“English Is a Menace”: Desire Sees Flames While Teaching Her Son English Grammar, SA in Stitches
- South African mom Desire attempted to teach her son a grammar lesson on singular and plural verbs
- The lesson quickly spiralled out of control as English's many exceptions left her more confused than her student
- South Africans watching the video could not stop laughing at how relatable the struggle was
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Source: Instagram
A local mom named Desire set out to give her son a simple English grammar lesson. What followed had the internet in tears. In a video posted to Instagram on 1 August 2026, Instagram user @desire_manthey_gardner tried to walk her son through the rules of singular and plural verbs. She started confidently enough, explaining that a singular subject uses "is" while a plural subject uses "are." Things fell apart almost immediately.
English's exceptions leave Desire stumped
The moment she hit words like "I am" and "you are," the neat rule she had just laid out began to crumble. When her son asked about "everybody," Desire found herself just as lost as he was. She pushed on, attempting to pivot to adverbs and adjectives, only to face another wall. When she explained that an adjective describes a noun, her son innocently guessed that an adjective must add to a "jective." Desire had no answer.
Watch the grammar lesson that went sideways in the Instagram reel below:
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Mzansi reacts to the relatable lesson
The video captured something many South Africans know all too well: English looks straightforward until you actually try to explain it.
User @sahcrid said:
"English is actually a very hard language to learn."
User @mpumikmbonane wrote:
"This was so stressful to watch 😭."
User @kukwami_la commented:
"😭 It kept getting worse! Isingisi sinzima bandla 🤣 (English is hard, people."
User @autism_with_lerato noted:
"The more you explain, the more she disproves your point 😂."
User @tapsymichael shared:
"You can literally see the blood pressure rising little by little 🤣 English is a menace 😂."
User @loftynon added:
"They do say that English is so contradictory. This is so funny 🤣!"
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Source: Briefly News
