Fix Your Bad English in 50 minutes!

wanna speak real English from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at English class 101.com hi everybody my name is Alisha and today I'm joined again in the studio by Michael hello hi Michael thanks for joining us again today today we're gonna be looking at a few tips for learning another language so each of us have prepared a few things that we think are really useful when learning another language both of us have studied another language to some degree so we're gonna talk about things that were useful for us and which might be useful for you as you practice your English skills so let's begin do you want to start sure go for it I would say absorb media this is something that actually when I meet someone and they sound like a native English speaker and I go you know where are you from are you from Australia America no no no I'm from blah blah blah what you mean you're not a native English speaker and every single time they tell me I said you know how did you learn please I'm an English teacher I want to know I want to help people habla and every single time they tell me oh I just love blah blah blah culture so usually I love American culture I love Justin Bieber and Lady gaga blah blah blah blah blah and so all day every day they're reading they're watching movies are sitting on YouTube and just absorbing it and it doesn't feel like you're studying but you are and so then you're more likely to study so it's like a fun way to study it's it's helped me I've changed everything on my iPod so even when I'm lazy I have no choice but to listen to the language I'm learning yeah I think that's a really good tip I had the same thing essentially mine was just phrase slightly different I said find something that interests you in your target language so if English is your target language whatever it might be if it's music if it's movies if it's comic books I don't know if it's if you're interested in something dating someone who speaks your target language whatever it is find something to motivate you something that's gonna make you want to study and make you want to learn that language so that you have that you know that that drive to do it I totally agree with you yeah I think it's a great tip okay cool so we had one thing that was the same I guess I'll share another one of mine if that's okay my next one is one that I try to do myself but I know that yeah I'm miss I mess up every once in a while practice every day even if it's just a few minutes whether you can spare an hour or two hours or just I myself study while I'm you know commuting to work on the subway just find something that you can do every single day so that you don't lose you know lose your place in your studies just whether it's vocabulary or picking a new grammar point to be looking at or just you know finding a new phrase on TV that you thought was interesting just being an active learner every single day really really contributes I think to your abilities to speak and to understand another language let's just practice every single day something I think this is a really useful piece of advice for anything I think a lot of people you get overwhelmed and you know you think man I want to be here whether it's exercising or playing the piano or whatever and you just want to finish you know a year's worth of time in one day so you study really hard you know you procrastinate and then one day you do you cram as much as you can you get burnt out and then you don't do it for weeks eight months and that's not the way humans work we're creatures of habit any of the best the greatest whether they speak a language like you is wonderfully as you do or whatever or play piano or whatever every single time you ask them and it's brick by brick by brick so I I agree 100% and I also don't follow this advice all the time that's tough I think the key is to not give up so for me honestly my my languages aren't I'm not as confident but as far as exercise you know you'll get lazy and you'll pig out and you go down but you can't just give up and just let it go down right just remember the big picture that you are making progress even if there's some some some decline so you busy with work whatever get back on it keep practicing yeah English get back on English class 101.com what is your next tip um so my next tip is also related to practice everyday is practice fearless ly so this means you know it's easy to learn some basic phrases in English hello I'm fine thank you and you and you sound like a robot and you feel comfortable in your little like comfort zone but you don't expand you've got to be willing to make mistakes and I think it's the same as with dancing if you're afraid you look stupid if you you're reserved and you're off onto the side of the club and you're just kind of moving one shoulder and your little comfort bubble it looks really stupid it looks way more stupid than if you were actually going all out and just having fun with it yeah I think it's the same thing with language don't just stick to your little comfort of hello I'm fine thank you and you and sound like a robot you got to have some fun with it try to use those big words that maybe you mess up that's okay that's how you learn it's like a kid so let's see your other one my tip my last tip then is kind of general I guess I've just chosen immersion this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to go to the country you know where they speak the language that you're studying but just find a way to even if it's just for a short period of time every day or once a week or whatever it is if there's some some way that you can immerse yourself in the language that you're studying for a period of time and only study you know Spanish or only study English in your case for affer for a period of time every day or every week every month whatever it is on a regular basis so you get used to just hearing that and just experiencing that I think is really really helpful