The Grammar Errors You KEEP Making Common English Mistakes
This video is one that I’ve been meaning to make
for a long time. There are a few really common
mistakes that my students keep making.
Obviously nobody is telling you
so how else are you supposed to correct them?
I’m Emma from mmmEnglish
and in this lesson, I’m going to share three
really common grammar mistakes
that you need to stop making so don’t go anywhere.
I’ve been teaching English for many years now.
I’ve taught students online, in classrooms and in
so many different countries around the world.
But there are some really common mistakes
that I keep hearing my students make all the time.
And they’re not even bad mistakes,
they’re just bad habits
that you’ve learned really early and you’ve just
never gotten rid of
and I’m really curious to find out if you
make the mistakes that I’m sharing in this lesson too.
It’s really difficult. In fact, it’s almost impossible
to know what mistakes you’re making
if nobody tells you right? So you’re completely forgiven,
it’s not your fault. It’s just that
nobody tells you that you’ve made a mistake.
Native speakers just think in their head:
‘No they mean that.’
but they never say anything to you.
But it’s all good, today we’re going to sort all of this out.
Now one of the best ways to even realise
that you’ve been making mistakes in the first place
is to spend some time with a native English teacher,
not a native English speaker.
They’re not going to correct these kinds of mistakes
for you.
But a teacher can and this is really easy to do
if you go to English classes at a language school, right?
But then you’ve got to go all the way to those classes,
do the classes, come home again.
It’s really time-consuming
and it’s hard to do that intensively.
Well this is exactly how I felt
when I became a Lingoda student.
I just didn’t have time to go to a language school
but Lingoda really is just like going to a language school
but all the classes are online.
I still get native teachers, I get workbooks
with every lesson to help me prepare for classes
and review them afterwards.
I get certificates as I increase my skills from A1 to C2
I get to hang out with classmates
but it’s way more flexible. I don’t have to travel,
I can do it from anywhere.
If you want to try Lingoda for yourself, you can grab
a free trial from their website
but they’re offering mmmEnglish students
twenty-five percent off their first package of lessons.
So if you want to make the most of that deal,
then use the link that’s in the description
and this voucher code.
Guys, Lingoda really is not that expensive.
I’m pretty sure that their classes start from around
eight euros and yes,
Lingoda are a sponsor of the mmmEnglish Channel
but I’m also a paying student of theirs myself.
So I can confidently tell you that studying with Lingoda
is like going to a language school
but I think it’s even better because it’s flexible
and you can take your classes whenever it suits you.
Okay, time to fix these three common mistakes.
Number one.
These words are not interchangeable,
right? ‘Fun’ and ‘funny’,
they’re both common English adjectives
but they mean two quite different things.
Seriously, they’re really different.
When you use ‘fun’ as an adjective, it means
enjoyable and entertaining.
We use ‘fun’ to talk about situations and events
and people and activities when they help us to have
a good time.
So the opposite of ‘fun’ would be
Right?
But the meaning of ‘funny’
is very different, right?
We use ‘funny’ as an adjective in two ways,
most commonly to describe situations or even people
that are humorous, alright?
People or situations that make us laugh.
And the second meaning of funny is to describe
something as a little weird or a bit strange,
odd.
So you could say:
But you could also say:
Like a little weird.
Now the problem that most of my students have
is that they use ‘funny’ instead of ‘fun’.
Remember, the meaning of these two adjectives is
completely different.
Describing a party as fun means that I had a really good
time, I enjoyed myself.
Maybe I was dancing, maybe I was playing board games
I wasn’t bored.
Now if I describe a party as funny,
then it means I laughed a lot.
Maybe something happened that was really
quite humorous or it means that the party was weird,
strange. Maybe everyone wore an eye mask
the whole time and you couldn’t see anyone
or anything that was going on.
That’s weird!
Alright I’m going to do a little quick test
before we move on, ‘fun’ or ‘funny’?
Okay?
I watched a movie last night that made me laugh a lot.
It was a comedy.
Right, comedy,
funny, right? It made me laugh.
Okay what about to describe your friend who you
always have a good time with,
who’s always inventing entertaining games.
‘Fun’ or ‘funny’?
Your friend helps you to have a good time.
It’s ‘fun’, they’re fun.
Now describe your friend who always tells great jokes
and makes people laugh.
That person
is funny.
