Phrases to Surprise English Native Speakers
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hi everybody my name is alicia and today
we’re going to be talking about 10 of
the hardest words to pronounce according
to you guys so we collected some
information from you on facebook thanks
very much for sending in your ideas
and these are the top 10 uh most
difficult words
for you to pronounce so let’s get
started absolutely
absolutely absolutely might be tough to
pronounce
absolutely means 100 absolutely is uh
an agreement phrase are you going to
that music event next week
absolutely yes 100 definitely absolutely
loot like a loot l-u-t-e
be grime the grime apparently means
dirty i’ve never heard
nor used this word before but perhaps
it’s
difficult to pronounce big grime the
door to my apartment was begrimed
in the storm last week breakfast
the next word is breakfast breakfast is
hard to pronounce
but that is the meaning of breakfast
you’re breaking the fast so a fast is a
period of time without eating
and to break means to just well in this
case breaking something it doesn’t refer
to like
crushing a thing but um stopping
something to break
the fast of the night in other words so
you’re fasting during the night you’re
not eating
so you wake up in the morning you break
the fast but we don’t say breakfast we
say breakfast
in a sentence this morning for breakfast
i ate
a bowl of cereal with grapes and i had a
coffee too
colleague colleague yes colleague many
of my students struggle with this they
say
colleague or they say caligu
or something because the spelling of
this word is really really strange
there’s that g-u-e
at the end or more commonly i feel it’s
just co-worker
colleague sounds slightly more formal to
me than co-worker somebody who you work
with or somebody who you
have a business relationship with in
some sense it could be a person from
another company could be somebody from
your own company
anyone who you do business dealings with
is your colleague can be your colleague
in a sentence i’m going to a networking
event with
my colleagues next week miscellaneous
that misc miscellaneous it’s just
the spelling i think maybe is confusing
for this word miscellaneous
miscellaneous just means other stuff or
just other
uncategorized stuff i keep a lot of
miscellaneous items in a drawer in my
house
maybe they don’t they don’t really fit
into one category like it’s not kitchen
things it’s not
clothing it’s just sort of a mixture of
of things miscellaneous things
negotiation the next word is negotiation
negotiation yeah there are two t’s in
this but neither t is a hard
t they’re both very soft that sound
because they’re followed by the
i and another vowel that she a
negotiation
negotiation refers to a compromise
between two people you’re trying to make
a decision and
you negotiate in this case it’s a noun
form negotiation
business negotiations continued for more
than a month with this important deal
realm realm i see why this one’s hard
it’s that
rome part little realm it’s a weird word
isn’t it
it’s used to talk about just like the
kind of a fantasy world is sort of the
nuance of this phrase the realm
uh in a sentence let us go to the realm
where
the elves live and eat their bread
unfortunately the next word is
unfortunately
unfortunately unfortunately it just
means too bad
you can use this to to start bad news
for example like unfortunately i can’t
come to work today because i’m sick or
unfortunately
i broke my arm at the basketball game
last week
or unfortunately my haircut is
bad vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary
vocab vocabulary vocabulary
vocabulary just refers to the
uh words in a language my vocabulary in
my second language is really really low
i need a bigger vocabulary so that i can
express myself more clearly
world world ah i see why this one’s hard
world world hard to pronounce that rld
i think uh together is tough plus that w
at the beginning as well it’s such a
short word but you have to say
so many weird things at the same time
world
your tongue is going like this
in a sentence i have traveled all over
the world
and the best food is in
[Music]
my stomach that’s the end so those were
10 hard to pronounce
words give them a try slowly at first
and just kind of try to work up to
saying it at a more natural speed if you
like thank you so much for sharing your
opinions with us on facebook
and please make sure to subscribe to our
channel so that you don’t miss out on
any of this fun
information so thanks again for watching
today and we’ll see you again next time
bye
you don’t need new
shoes you need new feet
hi everybody my name is alicia and today
we’re going to be talking about 10
phrases that you always want to hear
so let’s begin you win the first phrase
is you win
you win if you hear the phrase you win
it means you
have won something you are probably
going to receive something for free
that’s a very happy thing right you want
to get free things
congratulations you win a car yay
here are the keys to your new car great
thank you