I think yeah I agree um I think that's no no that's nothing um I thought I thought I wrote a duck yeah I agree one of the things that most people don't realize is that now it's the 21st century everyone's connected so a lot of people just assume that if you move to the country you're gonna pick up the language because immersion is is one of the best most you know time and time again improved way proved ways to learn a language but that's not always the case like I have a lot of friends in different countries who don't learn it at all they're married to a local but they just it's easy to just sit on Facebook and talk to your old friends and never actually you know practice and put it out there so if you can't make it out to another country don't worry about it because even if you do is sometimes you know it's that mindset it's actually doing it yeah yeah okay what's your last tip our last tip is take grammar with a grain of salt so of course grammar is essential for learning a language absolutely there's no doubt about it you should definitely focus on that but what I found is that when you're learning from a non-native English speaker they feel safe teaching grammar because their set rules they can teach even if the pronunciation isn't correct or any of that and you know you you you can just get into that rut but the reality of most languages is we break those rules all the time so don't worry too much if you're if your grammar is a little off or you're having trouble learning it just just kind of go with it and just try to repeat what you hear yeah I don't know about you though no I think I think that's an interesting point though because I think that I'd like you say I think grammar is a really safe place for a lot of people because like you say there are there are rules it's clear that I can see them you know if I put a noun and a verb like this then I'm gonna make a sentence that says this and I understand that it's really easy to understand but I think that's something that a lot of learners and myself I'm guilty of this too is that there's a limit to how much grammar that you can learn like once you learn the grammar you're you've you've learned the grammar like yeah it's possible I think to master the grammar of any language but it's the vocabulary that continues to change every year there are new words in every single language that gets developed people are making up new words every day especially in English so experiment you know when once you find that you know you've learned you've learned the grammar move on you don't keep keep exploring new vocabulary find new and interesting things to do with the tools that you've given yourself so don't be afraid to experiment with your vocabulary too if you find something that you might like to try to make a verb out of like Google for example give it a try see if it works if the other people around you are confused maybe it didn't work if the other people around you laughs or you know continue with the conversation hey maybe you just made a new word you never know so give it a try thanks very much for joining us for our English tips on this lesson we will see you again next time bye Pacific ording hi there welcome back to weekly words my name is Alisha and today we're going to talk about commonly looked up words these are words that are the most commonly searched for on merriam-webster online which is a popular English dictionary so let's get started the first word is pretentious pretentious is a word that means you're trying to impress other people or someone who tries to impress other people by making themselves seem more exciting or more important or cooler than they really are in a sentence you might say my coworker is so pretentious he's always exaggerating his stories to make himself sound him don't be pretentious the next word is ubiquitous ubiquitous just means something that you see everywhere smartphones smartphones smartphones smartphones it's a fur that's really smart you can tell when you need extra oxygen in a sentence you might say smartphones are ubiquitous everybody has one now and I have one too al biet I'll be it just means although in a sentence she was making progress albeit rather slowly an expert is ambiguous ambiguous just means something that's the meaning is not really very clear to you maybe if you're reading the newspaper for example and a sentence is written kind of strangely you might say hmm the meaning of this is rather ambiguous alright love really baby don't hurry love is just that intense feeling where you really really like somebody else could be your family member it could be a partner a romantic partner or whatever it could be a food you really like as well just anytime you have that really deep strong emotion you can use the word love for example I love pizza it's my favorite food okay and that's the end of commonly searched for words in the dictionary I hope you learned a few new things give him a try and we'll see you again next time for more weekly words bye this is unnatural rollin rollin rollin okay hi welcome back to weekly words I'm Alicia and today we're gonna talk about phrases that aren't cool anymore whoo-hoo I probably say a whole lot of these phrases so I'm about to embarrass myself the first phrase is sweet Oh sweets not cool anymore sweet means cool sweet means something that's good you might say oh man that's skateboard trick you just did with sweet groovy I still say groovy groovy means cool guru means good it was used in the seventies when you know funky groovy music was popular in a sentence like oh hey those are some groovy moves on this hint I don't know if we can use that going steady going steady is kind of an old-fashioned phrase as well going steady just means you're dating someone who is dating someone else like me and Trisha are going steady what just means you're dating you're a couple not oh this is this word is actually what the entire holiday at April Fool's Day is based around that's a lie