Transcription
Ooh, let's talk about grammar, but not in a boring way!
Ooh, let's talk about common grammar mistakes.
Hello and welcome to another lesson! In this lesson, we're going to improve our grammar, but we're not going to learn grammar directly. Instead, we're going to see the most common grammatical mistakes of beginner students, intermediate students, and even advanced students. In this way, not only will you learn grammar, you will also see the most common mistakes so you can avoid making them.
Let's begin with part one: Beginner mistakes.
Look at this sentence: "You have 5 seconds to tell me what's wrong with it."
"She drives always carefully."
Yes, there is something wrong with the word order in this sentence. There is an adverb of frequency: "always." Now, adverbs of frequency either go before the main verb ("I always play football") or after the to be verb ("I am always tired").
So, the problem with this sentence, "She drives always carefully," is that the adverb of frequency is after the main verb. The verb here is "drive," and so "always" should come before "drive."
"She always drives carefully."
This is called incorrect placement of adverbs, and you must be careful when using adverbs in a sentence. Now, we have many different types of adverbs. This one was an adverb of frequency: "always," "usually," "often," "sometimes," "rarely," "hardly ever," "never." The rule was: use them either before the verb or after the to be verb.
Mistake number two of beginner level:
Look at this: "They're going to the park, right?"
"They going..."
Something that a lot of beginner students confuse is the difference between "there," "their," and "they're." And of course, they are confusing! But once you learn the difference, it's pretty basic.
So, "there" refers to a place ("There is a book on the table").
"There" is a possessive pronoun: "my book," "your book," "their book." It means the book belongs to them.
And "they're" is the contracted form of "they are."
So, "They're going to the park" should be "They are going to the park," and the contracted form of "they are" is "they're."
So, be careful not to confuse "there," "their," and "they're."
Mistake number three:
Look at this sentence: "What's wrong? Me and my friend went to the park."
"Who? Me and my friend?"
Okay, for a second, remove "my friend." "Me went to the park." Does it make sense?
Should I say "me went to the park" or "I went to the park"?
Of course, "I."
When you're talking about yourself as the subject of the sentence, use "I," not "me." Use "me" if you are the object of a sentence: "He talked to me," "I talk to him."
So, if you're the subject, "I." If you're the object, "me."
Now, in this case, you're the subject. So, it should be "my friend and I."
"My friend and I went to the store." But why is it not 100% correct to say "I and my friend"?
Well, don't ask me! These are some rules that nobody knows why.
Mistake number four:
Look at this: "She has much friends."
"She has..."
Oh, friends. Is it countable or uncountable? Friends: one friend, two friends, three friends.
Oh, this reminded me of the TV series "Friends," and there were six friends. So, "friends" is countable.
But for countable nouns, we do not use "much." You don't say "much friends." You should say "many friends" or "a lot of friends" or "plenty of friends."
So, "she has much friends" should be "she has many friends" or "she has a lot of friends."
Now, in brackets, let me tell you a more advanced rule: If a sentence is positive, we do not normally use "much" and "many." We often use "much" and "many" in a negative sentence: "I don't have many friends" or "There isn't much tea inside this cup."
If the sentence is positive, we tend to use "a lot of" or "plenty of."
But is it wrong to say "I have many friends"? No, it's not wrong; it's just not that common.
And mistake number five, the last mistake of the beginner level:
"I see you in Monday on 8:00 at May."
What's wrong?
There are three mistakes in "Monday," "on 8:00," and "at May."
All the prepositions are wrong!
But what are the correct prepositions here?
Well, the correct preposition to use before days of the week is "on": "on Monday," "on Tuesday," "on Wednesday," "on Thursday," "on Friday," "on Saturday," "on Sunday."
What about the time? The correct preposition is "at": "at 2:00," "at 8:00," "at half 5."
And what about months of the year? We use "in": "in January," "in February," "in March," "in April," "in September," "in October," "in November," "in December."
So, "on" for days of the week, "in" for months of the year, also "in" for years: "in 1994," "in 2001," and "at" for the time.
So the correct sentence should be: "I'll see you on Monday at 8:00 in May."
