'may I have a question,' 'can I ask a question,' 'can I ask you a question,' 'may I ask you a question,' or 'I have a question.' This is by far more difficult to learn than any rule of grammar.