particularly I would say for junior high school students this phrase is um very popular they might say something like hey Steve thinks you're cute not so in other words it's often used as an insult duh duh duh duh is used when someone says something really stupid or something really obvious so if you say something like oh hey it's raining the other person who can also maybe look out the window you're both sitting in front of might say duh because you've just indicated something very very obvious you can also use to make fun of yourself when you do or say something really stupid as soon as you realize this you can go ah duh yeah I'm learning today but I'm not cool that's the end oh okay well those are some phrases that are no longer cool I hope you learned something about things that are no longer cool but you can still use these words just you know don't expect to sound really interesting or hip to the lingo if you use these words okay thanks for joining us and I will see you again next time bye bye hi everybody welcome back to English topics my name is Alisha and I'm here today again with Michael hello and today we're going to be talking about questions that we have been asked so let's begin what is the first question that you would like to discuss today Michael I would like to discuss what's the main difference between British and American English so for me I'd like to get this out of the way Canadians and Americans sound pretty much the same it's hard for us to tell the difference even even native English speakers there's a couple telltale signs you know say some things but it's used usually regional so I guess North Americans and then like UK English and again there's a lot of different accents and dialects you know it all depends but for me the easiest way is Americans enunciate every word we're very loud and we open our mouths a lot hello how are you where are you from teacher water we enunciate every sound so um for me a dead giveaway is that that our end are right it's tough I listen for vowel sounds and try to guess based on that so your question is about British English and American English there's also Australian English there's Scottish English there's Irish English there's so many different English speaking and dialects and honestly sometimes it's hard for us to understand we're both from relatively the same part of America so we have the same speaking style our accents are the same but to go through all of the different dialects and to try and approximate the to try them to try and say them badly ii would probably just be a waste of time but you're on the internet look it up okay I guess we'll go to the next one um let's see my questions let's see I'm gonna start with a grammar question that I get a lot a grammar question that I come across as students ask me this question the present tense versus the progressive tense what is the difference when should I use present tense versus progressive tense so by this I mean of verbs the present tense is used for facts things which are always true things which are part of your regular schedule the progressive tense has a few different meanings to it a few different uses to it but one of the meanings are one of the uses is to express something which is temporary which is not part your regular schedule or another uses to describe a trend so you use a very common mistake as an example if I ask the question where do you work a lot of times the response I get from my students is I am working in America depending on on the situation that sentence could be correct but if you're talking about the place where you work always every day you go to that job it could be the location of your office it could be the country or the city where you work if it's a part of your regular schedule you want to explain a fact that is true about your life you should use the present tense not the progressive tense so the correct version of that sentence should be I work in America that's part of my regular schedule if however you're only in America for the week for example you can use the progressive tense but it's more natural to say for example this week I'm working in America that's a much much more natural sentence to use how do I pronounce the th sound so you know depending on who I'm teaching English to they'll have problems with different pronunciation sounds but for me I think one that's that's common with a lot of different cultures is the th sound and I think again this goes back to like the different ways of speaking and how Americans we and them see it every word and we push our the way we speak to the very tip of our mouth that's the th sound so most people are capable of making the th sound but they're just a little shy and it just doesn't seem natural it's almost as if you can bite the tip of your tongue off when you say the sound right and then just another thing to note is that th can have a hard or a soft or voiced or unvoiced sound so the is hard or voiced you hum hmm the the and then with like think it's a soft or unvoiced you don't hum you don't vibrate you just say think but it's still the tongue goes touches your teeth think that this is another grammar point that I get questions about from time to time it is the present perfect tense versus the simple past tense the question is when do I use them so present perfect tense let's see an example of present perfect tense would be I have been to Paris simple past tense would be I went to Paris what is the difference we use the present perfect tense to talk about a life experience or something which occurred in the past but which still affects the present so in this case in my Paris example sentence it's something that happened in the past but when exactly when is not important we just want to say I have had the life experience of going to Paris simple past however is used to refer to a specific point in time in the past so for example I went to Paris last summer it's important that you know I went last summer if the time point