Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
Do you make these five common speaking mistakes? Let's talk about it.
Learning English is hard. There are so many mistakes that you can make,
but do you know what? As long as you are practicing, you are progressing. Before we
start, I have a little disclaimer. When you are learning anything new, English or any other skill,
it's totally normal to make a lot of mistakes. This is extremely common and you shouldn't be
embarrassed about making mistakes. But the fact of the matter is, because you really care about
English, you probably want to level up your skills. You want to avoid common mistakes,
and that's what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to help you avoid five common
speaking mistakes so that you can level up your English. And like always, I have created a free
PDF worksheet with all of these mistakes and their solutions so that you don't make these
mistakes in your conversations. All right, let's get started with mistake number one.
What time is it? It's seven twenty, or it's seven twenty o'clock. Which one is the mistake? Can you
guess? It's the second one? It's seven twenty o'clock. When you are saying a time that has
specific minutes, you do not need to say o'clock. "It's seven twenty," is perfectly
fine. So when should you use o'clock? That's only when you are saying the hour. For example,
"What time is it?" "It's seven o'clock," "It's three o'clock," "It's 11 o'clock." Beautiful.
Let's take a look at a sample sentence. "If you have to be at work at eight o'clock, you
better leave the house by seven thirty." Notice that when I said only the hour, eight o'clock,
I added o'clock. Sometimes in conversation we even drop o'clock. "If you have to be at work at eight,
you better leave the house by seven thirty." But just make sure that you do not add o'clock in the
wrong spot. Don't add it after seven thirty. Are you ready for a little test? Take a look
at this sentence. Where should we put o'clock? "Our flight leaves at six, so I want to be at
the airport by four thirty." Where should we put o'clock? You have three seconds to guess. 3, 2,
1. "Our flight leaves at six o'clock, so I want to be at the airport by four
thirty." Great, don't be late for your flight. Let's go on to mistake number two. Have you ever
heard this phrase? "Would you mind?" "Would you mind helping me?" "Would you mind carrying this
bag for me?" "Would you mind?" This is extremely polite, and you're likely to hear this in daily
conversation and in the workplace. But a common mistake is how to answer this. So if I asked you,
"Would you mind carrying that heavy box for me?" And you said, "Yeah, certainly." Oh no,
this is not the correct answer. I would say, "Oh, okay. It's okay, it's okay. I'll carry
it." So what should you say instead, and why is yes incorrect? Let's see. Take a look at
the original question, "Would you mind carrying this heavy box for me?" I'm really asking you,
"Is it a problem to carry this heavy box for me?" So if I ask you, "Is it a problem?" and you say,
"Yes," well, it means that you're not going to do it, you don't want to do it.
So how can you answer this correctly? Instead, you can say, "Would you mind carrying this heavy box
for me?" "No, it's not a problem." Oh, beautiful answer, and you pick up the heavy box and I feel
so loved. Let's take a look at a couple of sample sentences because this is a tricky one. You want
to answer correctly, you want the other person to understand you as well. What about this question?
"Would you mind giving me a ride to the office tomorrow? My car is at the mechanic shop." Well,
if you can do it, if you can help me. Should you say yes or no? "Would you mind giving me a ride?"
"No, not a problem." This is a great answer. Isn't it a little bit strange? You're telling them,
"Yes, I can help you," but your answer is really "No, it's not a problem." Sometimes
English is a little bit strange. Well, I have a little quiz for you. I want to see if you
can guess the correct answer here. Take a look. "Would you mind paying for my coffee? I'm sorry,
I forgot my wallet, I can't believe it." Well, if you want to help me, I'm your English teacher
and you want to do something kind for me, thank you, what could you say? "Yes,
certainly," or, "No, it's not a problem." What should you say? If you want to help me,
I'll give you three seconds to decide. "Would you help me buy this coffee? I'm sorry,
I forgot my wallet." 3, 2, 1. You can say, "No, it's not a problem." Oh, what a beautiful answer.
All right, let's go to common speaking mistake number three. All right, common speaking mistake
number three. "This shirt is broken," or, "This shirt is torn." Huh, both of these words mean
that there's some damage, there's something wrong, but there's only one that's correct.
