Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
Do you make these five common speaking mistakes? Let's talk about it.
Learning English is hard. There's so much to remember. But if you remind yourself
that as long as you're practicing, you are learning, you're going in the right direction.
Before we get started, I have a little disclaimer, making mistakes is a completely
normal part of learning anything new. It could be a language. It could be any other skill.
I want you to overall be nice to yourself. When you make a mistake, if you can't remember a word,
if you say something incorrectly and people can't understand you, you take a deep breath.
Because you know what? You are getting out of your comfort zone. You are taking a risk
and you are learning something new. Congratulations! That is a wonderful thing
to do. At the same time, I understand that you want to improve your English and you want to avoid
common mistakes. Today, we're going to go over five common speaking mistakes. But be careful,
one of them is a little a bit of a trick. Well, like always, I have created a free
PDF worksheet with all of today's common mistakes and the solutions so that you don't
make these mistakes and you can feel confident when you speak. You can click on the link in the
description to download that free PDF today. Are you ready to get started? Let's follow
this lovely Maya Angelou quote that says, "Do the best that you can until you know better.
Then, when you know better, do better." Well, let's get started. Mistake number one,
lose or loose. And believe it or not, even native English speakers make this mistake. Loose.
Loose. That shirt is too loose. It doesn't fit. Lose. Lose. Don't lose your phone when
you're at the baseball game. Can you say these two challenge sentences with me? My son has a
loose tooth. I hope he doesn't lose it while he's eating. If your shoe is loose, you might lose it.
Now, I have a little quiz before we go to common mistake number two.
What should be the best word for this sentence? I'll let you borrow my favorite shirt, but don't
it. Don't. Which one's correct? Three, two, one. I'll let you borrow my favorite shirt, but don't
lose it. Don't lose it. Common speaking mistake number two, yesterday night, last night.
Only one of these is correct. Can you guess which one it is? I stayed up too late last night and now
I'm exhausted. Yes, people will understand you if you say, "I stayed up too late yesterday night,"
but it's not correct. And if you want to level up your speaking skills, you should say last night.
Can you fill in the end of this question? What did you do?
Three, two, one. Well, as you know, there's only one correct answer. What did you do last night?
Let me know in the comments. Remember, remind. Ugh, these words are so similar, but there is one
grammatical difference between these words that you need to know so that you can use
them correctly. Remember Vanessa's English lesson last week? Ah, no, will you remind me what it was?
Let's take a look at both of these sentences. The first one is, remember Vanessa's lesson last week?
We just have the word remember, and it's not attached to anything. But take a look
at the second one, remind me what it was. When we use the word remind, we always
use a pronoun afterwards. Remind me. Will you remind him about his homework? Will you remind
them not to be late? Oh, can you please remind me what the homework is? We almost always use
the word remind when we're trying to help someone out. It is incorrect to say, can you remember me
what the homework is? That is not correct. Let's do a little test. Can you choose the correct words
in these sentences? Do you when the project is due? Think about it for three seconds. Three, two,
one. Do you remember when the project is due? Do you see any other word after that?
There's no pronoun after that. Instead, it's just the project. Do you remember when the
project is due? What about this sentence, me to buy milk when I go to the store later.
You're asking someone to help you with something. Three, two, one. Remind me
to buy milk when I go to the store later. I might forget. Common speaking mistake number four,
tell and say. Oh, these are also two very tricky words, but I have a little
key way that you can remember which one to use at which time. Let's take a look at these two
sentences. What did he tell me? What did he say to me? Oh, do you notice something here?
After each of these words, we have a little phrase. What did he tell me? Well, we only have
that pronoun, me. What about the next question? What did he say to me? Aha! Here we have it.
With the word say, we always need to if there is a pronoun. What did he say to me? You cannot say,
what did he say me? This is incorrect. Instead, you should say, what did he say to me? Or you
can say, what did he tell me? Let's take a little quiz. What did your boss to you
when you asked for a raise? I'll give you three seconds to think. Is it say or tell?
What did your boss to you when you asked for a raise? Three, two, one.
What did your boss say to you when you asked for a raise? Did you see the word to after this? Yes,
that's your key that it should be say. All right, let's look at another one.
Me the truth, does this outfit look okay? It's a trick question. Let's go over it one more time
and I'll give you three seconds to think of the correct answer. Me the truth, does this outfit
look okay? Three, two, one. Tell me the truth, does this outfit look okay? After the word tell,
there is not the word to, so you know we need to use tell. Tell me the truth, does this outfit look
okay? All right, let's go to our final common speaking mistake that might be a little trick.
There is. There are. There's three birds outside my window right now. Oh, this is technically a
mistake. There is three birds. Birds is plural. There is an S. There are three of them. Why
did I say there is three birds? Well, in common spoken English, we often make this a contraction,
there's, and it doesn't matter what comes next. We could say, there's a bird outside my window,
or there's three birds outside my window. And even though the verb is singular,
this is a mistake that really it doesn't matter. Native English speakers make this
mistake all the time and no one cares. No one even really knows that it's a mistake.
Technically, it is. But if you hear this and you think, wait, that's not right. Why did
they say that? You know what? Sometimes native English speakers allow mistakes, and this is
one of them. But just a little note. If you are writing formally, if you're writing academically,
you can say there are three birds outside my window. You can use the correct version. If you're
taking an exam, don't put the conversational incorrect phrase. Don't blame me for that.
Instead, you should use the technical grammatically correct expression. But just to
let you know, you can forget about this mistake. In fact, you can even use it when you speak.
Well, congratulations on leveling up your English. I hope now you can avoid these five common
speaking mistakes and learned a little bit more about English. Now, I have a question for you.
I want to know in your country, what happens when a child loses a loose tooth? Here in the US, it's
pretty common that a child will put that tooth under their pillow. And in the morning, magically,
the tooth fairy will give them some money. It might be a dollar. It might be a quarter. It might
be more if you're really lucky, but this is a common cultural practice. I want you to use these
two tricky words. What do you remember from your childhood? Let me know in the comments, and don't
forget to download the free PDF for this lesson. This is an important one, so that you don't make
these mistakes when you're speaking. You can get all of the mistakes, all of the sample sentences,
how to correct it, and you can answer Vanessa's challenge question so that you never forget
what you've learned. There's a link in the description to download the free PDF today.
Well, thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new
lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye! The next step is to download the free
PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this free PDF, you will master today's lesson
and never forget what you have learned. You can be a confident English speaker. Don't
forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye!