¡¡¡¡What is language for£¿Some people seem to think it’s for practising grammar rules and learning lists of words—the longer the lists, the better. That’s wrong. Language is for the exchange of ideas and information. It’s meaningless knowing all about a language if you can’t use it freely. Many students I have met know hundreds of grammar rules, but they can’t speak correctly or fluently. They are afraid of making mistakes. One shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes when speaking a foreign language. Native speakers make mistakes and break rules, too. Bernard Shaw once wrote, “Foreigners often speak English too correctly. ”But the mistakes that native speakers make are differently from those that Chinese students make. They’re English mistakes in the English language. And if enough native speakers break a rule,