We arrive at a place or in a place? Do we get to a place or reach a place? Oh God! These
verbs are so confusing, there are so many problems with verbs and how can we actually
remember all of them and that's why we end up making so many mistakes with verbs, but
this is an end to your story of making mistakes with verbs because, I'm Michelle and in this
lesson I'm going to help you overcome all the problems with verbs.
So let's look atthe sentences that we have with us on the board, you know what, all these sentences
are actually wrong… yeah, try and read them for yourself, something is missing in some
sentence and something is added in some sentences, so we need to find out the errors yes that's
the task and correct them as well. And I'll give you the reason why all these sentences
are wrong. Let's look at the first sentence that we have with us, “it depends _____
the traffic”, so what verb should we have here? ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘at’ what? Think
about it, “it depends ‘from’ the traffic?” no, “whether I arrived early or not, it
depends ‘on’ the traffic”, yes, ‘on the traffic’. So the first thing that you
need to be very careful about is, choosing the right preposition. Choose the right preposition
for the verb. For example, let's look at this sentence, “you made me wait an hour”,
is that correct? Or is that an incomplete sentence? Do you think we are missing a preposition,
yes we are. “You made me wait ____ an hour”, now think of the preposition that we should
have here, ‘you made me wait at an hour’, or ‘you made me wait from an hour’, that
sounds a bit correct, right? ‘you made me wait from an hour’, but it's actually wrong.
You would say, “you made me wait ‘for’ an hour”. So many times we tend to miss
this ‘for’ and try not to forget it, because if you do, then you are making a wrong sentence.
So, ‘you made me wait for an hour’. Let's look at the next one, we “call to a friend”
or do we “visit to a friend”, do we? Or do we ‘call a friend’ and do we visit
a friend’, yes. We visit a friend, we don't, visit to a friend. The same way, ‘we call
a friend’, we don't, ‘call to a friend’, have you been making this mistake very often?
Do you call to your friend? Then now try not to say call to a friend, because ‘to’
is an unwanted preposition here, we do not want ‘to’. So we say ‘let's call a friend’
or ‘let's visit a friend together’, alright? So these are three sentences telling us how
to use prepositions correctly with verbs. As you must be knowing, ‘depends’, ‘made’
and to ‘call’, these are the verbs that we have in these sentences. Okay great, now
let's look at the next one, “they accused her of steal”, so if you're a bit confused
with the word meanings, accused means, to blame, alright? And this is a verb. So ‘blamed’
and ‘accused’ are past tense, alright? And these are verbs, so “they blamed her
of steal” or “they accused her of steal”, what does it mean to steal? To steal means,
quietly take something away, without paying for it, okay very bad habit we must not steal.
But in this sentence we have not used ‘steal’ correctly, “they accused her of steal.”
‘steal’ is also a verb and it can be used in the present continuous sentence, right?
So in this sentence we have more than one verb, we have two verbs, we have ‘accused’
and ‘stealing’. But why do we use a past tense form for this verb and a present tense
form for this verb, it's so funny, isn't it? Well it's because, whenever there is a preposition,
yes this clever preposition after a verb, the second web will always be in the continuous
tense, which means ‘ing’. Right, so the reason is this preposition, ‘they blamed
her of stealing’, alright? Okay, “she loved dancing” something like that okay
so, they blamed her of stealing, we have stealing in the ‘ing’ form because we have a preposition
between the first verb and the second verb which is blamed and stealing. Okay with that
we move to the next one that we have, so we complete talking about how to use prepositions
correctly with verbs, now coming to the rest of the grammar concepts, “that man live
in California” can that man live in California? Of course he can, but do you think the sentence
is correct, are we missing something here? Yes, we are. I think you must have guessed
it, “that man lives in California.” but why do we say, ‘that man lives in California’?
That's because we always use an ‘S’ with the ‘third person singular’ so that is
the third person singular, here we are talking about one man, okay? Not more than one man.
So third person singular, ‘that man lives in California’. Okay let me test you, if
I say, “those men live in California”, should it be ‘live in California’ or ‘lives
in California’? ‘Those men lives in California’, that's incorrect. “Those men live in California”
and the reason is because there is no singular here, here we have ‘third person plural’
so do remember that only when it's third person singular we use an ‘S’. “That man lives
in California” but “those men live in California”. Great, the next sentence that
we have with us is, “yesterday…” okay ‘yesterday’ is past or present? Its past.
“Yesterday, I go to dance” can we go to dance yesterday? No. You have to look for
the ‘keywords’. As we can see that ‘yesterday’ is a word from the past, and we have a keyword
which tells us that this sentence is about the past, we cannot use the present form of
the verb, we have to use the past form of the verb and say, “yesterday I went to the
dance” and ‘not yesterday I go to the dance’. So be careful look for keywords
and then frame your sentence and use the correct form of the verb. For example we'd say, “last
night I went to the party”, right? Because here also, ‘last night’ is about the past.
Now we have the next sentence with us, is that a sentence? No. It's a question. “What
was happened last night?” Oh! I think we have an extra word in this one, do we? Let's
see, “what happened last night?” We cannot have two past words in the same sentence,
we cannot say, “what was happened last night”. So here ‘was’ is an extra B, we do not
need it, we do not need ‘was’ here. We'd simply say, ‘what happened last night’.
So remember, when you have one past verb, you do not need another past verb, helping
verb, okay? Let's look at the next one, “I concerned about my grades”, “I concerned
about my grades”, are we missing something here? Yes, we are. We are missing a verb,
a helping verb ‘be’, okay? Like we removed the helping verb here, we'll add a helping
verb here, “I am concerned about my grades”, so whenever you're using the present tense,
do not forget to use the helping verb, ‘be’ as an auxiliary. Now let's look at the second
last that we have, “I could played basketball”, okay, so ‘could’ as you know is a modal,
okay? It's a modal and here it's used for the past, alright, “I could played basketball”,
now the point that you must remember is, that after the modal the verb should always be
in its base form, okay? After the past modal, the verb should always be in its base form.
Like I told you, we cannot have to past in the same sentence, so the same way we cannot
have two past words here. So “I could play basketball” this is still talking about
the past ability. Great, with this we come to the last sentence of the day that we have,
“I have met Michelle for five years”, have you met me for five years? Well this
is the wrong sentence because of the word choice. ‘For’ means a period of five years,
we are not just talking about a point in the past, we are talking about a period, right?
So when you talk about a period, you will replace ‘met’ with ‘known’, alright?
“I have known Michelle for five years”. So be careful about the ‘word choice’.
Very soon you will surely know me for five years, because I am going to continue to help
you solve all the problems with different things in grammar. For today, this is all
that I have for verbs and if you've been making any of these mistakes, then make sure you
don't make those mistakes now, because you've got all the answers with this lesson. Thank
you so much for having me bye-bye.