English is fucking weird, and I can’t imagine learning all of these rules. Frankly, I couldn’t even explain to you how I know 3/4 of them, it’s just innate at this point.
Not even knowing shit = not even knowing the least (most worthless) amount possible = knowing nothing?
All languages are weird. English has very little in the way of inflection, which makes it fairly easy to pick up (in my opinion). For example, it only has one word each for “the” and “a(n)” whereas German has “der/die/das, des/der/des, dem/der/dem, den/die/das, die, der, den, die” and “ein/eine/ein, eines/einer/eines, einem/einer/einem, einen/eine/ein”. Yes, lots of duplicates, but each instance has its own distinct grammatical function, and its much the same with adjectives and nouns, and it all has to line up; “green” is different depending on the grammatical gender and number and noun case of whatever it is that is green… for example.
I think at some point you’re pretty much done actively learning rules unless you’re a proofreader, teacher, editor, translator, writer, philologist… you ’ll just have to move on to immersing yourself in English, whether it’s in person or via song lyrics, movies, books, forums, articles, documentation, video games. That way you’ll pick up idiomatic expressions like this one and ideally develop something like an informed sense for what sounds right (for example: “I could care less” doesn’t make much sense, and “irregardless” is a pointless double negative).
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