i brought you something special this is
exciting to hear because it means this
little
something special is like oh i thought
only a view so i brought you this
i brought you something special really
thank you
i miss you i miss you i miss you it’s
nice you can use this with your friends
your family members
your partner whoever i miss you shows
that
you want to meet the other person
probably you haven’t you haven’t seen
them as much as you would like to so you
can say i miss you i miss you
call your husband or wife or boyfriend
girlfriend whoever on the phone maybe
you haven’t seen them for a long time
you can say
i miss you i miss you too take a break
i’ll do the cleaning today take a break
i’ll do the cleaning today this means
someone else is going to clean up your
house for you or clean up something for
you
i would be very happy to hear this
phrase right now because my apartment is
a disaster because i’m only there to
sleep
so maybe you’ve had a long day at work
or a long day doing something you come
home and somebody else has offered
to do this for you so take a break i’ll
do the cleaning today
and you can reply really thank you so
much
i’m gonna relax the budget is unlimited
the next phrase that you always want to
hear is the budget is unlimited the
budget is unlimited this could be a work
this could be
a budget a personal budget maybe but it
just means there’s no limit to the
budget you can spend as much money as
you want
very exciting so let’s see in a business
context perhaps you have this new client
who’s going to give you a lot of money
to build a new house or something maybe
you’re building houses that’s your
project
your boss comes to you the budget for
this project is unlimited
really let’s go crazy there’ll be a
bonus at the end of the month
yeah this is a phrase that you probably
are very excited to hear it means you
are going to receive
extra money from your job at the end of
the month woohoo very exciting extra
money
maybe you’ll hear this from your boss or
your manager or maybe your co-worker
at work or maybe you see it in an email
there’ll be a bonus at the end of the
month
really i’m going to use mine to buy a
new car really
i’m going to use mine to go out on a
date really
i’m going to use mine to get a new fish
you did a great job you did a great job
you did a great job at something
you’ll probably hear from well i don’t
know you could hear this from pretty
much anybody anytime
you’ve done a good job someone will
congratulate you or tell you
their opinion with this phrase you did a
great job you finished a project at work
and your boss says you did a great job
nice
thank you so much it was really fun or
thank you
just just say thank you you look great
today
you look great today the other person
thinks that your physical appearance is
nice today don’t think about the today
part you know
just just just take the compliment oh
really thank you so much
you look great today oh thank you so
much i got a new haircut
thank you so much i i got enough sleep
yeah you were right you were right
this means that um something that you
said in the past was correct
and everybody likes to be correct i
think i saw that movie that you
recommended you were right it was really
good oh good i’m glad you enjoyed it
don’t be like i know or yeah i knew i
was right don’t do that
just say oh good i’m glad you’re an
excellent cook
you’re an excellent cook this is a nice
compliment especially for someone who
enjoys cooking
if you say you’re an excellent cook it
means you enjoyed their food
so let’s see at a dinner party for
example you’re an excellent cook
this food is delicious oh thank you so
much i’m really glad you enjoyed it
and that’s the end so those are things
that you want to hear so keep in mind
it’s nice for you to hear these things
but other people also want to hear them
too so compliment other people tell them
that they are awesome if they’re awesome
tell them that they have good skills in
whatever it is that they like to do
people like to be complimented people
want to be liked so
write them a message or say something
nice to them yes leave us a comment we
have a great team of people
doing all these amazing things so tell
them how much you love them
so thanks so much for joining us for
this week’s lesson we will see you again
next time please make sure to subscribe
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so that you don’t miss out on any fun
stuff thank you very much again for
watching and we’ll see you again soon
bye
i guess i don’t really need to do that
oh i’m so sorry amp
all the time japanese bug battle
hi everyone i’m christine from
englishclass101.com
in this video we’ll be going over how to
agree or disagree in
english like a boss let’s begin
i don’t agree no of course
i agree oh absolutely
maybe yes you’re right
i couldn’t agree with you more that’s
exactly how i feel
exactly no doubt about it
you have a point there i was just going
to say that
i guess so well i’m not sure
i don’t disagree with you if you say so
you’re wrong i don’t think so