when you went to Paris is not important use the present perfect tense so this is really useful for talking about your travel experiences for talking about your study experiences foods you have and have not eaten so keep just try to keep in mind when when you should use these two they're very commonly used together like for example you might use the present perfect tense to introduce a question have you ever been to Paris and the follow-up answer oh yes I have been to Paris using the present perfect tense again but then a common pattern is to follow that answer up with a simple past question when did you go so you can see it changes from present perfect tense to simple past tense so a larger life experience to a more simple life experience so they're used together but just be careful try to be aware of am I talking about an overall life experience or a very specific life experience this is one that many of my students struggle this is more cultural why do Americans wear shoes inside the house on the bed etc I feel like this depends and this is starting to change I take my shoes off in most houses but I guess it's more so for comfort whereas I feel like on the east side of the world it's more of like a cleanliness kind of a thing and if you do still wear your shoes it's pretty taboo whereas in the states I feel like most people from my experience anecdotal evidence just personal experience most places you take off your shoes but if they have a party they let people wear shoes inside the house they don't care and a lot of my friends will see American movies and they see somebody a main character wearing their shoes on the bed on the couch something like that again from my experience it's not that big of a deal but typically you wouldn't do that for me the the the rule of thumb like they're the unsaid rule is that you can put your shoes up but you don't let your shoes touch the couch you kind of you hang off right so you can if you want to lay on the couch without taking your shoes off you let your feet hang off cuz yeah of course they're gonna get dirty but yeah it's just not as emphasized as much in our culture I don't know the last question I have is can I ask a question the answer is yes the answer is yes and in probably 95% of cases the answer to the question can I ask a question is yes okay why did I choose this question my students sometimes will put their hands up in my lesson and say can I ask a question like one this is your English class yes please ask question um but to also this is a discussion I've been having with a few people recently just about the mindset that I think is really important when speaking English we have experience teaching in Asia where maybe there's a different approach to conversations I don't know if this is the same cultural approach to conversations that people from other countries have but don't wait for permission to speak don't wait to jump into a conversation just go for it don't wait for someone to say oh would you like to speak now because that's never going to happen so don't be shy get your tongue out and say things and don't worry if it sounds rude or too polite or whatever um yeah I couldn't agree more yeah yeah just it's a shift in mindset if you when you when you start speaking that second language like you said if you just change your mind just a little bit just make a small shift in your mindset maybe you'll see ah that's what it takes just like a little bit of your home language and see what happens great so those are some questions that we have been asked about teaching about English about culture if you have any other questions by the way please make sure to leave them in a comment for us or if there's something that you've always wondered about or if there's something that you've encountered recently that confused you whatever leave it in a comment for us and maybe we'll talk about it in the future thanks very much for watching this episode of English topics please make sure to subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and we will see you again next time fight welcome back to weekly words my name is Alisha and this week we're gonna talk about commonly misspelled words I'm excited about this because I like catching misspellings believe to believe something just means to accept something as true or not true in the negative believe is commonly misspelled they spell it alive well believe is commonly misspelled don't do that so if you're having trouble remembering the correct way to spell the word believe consider that the word lie is in the middle of the word which is kind of counterintuitive if you've been paying attention to the weekly word series if you're trying to persuade a friend to do something you might say please believe me this is gonna be the best party ever you have to come okay the next is a lot this is commonly misspelled because people like to put the UH and the lot together it's actually two separate words uh and a lot a lot just means a large number of something or a large amount of something many of something in a sentence you might say something like I have a lot of hobbies I like skiing snowboarding and whitewater rafting so just spell them separately don't put it all together oh the next they're there and they're students of English tend to be better about spelling these words than native speakers of English and I find that very interesting the first there th ER e refers to a place as in he lives over there the book is over there somewhere other than where you are right now the second forum th e IR is the possessive form of a as in that's their house that's their dog something that belongs to some other group of people and the last form th ey apostrophe r e they are refers to a quality about another group of people as in they are the students they are the teachers it's the contracted form of they are on word the next word is grateful grateful the meaning of grateful grateful just means that you appreciative of something in a sentence