5 English grammar rules you must learn before you die or after by LetThemTalkTV
brilliant brilliant
Another video written
now this is a very common mistake
I hear among learners of English and that is the difference between
prepositions of movements and prepositions of position for example I
often hear something like "I went in Italy last weekend" not correct "I was to
London yesterday" not correct. Here is why TO is a preposition of movement so
you'll often use it with verbs that indicate movements such as GO or COME
"i went to Italy last week," "I came back to France yesterday" IN is usually a
preposition of position so you use it with the verb TO BE "I was in Italy last
month "I've been studying in France for the last six weeks." Now two points bear
in mind IN can mean inside or INTO so in this case it represents movement when
it's INTO look at this sentence "She walked in the room." It's ambiguous isn't
it did she come from another place and enter the room? or was
she already in the room and walking around it?
as I said in is usually used for position but sometimes we use IN when
what we really mean is INSIDE or INTO "She walked inside the room" that's clear
she was in the room walking around it. "She walked into the room." she came from
elsewhere. So sometimes in English we shorten INSIDE and into to IN this
is perfectly ok and correct just don't do it if it can lead to some
misunderstanding so sometimes if you want to be completely clear say she came
into the room or she entered the room while she walked inside the room .
A question for you what's the difference between these two sentences "He's at the
station", "he's in the station"? Let me explain that means in the
vicinity of but not necessarily inside. "Let's meet at the station in front of
the entrance outside." IN means geographically inside. "Let's meet in the
station at the ticket office." So you can use AT to mean inside or outside but IN
only means INSIDE. "I'll be at home this afternoon in the garden" which is outside
of course. "I left my suitcases in my house,"
This is very much linked to the last point but I thought I should explain it
separately because it's such a common mistake so look at these two sentences
"I've been to Chicago". "I've been in Chicago" what's the difference? now as I
said earlier to is about movement so being to Chicago means that you have
made a visit or a trip to Chicago at least once in your life that's why the
correct question to this answer would be "Have you ever been TO Chicago?" (not IN
Chicago) IN is about position as I said earlier so if you're staying or living
somewhere or studying somewhere you would use been IN. "I've been in Chicago
for six months ." You've been in to talk about where you are currently at now
let's look at the question "How long have you been in Chicago?" So with how long
questions use the preposition IN. So when you use GONE TO? Been to means
that you have traveled to a place but then traveled away "I've been to Moscow
twice this year." GONE TO means that you have traveled to a place and you are
still there. "Where is Hillary?"
"She's gone to Dublin. She's coming back next week"
In the affirmative. what's the difference between MUST and HAVE TO and HAVE GOT TO?
All of them
are forms of obligation. Do they have a similar meaning? yes they do is there a
difference well there is a nuance of difference between must and the other
two HAVE TO and HAVE GOT TO. MUST is about an internal obligation and have to
have got to refer to an external obligation let me give you an example
and it'll become clearer "I must go to the dentist this week" so the
speaker believes it's necessary for him. "I have to finish this report by 5pm"
There is an external obligation on the speaker they're
looking another example: "I must eat more vegetables" good for my
health. An internal obligation "I've got to
clean the dishes or my girlfriend be very angry with me" that's an external
obligation now in questions - you might see this distinction.
"Must you make that noise?"
"Must you leave now can't you stay a little longer?"
I've got to go because I have an appointment.
HAVE GOT TO and MUST are just used in the
present tense in the past tense and future tense use WILL HAVE TO or HAD TO
in the past tense "I had to go to the dentist yesterday"
you can't use MUST then now this is a nuance if you say "Do you have
to make that noise?"or "I must clean the dishes". it's perfectly ok you
will be understood. However looking the negatives between mustn't and don't have
to there is a big difference MUSTN'T is a negative obligation "You
mustn't talk in the library." "You mustn't smoke in here."
DON'T HAVE TO means no obligation it's okay if you do
it (not obligatory) I don't have to work tomorrow
I said no obligation you can if you want I don't have to read this book but I like it.
now a common question I
get as an English teacher is what is the difference between WHO and WHOM and my
answer is that while I'm happy to explain it most of the
time it's not important you can carry on with your daily life without knowing the
difference walk down the street, by bananas, play tennis order a pizza and live
your life happily without WHOM. However there is one case where WHOM is still
frequently used in spoken English and I'll come back to that in a moment.
Before I do that let me briefly explain the difference for those who really want
to know. So WHO is used to talk about the subject of a sentence "who are
you calling?" is that right? No, it should be "Whom are you calling?" because if
you answer the question who are you calling the answer is I'm calling him or
I'm calling her or I'm calling them which are object pronouns so it must be
WHOM but do we say that in conversation "whom are you calling?"
no absolutely not. If you insist on saying it then okay it's grammatically
correct and I'm not going to stop you but almost everybody will say "who
are you calling?" Sometimes you'll hear speakers using WHOM after
preposition. "You gave the book to whom?" "From whom did you receive that gift?"
but again do we say that it's possible but rare. "Who did you give
that book to?" much much more common to remove the WHOM and just put a TO at
the end of the sentence. So let me get the point. Yes we
still do use WHOM in everyday conversation in one situation and
that is after quantifiers such as many, several, some of, both of, a number of, for
example "I met three girls two of whom were wearing hats." "Many people came to
the party some of whom got really drunk."
"We had hundreds of candidates a small number of whom had the right profile."
of course in these sentences you could use THEM instead of whom but if you did that you
would have to make a new sentence "We had hundreds of candidates.
Some of them had the right profile" it's correct but sometimes you want to
keep it in one sentence for the flow it's just sounds more
conversational and flowing so it's just a question of style but as you can
see WHOM is used in conversation
look at these sentences and tell me if they are correct or incorrect.
"I don't know who is that man"
"Are you sure you know what does he want?" No of course not
they are not correct but I've heard these type of sentences so often I'm
sure I give him every day as an English teacher so the correct sentences are I
"I don't know who that man is" "Are you sure you know what he wants? " now
the confusion lies in the words WHO, WHAT, HOW, WHICH, WHY WHEN, WHERE. These are the
words we use to form questions but these words have two functions now when we
form questions in English we use what we call inversion all this means is that we
swap the position of the subject and the verb so that the auxilary or modal verb
goes before the subject "you did that" To make the question the subject goes
before the verb and of course you start the question with the question marker
DID "Did you do that?" and we can add a HOW before that to get more information
"How did you do that? "You are here" that's a statement to make a
question we use inversion so you put the verb before the subject "Are you here?" we
had a question word for more information "Why are you here?" now these question
words have a second function as relative pronouns but when you use them as
relative pronouns you do not use inversion and this is where the
confusion lies "I do not know why you are here." No inversion never say "I do not
know why are you here" That's not correct so here's an exercise correct
these sentences. "Please explain where did you put the coconuts" not correct no
inversion and you don't need the question marker did. "Please explain where
you put the coconuts." that's correct.
"I need to know what should I do" your turn .
"I need to know what I should do."
do so that's correct "I need to know what I should do." Easy huh?