Hey friends welcome back to a new class. Well, I believe we all are learning English, is
that so? Or maybe all of us are learning English or I could say we are learning English. So
which is the correct one? Well, this is what today's lesson is all about. We are going
to look at some expressions that are used wrongly in English and often we do not realize
that we are making these small errors. But well let's take a look at what are the basic
errors that we make in our day to day lives when we speak English, okay.
Now my first one is, now imagine I am welcoming my guest or probably my colleagues to a dinner
tonight and I say I'd like to welcome you all tonight. Now think of it, you all, okay.
You is a pronoun which stands for singular and plural, right? So if I say you, it could
mean just one person or if I say you, if I look at a class and say you, it is plural
as well. So here you all is absolutely incorrect, okay. So you have two ways to put it. Either
you say I'd like to welcome you, okay or you could say I'd like to welcome all of you.
Okay, but there is nothing like you all, that is incorrect. So you either say you or you
say all of you. Yeah, so imagine you tell someone I know you all are up to something.
Well that is absolutely incorrect. When you address them as a group, so obviously you
are talking in terms of plural, you say, you or you can say I know all of you are up to
something. So remember, well in written English please do not make this mistake, okay. May
be in your emails or when you draft certain letters don't say you all; say you, because
you is a pronoun that stands for a second person in singular or plural when you address
a group. So say all of you or just say you but do not say you all.
Okay, now let's take a look at the next one. We all are waiting to see you. Now this is
similar to the first one. We all. We all? What is we all? Now we is already a plural
pronoun. Okay so what does we all mean? Now people use this very casually. They say okay,
we all are waiting or we all look forward to meeting you. But what is we all? There
is no expression as we all. Either you just say we, okay or you say all of us. So you
say all of us, alright where you use the object pronoun of we. Okay now imagine, you are writing
an email to your client and you are representing your company and your team. So you write an
email saying, we look forward to meeting you. Okay so you don't say we all. Because we represents
a team. We, it is already in plural so do not say we all. That is absolutely incorrect.
Either you say we alright, that already, means a team or you say all of us, fine.
The next example looking forward to meeting you. Well, I receive a lot of emails every
day from my clients, from my students who just kind of keep in touch or there are times,
clients want to know something and well from my colleagues, you know you receive emails
all the time and you also write emails. Now this is a very polite thing to say when you
want a prompt reply or probably you are fixing up a meeting and you want the person to know
that you are very eager to meet the person. So we often write looking forward to. Now
looking forward to is the most commonly used expression, okay. But do not say looking,
you always say look forward to. Okay, so looking is incorrect. You say look forward to meeting
you or you can say we look forward to hearing from you. We look forward to having a long
term association with you. Okay, so you say look forward to and there is a verb that follows
is in ing. So remember don't say I am looking forward to. You can say look forward to, you
can say I look forward to meeting you. Okay friends do remember this. This is the most
common email expression used but unfortunately people do not use it correctly, okay. So do
remember this point and be very careful when you draft your emails.
Well the next one, now we address people by names and sometimes prefixes like Miss., Mr.,
Mrs., right? Now, well I suggest either you use just the first name, okay and you say
Hi Samantha. So do not use Miss. But sometimes you may want to address senior people with
a little respect and some people are really not comfortable using the first name, then
you could use, say Mr. D'Souza. Okay so use Mr. with a last name. You never Mr. Miss.
or Mrs. with the first name. Okay so supposing you are answering the call don't say Hi I
am Mr. Richard. You say Hi I’m Richard or you can say I am Mr. with your last name Mr.
D’Souza. Okay now a small tip for all of you there. When you address a lady, okay,
you are not sure whether she is married or not. So don't try using Miss. or Mrs. I seriously
advise you to go ahead and use the first name. But still if you want to use the last name,
it is always better to use Miss. because you really do not know her marital status. Okay
so do keep this mind in an email, write Hi Peter, don't write Hi Mr. Peter. Okay just
use the first name because we do not use Mr. Mrs. Miss with the first name of a person.
So don't make this mistake. The next one, I am writing to inform you I've
spoken to. Now this is absolutely okay when you are speaking because we speak colloquially
or informally, where we say Hi I'm Rachna. I won't say Hi I am Rachna. So this is okay
in spoken English. But when you write again if you see I've written, I'm writing, do not
use contractions. No contractions in emails. So you say, I am okay. So I am writing to
inform you or if you want to write I have spoken to my team, please write the full expression
in written English. But again in spoken English, you could say, I'm so I'm writing or I've
spoken to. Fine friends but do take care of it when you write an email.
The next one I could care less. Well this is a rude expression. Now the correct one
is I couldn't care less. Now imagine you want to express that you really don't care, okay
and if you say I could care less. It means that you do care a bit or you could care less
than you actually do. But what you intend saying is, I couldn't care less means it doesn't
bother me, it doesn't matter like whatever, okay I couldn't care less. Like I just don't
care. So this is the correct way. I have heard a lot of people using this, I could care less.
I mean really, you could care less, so just care a little less. So well this is an incorrect
expression. You need to say, I couldn't care less. Well do avoid using such a sentence
or an expression because this is rude. No matter how angry you are or upset you are.
Definitely not in writing because this is very rude in an email. And well if you want
to say it to someone, avoid saying it but if you do by chance, intend being rude, which
you shouldn't , use it correctly and say I couldn't care less.
Okay, the last one, you both are intelligent people. Now again you both. So either you
say both are intelligent people. Okay you are talking about Samantha and Peter. Both
are intelligent people. Or if you are addressing them directly you say you are intelligent
but not you both. What is you both? So either you say both or you could just say, both of
you. Okay so this how you say the wrong expression you both, say either both or say both of you.
Okay friends these are a few errors that people make all the time because these are the sentences
or the expressions we use every day. So well do take care while using them and this brings
me to the end of another lesson. I’ll be back soon, till then continue learning, continue practising, bye.