you might say oh I feel so grateful my teacher took time after class to explain this concept to me grateful is commonly misspelled because this gr8 e e sounds just like the word great gr EA T but actually that great good meaning is not the correct spelling for this word we use great instead this spelling of grade is also used as a verb as in two great things in the kitchen I don't know if that has any relation to this or not probably not it's gr8 te next is receive receive to receive something as a verb means to be given something or to get something receive can be kind of tricky because of the I and the e a place where the I before E except after C rule applies it's not a 100% true rule but typically after the letter C if the letters E and I need to follow it after the letter C I is typically not the first letter to come usually it's e that's the first letter so it should be C e I ve receive rather than recite you something like that in a sample sentence you might say I received a gift from my friend on my birthday I was really happy about that the next word is end right end is not very commonly misspelled but thank you for joining us for this episode of weekly words please watch your spelling with these words as it can be very important to get them right thanks again and I will see you next week bye bye wanna speak real English from your first lesson sign for your free lifetime account at English class 101.com welcome back to weekly words I'm Alisha and this week we are going to do words with strange plural forms this is good practice I bet let's start yes antenna the plural form of antenna is an 10a I think I'd seen today and I think I probably actually just say antennas and antenna on an old TV set for example would be it would kind of look like this we'd call it bunny ears where you had to adjust the bunny ears you're out there and just adjust the antenna to make the signal on your TV come in more clearly bugs they have antennae from their heads the next word is millenium the plural is millennia a millennium is a period of a thousand years a thousand years is a millennium a series of thousands of years would be called millennia you might say many millennia have passed since the earth was formed cactus is the next word a cactus is a plant these are the arms of the cactus I couldn't make the trunk of the cactus Wow you can put a picture on the screen instead of my amazing cactus the plural of cactus is cacti or cactuses I think I'm more inclined to say cacti so when you go to the desert you might say keep an eye out for cacti if you step on one it could really hurt you the next one it's an interesting one I don't think I've ever used this word in a singular like if you have a swimming pool or if you've seen a pond or whatever it's that green sort of scummy stuff that accumulates on top of it or on the sides of your pool if you haven't cleaned it in a while algae bacterias and things that like to live in the water there's a singular form and I'm just I'm looking at it for the first time I don't know how good to use the plural then you would say I need to clean my pool there's a lot of algae in it yeah next is ox ox the plural of ox is oxen these animals used to be used for farming I don't know that they are very much anymore I don't have much personal experience with farming but there they look like really really cows with huge horns few torrents yeah okay next is the end plural words that have weird plural forms so please keep them in mind when you are trying to use them in conversation and use the correct form of the plural thank you for joining us again this week for weekly words next time we will see you for more weekly words that was weird we'll see you again next week for more fun information take care bye welcome back to weekly words my name is Alisha and this week we are going to look at commonly misinterpreted phrases the first phrase is I couldn't care less people will often say I could care less but that doesn't really mean the same thing as I couldn't care less short for I could not care less and it's not possible for me to care any less about this situation so it's just emphasizing it whatever is going on it doesn't bother you in a sentence my co-workers project wasn't successful and I couldn't care less Oh jerk alright next is nip it in the bud many people say nip it in the butt it should be nip it in the bud bud in this case might refer to a flower before it blossoms that small shape before the flower actually opens up we call that a bud so to nip something would mean to take something quickly like biting taking motion to nip something in the bud we mean to stop something before it becomes something else stopping something negative from happening mm-hmm knitting a sweater because I was making a sweater earlier there's a section of the sweater where the thread that the yarn has started to unravel and you think to yourself oh my gosh I need to nip this in the bud nip this in the bud so you decide to fix it right away instead of letting the sweater to slowly unravel as you work on it next is one and the same not one in the same I'm probably guilty of this one actually one and the same just refers to something that is maybe has two names but both of those names refer to the same thing or the same person my teacher and my father are one in the same person maybe you know if your dad is your teacher in school you could use this expression on tenterhooks on tenterhooks is the next expression this isn't a phrase that I'm familiar with I don't use this one but it seems that some people use the free on tender hooks I'm not really sure what tenterhooks are this expression is used when people are looking forward to learning the outcome of something or kind of maybe there is anticipation they're anticipating something maybe you would use this when you're watching a movie perhaps like I was on tenterhooks to learn about the end of the story something like that maybe next moot point not mute point but moot point