i’m afraid i disagree that’s not always
the case
what do you think can i add something
here
let’s just move on shall we i think
we’re going to have to agree to disagree
that’s true how is it if you have any
more questions
please leave a comment below see you
next time
here i go here i go here i go hi
everybody my name is alicia welcome back
to
top words today we’re going to be
talking about 10 phrases that make you
look
like a fool hopefully you never use them
let’s start
i don’t need to learn anything anymore i
don’t need to learn anything anymore
if you say this you sound like i know
all the information ever
i’m done learning i’m done studying of
course you need to learn of course you
need to study
please don’t say this phrase i don’t
need your advice
i don’t need your advice i don’t need
your advice you sound like you don’t
appreciate what they’re saying you sound
like you don’t want to hear anything
from them
i really think that you need to be
studying more i’m concerned about your
grades jeff
i don’t need your advice mom i know
everything
i know everything this is awful nobody
wants to hear you say this because it’s
just not true
are you ready for the test next week
steve
yeah i’m good i know everything they
don’t i’m not ready to learn english
i’m not ready to learn english
you can study anything at any time
pretty much i really think that you
should start studying english before
your trip to america next year
no i don’t think i’m ready to start
learning english see how stupid that
sounds
[Music]
i’m right and you’re wrong i’m right and
you’re wrong
you sound awful when you say this nobody
likes to hear that they’ve made a
mistake and that you’re happy about that
that’s what the nuance of this phrase is
i’m right you’re wrong
don’t say this phrase unless you’re very
very close with the other person and you
know that it’s okay to joke together i’m
right you’re wrong
it’s too hard don’t even try it’s too
hard
don’t even try this sounds like you’re
giving up before you’ve even started
doing something if you don’t try you
never know
right hey i think i’m gonna start
studying english this week because i’m
going to canada
next year what do you think don’t even
try it’s way too hard
oh really you think it’s too hard um
okay i guess i won’t don’t do that
just do what i say just do what i say
just
do what i say parents might use this
phrase a lot with their children
actually
but if you say this to your friends or
to your colleagues you’re going to sound
like a really
mean or difficult to work with person
just do what i say
we can’t do that the next phrase is we
can’t do that this could also be changed
to
i can’t do that again this sounds like
you’re giving up before you even tried
to do something i can’t do that
you’re just you’re not prepared or
you’re not even willing to try
hey stevens do you think that you could
take care of this report for next week
we need it for our client meeting
ah no i don’t think i can do that no
that’s that’s not my job that’s not my
responsibility
you’re not very smart you’re not very
smart that’s not a nice thing to say
if someone makes a mistake and you say
oh you’re not very smart
that’s so mean it’s so rude everybody
makes mistakes from time to time
don’t tell them that they’re stupid
don’t say you’re not very smart that’s
hurtful
and an example of what not to do i’m so
so
sorry about this mistake that i made in
my report last week i’ll fix it i
promise i’ll fix it and i’ll send it to
you right away
i can’t believe you made such a simple
mistake you’re not very smart are you
everybody makes mistakes you’ll never
succeed you’ll never succeed you’ll
never succeed
this is a phrase that shows you’re not
supporting the other person
and maybe you’re even trying to hold
them back how awful is that who would
say that don’t say that
and i hope no one ever says this to you
i’m going to join a marathon race next
summer
i can’t wait a marathon you’re never
going to succeed with that do you know
how hard those are have you even started
training
well no but i think i can do it i just
need a few months and you know i need to
take care of myself and work hard
no way there’s no way that you can do
that it’s not possible
oh you really think so i was so looking
forward to it too
thank goodness that’s the end oh my gosh
those were some sad
phrases i hope that nobody says those
phrases to you but i hope also that
you don’t use these phrases with other
people because they’re hurtful
really try to be positive so thanks very
much for joining us for this lesson and
we will see you again
soon bye i’m very insecure about my
acting abilities
oh there’s sound coming through this
i love the awkward pauses hi
everybody welcome back to top forwards
my name is alicia and today we’re going
to talk about 10
different ways to remember words so
these are actually
some ways to remember words that you
have sent in to us
so i’m really excited to see what your
recommendations are i study other
languages so
let’s talk about it let’s see i
associate new words with words that
