Belong is a verb and this is how you use it

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

Belong is a verb which is used to indicate possession or belonging to someone or something.

For example, you have a pen. You say: That pen belongs to me.

Just to be clear, it's wrong to say: That pen is belong to me.

Please, I plead you, don't do that.

Allah knows best.

Deadline

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

Deadline refers to a particular time or date which something should be completed. [1]

Example: "The deadline is tomorrow and you are telling me this now?"

It is not to be confused with dateline, which is a line of text, usually at the beginning of an article or a news report, which shows the date and origin of an article.

Allah knows best.

[1] Taken from definition of deadline from Oxford Dictionaries Online.

SHAH ALAM, Selangor, Dec 12

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

See the title? SHAH ALAM, Selangor, Dec 12.

That is what you call a dateline.

It is a line of text, usually at the beginning of an article or a news report, which shows the date and origin of an article.

So if you tell me that you have a dateline to adhere to, I would assume that whatever you are doing now must have taken place from the dateline that you are mentioning.

Allah knows best.

It's and its.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

It's a good day for the cat today. It has managed to get out of its cage.

It's is used when the phrase 'it is' is shortened to one word.

Its is used to show possession for the pronoun it. Like 'his' for a he and 'her' for a she, 'its' is for it.

This is grammar and I'm sorry if this entry slowed your learning process.

Allah knows best.

I need to learn grammar

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

Recently, Wan Asmuri posted this comment on my blog:

"we should learn english without concentrating a lot on grammar.Grammar make us learn very slow."

I respect his opinion, but I do not share his view on this.

For me, grammar is fundamental in the process of learning a language. If I may quote Karen Armstrong from her autobiography of the bible:

Language is a complex code, ruled by deep laws that combine to form a coherent system that is imperceptible to the speaker, unless he or she is a trained linguist.

The rules of grammar are the laws of the language. An impressive vocabulary would mean nothing if the rules of grammar are not applied to it.

Take this collection of words as an example:

pretentious relucent be? indie artists must why

Is this English? The words look English. Spellchecker doesn't complain. So it should be English, right?

For someone who knows nothing about grammar, they might think that its perfect English(except 'relucent' though, I don't think anyone would use that word).

But even for someone like me, a struggling English learner with minimal knowledge of the English grammar, I would say that this is not English.

These words do not make sense at all. The words might seem pretty but without grammar, it lacks meaning.

The purpose of this blog is to share my experience of learning the English language and I intend to do it by learning grammar. It might be slow, but hey, I'm a slow learner.

Allah knows best.

Of things that happened in the past

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

Don't you think there are just way too many tenses in the English language? You have the past tense, the perfect past, the present tense and more other tenses that I think I will ever use. Be that as it may, tenses are part and parcel of the English language therefore it is vital that a learner of the language properly understands the different tenses and their usage.

As a start, when do I use the simple past tense?

The simple past tense should be used for describing things that happened in the past.

For example, yesterday I attended my friend's wedding reception. So for verbs that we want to use to describe what happened at the reception should be used with the past tense.

I had Nasi Minyak at the wedding.
The Nasi Minyak was delicious.

Simple is it not? For things that happened in the past, we should use the past tense.

Allah knows best.

Common

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

When do we use the adjective common? Here are several cases in which I would use the word common:

1) When we share something.

Example:

In these darkest hours, let us forget our differences and unite to face the common enemy!

2) When something is widespread.

Examples:

That is a common mistake.
Mat Rempits in Shah Alam? Sadly, that is a common sight.

3) Normal, nothing special.

Example:

I am but a common man.

So those are the cases in which I would use the word common. Interestingly, I have also seen the word common prevalently used in such phrases:

Common Manchester United!
Common Ahmad!

This is actually a common mistake. In cases like this, the word common should be replaced with the proper phrase: come on.

"Come on" is used when you want to urge someone to perform better.

For example, during a match, you would say "Come on Manchester United!". In this case, you are urging the football club to play better.

Hopefully this has helped my readers to understand the difference between common and come on.

Allah knows best.