something that is irrelevant something that there's just no point in talking about it it is moot there's no meaning a moot point yeah moot point that's funny ah ask the internets hey Siri Oh No okay you're looking for a guy to fill a position and you find the guy and he's a great programmer and he's fantastic but it's a moot point because he's a convict onward well that was a long one and the last one okay that's the end of commonly misinterpreted phrases be careful when you use these phrases and make sure to get them right thank you very much for joining us this week we'll see you again next time for more bye you're excited about something anxious or like looking forward to something the origins of this phrase are unclear hi everybody my name is Alisha and today I'm joined again in the studio by Michael hello and today we're gonna be talking about bad habits in English so these are some things that we've heard before or mistakes that native speakers and non-native speakers of English make and that drive us crazy so let us begin you start what's your first thing um this doesn't bug me too much until someone points it out about me and then it drives me nuts yeah okay once you tell someone that they say um or like too much then every time they say it they notice it and it's really hard to get a thought out because these are filler words that you almost always use or I always use maybe Americans always use but it's yeah it's really tough not to use the word like or um I think when you're just speaking casually right yeah right well yeah I mean like right now why did you first why'd he had remain in the first one actually we talked about that we have a video I think probably like a year ago one of the English weekly words videos where the word like was one of the words that Americans overuse I don't know where that information came from but that was C oh my god now I'm suddenly aware of it why the whole thing I'm gonna be thinking about how often I say liking them okay let's see I'm gonna go to one that I think all of us talked about and all of us were aware of before we even turned the camera on but this is a this one is written this is a written problem that drives me nuts and there are so many variations on this with other words but this is the big one you're why oh you are this is a do not equal sign why oh you apostrophe re so this one your while you are is a possessive word this is your shirt your bag your whatever why oh you apostrophe re is a contracted form of you are interestingly enough though I will say that I rarely see non-native speakers of English make this mistake most of the time it's native speakers who make this mistake come on guys really I just it just drives me nuts yeah that one you need drives me nuts that one bugs me too because it's it's really simple I mean there's another one and it still kind of bugs me but I'm more forgiving as its and it's because they're both I ts and one of them has an apostrophe and in both cases it seems reasonable because you can use an apostrophe for possessive or for a contraction so both seem reasonable and you just have to do like you know a pneumonic device figure it out there's rules I'm sure there's a you know English language English class 101 an episode on it you know what apostrophe is the one that's the possessive the apostrophe s is the one that starts for it has or it is right but it makes sense it's kind of tough for some people to remember you are you're in your that that really upsets me yes it's so easy it's simple that in there and we talked about this earlier there there and there the possessive th e ir4 that's their house that's their dog th ER e it's over there and th ey apostrophe re they are there are three different there there there's sound the same but they have different meanings and they should be spelled differently too so come on native speakers games together okay all right next one for you what's your next one ah along the same lines of being like correct could of so I think the problem with a lot of these words is so it's supposed to be could have but when you're speaking the language any language you you make it quicker and quicker and you kind of slur the words together so like for example grandma or grandma you like native speakers you don't really say the D just say that grandma grandma and so as a kid I thought that's how you spelled it and I remember spelling GRA Mme someone told me no that's not it so could of it it makes sense why people would say could of but it doesn't it's not proper and you shouldn't get in the habit of doing it I think most of these things you can be forgiving when they're kids but it's best to nip it in the bud because you know it just becomes a bad habit yeah and I mean with could have there is a correct contracted spelled version it's just could do apostrophe ve could've I mean I I would argue that it's more casual and it's perhaps not the most correct thing to write I would probably would just write could have I probably wouldn't use the contracted form so much use of contractions will make you sound more casual if you want to write a formal letter you should I feel you should not use contractions if you're writing an academic paper as well don't use contractions spell it out spell the whole thing out you'll sound much more formal and more at least in my mind more educated all right ah great this topic is getting me all like antsy okay let's see I'm gonna go to okay another another pronunciation issue that I feel like almost is cool now okay let me ask you a question this pronunciation okay so I've written acts on this card but the it's asked ASX let me ask okay so this let me which we talked about in a previous video which is short for left me I've contracted it here to the very lemmie but I've used lemme here because this is this is typically said in a very very casual setting let me ask you a question but the pronunciation of ask should not be acts it's asked let me ask you a question I want to ask