sound similar in my native language
if you’re studying english your native
language might share some words
so like i’m studying japanese and for
example the word chocolate
sounds very very similar in in japanese
so
in english the word is chocolate in
japanese the word is chocoreto
so it sounds similar so that’s an easy
word for me to remember
i learn about the roots of words and how
different words are related to each
other
many words in english have roots in
very very old languages like latin so a
word like omniscient for example
can be broken down into maybe two parts
the omni omni meaning all or
everything and shint the sheen’s part
relates to knowledge or knowing so
together the word means all knowing
omniscient
maybe you can guess the meaning even if
it’s the first time you’ve seen the word
okay i listen to songs and memorize the
lyrics
this is also a common way to to help
kids learn things too
through songs opposite of b plus or
minus the square root b
squared minus 4ac all over 2a it’s a
quadratic function equation
because it’s a song it’s still in my
head thank you mrs time
i often watch tv or youtube videos that
are designed for young children
that’s how children in the native
language learn so it’s a great tool for
you don’t be
embarrassed to do that i do that in
english we have dora the explorer
we have sesame street i speak as often
as possible with native speakers
a native speaker can go ah that’s that’s
a strange thing that you’re saying
so there are a lot of small factors that
you can’t get unless you’re speaking
with a native speaker so this is a
really really great tip
if you’re interested in doing this with
us we have on englishclass101.com
a special subscription which is called
the elite level
of subscription where you get to
actually study with one of our teachers
here
so if if you don’t have somebody that
you can study with now that might be a
way to do it
please check that out if you’re
interested i try to use the language
routinely in the context of daily life
when you’re alone just doing stuff at
home like making breakfast or cooking or
doing the laundry if you
use the language just to say like now
i’m going to
i don’t know cut vegetables or oh i need
to do laundry later today or
thinking about your appointment whatever
another good example is really i put my
phone
into my target language you’re telling
little stories when you’re having
conversations with people so get used to
telling yourself the story
i use repetition reading writing and
speaking words over and over again
keep repeating in your studies even if
it feels like
you know you’re not making any progress
you are just just the act of doing that
repetition can be helpful for you if a
football player never throws a football
he’s not going to be able to throw it
very well
is he you have to repeat repeat repeat
and then when you’re
faced with the actual situation where
you need to throw the football you need
to use that vocabulary
word you’re ready you already know how
to say the word so yes repeat it’s good
i try to think in english so it becomes
natural to my thought process
i do this i think about what i need to
do i think about what i have done i
think about what i’m going to do
and so in that way you can practice past
tense future tense and present tense
recently this has been happening to me
i’ve started dreaming in japanese from
time to time or i dream bilingually
it’s exciting i think i try to use the
word in a simple sentence
so i learn whole phrases not just
individual words
yes this is a huge tip so vocabulary is
important of course
if you don’t know a key word you might
miss the meaning of something
but context is important too so there
might be two words which seem very
similar like big and large
for example but when should i use large
when should i use
big like if you’re close shopping and
you say do you have this in a big size
it might not be the correct way to use
the word instead do you have this in a
large size
is the correct phrase so learning how to
use the correct vocabulary word at the
correct time
is important and you can do that through
studying sentences and phrases
instead of just vocabulary this is why
reading is important i feel
reading as much as possible especially
the newspaper helps me to remember words
when i was a kid i just read everything
i was i was so into reading i loved it
and i think that it helped it actually
helped my language skills improve even
in my native language again at first
it’s really hard to do and you might
have to use a dictionary a lot
but you’ll learn gradually more natural
speaking patterns more natural writing
patterns too which will help you to
sound
more natural when you speak and maybe it
can help your listening skills too when
you can listen for those patterns that
you see in textbooks that you see in
newspapers in novels whatever
it’s a great tool reading and thank
goodness that’s the end so those are 10
tips that you can use to remember new
words and new phrases try them out i’m
going to be doing my best with my target