Part two: Intermediate level mistakes.
Now let's take things a step higher and see what the most common mistakes of intermediate students are.
The first one:
"There are less people here than yesterday."
What's wrong with this?
Oh, "less" people.
Well, we're talking about "people." Is it a countable or an uncountable noun?
It's countable!
Oh, wait, so can I say one people, two people's, three peoples?
No! One person, two people, three people, four people!
So it's countable. Now, with countable nouns, can I use "less"?
No! You should use "few" and, if you are using it in a comparative way, you can say "fewer."
So if the noun is countable, we use "fewer." If it's uncountable, we use "less."
So instead of "there are less people here than yesterday," we should say "there are fewer people here than yesterday."
And pay attention, this is a comparative sentence. We're comparing today, right now, with yesterday.
Second sentence:
Look at this: "She was standing among John and Sarah."
What's wrong?
She was standing...
All right, what's the difference between "among" and "between"?
Very easy: If you're talking about two things, use "between." If you're talking about more than two, use "among."
So, "She was standing between John and Sarah," not "among" them.
However, one advanced note: If there are more than two—so three, four, five—we use "among."
Right? But if among the five, we're only talking about two out of five, again, we use "between."
So if there is Jack and four other people, and you group the four people and Jack together, it's like one and two.
All four people together—am I making it more complicated? Then you can say "between Jack and everyone else," because we're talking about two, not five.
Confusing, huh?
Next common mistake:
"I've seen the movie last week."
"I have seen last week."
No, we have two options here: We should either say "I've seen this movie" or "I saw this movie last week."
And this is a common mistake between the two tenses: simple past and present perfect, because both of them are used to talk about something that happened in the past.
But the difference is we use the past simple to talk about something that happened in the past at a specific time, and we know when exactly it was and it's over now.
So, when you say "last week," we're referring to the exact moment, and so we should use simple past: "I saw the movie last week," "I watched the movie last week."
But if you're talking about something that happened in the past, we don't know the time, or we don't want to say the time, or the time does not matter, but the action matters and the effect of that action is still lingering on, we use present perfect.
For example, your friend says, "Hey, do you want to go and watch this new movie?"
And I say, "Oh, you know what? I've seen it before."
It doesn't matter when I watched the movie; what matters is that it happened in the past, and now I cannot go and watch the movie with my friend because I've already seen it.
So, the effect lingers on.
Now, the next sentence:
This one's easy: "She is enough strong to lift the weight."
"She is enough strong" or "strong enough"?
Where should we put the word "enough" in a sentence?
So, there are three rules:
Rule number one: If there is a noun and you want to use "enough," "enough" goes before the noun.
"We have enough milk to make a cake."
Rule number two: If you have a verb in a sentence, use "enough" after the verb.
"I think we've earned enough money to buy a car."
And rule number three: We use "enough" after adjectives.
"I'm strong enough to lift the weight."
So, in this sentence, instead of "she is enough strong," we should say "she's strong enough," because "strong" is an adjective, and "enough" goes after the adjective: "strong enough."
And the last common mistake of the intermediate level:
Look at this: "I've been working here since three years."
"Oh, since three years or for three years?"
Which one?
What's the difference between "since" and "for"?
When using present perfect, we can mention the beginning time or the period of time during which the action happened.
To do so, we either use "since" or "for."
But which is which?
We use "since" to talk about the starting point in time of the action—"since one point in time."
And we use "for" to talk about a duration—"for a duration."
In this sentence, it says "since three years."
Three years is the duration, so in lieu of "since," we should say "for" three years.
But if it happened, for example, in April, you can say "since April," "for three months," "since April," "for three years," "since three years ago."
So, the correct form of this sentence is: "I've been working here for three years."
That is it with the intermediate level.
Now we have one more level to do: the advanced level.
But before that, let me tell you something:
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And now let's get to the last and most interesting part: Part three: Advanced level mistakes.
Now, the advanced level mistakes.
Look at this sentence: "She likes reading to jog and go for walks."
What's wrong with this sentence?
Wait—she likes reading to jog?
Go—reading to jog—go!