you something it's not acts it's asked asked yeah this one again so like lemme lemme is okay I think most people say lemme I think that's okay but for some reason acts I think a lot of these just are not even close at all let me when you say it really fast it sounds like lemme let me right but when you say acts it's just totally wrong well it's reversing the the consonants and the word asked right it's not faster you're not making it quicker you're not slurring or making you know putting it into one little like fluid blob it's just you just switch the two yeah similarly I hear this with the word asterisk as well the little star that's on like the number eight on your keyboard or whatever that this looking thing it's not an extra s-- or what I don't even know it's asterisk so over pronunciation so this one is kind of the opposite direction so this whole time we've been kind of nitpicking when you use the incorrect version of a word I think over pronunciation can also be equally as damaging but instead of making you look stupid it makes you look pretentious so for example we don't say in English we don't use all of the syllables with chocolate so it's cha like when you spell it chocolate white chocolate right and so like maybe in Spanish or something like that they would still say that like chocolate their something whatever but with English we took it out and so even though you still spell all of those syllables native speakers now say chocolate chocolate or like comfortable come for bull that's how it's spelled but native English speakers we say comforter bull and this is like now it's it's I think it's like unanimous so maybe when it becomes when slang becomes so popular that it's part of the new language it's the language is now evolved if you don't go with the flow even though it's incorrect I think you sound pretentious that's a great one I like that a lot alright I'm gonna wrap it up I have to actually I'll just I think I can do them quickly though do you have any more by the way no no okay then I'll go quickly these are to the left my last two are just a couple that my students actually struggle with so maybe this this is something that you can work on as well this one just an example sentence I want to go to there I've underlined the word to here we use the word to when we're talking about a specific city or a specific country like I want to go to New York I want to go to Europe but there is not a specific location I want to go to there is it's not a specific place so we you don't need to use too in this sentence I want to go there it's perfectly fine so this is a mistake that non-native speakers it seems seem to make from time to time perhaps okay and then another one that I've heard a lot recently is this phrase in case of and then a country so for example in case of China in case of Egypt or whatever where someone is trying to explain like the political situation or a policy in that country in case of in case of but actually you don't need to use case of just in China in Europe in Japan whatever you don't need to use case of this pattern in case of is used for like an emergency situation or used to talk about alternate plans often to do with weather so for example in case of rain the event will be canceled or in case of tornado please go to your nearest evacuation center I don't know something like that so it's used for like an emergency situation it's not used to talk about policies in the country it's just use in plus the place it's much better much more natural so those are a few things that I've noticed that non-native speakers struggle with sometimes so perhaps they'll be helpful for you as well so thanks very much for watching if you have a bad habit that you've noticed when you're speaking English or if you've noticed about habit and somebody else in their English speaking or their writing or whatever please leave it in a comment and let's compare it might be interesting to see if there are any other things that people tend to struggle with thanks very much for watching this episode we'll see you again soon bye here I go here I go here I go hi everybody my name is Alisha welcome back to top words today we're gonna be talking about ten phrases that make you look like a fool hopefully you never use them let's start I don't need to learn anything anymore I don't need to learn anything anymore if you say this you sound like I know all the information ever I'm done learning I'm done studying of course you need to learn of course you need to study please don't say this phrase I don't need your advice I don't need your advice I don't need your advice you sound like you don't appreciate what they're saying you sound like you don't want to hear anything from them I really think that you need to be studying more I'm concerned about your grades Jeff I don't need your advice mom I know everything I know everything this is awful nobody wants to hear you say this because it's just not true are you ready for the test next week Steve yeah I'm good I know everything they don't I'm not ready to learn English I'm not ready to learn English mmm you can study anything at any time pretty much I really think that you should start studying English before your trip to America next year no I don't think I'm ready to start learning English see how stupid that sounds ah moly Oh Eagle you don't know York I'm right and you're wrong I'm right and you're wrong you sound awful when you say this nobody likes to hear that they've made a mistake in that you're happy about that that's what the nuance of this phrase is I'm right you're wrong don't say this phrase unless you're very very close with the other person and you know that it's okay to joke together I'm right you're wrong it's too hard don't even try it's too hard don't even try this sounds like you're giving up before you've even started doing something if you don't try you never know right hey I think I'm gonna start studying English this week because I'm going to Canada