8 common English grammar mistakes that native speakers make! Do you realize that not everyone in North America or the UK speaks perfect English? In fact, the majority of people do not follow all the grammar rules that you learn on engVid or in textbooks.
It is sometimes confusing for learners of English when they hear their native speaker friends making these mistakes. These mistakes are also often heard in movies. There is a big cultural divide between people who speak correct English and people who speak with mistakes. The ability to speak English in the grammatically standard way will often determine whether you have access to a professional-level job. This is especially true if you’re a non-native speaker of English, so I strongly suggest you follow the standard rules of English grammar. In this video, I cover mistakes you'll hear in the UK, but many of these mistakes are also made by Americans. After the lesson, make sure to test yourself with my quiz! http://www.engvid.com/native-speaker-grammar-mistakes/
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. Today we're talking about common mistakes that native speakers make. And I use the word "mistakes" -- I use that word, "mistakes", for you. I don't actually listen to people and say, "You're wrong! You're wrong!" because a lot of the time, it's about variety of English and accent as well. Whether they use this grammar is incorrect grammar in terms of standard English. But people use it, and people say it. So that's why I'm telling you about it.
Also, I've got so much respect for people who come and learn English, but like, you could say, like, on the street, you know? They're not taking classes. They're learning from the people they're around. Sometimes, the people you're around speak in the way where there are these mistakes. So that's the kind of thing that you acquire. Nothing wrong with that because people speak like that. But maybe you get to a point where you've seen something in a book where grammar is explained, but it's not what you hear people using. And when that happens, there's sometimes quite a lot of confusion. So I'm pointing out these mistakes to you so that you can observe them yourself, and then, you can decide, "Well, I like saying it that way" or, "I don't want to say it that way." "That's the way everyone I know speaks, so I'm going to speak like that" or, "I'm going to choose not to." So -- yeah. Let's take a little look.
So something you'll hear a lot in many different accents in English -- British English -- is using "was" for all past subjects. So you learn in your grammar books that you say, "I was, you were, we" -- I need to think about this -- "we were, they were, blah, blah, blah, he, she, it -- was." But a lot of people just say "was" all the time when they're talking about the past. They say, "We was going there" or, "they was joking." It's not standard English, but you will hear it a lot.
So we are, in standard English, expected to use "were" in our sentences, not to use "was" all the time.
Moving on. No. 2, substituting the past participle where the past simple is needed. Okay. So these are example sentences that you will hear which are considered incorrect in terms of standard English. "I done it. Did you do your homework? I done it." "Where's the vodka? He drunk it." "Where's the dog?" No. Not, "Where's the dog." "Where are the kids? They run over the road." Okay? You'll hear those. But these sentences should either be past simple here because we're talking about completed, finished, past events, or they should be present perfect sentences. So they're using the past participle, which relates to the present perfect as in an action that happened in the past still with an impact now, but it's confused because it's used without an auxiliary verb. So let's compare to the correct standard English version. "Where's your homework? I did it." " Where's the vodka? He drank it." The past simple form of the verb "drink" is "drank". I'll write that one down because it's a confusing one. So it's "drink, drank, drunk". And -- yeah. "Where are the kids? They ran over the road." This one is confusing as well, "run, ran, run". And let's look at it in the present perfect form. "Where's your homework? I've done it." "Where's the vodka? He's drunk it." And, "Where are the kids? They've run over the road." They're still there. They haven't come back yet.
