Follow LangFocus on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Hello everyone. Welcome to the LangFocus channel, and my name is Paul. And despite what half the people in the comments say, English is my native language. -DONALD TRUMP VOICE: Why doesn't he show his birth certificate? -DONALD TRUMP VOICE: And you know what? I wish he would. -DONALD TRUMP VOICE: He should show his birth certificate. -DONALD TRUMP VOICE: [And] the other thing: Why doesn't he show his certificate? Today's topic is... 10 Common Mistakes That Native English Speakers Make. When most of us study a foreign language, we try to avoid mistakes and speak accurately. Some of us are even scared to make mistakes. But, you know what, even native speakers make mistakes, and that includes speakers of my native language, English. When I say mistakes, I'm not talking about dialectal variation. English has various dialects that differ from the standard language, and I'm not talking about those differences. I'm talking about native speakers of dialects that are very close to Standard English, but, who make mistakes. What kind of mistakes? Well, here are 10 of them. Number 10: Unclear Subject Number For example: Every one of those people need to buy a ticket. The correct sentence would be... Every one of those people *needs* to buy a ticket, because the plural word people is right next to the verb, some people might mistake it for the subject, but the subject of the sentence is actually every one, and of the people is extra information about that subject. "Every one" is singular. Number 9: Confusing Homophones When Writing Homophones are words that sound the same as other words that have a different meaning, and usually have a different spelling. One common example is the confusion of affect and effect. This confusion arises because the first vowel of each word is often reduced, and it sounds like a schwa, and this makes them sound alike. When someone is writing the word, they may be hearing the sound of the word in their head, and they may choose the wrong spelling to go with that sound. Another example of this is "their, there, and they're" "Their" and "there" sound the same, but "they're" sounds a little different, but in its reduced form basically sounds the same. People often choose the wrong one when writing. Another example is the confusion of "your", the possessive pronoun, with "you're", the contraction of you are. Another example is writing of instead of 've, the contracted form of have. For example: Someone might write "I would of gone to the party if I'd had time" But it should be would've with apostrophe-"ve". They sound the same in casual pronunciation so that's why they get confused. Number 8: Confusion of Adjectives and Adverbs For example: "He sang really good." Good is an adjective, but we need an adverb to modify the verb "sang". So, the correct sentence is, "He sang really well." This mistake is the kind of mistake that kids often make before they've had English grammar drilled into them and it's also a kind of mistake that less educated people might make. Even educated people might make this kind of mistake, but they'd probably notice it right away and maybe correct themselves. Another related case is that people sometimes use and adverb when they actually need an adjective So take this case for example: "I feel very badly about that." This sentence is wrong, it should be: "I feel very bad about that" But, why is it wrong? I thought adverbs modify verbs... Well, adverbs modify action verbs, but "feel" is a stative verb. It just describes the way something is, the state that´s in; it doesn't describe an action. Stative verbs are followed by adjetives, not adverbs. Inevitably, someone will ask What is all the sentence "I feel well" isn't that correct Yes' that's a correct sentence, but "well" is not an adverb here. It's actually an adjective meaning "healthy". It's not an adverb equivalent of the adjective "good". Number 7: Double Negatives educated adults won't make this kind of mistake and if they do it's probably kind of an intentional casual style of speaking you know trying to sound all badass a double negative is like this I don't have no money man the correct sentence would be I don't have any money man another example I didn't talk to nobody correct sentence would be I didn't talk to anybody so that one could be a mistake or it could be people intentionally trying to copy the features of a dialect that's cool and popular number six not using the subjunctive mood the subjunctive mood is a form of the verb that's used for something not factual like possibility or desire or necessity in English the subjunctive has a unique form in the third person present tense and the verb to be has a unique form in the third person past tense some people just don't use it at all or they're confused about when to use it for example it's important that he goes to the hospital that's actually wrong the correct sentence would be it's important that he go to the hospital we need the subjunctive mood here to show necessity another example if I was rich the correct version would be if I were rich here we need the subjunctive because it's showing possibility number five confusion of is and are this confusion usually happens with there is and there are or here is and here are for example here's three cookies for you the correct sentence would be here are three cookies for you another example there's around seven people at the party the correct sentence would be there are around seven people at the party but so many people even educated speakers use both of these forms so much that I'm not even sure that they're considered mistakes anymore number four confusion of the verbs lie and lay most native English speakers know that there's a difference between these words but they're kind of confused about what the difference is or they know what the difference is but they use them incorrectly anyway lie is an intransitive verb meaning it takes no direct object for example let's lie on the bed oh boy I can imagine the comments already lay is a transitive verb meaning it takes a direct object for example let's lay the laundry on the bed but lots of people say let's lay on the bed and that's wrong people also mistake the past tense form and the past participle of lie I often hear people say