Another important reason why we need to have an overall understanding of English (whether of its grammar, vocabulary, or pronunciation) is that it allows you to discern what is important and what is not important in your learning in the “grand scheme of things,” so to speak.
I was reading the book “Heiresses” by the British historian Miranda Kaufmann yesterday and saw this line about the epitaph on the tombstone of an 18th-19th century British enslaver in Jamaica:
One can just about make out the inscription praising “the honorable” Simon Taylor as “a loyal subject, a firm friend, and an honest man” who had led “an active life, during which he faithfully and ably filled the highest offices of civil and military duty in this island.”
勉強可以辨認出碑文內容：它讚揚「尊貴的」Simon Taylor，稱他是「忠誠的臣民、堅定的朋友、誠實的人」，一生積極有為，「在此島忠誠而能幹地擔任了文職和軍事職責中最高的職位」。
The prepositional phrase at the end, “in this island,” drew my attention a bit -- because it sounds a little less natural to me than what we would usually say now, which is “on this island,” with the preposition “on.”
However, this just reflects that native speakers’ choice of prepositions when forming prepositional phrases with certain noun phrases has slightly shifted since the 18th/19th centuries. This does not mean that the person writing the epitaph then was “wrong,” or that we are “wrong” now for preferring to say “on the island” instead.
When we have an overall understanding of how the language works and of how language changes, we can make a mental note of this being interesting and then move on -- because this is not an important point to dwell on and be confused about.
There is no need to ask the question, “why did this British person write ‘in this island’? Isn’t this ‘wrong’? Shouldn’t it be ‘on this island’?”
This inspired me to write this short email just to say that, very often, I see students -- especially those that do not yet have an overall view of how English works -- getting bogged down by things like “whether it should be ‘on the bus’ or ‘in the bus’,” or whether it should be “the birds on the apple tree” or “in the apple tree.”
For lack of a better way of putting this -- such questions are unimportant in most contexts. Having an overarching systematic understanding of English allows you to discern questions that are actually important to your learning from those that are not.
For example, as far as prepositional phrases are concerned, it is far more important to understand what they are structurally, what functions they can serve in sentences, and the fact that are general relational meanings expressed by each preposition but also many fixed expressions that have fixed meanings -- than to get bogged down by a question like whether we should say “on this island” or “in this island.” (For the record, “on this island” sounds more natural now.)
Anyway, this was a just a random musing as I read this line. As always, I hope more and more students can step back and understand language from a more systematic perspective and learn to discern for themselves what is and is not (as) important in their learning journey.
我們需要對英文有整體理解（無論是對文法、詞彙，還是發音）的另一個重要原因是：這種整體理解可以幫助你在學習過程中自行判斷，甚麼是重要、甚麼不重要。
我昨天在讀英國學者 Miranda Kaufmann 的書《Heiresses》，看到這一句，講的是一位 18 至 19 世紀在牙買加的英國人奴隸主墓碑上的碑文：
One can just about make out the inscription praising “the honorable” Simon Taylor as “a loyal subject, a firm friend, and an honest man” who had led “an active life, during which he faithfully and ably filled the highest offices of civil and military duty in this island.”
勉強可以辨認出碑文內容：它讚揚「尊貴的」Simon Taylor，稱他是「忠誠的臣民、堅定的朋友、誠實的人」，一生積極有為，「在此島忠誠而能幹地擔任了文職和軍事職責中最高的職位」。
句尾的介詞組 「in this island」 稍為引起了我的注意，因為對我來說，它聽起來比我們今日通常會說的 「on this island」 稍為沒有那麼自然；今日我們通常會選介詞 「on」。
不過，這只反映了自 18 至 19 世紀以來，母語人士在將某些名詞組組成介詞組時，對介詞的選擇有了輕微變化。這不代表當時寫碑文的人「錯」了，也不代表我們今日較傾向說 「on the island」 就是「錯」的。
當我們對語言怎樣運作，以及語言怎樣變化，有一個整體理解時，我們可以在心裡留意一下這個現象很有趣，然後就繼續往前走——因為這不是一個值得花很多時間糾結和困惑的重點。
我們不需要問：「為甚麼這個英國人會寫 『in this island』？這不是『錯』嗎？不是應該寫 『on this island』 嗎？」
我讀到這一句時，就想到可以寫這封短 email 講一講：很多時候，我看到學生——尤其是還未對英文怎樣運作有一個整體視角的學生——很容易被一些問題卡住，例如究竟應該說 「on the bus」 還是 「in the bus」，又或者應該說 「the birds on the apple tree」 還是 「in the apple tree」等等。（我收過很多類似的問題 😅）
容許我直接一點說的話：在大部分語境裡，這類問題其實並不重要，一點都不值得去糾結。對英文有一個更高層次、更有系統的整體理解，會幫助你判斷哪些問題對你的學習真的重要，哪些問題其實沒有那麼重要。
例如，以介詞組來說，更重要的是理解它們在結構上是甚麼、它們在句子裡可以有甚麼功能，以及每一個介詞本身雖然會表達一些大概的跟名詞的關係意思，但同時也有很多固定表達方式有其固定意思。這些都比糾結於究竟應該說 「on this island」 還是 「in this island」 重要得多。（順帶一提，今日 「on this island」 聽起來較自然。）
總之，這只是我讀到這一句時的一點隨想。和一直以來一樣，我希望越來越多學生能夠退後一步，從一個更有系統的角度理解語言，並學會為自己判斷，在自己的學習旅程中，甚麼重要、甚麼沒有那麼重要，那麼就可以把時間和精神都只放在有意義的學習上。