Hi, I'm Gabby from gonaturalenglish.com
Today we're talking about the top ten grammar mistakes in spoken English as
English speakers make them we have to stop making these mistakes they are
Confusing they are unprofessional
There's so much misinformation out there about
What is correct and what is not correct?
We are going to correct these grammar mistakes in spoken English
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So now let's get into the top ten mistakes in English grammar
spoken English and mistakes that both native and non-native
English speakers make so this is really a lesson for more advanced English learners
It can be really helpful to learn how to
Native speaker level if you can master these 10 points
You're gonna be speaking English better than most native English speakers
Do also I'm focusing on points that are incorrect
across the board no matter where you're speaking English because of course there are regional differences and
Country specific differences, but don't worry about that
Everything on this top 10 list is completely incorrect, but I'm gonna show you the correct ways of speaking as well
common mistakes come from pop culture
creativity with the language often in lyrics or poems
It's just easier sometimes to say things the wrong way
I'll share a couple of examples with you of words that are just much easier to pronounce
The wrong way sometimes being correct is a lot harder. Let's jump into
Number 1 subject verb agreement and let me just be clear
I am guilty of this one because it's super
common when native speakers say things for example, like
Spoken English now that's completely incorrect, but it's very common
I should say there are a lot of errors in spoken English because errors is plural. It should take are
Another example, I hear there's a lot of rumors on the internet again
Rumors is plural and so it should be there are a lot of rumors on the Internet
Why do we constantly make this mistake over and over again?
Why do you always hear native speakers saying there's for any plural subject?
Well because it's so much easier to pronounce
there's instead of there are or there were for the contraction just try saying that there're
There were that earth sound in English is difficult to make and it sounds awkward
So even if you can make that sound easily it just sounds weird
so a lot of people have adopted the singular there's even when we're talking about a
Plural subject. How about you do you usually say there's even when you're talking about something plural? Let me know in the
pronoun references, for example, I
Just threw my grammar book out the window and then my English teacher asked me to bring it in
Well, you can probably guess that I'm talking about my English book because why would I bring the window?
into my English class to my teacher, however
grammatically, I would be referencing the window because I said that noun last so when I say it it's
Referencing the last noun that I said, which was window. So this is vague. It can be
Unclear in situations when it's not so obvious
I put tomatoes and cucumber in my salad and then my friend said to take them out
Which am I referring to here tomatoes cucumbers or both of them? It's
Unclear because this is the way that we use pronouns in English. We need to be careful about making ourselves
Clear in sentences and situations like this number 3
Pronouns like you and I or you and me
When do we use I or me when you have a subject. It's I
When you have an object, it's me. So when you say something like between you and me, it's always
me between you and me or between you and him between you and her just
Remember that between when you use this phrase you're gonna be using an object and not a subject
So the subject would be I you and I are great friends
Between you and me you and I are great friends. There's a lot of confusion about this
so we need to understand the difference between a subject and an object an object is something that receives an
Action, usually when you have a preposition like between you and me me is receiving the action
Please hand the book to me. Well, I'm the object or me is the object
I would never say hand the book to I that is completely incorrect and people don't typically make that mistake
But we often get confused when we're saying shorter phrases like between you and me. We have some examples here
I hope are making it clearer now number four
I'm also guilty of this one because it's so common to say was instead of were nowadays
not as many people say if I were you they'd say if I was you, however, the
correct version in the correct way of speaking is if I were you and also it sounds more professional and
educated so it is best to remember if I were going to
when you're using this tense, you need to use were or I or if you were if he
were if she were if it were if we were if they were
Were and not was so why do we use was so often?
I think the people are just getting a bit lazy and confused about grammar
but remember if you're using this conditional tense
If I were you, I would correct my grammar
You should use were and not was it's the most correct way of speaking five
Omitting helping verbs. I know why this happens because we can barely hear the helping verb when we speak quickly
For example, I've been thinking about how to improve my English
It sounds like there's no helping verb there
But it's so slight I've been thinking about almost sounds like I've been thinking about but of course
That's not correct. I can't just use the past participle been without the helping verb have so make sure that you always have
Have when you're using the present perfect tense
Comparatives so earlier I use the comparative clearer, which is the correct way of saying this
comparative more clear would be clearer but a lot of people say more clear why because again that
Sound is hard and it sounds awkward
Clearer is hard to say even native speakers will often say more clear. Is it correct?
