English grammar lessons in Belgrade

When people look for English, the first instinct is a native speaker. For conversation that instinct is right. For grammar it is usually wrong, and it is worth understanding why before you pay for a month. Somebody whose first language is English knows what is correct and very often cannot say why, because they never had to learn it. They have also never made your mistakes, so when you produce a sentence that seems perfectly logical to you, they hear that something is off and their explanation ends there. Someone who learned English as a second language crossed that ground deliberately and remembers the crossing. They have not only watched other people's errors, they made yours, and they know which rule stopped being theory for them personally. That is a different kind of knowledge from the one you get with a language you were handed without studying it, and for grammar it is worth more. In Belgrade the choice actually exists, and that is what the city changes. In a smaller town you take whoever teaches English and the list ends there. Here there are enough of both kinds that you can choose on exactly this basis, and sit in the same room with the person instead of settling for whoever is free. The advice reverses the moment you move to speaking. For pronunciation, for the rhythm of a sentence, and for everything that cannot be learned from a rule, a native speaker is better and there is no argument about it. That is why plenty of people separate the two: grammar with one person, speaking with another or outside lessons altogether. In the free first lesson, ask something that cannot be performed. Have them explain the distinction you keep getting wrong, without a textbook example, using a sentence of your own. If the answer is that this is simply how it is said, that is true and it does not help you. If they start from what your own language does differently at that exact point, you have found the person.