lied like he lied on the floor or laid like he laid on the floor but really the past tense of lie is lay and the past participle is blame the past tense of lay is laid and the past participle is also laid number three confusion of the words fewer and less fewer is used for count nouns and less is used for non count nouns but people often use less for count nouns for example I eat less cookies than I used to cookies are countable so the correct sentence is I eat fewer cookies than I used to that kind of mistake is very widespread number two confusing the past tense form and the past participle form of irregular verbs for example the verb to go has the past tense form went and the past participle gone but lots of people say things like I should have went to the party but the correct sentence is I should have gone to the party another example the verb to drink the past tense form is drank in the past participle is drunk some people say things like he's already drank two beers and it's only 4:00 p.m. but it should be he's already drunk two beers number one misuse of the word literally the real original meaning of this word is that something in reality is exactly as spoken without metaphor or exaggeration for example if you say she literally has thousands of pairs of shoes that means if you count all of her pairs of shoes there will be thousands of them not hundreds not dozens but really thousands but these days people often use the word literally just to put emphasis on something that's not actually literal for example that guy is literally a monster oh really that sentence means that he looks like this he's not human he's a real monster but that's not what they meant they just meant that he's a bad person this kind of mistake literally makes me scream what are you waiting for me to scream I don't actually scream I didn't mean that literally. I think that basically all native speakers make some mistakes in writing and in speaking if we judge by strict grammatical standards sometimes it's because they're just thinking on their feet and maybe their ideas aren't completely organized so things come out a little bit unclear and sometimes it might be a habitual mistake they repeat the same mistake over and over but the issue is not black and white obviously standard languages need rules so that there's not total chaos but at the same time languages are always evolving and sometimes a mistake may be a new innovation in the language that just doesn't match the rules of grammar yet because the rules of grammar were decided in the past so the question of the day for native English speakers what do you think of the kind of mistakes that I described in the video do you think that they're a danger to the English language or do you see them as mere innovations or does it depend on the case and the question of the day for native speakers of other languages do you notice these kinds of mistakes in your own native language what do you think of them leave your comments down below be sure to follow Leng focus on Facebook Twitter and Instagram and once again I'd like to say thanks to all of my patreon supporters especially the ones right here on the screen for their especially generous pledges thank you for watching and have a nice evening Sike, day.
Not really a surprise. His stuff always seemed questionably prescriptive/normie-focused to me.
eeeeh. he had that video where he asked his viewers if english is romance or germanic. as if this were a question.
dude's weird as hell.
I think a lot of people in and even outside the language learning community make comments like "Don't worry, native speakers of [X] also make mistakes." in an effort to try to say basically (1) the language is especially hard, complex, and arbitrary, and (2) don't worry if you make mistakes, too.
While I like the message ("don't worry too much about little mistakes"), it's just not true. I was talking the other day to a colleague about an English-learning student who produced an ungrammatical English sentence (one without do-substitution), and she told me that he just "forgot a word" and that native speakers do that, too. But Native English speakers simply don't produce sentences without do-substitution unless they are trying to sound ancient or foreign. You can't compare learner mistakes (or, if you prefer neutral terminology, "interlanguage developments") to native speaker speech patterns like that
The equivalency drives me nuts. L1 is not L2, people!
I was waiting for this to be posted here. What I don't get is how he mentions dialectal variation but still counts varying adverb use as a mistake.
It is very obvious that he doesn't understand what prescriptivism is. There's a difference between a standard and natural language. You can make mistakes when using the former, inasmuch as a mistake is simply a deviation from the norm, but it's rather meaningless to talk about making a mistake when using the latter. There is no One True DialectTM from which to derive what is right and what is wrong.
Not even Tamil.I feel bad about this, because I genuinely like his channel and the introductory exposure I get to languages I would otherwise be in the dark about.
This doesn't even make sense. "Dialects which are close to Standard English but where people still make mistakes"? So there's a threshold at which you can start making mistakes in your native language? So I can make mistakes because I grew up speaking the prestige dialect, but an Appalachian-English speaker can't?
What.
I'm probably wrong, buy I think he's just trying to make non-native speakers feel better about themselves. At least, that's the feeling I got from it.
Man, fuck!
I'm a native speaker of English, and I would always say every one of those people need to buy a ticket, while I'd say every one needs.
How the hell is he gonna say that my native English speech is ungrammatical?
Also, is there a native speaker that doesn't also use here's and there's with plural objects?
Edit: Just finished the video. Of course the last one is fucking literally. Also, habitual mistake, and rules of grammar were decided in the past?! Just kill me now fam.
Edit: Yeah, idk why I seem so angry in this comment, I'll just blame it on the 3 hours of sleep that I got :P
I didn't feel bad about the video until I read the youtube comments. Eh, it's Youtube after all.