language i hope that you do too
thank you very much for watching please
please please subscribe to our channel
if you have not already and we will see
you again soon for more exciting
information
bye i have to go to the bathroom
hi everyone i’m christine from
englishclass101.com
in this video we’ll be talking about how
to curse like an english native
speaker piss a slang term for urine
for example don’t piss your pants
you can say this when you’re really
scared or anxious
for example if you’re about to go on
stage to
make a speech or perform someone can say
don’t piss your pants you can do it
pissed off to be really angry
when i’m angry i can say hey i’m really
pissed off at you right now
why did you do that for loser
used to describe an uncool person
in high school my friends and i would
use this a lot
and we would say hey loser how’s it
going
idiot used to insult people by saying
they’re not intelligent
of all the mean things that you can say
this is on the lighter side
but people still use it shoot
this is used to show disappointment or
frustration without using a stronger
curse word
shoot i spilled my coffee shut up
you can use this when you want them to
be quiet
or there’s something surprising that you
just heard
you can say shut up no way
ticked off to be really angry you can
say this
with pissed off so this is actually an
older term
not many people use this as much anymore
because
most people actually just use pissed off
fool
this is similar to saying someone is
like a clown you can say
you’re acting like a fool right now jerk
this is a light insult used to describe
someone who is mean
for example if there’s someone bullying
another person
that person is being a jerk wimp
this means someone who isn’t strong
there is a movie out right now
called diary of a wimpy kid have you
seen it have you not
i haven’t yet so how was it if you have
any more questions please leave a
comment below
see you next time
[Music]
that means we’re going to the
movie theater right all right uh hi
everybody my name is alicia welcome back
to top words today we’re going to be
talking about
must-know expressions for agreeing and
disagreeing very useful so let’s
go exactly exactly when you agree 100
with something someone else has said you
can say exactly
for example ramen is one of the best
foods in the world
exactly i don’t agree i don’t agree
you have a different opinion from the
other person they tell you
i think that soccer is the best sport
you can say ah i don’t agree
but be prepared to provide your own
opinion after this
i think soccer’s the best sport i don’t
agree i think that football is
oh that could cause some problems soccer
football americans say football when we
mean american football but the rest of
the world says football when they mean
soccer
maybe maybe is when you don’t know when
you can’t make a decision or when you’re
not sure about something
okay so someone tosses you an opinion
someone says their
their idea to you i think it’s going to
rain tomorrow you can say yeah maybe you
don’t know for sure
yes or no but it’s possible it’s a good
sort of in-between
expression but if you use maybe all the
time it’s going to sound really strange
and it’s going to sound like you can’t
make a decision
so use maybe very sparingly don’t use it
so often
maybe is very commonly used as a soft no
it’s up to you to figure that out among
the people that you’re talking to though
do you want to stay over at my house
this weekend and maybe
i couldn’t agree with you more you
are in complete agreement with the other
person and really want to communicate
that to them
you think that what they have just said
is really really correct super correct
yes you are completely on board with
that idea
you can say i couldn’t agree with you
more i couldn’t the negative form
i could not agree with you more meaning
it’s not
possible that i could agree more with
what you’re saying
next week it’s really important that we
have a barbecue
because summer is ending and then your
friend can say i couldn’t agree more
that’s a fantastic
idea i’ll buy steak
i think we’re going to have to agree to
disagree
agree to disagree this is a kind of it
seems like a simple phrase agree to
disagree
so you’re agreeing with the other person
you agree
that we have a different opinion agree
to
disagree i would use this expression at
the end of a discussion
so person a and person b have different
opinions
and they’ve been discussing those
opinions for a long time
and person a is not changing his or her
opinion person b
is not changing his or her opinion so
you can say at the end of the
conversation
okay we have to agree to disagree
let’s just accept our different opinions
and move on in the conversation
you have a point there this is not
necessarily an
agreement or disagreement phrase it’s a
small
agreement within a larger discussion so
maybe you’ve been discussing a topic for
a long time
and you’ve disagreed with the other
person
until this this time this person says
something
and you agree with that ah you have a
