Hi there, welcome to my course on common English mistakes. My name's Max and you
might know me from my YouTube channel English with Max, or my Facebook and
Instagram pages. I'm an ESL teacher from Australia.
I'm a native English speaker and I've been teaching English for many years.
I also really love learning foreign languages, so I understand the
difficulties that language learners often face. This course is on common
mistakes made by English learners. It is aimed at people who have an
intermediate to advanced level of English.
Before I continue, I want to emphasise that making
mistakes is not a bad thing. Everybody makes mistakes and mistakes help us learn.
However, as you learn a language, it is a good idea to try to reduce the
number of mistakes you make. Reducing mistakes makes it easier for
other people to understand you, and it can help you get higher marks in exams
such as the IELTS. In addition, people will most likely take you a bit more
seriously in academic and professional situations. This course contains
55 mistakes that I've put into groups of 5. So there are 11 sets of 5.
Most are grammatical mistakes, but there are also several that are related to vocabulary.
I've also included some that aren't technically mistakes, but they're phrases
and sentences that native speakers wouldn't really say. So you will see
mistakes related to prepositions, tenses, vocabulary and several other things.
For each mistake I show you a sentence with the mistake in it, then I give you some
time to see if you can identify the mistake, then I show you the correction,
and I give an explanation. Now even though I give an
explanation each time and it often involves some grammar, this isn't a
grammar course, so my explanations aren't very long.
However, for several mistakes I indicate exactly what you need to look up, in case you
want to look at that point in more detail. After you start the course you
might notice that it gradually gets more difficult. That doesn't mean that number 2
is definitely more difficult than number 1, or even that number 10 is
definitely more difficult than number 5. It's not that exact, but generally
speaking the difficulty will increase. So Set 11 is definitely more difficult
than Set 1. I've also included lots of quizzes (some are videos and some are PDF files)
so that you can really retain and remember what you learn. As I'm sure you
know, it's not enough just to be given an explanation. You also need to practise.
I hope you find this course useful, and if you have any questions throughout the
course, you can write them in the Q&A section.
Hi guys. We are now going to look at Set 1.
So we're going to see the first five sentences. I'll first show you
a sentence that has a mistake in it, then I'll give you a few moments to see if
you can find the mistake, and then I'll show you the correct sentence and I'll
give you an explanation.
So let's get started.
Okay, the first one is: I live in UK.
Where is the mistake?
It should be: I live in the UK.
This is because some countries require "the".
Most countries don't, but you need to know which ones do.
For example, you could say: I live in France.
But if it's the US (or the USA), you have to say I live in the US.
Another example is "the Netherlands". I live in the Netherlands.
Number two is: How high are you?
This should be: How tall are you?
Why is that?
Well, it's because we use "tall" to talk about a person's height.
If a person is high, it means they are
not thinking or behaving normally because they have taken drugs.
You can say the first sentence (it is grammatically correct), but if you say it,
you are not asking about a person's height. If you say it to somebody, you are
probably asking: How many pills have you taken?
Or: How much Mary Jane have you smoked?
"Mary Jane" is just a colloquial term for marijuana.
So, when do we use "high" and when do we use "tall"?
Well, "tall" and "high" are both adjectives related to
distance. So what is the distance from the top... the top of something to the bottom?
But "high" has some other meanings, so we need to be careful. I'm not going
to go into all the meanings now, I'm just saying that you need to be aware of them.
So let's look at "high".
We usually use "high" for mountains, or when we want to
say that something is a long way above the ground.
For example: How high is Mount Fuji?
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
The rooms have high ceilings.
The shelf is too high for me. That means that I cannot reach it.
It's too high. It's too far from the ground. I'm not tall enough.
We use "tall" for people and most other objects.
For example: Most basketball players are very tall.
How tall is that tree?
The tallest building in New York is 541 m tall.
But just so you know, sometimes people use "high" for buildings.
It's not as common as "tall", but you will maybe hear it sometimes.
Number 3 is: Amy is having a cat.
This should be: Amy has a cat.
This is because we use the present simple for long-term situations,
for example, owning pets.
You could say: I have a dog. Or: I have a dog and two rabbits.
Or: I have a ferret. If you like ferrets.
If you say, "Amy is having a cat," it sounds like Amy is
pregnant and she is going to give birth to a cat, which is highly unlikely.
Number 4: In court you have to say the truth.
Where's the mistake?
Yes, it should be: In court you have to tell the truth.
We use the verb "tell" with the "truth".
Similarly, we also say "tell a lie", not "say a lie".
Let's look at a couple more examples:
Frank often tells lies. (Yes, he's here.)
Another example: The politician told a lie yesterday. (Actually, he told many.)
Number 5: Don't translate word by word.
This should be: Don't translate word for word.
Don't translate word for word.
There is no rule here.
Another example: I memorised my speech word for word.
Set 11. Yes, you've reached the final set.
51: I'm too perfectionist.
This should be: I'm too much of a perfectionist.
I'm too much of a perfectionist.
Now although "perfectionist" can be an adjective, we normally use it as a noun.
If you want to say "too + noun", you need to insert "much of a".
This construction is commonly used with these nouns:
He's too much of a realist.
We were considering acquiring that company, but it's too much of a risk.
She's too much of a coward.
I'm sorry, I'm in too much of a hurry to help you now.
It's too much of a hassle.
In theory, you can use this construction with any countable noun,
but in practice, it's more commonly used with some nouns than others.
52: It was a three hours journey.
The correction: It was a three-hour journey.
It was a three-hour journey.
Now if you put a number (in this case "three") and a noun or unit (here it's "hour") in
front of another noun (journey) to indicate the length, size or duration of
the second noun, the first noun is always singular. Let's see some more examples.
A 300-page book (not: a 300-pages book).
Two 300 page-books (not: two 300-pages books).
A five-mile walk (not: a five-miles walk).
A 50-meter pool (not: a 50-meters pool).
But the unit IS plural if it's not in front of the noun.
For example: The book has 300 pages.
There it's plural - pages.
The pool is 50 meters long.