Okay? You got it. One more.
Last weekend I went out on my friend’s boat.
We went swimming. We went fishing.
The weather was really, really good.
Fun or funny?
Sounds like an enjoyable day, right?
It was fun.
So do you think that you can remember the meanings
of these words to make sure that you don’t sound
funny or funny when you use them.
Try writing a sentence in the comments so that you can
practise using them correctly and make sure
you’re not using it in the wrong way.
Mistake number two.
This apple is too juicy.
Okay, ‘too’ can mean also.
‘I like it too’ means I also like it.
But the mistake that I’m talking about
when you use ‘too’ is to add emphasis.
Now it’s a mistake to think that ‘too’
is a synonym for very, really or so okay?
‘Too’ does add emphasis
but it means excessive, a higher degree or amount
than you actually want or you need,
so it’s a negative thing.
It’s more than what you want.
So when I said that my apple was too juicy,
that sounds negative like there is more juice
than I really want or I like.
So I could use very, really or so
if I wanted to make that adjective stronger.
So here, none of these words have a positive
or a negative meaning.
They’re just there to give extra strength to the adjective
that they modify. We can say that something is hot
but really hot is even more hot
or we can say that she’s excited
but we can say she’s so excited, alright?
To increase the meaning of that adjective.
Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘too’ also means a lot.
But it has a negative meaning.
So too much of something is a bad thing.
So ‘too hot’ means that it’s hotter
than it was supposed to be
or hotter than I want.
So we’re saying it’s too difficult means that
it was more difficult than it should have been.
It needed to be easier.
Now surely having too much money
or too much time off work is a good thing, right?
But by using ‘too’ we’re suggesting that
there’s a negative thing, a negative aspect.
Too much time off work
could mean that you’re getting lazy.
Too much money, maybe you don’t care as much
about the people around you, right?
Using ‘too’, it’s an important difference
that you need to recognise
and I go into even more detail about using ‘too’
in this video right here
so if you want to keep practising with me,
that way!
Mistake number three.
Don’t call yourself boring.
When you say that it means you’re not interesting,
that you make other people feel bored, that you’re
really quite dull.
What you should say instead is “I’m bored”
Alright? When you’ve got nothing going on
when there’s nothing interesting happening around you.
This is just a temporary feeling.
By saying that you’re boring, you’re talking about your
personality generally, right? We don’t want to do that.
Don’t confuse this.
It’s a really common mistake that English learners make
and it’s not just about the adjective ‘bored’ and ‘boring’
but it’s about any adjective that has an
-ed and an -ing form.
There’s a really important difference between them.
So in general, -ed adjectives describe how people
feel about something. We also describe how animals
might feel about something.
But -ing adjectives describe the thing or the person
that causes that emotion.
So let’s go through a few examples together to test this.
I want to describe a situation that was
full of energy and it made me feel great.
Was the situation exciting or excited?
I can’t say excited because a situation
can’t feel anything.
Now I want to describe how I felt in a scary situation.
I felt frightened or I felt frightening.
It was me who felt something, right?
I felt frightened.
The situation, whatever was happening around me
was frightening
but I was frightened.
Okay one more before we wrap up today.
I want to describe an exam that was difficult
for me to take, okay?
Which one?
Remember that an exam can’t feel things so it has to be
confusing, right?
The confusing exam made me feel confused.
If this is a little tricky for you, don’t worry I’ve got
a whole lesson on -ed and -ing adjectives
right up there so you can check that out next.
So I want to know and be honest,
do you sometimes make these mistakes?
Tell me in the comments.
I hope that you learned something new
and something useful in this lesson today.
To practise, I really would love you to write a sentence
to prove to me that you watched
and understood everything clearly.
Write one sentence for each of the three mistakes
that I talked about today
and I’m going to come down and check them
out in a minute.
Now if you’ve got a friend who’s learning English
and you think they could really benefit from watching
this lesson, then please share it with them.
These mistakes are so, so common
but we just have to help each other to realise that.
Don’t be embarrassed about it,
just try and fix them, okay?
Try and break these bad habits.
Alright I hope that you’ve already subscribed
to my channel
but I make English lessons here every week
so if you haven’t, make sure you do.
And for you, I really recommend that right now,
you head over and check out one of these
two lessons here
so that we can keep practising together.
I’ll see you in there!