point there so there’s one thing
that this person has said that you can
agree with you can say
you have a point there i think that’s
correct or i agree with that
point that’s exactly how i feel that’s
exactly how i feel
meaning my feeling is the same as your
feeling
or my opinion is the same as your
opinion that’s exactly how i feel
maybe you can use this if someone
describes your feeling very accurately
for example you can say i feel like the
company is really heading in a nice
new direction you can say yeah that’s
exactly how i feel i really like the new
boss
i don’t think so i don’t think so it’s
soft it’s not so direct it’s not a hard
i disagree but just
i don’t think so of course you can use
it to discuss opinions but you can also
use it when you’re making plans
are you going to that party this weekend
and i don’t think so
it’s not a disagreement but it can be
used as a negation phrase and a negative
response to something when used as an
opinion i think chinese is the hardest
language to learn you can say i don’t
think so i think that
arabic is the hardest language to learn
yes you’re right
yes you’re right means you’re correct
yes i agree with you i think
that’s the right information i think
that’s the correct opinion just a very
clear
agreement phrase you’re right it also
has the nuance of being correct so maybe
there was
there was a possibility the other person
could be incorrect did you know
that pepperoni pizza is the most
delicious pizza
in the world yes you’re right you could
change it too that’s right for that
opinion you can use your
to talk specifically about the person
itself but that’s right yes that’s right
that information is correct i guess so i
guess so
it’s so it’s an agreement but it’s sort
of a flaky agreement
i guess so it’s like you don’t really
want to make a decision
uh but you don’t feel strongly in one
like
in agreement or disagreement you can say
i guess so
it’s usually said with this tone of
voice i guess so
you know we don’t really say i guess so
generally it’s like you can’t quite make
a decision or you don’t want to make a
decision
you can say i guess so hey we’re going
to go for chinese food for dinner
tonight do you want to come
yeah i guess so you don’t feel strongly
either way
i guess so i’m afraid i disagree it’s a
rather polite expression that you can
use in a business situation
for example i’m afraid here doesn’t mean
i’m actually scared
or i’m really frightened but just it’s a
softener that’s used at the beginning of
sentences to introduce
a negative opinion so i’m afraid i
disagree or i’m afraid i can’t agree
with
you for example i think that you need to
adopt a new policy for your company
i’m afraid i disagree it’s a soft
disagreement that sounds a bit more
formal
than some of the other phrases we’ve
talked about so far absolutely
absolutely means 100 yes exactly
precisely definitely it’s a quick and
clear
and can be polite as well as casual
um word that means you agree with the
other person hey do you want to go to
the beach this weekend yeah absolutely
absolutely oh that’s the end so
those are some phrases that you can use
to agree and disagree with other people
there are a lot of them so and you can
kind of mix and match them
as you see fit so give them a try thanks
very much for watching this episode of
top words and we’ll see you again soon
bye
flyers beach okay hi everyone i’m
christine
from englishclass101.com
in this video we’ll be talking about the
top 10 english slang words
let’s begin creepy this is used to say
that someone makes you
uncomfortable teacher’s pet
this is used as an insult to classmates
who try too
hard to impress the teacher or for
someone who is especially liked by a
teacher
scaredy cat an insult for people who are
easily scared tattletail a person who
tells
authority figures information in order
to get someone
in trouble nerd a person who is smart
but not cool ginger this is an insult
for people with
red hair bimbo used as an
insult for women who aren’t smart
jock used as an insult for men who are
into sports
and aren’t smart show off someone who
takes
every opportunity to display their
talent
clown used to say that someone is silly
how was it if you have any more
questions please leave a comment below
see you next time hi everybody welcome
back to top words my name is alicia
and today we’re going to talk about 10
mistakes that native english speakers
make
so let’s get started less
fewer okay so the first mistake that
native speakers make is they confuse
less and fewer less and fewer are very
similarly used however
there’s a key grammar difference between
them we use the word
less to refer to uncountable nouns
a quantity of uncountable nouns we use
fewer for countable nouns so for example
uh to use fewer i could say i made fewer
mistakes on this test
than i did on the last one and to use
less i could say i made less money last
year than i did
this year so when you want to use when
you want to make a comparison with a
countable noun
when you want to talk about a smaller
quantity of something or smaller amount
