hi my name is Rebecca for the next few
minutes let's pretend you are the
English teacher and you're correcting
your students homework let's look at
some of these sentences and see if you
can find some of the errors in these
English sentences okay the first
sentence my mother she works in a bank
is that okay well let me tell you right
now that actually none of these
sentences are okay there is a mistake in
every sentence so see if you can find
the mistake okay my mother she works in
a bank
what's the mistake okay here she all
right I'm just gonna grab a different
marker so what happened here is we said
my mother she works in a bank so we
cannot repeat the subject the mistake
here is that we had a double subject the
subject was mentioned twice in English
you can't do that you just mentioned the
subject once so this sentence in order
to be correct would need to be my mother
works in a bank or she works in a bank
if you know who she is right but you
can't say both so no double subjects
number 2 John is an engineer what's
wrong with that
look carefully well
what's wrong is that it's missing the
punctuation all right
part of a correct sentence is correct
punctuation so here there was no period
at the end of the sentence that's what
was wrong next sentence the manager of
my department what's wrong with that
well what's wrong is that it's not a
sentence because it doesn't have any
verb there's no verb there okay and of
course you need to continue the sentence
and then eventually you need to have a
some punctuation as well but basically
there is no this is a sentence fragment
this is called only a part of a sentence
it is not a complete English sentence or
a correct English sentence there is no
verb missing verb next one we enjoy
watching old movies okay again look
carefully what's wrong there well as a
subject it has a verb but this is the
problem the first letter in the first
word of an English sentence has to be
capitalized and that's what was missing
here you see we didn't have that problem
before okay next what I like very much
Chinese food okay maybe that sounds okay
to you but doesn't sound okay to me it's
close but not quite
what's wrong well what's wrong here is
this the word order not only do you need
to have certain elements you need to
have the words in the right order so in
English the correct order for this
sentence would be I like Chinese food
very much okay not very much Chinese
food I like Chinese food
very much okay next
Mariya need help with her homework
Maria need help with her homework what's
wrong there okay so the mistake is here
the mistake is in subject verb agreement
the verb has to agree with the subject
right and if we say Maria it's like she
and we could have to say she needs Maria
needs help with her homework
so that error here was in subject verb
agreement next one delivered the package
yesterday okay
deliver the package yesterday what's
wrong here well it's similar to this one
except here we had a sentence fragment
and we had the subject here we have a
sentence fragment and we have a verb but
we don't have a subject we have a
missing subject so this is also a
sentence fragment fragment means only
part it is not a complete sentence
next one we received your letter we
received your letter sounds fine but if
you're an English teacher you're going
to look really carefully at each of the
words and what's wrong he's here a
mistake is here it's a spelling mistake
okay the word received is one of those
tricky words with the E and the I and I
and the e that you have to learn very
well so spelling mistakes will also
bring down your marks if you're doing
the IELTS if you're bringing doing the
TOEFL any errors of this kind will bring
your marks down okay so even though they
seem very basic I know from experience
that students make all of these mistakes
be very careful not to make them let's
look at what principles apply to correct
English sentences okay so a an English
sentence must express a complete thought
and it must express it with certain
elements now just because a sentence
mastix express a complete thought it
doesn't have to have a lot of words it
doesn't have to be a very long sentence
let me give you an example of a perfect
English sentence which is not long and
here we are this is an example babies
cry let me explain to you why this is a
perfectly correct English sentence so an
English sentence has to have a subject
the subject in this sentence is babies
an English sentence has to mention the
subject once here it's only mentioned
once we don't say babies they cry we
just say babies cry and a sentence has
to have a verb what's the verb in this
sentence cry a sentence has to have
subject verb agreement so in this case
we said babies cry it's correct
we didn't say babies cries or anything
like that there is subject verb
agreement a correct sentence should have
a capital letter okay at the start of
the sentence and we do so that's fine a
correct English sentence should have
punctuation at the end which we have we
have a period it should be correct word
order which we have we didn't say cry
babies which means something else we
said babies cry that was fine and
spelling okay
so did the word babies this felt
correctly the word cry is felt correctly
so these points are all the points that
you need to keep in mind when you're
constructing an English sentence make
sure you do that and you don't lose
marks unnecessarily on your exams by
making one of these basic errors all
right if you'd like to do some more
practice on this please go to our
website WWE in vidcom thanks very much
for watching and good luck with your
English