hi there i hope you're doing well in today's video i'm going to present 10 common mistakes
that english learners make as many of you know i teach english here in the united states to
immigrants refugees and international students and i teach at a college in california so my students
are learning english but they're learning at a high level because they want to go to college or
university here in the united states over the last 20 plus years i've noticed a lot of mistakes that
my students make and these are 10 common errors that i notice in my students speaking and writing
but before i show you those mistakes and how to correct them i want to talk a little bit about
mistakes i want to let you know that it's totally normal and okay to make mistakes when you're
learning a language i don't want you to feel bad about that or to think that i think that it's not
okay because it's totally okay to make mistakes in fact making mistakes when you're learning
a language is a sign of learning or a sign of progress what i mean by that is if you try to use
new grammar or new vocabulary you're more likely to make mistakes so again mistakes can be a sign
of trying something new or extending your level of english to a point that it's challenging
but at the same time it's also a good idea to have an understanding of grammar and to know
what some common mistakes are so that you can avoid those so let's get into those mistakes
number one i and my family i and my family love to go to the park on the weekends
i and my friends enjoy watching movies together so i and my family or i and my friends or i and
my parents is wrong and the reason for that is that in english if you have a compound subject
which is a subject that has two or more parts like my parents and i or my sisters my parents and i i
always goes last i'm not totally sure why that is but that's how it is so try to remember to say my
family and i my parents and i my friends and i etc number two answering negative questions with yes
for example you don't have time yes so this answer is confusing for native speakers because
when we ask a negative question like you don't have time or you didn't do your homework we
have to answer no like no i don't have time or no i didn't finish my homework
so try to remember that if you agree with a negative question you're going to answer with
the negative again you didn't finish your homework no i didn't if you're not familiar
with negative questions please check out this video because negative questions are super
common in the us we use them all the time in conversation and answering them incorrectly
can lead to misunderstanding number three i am confusing about this question or i am interesting
in history so you need to know the rule for these ing adjectives and know that they come
in pairs like confusing confused interesting interested tiring tired boring bored and remember
that there are basically two things you need to know about these adjectives something is confusing
and how do you feel you feel confused again something is interesting and you are interested
for example cleaning the house all day is tiring i feel tired that movie was so boring i feel or i am
bored i am interested in history why history is interesting or that question is confusing i am
confused number four i don't know japanese and chinese i don't like hamburgers and hot dogs
so when you have a negative verb and you have some nouns that come after it you're going to use
or not and and this is because the verb is negative so let's look at the correct form
i don't speak japanese or chinese i don't eat hamburgers or hot dogs this isn't a big deal
if you make this mistake but it's kind of an easy one to learn and it's also very common
to use a negative verb and some nouns so it's a good rule for you to learn because it is common
and it's also not very difficult number five answering choice questions with yes
or no for example do you want to go to the movies or stay home should we travel to brazil or mexico
so these are choice questions and how do you know that it's a choice question because of the word or
and if you're listening you're going to notice that the intonation is going to go up on the
first choice and then down on the second should we travel to brazil or mexico do you want to go
to the movies or stay home and some people might think that these are yes no questions because of
the grammar do you or should we but because of the word or it is a choice and the answer requires you
to choose one of them so again this would be the mistake do you want to go to the movies
or stay home yes well that doesn't make sense to me because i'm asking you to choose one so you
cannot answer yes or no do you want to go to the movies or stay home the movies maybe you want to
do both in that case you could answer let's do both but again you cannot answer yes or no this
is important for college students to know because a lot of questions on tests are choice questions
the question on the test will ask you to choose one or more things and you need to be prepared to
answer the question correctly number six thank you for your listening so it's very common for us to
say thank you for something but we don't include the word your we say thank you for listening
thank you for sharing thank you for coming and again just drop the word your and
say thank you for listening not thank you for your listening number seven in my opinion i think
california is the best state to live in here we have in my opinion and i think and we don't use
both of those together why not because they have the same meaning and it sounds strange to use both
of them so if you want to express your opinion you can say in my opinion california is the best state
to live in or i think california is the best state to live in you can use another verb like i believe
but don't use in my opinion i think number eight answering a negative sentence with me too
so similar to the negative questions that we looked at before if you have a negative
sentence and you want to agree with it we have to use me neither for example
i don't speak chinese me neither i don't have time this evening
me neither sometimes i hear people say for example i didn't finish the homework me too
we can't answer me too to agree with a negative sentence for a negative sentence we can agree with
me neither if you don't know this rule please check out my video and i explain
in that video how you can use me neither and other forms like neither do i or i don't either
but remember for this rule that we're not going to answer me too to agree with a negative sentence
number nine using the wrong modal verb in the past for example when i was a child i must clean
the house every week so the verbs must will and can have past tense forms so remember that must
means the same thing as have to right i must clean the house i have to clean the house in the past we
say i had to we cannot use must in the past when i was a child i had to clean the house every week
how about can the past tense of can is could and will the past tense is would so let me
show you three examples first i'm going to use the modals in the present and then i'll use them
in the past i must clean the house every week i can clean the house by myself
after i clean the house i will watch a movie so let's look at those in the past when i was a child
i had to clean the house every week i could clean the house by myself
after i cleaned the house i would watch a movie so again if you're using modal verbs in the past
just remember that they have a past tense form finally number 10 this is a common mistake
and it's actually a pretty basic one but for some reason it is so common i am agree
so this is a really common thing to say to show that you agree with someone but agree is the
verb so we say i agree i am agree or i'm agree does not exist so don't use it i agree the same
thing with disagree i disagree so those are my 10 common mistakes also let me know if you have other
questions about grammar or any grammar topics that you want me to talk about on this channel
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that really helps me to grow my channel thank you so much and i'll see you next time take care