next year what do you think don't even try it's way too hard oh really you think it's too hard mm-hmm okay I guess I won't just do what I say just do what I say just do what I say parents might use this phrase a lot with their children actually but if you say this to your friends or to your colleagues you're gonna sound like a really mean are difficult to work with person just do what I say we can't do that the next phrase is we can't do that this could also be changed - I can't do that again this sounds like you're giving up before you even tried to do something I can't do that you're just you're not prepared or you're not even willing to try hey Stevens do you think that you could take care of this report for next week we need it for our client meeting oh no I don't think I can do that no that's that's not my job that's not my responsibility you're not very smart you're not very smart that's not a nice thing to say if someone makes a mistake and you say oh you're not very smart that's so mean it's so rude everybody makes mistakes from time to time don't tell them that they're stupid don't say you're not very smart that's hurtful an example of what not to do I'm so so sorry about this mistake that I made in my report last week I'll fix it I promise I'll fix it and I'll send it to you right away I can't believe you made such a simple mistake you're not very smart are you everybody makes mistakes you'll never succeed you'll never succeed you'll never succeed this is a phrase that shows you're not supporting the other person and maybe you're even trying to hold them back how awful is that who would say that don't say that and I hope no one ever says this to you I'm gonna join a marathon race next summer I can't wait a marathon you're never gonna succeed with that do you know how hard those are have you even started training well no but I think I can do it I just need a few months and you know I need to take care of myself and work hard no way there's no way that you can do that it's not possible oh you really think so I was so looking forward to it - thank goodness that's the end oh my gosh those were some sad phrases I hope that nobody says those phrases to you but I hope also that you don't use these phrases with other people because they're hurtful really try to be positive so thanks very much for joining us for this lesson and we will see you again soon bye I'm very insecure about my acting abilities there's sound coming through this I love the awkward pauses today's video is on words Americans overuse I haven't seen these words yet but apparently it's going to be a series of words that we as Americans I'm American we overuse we use too often so let's start the first word is definitely definitely is definitely a word that Americans overuse we use it to put emphasis at the end of a phrase to put emphasis the end of a sentence as in oh that party last week was so great yeah definitely or to agree with somebody like that Oh God literally oh just in the last few days I've seen the word literally so many times on the internet and used in just such stupid ways the word literally means actually or truly something this is literally the best hamburger I've ever eaten so literally meaning truly or actually would mean that in that person's entire life that is the best hamburger they've ever eaten however it gets misused a lot in sentences like George Bush was literally supporting the war in Iraq or something like that taking a phrase like that literally would have to mean that you know the president former president would be you know physically supporting a war with his body onward onward hilarious hilarious is the next word I like to use the word hilarious when something is actually funny hilarious of course means something that is really funny super funny it's a step above funny maybe two steps three steps I don't know however people like to use this word in place of laughter so for example friends are talking and instead of just laughing the friend will say that's hilarious but well if it's so hilarious just laugh oh this must be the last one because this is the worst one this word is like I've probably said it several times already today for the for the purposes of this video the word like is used as a filler word so it's the same as something such as um or uh or hmm for example we use like as a filler word when we're trying to think of something you it's not uncommon to hear the word repeated like three four five times in a row when someone is thinking they'll say oh you know that party that I went to like like like like do you know who was there it just invades your speech sometimes when you're trying to think of something and no other filler words come out but the word like does ah this wasn't the last word there is another one seriously yeah seriously it's used oh it's it's good for any time you receive bad news well not from your boss it's a really casual word but if you hear something like your friend lost their job and you can sympathize with them or maybe empathize with them by saying seriously oh that's too bad or Oh tell me like all your problems oh my god oh just he's like oh good well I hate myself it's the end all right well I hope you enjoyed learning about a few words that Americans overuse I'm sure that there are more words that Americans overuse but perhaps you'll find those out on your own thanks very much for watching and we'll see you again next time bye [Music]

Channel: Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

Views: 702,942

Keywords: englishpod101, learn english, english language, japan, english alphabet, read, write, speak, school, teacher, tutorial, lessons, compilation, how to, fast, quick, easy, fastest, easiest, english pronunciation, english grammar, basics, get started, start learning, english for beginners, mistakes, english mistakes, fix your bad, fix your english, yt:cc=on

Id: OI2wQwtzHX0

Length: 49min 34sec (2974 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 03 2017