No, the rule is that when you have two or less syllables one or two syllables
You need to add an e are clear or pretty earth three syllables or more in the adjective
We say more and then the adjective for example
Beautiful. We don't say beautiful earth
Sounding and sometimes little kids make this mistake
Because they're just following the rules that they hear and it sounds funny
But when an adult makes a mistake like this, it's not so funny anymore. So remember the rule
Intensifiers sometimes when you mean to say for example, you're so beautiful
You say mistakenly, you're too beautiful too. Beautiful is actually a negative thing. It's
Satisfactory in a bad way, we don't want to say too beautiful
unless you mean that this person has so much beauty that you're just not able to handle it and you're gonna die or
Something it's a bad bad thing
Sometimes I hear my English learners say that food is too good and I'm thinking how could food be too good?
There's no such thing as food. That's too good
Unless maybe it's so good that it makes you want to eat too much
But in that case we would still say it's so good or it's really good
So unless you want to say that something is a bad thing that it's negative
Don't use to if I want to say I'm too busy
That's okay. Because if I think that busy is a bad thing then I can use to or it's too cold
That makes sense. But if I like cold weather, I would never say it's too cold
Let's move on to number eight. It's very common to hear native and non-native english-speakers
Using the past tense when you should actually use the past participle one of the most common incorrect
usages of the past tense instead of the past participle is with the verb to
drink because the correct past participle is
Drunk but that sounds awkward because it sounds like you're talking about being intoxicated
so even if you're not drinking alcohol, you would say for example, I
Drunk a lot of water, but that doesn't sound good
But it doesn't sound good because again using the word drunk or just the concept of being drunk is not a good thing
so a lot of people just say I have
Drank or they completely avoid this tense the present perfect all together. They just use the simple past
I drank a lot of water know that the correct past participle is
Drunk and a lot of people make mistakes saying for example, I have eight. That's the simple past
not the past participle or I
Have broke or I have took these are all
Incorrect it would be correct to say I have taken and I have eaten
Those are the correct past participles number nine
Adjectives versus adverbs it is becoming increasingly common to hear English speakers
using adjectives when they should be using
Adverbs, for example, I need to go quick instead of quickly
I need to go quick is common, but it's not correct and I need to go quickly
It would be the correct usage of the adverb
Way that the verb is how do you feel I feel badly. How do you need to go? I need to go
quickly, why don't people use the correct part of speech maybe because you have to add an extra syllable and it makes it a
little bit more of an effort to say I don't know but when we speak we always go for the
Way to get our point across and so it's a little lazy
But if people can understand us, well, a lot of the times native speakers are guilty of speaking incorrectly
But that doesn't mean that it's good. It doesn't mean you should do that number 10
Modifiers I have to look this one up
I knew what it was in practice, but I had a hard time thinking of an example. So here's an example
I remember meeting the mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans
This is such a confusing sentence for many reasons
But the dangling modifier is right here in the Oval Office
Modifying is it modifying meeting the mother?
Probably but it sounds like it's actually modifying because of its placement in the sentence at the end
Abducted by North Koreans. It sounds as if this abduction happened in the Oval Office
It's a very very confusing sentence and this kind of thing happens all the time
In spoken English and even in written English. I've seen this kind of issue with
Journalists who write articles with dangling modifiers and the information gets very confusing
So be careful having longer sentences is not always a good thing because there's so much more chance
To mess it up and to use something confusing like a dangling modifier or a vague
communication clear and direct and when you're in doubt
just keep your communication really simple and
What would number 10 be without number?
in a
bonus point for us here the incorrect usage of articles like the have you ever heard someone say the
Facebook well, we don't use articles with things like Facebook or Instagram
Or the Google we simply say Google Facebook or Instagram
however, if we're using Google Facebook Instagram as
Facebook algorithm then we need to use the because we're no longer modifying Facebook. We're modifying
Algorithm the algorithm. What kind of algorithm the Facebook algorithm?
I recently also learned that we no longer use the article the with Ukraine after
1991 or 1992
The country the Ukraine is now Ukraine. So that's another case where you should not use an article
Tell me what you think about these
Are you guilty of making any of them or any of them unclear or would you?
disagree with any of these or add to any of these let me know and no I want to tell you about how
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