Learning English through soooooooooooooooo
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ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo What the hell are you doing?
ooooo—
I'm sharing my gift with the online community.
Why don't you find someplace else to share it?
Are you guys aware of this "Learning English through songs" trend?
English centers are taking hot Vietnamese pop songs,
doing cover versions in English,
then uploading them to YouTube.
And those videos typically get quite a few views.
(just read the numbers on the screen)
But . . .
but . . .
You guys have probably already guessed, I'm not a huge fan of those videos,
because the lyrics often contain lots of funny, unnatural English,
and a more serious problem is they often contain a fair number of grammar and vocabulary mistakes.
And I don't mean "wrong grammar" in the sense of things like . . .
or . . .
Because in those structures, they're intentionally using incorrect grammar
in order to make the lyrics fit the rhythm of the song.
And that practice is accepted even in songs by native speakers, like Justin Bieber, for example.
What I mean by "grammar and vocabulary mistakes" is things like "meaningless stuffs,"
or using "dumb" as a noun, and even calling it out as a noun,
when, in reality, it's an adjective.
Before getting into correcting these mistakes, I want to mention that most of the English in these videos is correct.
A lot of times it's funny,
but with respect to grammar and vocabulary, these videos are mostly okay.
And there are some that don't have any mistakes at all.
So I'm not going to go through and correct every single mistake I found,
but instead just the ones that really stood out to me,
because I think this mistakes are worth pointing out,
particularly because many of them are classic Vietnamese learner mistakes,
so you guys have got to be really careful not to make them.
So, put some good headphones on, and get ready to listen to some music.
First, we're going to look at a cover of "Mình cùng nhau đóng băng."
This is a really common mistake:
using a noun all by itself,
by which I mean that it doesn't have "a" or "the," nor is it plural.
This sentence should read:
Or, more naturally:
In this sentence, "go through" does indeed mean "trải qua," but it needs to have an object.
For example:
Therefore, this sentence should say:
Or maybe:
Um, you can't "go on your new life."
That's a meaningless phrase.
Instead, you could say:
This sentence has two different mistakes, both of which are extremely common.
The first is the excessive use of "the."
When talking about going to class, you don't need "the." It's just:
And the second mistake is "soon" here.
Vietnamese people often mix up "soon" and "early."
If you're not clear on the difference, there's a bald Western dude who made a video about it.
A more correct sentence would read:
Here, there's a mistake with the word order in "just can be kept."
I want to teach you guys a little trick to check your own English.
If some phrase pops in to you head,
and you want to check whether it's correct or whether it's common, try searching for it in quotes.
Hmm, only a few results.
And if you fix it to say, "can just be kept," then . . .
wow, around 400,000.
So, which way do you think is correct?
A super-classic mistake.
The suffix "-ed" applies to a person's feelings,
and the suffix "-ing" applies to the thing that caused that feeling.
Yet another classic mistake.
The words "everywhere," "anywhere," "somewhere," and "nowhere"
never have a preposition after them.
This mistake is sort of hard to believe.
"Let" never goes with a subjective pronoun. It always has to be objective.
And here, I'm not sure I can explain why "to live entirely the moment" isn't right,
but native speakers would say:
And this sentence has a mistake in verb conjugation.
After "let's" (I meant to say "let"), all verbs have to be in the bare infinitive form.
For example, "let him go," not "let him goes."
And here . . .
Next, we're going to look at an English version of "Đừng như thói quen."
Ok, the most obvious mistake here is "I still like that."
That phrase does not mean "anh vẫn như vậy," but rather "anh vẫn thích điều đó."
If you want to say, "anh vẫn như vậy," then "I'm still like that" is the correct way.
And there's another mistake with the word "until" here.
I find that lots of Vietnamese people use "until now" incorrectly,
because that phrase means the referred-to action took place until the present, at which point it stopped.
For example:
That means that from now on, I won't be lazy anymore.
So, if you want to say something like . . .
then you need to use a phrase like . . .
And for this sentence, "even now" would probably be the best choice.
Ok, this one is really screwed up.
After the verb "fear," there shouldn't be any preposition.
Plus, any verb coming after "fear" should be in the "-ing" form.
However, the meaning of that sentence isn't very clear, either.
"I always fear you'll disappear" would probably be better.
You guys remember how a moment ago I said verbs after "let" need to be in the infinitive form, right?
This sentence ought to read:
Another mistake with noun usage.
This sentence should say:
Another excess "the."
It hasn't been established yet.
is the correct form.
With this sentence, I think native speakers couldn't possibly figure out the meaning.
If I didn't understand the Vietnamese part, I probably wouldn't know how to fix this sentence.
I would translate "Chỉ là phút giây có khi mỏi mệt" as "It's just that I get tired sometimes."
And that sentence even fits the rhythm.
Next, we're going to look at a cover of "Cùng Anh."
The first mistake is . . .
What I heard her say was "every road."
That's right.
But then the lyrics say, "every roads."
Wrong.
And the next mistake, I want to warn you that it may cause a lot of cringe.
(It's funny because it's an extremely literal translation.)
In this case, I'm not sure. Something like "years and years" or "long months and years" would be okay,
but "month, year long" is a phrase you'll never encounter in proper English.
The mistake is with the word "others," a word that I find Vietnamese people misuse a lot.
It means "other people."
For example, if you say . . .
then it means he rarely helps other people.
So "to not lose others" definitely does not mean "để chẳng lạc mất nhau."
The correct translation is:
"Harder" is a comparative adjective, and the problem lies in the word "really."
With comparative adjectives, you can't use "very" or "really" for emphasis.
Instead, you should use:
And now there's one more cover, "Chạy ngay đi." First we've got this:
I think she means:
You could say,
or,
but "Like the storm run into you" is wrong.
A classic mistake.
Actually, a few weeks ago one of my students asked me when to use "by" and when to use "with."
I found an answer for you guys.
(Just read what's on the screen. You'll get it.)
And here . . .
And now, I want to show you guys one more clip
in order to emphasize the importance of pronunciation.
I know the purpose of these videos isn't exactly to teach pronunciation,
but even in a song, placing the stress on the correct word and the correct syllable is still really important.
So with the following clip, please just listen, and don't read the lyrics.
Again.
One more time.
(Just some sponsorship stuff. Click the link in the description if you want to know more.)
(Although, if you're not Vietnamese, you probably won't care much about it.)