of something
with a countable noun you should use
fewer
if you’re talking about an uncountable
noun you should use
less so please be careful less and fewer
less uncountable fewer countable your
you’re the next pair is actually a
spelling related mistake it’s
your and your so y-o-u-r and
y-o-u apostrophe-r-e
your is the possessive uh like something
that belongs to
you is yours your item
y-o-u apostrophe r-e is the contracted
form of
you are you are great you are funny you
are tired for example
native speakers often make spelling
mistakes because these two words
sound the same but actually they are
grammatically
different so another example sentence um
your performance was really great my
parents think you’re great
my parents think you’re great so here we
have the apostrophe r e
your so please be careful native
speakers often make this spelling
mistake
there there there
okay so the next mistake that many
native speakers make uh
is again a spelling related mistake it’s
with the three types of there
there’s uh there as in over there a
location
there’s there t-h-e-i-r the possessive
form
something belonging to them and t-h-e-y
apostrophe r-e the contracted form of
they are native speakers often make
spelling mistakes with these three words
because they sound the same they’re
they’re there they all sound the same
but in terms of grammar they have
different functions
so in an interesting sentence you could
say they’re in their car
over there or they’re over there in
their car whoa
so we can use all of these words in the
same sentence
but in order to correctly express the
meaning we need to make sure the
spelling is correct too
it’s it’s the next one the next mistake
that many native speakers make
is a punctuation mistake usually
uh the difference here is between it’s
with an apostrophe and it’s without an
apostrophe so
the word it’s with an apostrophe can be
the contracted form of it
is or it has depending on the sentence
it’s with no apostrophe just means the
possessive form of something
so something which belongs to it some
it outside this discussion so um
native speakers often forget which which
one
gets an apostrophe does the possessive
get an apostrophe or not
so no the possessive form does not take
an apostrophe here
the only apostrophes are for the
contracted form of it
is and it has so please don’t make this
mistake that native speakers make
in a sentence i saw star wars it’s a
really cool movie
its effects are awesome nuclear
versus nuclear okay the next mistake
is a pronunciation mistake many native
speakers make this mistake
many high-ranking officials presidents
make this mistake
politicians make this mistake the word
nuclear
nuclear is spelled n-u-c-l-e-a-r
nuclear however many people pronounce
this as
nuclear for some reason i don’t know why
this is but many people say
nuclear instead of nuclear if you pay
attention to the news you’ll probably
hear this
after a short discussion of this topic
somebody will say the word nuclear i
don’t know why this is
but nuclear nuclear is the correct
pronunciation of this word
don’t pronounce nuclear as nuclear
could have versus could of
okay the next mistake that native
speakers make is again a spelling
usually a written a written problem it’s
could have
and could of could have and could of
so actually could of is the mistake here
we don’t use
the could of could of is not a grammar
point
here rather when native speakers
use the contracted form of could have it
sounds like
could’ve so for example i could have
come to the party
if i finished my homework or i could
have met you last weekend or i could
have could have
blah blah blah it’s could have
could have but when speaking in speech
it sounds like
of i could have i could have because the
contracted form
sounds like like of it makes a v sound
and
of sound so sometimes native speakers
write
could of however this is incorrect
uh we should write could have if you’d
want to use the
like expanded the regular form instead
of the contracted form so
could have should be used
instead of could of could of is a
mistake please use could
have instead okay so one more example
sentence
i could have explained better effect
versus effect so the next mistake that
many native speakers make
is with word the words affect with an e
and effect with an a um while there are
some
maybe less common differences between
how these words are used especially the
word
effect with an e in most situations we
can consider
the difference of these two words to be
in grammatical function
the word effect with an e is typically
typically used as a noun as in a side
effect or the effect of something
when we use effect with an a it’s
typically used as a verb in a sentence
like this change is going to affect my
life or i don’t want to affect your
family for example
when we use it as a verb we should use a
the a spelling when we use a noun
we should use the e spelling yes there
are some situations where
effect with an e is used as a verb it’s
in let’s see for example in situations
where we want to