What's wrong here?
As you can see, the first one is a gerund: "reading."
The second one is an infinitive with "to": "to jog."
And the third one is a bare infinitive.
Now, in a sentence, when the sentence is still not over, we have something called parallel structures.
That means whatever structure the first part of the sentence has, the other parts must follow.
Now, since in the first part of the sentence we have a gerund, the second and third parts, which are separated either by a comma or "and," should be gerunds.
So we should say: "She likes reading, jogging, and going for walks."
All three are now gerunds, and this is called a parallel structure.
This is something quite frequent among advanced students.
So basically, whenever you have a list of something in a sentence, in one sentence, whenever there is a list of a few things, all of them need to follow the same structure.
If the structure needs to be gerund, all of them should be gerunds. If the structure needs to be infinitive, all of them should be infinitive.
The key is in consistency of the verb forms.
Second sentence:
Look at this: "He would have passed the exam if he would have studied harder."
What?
This clearly is a conditional sentence, right?
But which form? First, second, third, zero, mixed?
He's talking about his regrets, so it's clearly a third conditional sentence.
How do you make a third conditional sentence?
"If" plus past perfect, "would have" plus past participle.
"If I had studied harder, I would have been a doctor now."
Now, as you know, in a conditional sentence, you can change the if clause in the main clause position without changing the tense.
Pay attention!
So, "I would have been a doctor now if I had studied harder."
The rule stays the same: we just swap the place of the "if" clause and the main clause.
Now in this sentence, the first part, which is the main clause, is correct: "He would have passed the exam."
But the "if" clause: "if he would have studied harder," should be past perfect: "if he had studied harder" (had plus past participle of the verb).
"If he had studied harder, he would have passed the test."
He would have passed the test if he had studied harder.
Now conditional sentences are tricky, especially the second and third conditionals—oh! Let alone the mixed conditionals, which mainly have two forms.
It's either 3-2 or 2-3.
There can be other alternatives, but these are the two most common forms!
But I'm not going to get into mixed conditionals for now.
Pay attention to this form!
Next mistake:
Look at this: "Despite he was tired, he continued working."
"Despite he was tired."
No! Advanced connectors such as "despite" or "in spite of" have specific rules.
After "despite," we use a gerund.
For example, "Despite having enough money, he doesn't buy a car." ("Despite having" gerund.)
But if there is a full sentence after "despite," we need to say "despite the fact that" and the full sentence.
For example: "Despite the fact that he has enough money, he does not buy a car."
And now in this example: "Despite he was tired." "He was tired" is a full sentence, so we should say "despite the fact that," or "in spite of the fact that."
"Despite the fact that he was tired, he continued working."
And another thing that I've seen a lot of students confused is saying "despite of" and "in spite."
"In spite of" and "despite" are the correct forms—not "despite of."
Next one is very confusing!
So confusing, you want to blow your brains out!
I'm going to lay down—what's wrong?
"I'm going to lay down."
Oh wait, I'm going to "lay down" or I'm going to "lie down"?
Well, "lie down" means reclining. "I really needed this."
I'm going to "lie down."
"Lay" means "to put something somewhere."
"I'm going to lay this phone on this armchair."
So, "lay" something somewhere, and "lie" is used for yourself.
Here's where it gets interesting: The past of "lie" is "lay."
But don't panic yet because this sentence is not past.
"I'm going to..."
And so because he's talking about himself, instead of "lay," he should say "lie."
"I'm going to lie down."
And last but not least, look at this sentence: "Each of the students are responsible."
What's wrong?
"Each of the students are" or "is?"
Now listen!
In this sentence, we're talking about students—plural, right?
And with plural, we use "are": "Students are responsible."
But the trick is, whenever we have "each," we're talking about every single one of them.
We're talking about one of them at a time, so we're referring to one.
"Each" is singular: "Each of the students."
It doesn't matter if we say "students."
Our subject here is not "students." Our subject is "each of the students."
Each one of them.
And so pay attention to the word "each," and also pay attention to the word "every."
Because "every" refers to all of them, but "each" refers to every one of them.
And that's it!
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See you!