You know what? "This shirt is torn." This is the irregular past tense of the verb to tear
something. And we almost always use the verb to tear for cloth or clothing. So you might say,
"Ugh, I stepped on the bottom of my dress and now it's torn." That means it's damaged,
maybe you're going to have to sew it to fix it. So what about that other word, broken? This is
also an irregular past tense verb of to break. When can we use break? Well, we use it in a lot
of other situations, but it's usually for hard things. You can break a wine glass when you drop
it, you can break your phone if you drop it. If you drop it in water, well, sorry, your phone is
broken. These things, the wine glass, your phone, they are hard. They're metal, they're plastic,
they're wooden. It's something that's hard and it's broken. So I have a little quiz for
you. Can you guess which word is the best for this sentence? "The child cried when he discovered that
his favorite toy was," broken or torn? I'll give you three seconds. 3, 2, 1. "The child cried when
he discovered that his favorite toy was broken." The toy is something hard, so we use to break.
His toy was broken. What about this challenge sentence? "My sister borrowed my shirt and
when she gave it back, it was" broken or torn? 3, 2, 1. Ah, when she gave it back,
it was torn. What did she do to it? I guess she'll have to fix it now. Because this is a shirt,
it's a piece of cloth, it's something soft, we use to tear or that past tense verb torn. All right,
let's go to the next common speaking mistake. Common speaking Mistake number four. "Sorry,
it's a mistake," "Sorry, it's a fault." Only one of these is correct. Which one do you think it is?
"Sorry, it's a mistake." We often use the word mistake in the full phrase, "I made a mistake."
"Sorry, I made a mistake. I washed your white shirt with my red socks and now you have a pink
shirt. It's my fault." Ooh, here's our second word. So these two words, mistake and fault,
have a very similar meaning, but they're used grammatically differently. So let's take a look
at that. Like I mentioned, the word mistake is often used in the full phrase 'to make a
mistake'. "Sorry, I made a mistake." And the word fault is often used with a possessive pronoun,
"That's my fault, I'm sorry." "You know what? That's his fault." Children often say,
"It's not my fault, I didn't do it." So here we always have the possessive
pronoun in front of the word of fault. "It was my fault, I made a mistake." This
is a beautiful way to use this grammatically. Let's see if you can get this correct in a little
quiz. "You on ___ the project, but it's not your ___. No one told you the guidelines."
Which one should we use? "You made a mistake, but it's not your fault. No one told you the
guidelines." Beautiful grammar, beautiful way to speak, and also a very kind sentence.
All right, let's go to our final and fifth common speaking mistake. This fifth common
speaking mistake is often said in relationships where you live with someone. Have you ever
heard someone say, "Yes, I heard what you said to me," and then someone else says,
"But were you listening?" Oh, to hear, to listen. They both mean that sound is going in your ears,
but they have an important difference. So let's break it down. The verb to hear is more general,
it just means that sound is going in your ears and you can perceive some sounds. "Yeah,
I hear my classmates talking on the side of the classroom. I hear them," but are you listening
to them? The verb to listen means that you're paying attention. "I heard my classmates talking,
but I wasn't listening to them." Ooh, So you heard some sounds coming in your ears, but you weren't
paying attention to it. You weren't listening. Parents often tell children this, "Yes,
you heard me, but were you listening?" You might even hear this in movies and TV shows. If a couple
is having an argument, one might say, "Yeah, I heard you," and the other might say, "Yeah,
but you weren't listening to me." That means you heard the sounds going in your ears, but
you were not paying attention. This is a subtle difference. Let's see if you can get it correct in
this little quiz sentence. "I was trying to ___ to the lecture, but all I could ___ was the squeaky
chair of my neighbor." I was trying to___," I'll give you three seconds. "I was trying to listen to
the lecture, but all I could hear was the squeaky chair of my neighbor." That was so annoying.
So this means you are trying to pay attention to the lecture, but instead, that sound that
was coming in your ears was just squeak, squeak, squeak. Ugh, maybe you need to tell your neighbor,
"Stop rocking on your chair, I'm trying to listen to the lecture," and you should too.
Well, there you have it. I hope that you were listening carefully during this lesson so
that you don't make these common mistakes in your speaking in the future. Don't forget to
download the free PDF worksheet with all five of these common speaking mistakes,
and their solutions in common sample sentences, so that you can use these comfortably and confidently
in daily conversation. And now I have a question for you. Tell me in the comments,
what is a common mistake that you make in English? Let me know in the comments. I'm
curious what it is, maybe I can make a lesson in the future helping you to correct it. Well,
thank you so much for learning English with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a
new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next step is to download the free PDF
worksheet for this lesson. With this free PDF, you will master today's lesson and
never forget what you have learned. You can be a confident English speaker. Don't forget
to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.