Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 365.
All right. The title of today's lesson is five overlooked English grammar mistakes.
Yeah. I corrected a lot of papers in my time as a teacher and very often or
there's many, many grammar mistakes and there's a lot more than just these.
But these are ones that you kind of surprised that students sometimes
made and they just missed it. So these are common ones that appear now. Perhaps
each student you may, know some of these not to do this , but I don't know if you
know all five. And there's actually two of them here that native speakers
I've often caught sometimes make as well. So let's look at the first one. The first one
is never leave a grammatical mark at the beginning of a line such as a comma,
question mark, period, quotation marks , etc. A native speaker won't do this They'll
instinctively know that you should not do this. But I have corrected a lot of
papers with students of ESL where they did do this. They didn't realize this. So
here is the first example. I need to bring a lot of things from my trip, such
as a bathing suit and you see in this case they actually put the comma here at the
beginning of the line. You never do that you must put it right at the end here of
the other line. And if it really can't fit, like if you're typing it out, it
didn't have enough space , you have to move the whole word. You have to
move the word bathing suit to the front here and move everything over. That's
what you have to do. So you can't put something like this, like this. A comma
here or a question mark or a period. You just can't leave it at the beginning of
the line. If you can't put it at the end you have to move a whole word over . You can't
leave a grammatical mark at the beginning of a line. Okay. Again native
speakers wouldn't do this . But I have many students of ESL, I've corrected over
the years that have done this. All right let's look at number two. This one I
actually did a video on by itself but it's worth repeating here. This is a
common one and this is one that native speakers I have caught doing.
Never begin a sentence with a number. Okay. I remember when I first
started looking at it. Instinctively I said it doesn't seem right. So I had to look
it up and check it out and in fact it is a rule. It's a grammar rule. You're not
supposed to put a number as the first word in a sentence. So here with the X
this is wrong. So you, you can put the word for the number but you can't put
the number. So with the X here. 10 years from now, it won't matter. So the way to
correct it. Now if it's a small number. It's easy to correct. You just write the word
for it. So ten here. Ten is a very short word no problem. Just substitute the word
ten and this is okay. Now if you know the numbers later in the sentence doesn't
matter you can write the number. But not the first word in the sentence. All right.
Here's a second example. That's not as easy. Because it's a big number like five
hundred and twenty thousand two hundred and eighty four cases of robbery were
reported in that city. All right. That's a really big number. You
don't want to write out that whole number. You know. All right. Five hundred
and twenty thousand two hundred. Yeah so in this case it's the easier thing to do
is to reword the sentence. If you can. So that's why here with the check, that's
what we did. In that city, there were 5,284
cases of robbery. So just reword the sentence. So that the
number doesn't begin at the ... it's not the first word in the sentence. All right. So
that's how you solve that problem. This is one that I have seen native speakers
write articles and they actually made this mistake and they didn't catch it.
All right. Number three. Nowadays always takes an 'S' at the end. Yeah. Native
speaker probably wouldn't do that. But I'm surprised at how many times I've
corrected papers with students of ESL. They just simply forgot the "S' at the end.
And they just say nowaday. That's never right. You so again here with the X
this is wrong. So nowaday it is considered to be politically incorrect
to say that. No. Of course you have to say with the check here. Nowadays with an
"S" at the end. So don't forget that that. That's a simple one. Number four here.
Avoid using the pronoun I first when describing that you and
another person did something. It is considered impolite. Now this one some
people argue about that it may technically not be
grammatically incorrect. But most native speakers don't do it. It is considered
impolite and it sounds awkward when you do, do it. So let's look at some examples
with the X . I and mom are going to a movie later. Yeah
most native speakers will never say that. They will say the one with the check
here. Mom and I are going to the movie. So you always put yourself second. Never
put yourself first. You know, as a pronoun. Okay. And number five here. Stand
alone letters should be capitalized. Okay. Yeah. This is one that sometimes I've
seen native speakers make a mistake on. I have a black t-shirt. Yes. Sometimes I've
seen it written out in articles written by native speakers and they use a small
t. You're not supposed to use the small T as a standalone letter. It has to
be a capital "T" with T- shirt. That's why " " in English is always capitalized too. It's
a standalone letter. So you can't write I the pronoun as a small" I" it always has
to be capitalized. It follows this same rule. Okay. he got an A on her test. Yeah.
here, you have to do it. Because it would be confusing. If she got an a on her test. So,
so you have to write the capital A like a grade in this case. You absolutely must
capitalize that. Or X-ray would be another one. I've sometimes seen native
speakers write it and you know and of course students of ESL make the same mistake.
Whether they write them with a small X. The X must be big in X-ray as well. Okay. Anyway,
of course there's a lot more mistakes out than this that students make. And
maybe in the future I'll add some of those. But this is enough for this lesson.
Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it was informative. I hope it was helpful. Thank you
for your time. Bye-bye.