explain a change occurring or something
which causes a change we say
to effect change meaning causing
something or in order to do something
but again that uses as um not as common
as what i talked about before the noun
and the verb differentiation of these
two
um so if you like you can look more into
that but in general
uh consider e as your noun form of
effect and
a as your verb form of effect example
sentences
the drug had a strong effect the drug
affected my body there’s a lot of
so okay so the next mistake that people
make is they begin a sentence with
theirs there is the contracted form of
there is they say there’s a lot of
and then they complete the statement
with the plural form of a noun like
there’s a lot of people in here or
there’s a lot of blah blah
like cookies in the kitchen the problem
here is that we’re beginning the
sentence with theirs
there is the singular form there is so
that means that the noun that follows
that phrase also needs to be in the
singular
there’s uh there is uh something we
can’t use the plural form here
um so many native speakers maybe they
don’t think about
the next part of the sentence and they
begin their sentence with there’s
something something something this is a
very common mistake actually
if you’re using the plural form of a
noun you need to use their
art instead there are a lot of people in
the room there are
a lot of cookies in the kitchen for
example so think about
plural noun and the plural form of
is or are in the singular as well so
this is a very common one be careful of
that
vague use of pronouns the next one is a
huge
problem in writing so people are
sometimes
very vague vague means unclear about
using uh like pronouns him or her
or he or she especially in cases where
there might be many people
involved in a situation so if for
example i say
he gave the book to her after he
finished reading it it’s like
how many people are involved in this
situation i
said he gave the book to her after he
finished reading it there are two he’s
in that sentence are they the same
person we don’t know
so it can be very important to identify
all the actors in a sentence or in a
paragraph to prevent confusion so if it
is a situation like that where i say
something like
he gave the book to her after he
finished it but there are two different
men involved in that sentence i might
say like
mike gave her the book after gary
finished it for example or
if uh it’s mike the whole way through i
could say
mike gave mary the book once he had
finished reading it for example we could
change the sentence slightly if we
really want to make it clear
but just make your um all of your
pronouns should be very very
clear to your reader if you use he and
she and
it’s not clear who you’re talking about
you can really confuse the person
listening or the person reading so
please be careful of this
faulty parallelism the next one
is faulty parallelism or in other words
um it’s a grammatical function where all
the items in a list usually in a list or
um in bullet points as well all the
items in those lists are in those
categories should have the same
grammatical type of expression so by
that i mean if you’re using a noun
phrase for everything
all the items should be a noun you
should use a noun phrase for everything
if you’re using verbs or if you’re using
a complete sentence or
depending on your situation the grammar
of each one of those items in the list
should be the same so sometimes people
will say for example
i like cooking and reading and watch a
movie
the problem here is i’ve used cooking
reading so these are two
like i’m using the gerund form so
they’re essentially like nouns
so cooking and reading and watch a movie
so watch a movie
sound similar like these are three
hobbies i like to watch a movie for
example it sounds kind of similar we
don’t have a problem in communication
really
but grammatically watch a movie is
different
from cooking or reading so to fix this
we say i like cooking
reading and watching movies so just make
sure that everything that you’re
introducing in your list
matches grammatically and this won’t be
a problem for you
um so yeah if you’re using all nouns
make sure you use all nouns so
just just be aware of that that’s
something that many native speakers run
into as a problem sometimes
so those are 10 mistakes that native
speakers make have you ever noticed a
native speaker making a mistake it
happens it really does happen from time
to time
let us know in the comments or if
there’s another mistake that you feel
that you make a lot let us know too and
maybe we can talk more about that in the
future
thanks very much for watching this
episode of top words
if you liked this video please make sure
to give it a thumbs up
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also check us out at englishclass101.com
where you can find more resources more
grammar
audio worksheets all kinds of good stuff
as well
i will see you in the next episode
thanks very much for watching bye-bye
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