Top 5 IELTS Speaking Grammar Mistakes: and How to Fix Them | Keith's Grammar Guides

hi guys you know i've taught ielts speaking to probably hundreds of students and i've helped thousands prepare for ielts speaking but interestingly i often see the same grammar mistakes cropping up again and again well today i'm going to show you the five most common grammar mistakes students make in ielts speaking and explain why they're important and show you how to fix them let's do it hi my name is keith and if you don't know me i run the website the keith speaking academy and the youtube channel english speaking success and i'm here to help you speak better english give better answers and get a higher score on the ielts speaking test i love my slogans right it's interesting right because whilst some mistakes especially grammar mistakes are particular to a certain nationality or let's say mother tongue there are and i've noticed teaching students around the world the same mistakes irrespective of mother tongue the same mistakes that come up again and again and again so i'm going to tell you what those five the top five mistakes students make in speaking ielts speaking and i'm gonna try and help you fix them today starting today but trust me you'll need to do a lot of work and a lot of practice after the video before we begin i would just like to say a big big thank you to cambly um i think cambly are great right they are an online platform that offers teachers native english speaking teachers to help you learn english and improve your english okay they have a very flexible system so you can choose the teacher you want at the time that you want you can study on your phone online or on your computer you can record the class and they have lots of materials and courses to help support your learning but i think it's most important because when you're learning a language english for ielts speaking you need to practice and you need feedback to learn from your mistakes and today we're talking about grammar mistakes and it's one thing to know the mistakes but another thing for somebody to be continually correcting you so as you're practicing to have a teacher who can give you feedback you know and say is that right are you sure ah it should be this and correcting you so you're getting better and better so i think having a teacher is a great opportunity to improve cambly offer a wide range of teachers a lot of flexibility so go and check them out the link is below and you'll get a discount on all their monthly plans if you use the code below um or the link below directly great now let's get down to the serious stuff grammar so number one is not adding the s when talking about other people in the present tense we sometimes call this the third person s right when you're talking about he or she or it in the present tense there should be an s so for example students may say a person i admire is my uncle he live in canada he work in a bank there now what's the problem well it should be a person i admire is my uncle he lives in canada and he works in a bank there right because he she or it the verb in the present tense you should add an s or maybe an e s depending but the s sound and of course it's complicated because in english the i you we they you don't change it's the same i live you live we live they live so you have to remember he lives or she lives so what's the problem here the problem is partly that as you're speaking you forget with the he or the she because it's the exception that has the s right sometimes the problem is pronunciation so students may say he lives in canada and i say it's an s and they say oh yeah i said s he lives in canada and they know there's an s and they think they've said the s but maybe it's so quiet you can't even hear it he lives he lives in canada right so it may be a pronunciation problem and here's the thing right with this mistake is it's doubly bad because if you if you say he live in canada you're making a grammar mistake and a pronunciation mistake so it's doubly bad and it's problematic so how do we fix it well let's talk about pronunciation first okay there are two different sounds um that are important here one is voiced and one is unvoiced so verbs that end in a voiced sound or a voiced consonant and voiced means if you say for example live live you can hear or feel there's a vibration a voice live try that can you hear it liv when you add the s the s is pronounced z the voiced continues the voiced sound moves into the next consonant he lives he lives she loves he runs can you hear it's a z sound because it's voiced on the other hand there are other consonants at the end of verbs that are unvoiced like work there's no voice work like want laugh so the sound here is works likes wants it's a s sound so that's the first thing and i so knowing the difference there is important next you want to over emphasize so you want to practice this but over emphasize the s so practice saying he lives in uh where was he canada yes he lives in canada and practice carrying on the z z like it's a bees he lives in canada she loves it right really overemphasize over emphasize because that's going to help train the muscles in your mouth and your memory as well because it sounds very very strange right likewise with unvoiced right he works in a bank he likes working in the bank really over emphasize and this will help you okay in addition you can become aware of linking or connected speech i'll give you some examples but you can see for example he lives in canada the zir when you connect the z sound is much clearer lives in right lives in zinn lives in he lives in canada so when you're aware of the connecting or the connected speech it can really help you pronounce the z better he lives in canada she loves it zit she loves it try good right he runs a lot listen and repeat zalot he runs a lot great do the same with the unvoiced right he works as uh he works as a as a what as an engineer right he works as he works as he works as an engineer he likes it sit like sit down sit like i'm training a dog sit repeat with me he likes it okay or um he laughs at my jokes he laughs at my jokes laughs sat sat in the past sat he laughs at my jokes brilliant so again be aware of that connected speech and in the very common sentences you can do that right he lives in london he works as a teacher okay great those may help you and i think the last thing to work on to help fix this is just practice practice practice lots of times not just the one word but a short phrase right so instead of just going lives lives lives lives put it in a phrase he lives in london he lives in london uh he lives in london and repeat it 10 times make some changes and practice that way if you want you can record yourself practicing listen back and check that you're making the right sound great that's number one let's move on now the second most common grammar mistake is using the present tense instead of the past and this happens a lot in part two of ielts speaking where sometimes you're describing a story something that happened an event in the past right so for example so i'd like to tell you about a time i go to a museum last summer i go to a history museum in my city i visit it with my friend amy now what's happening is i'm using the present tense instead of the past so it should be so i'd like to tell you about a time i went to a museum last summer i went to a history museum in my city i visited it with my friend amy okay now here um i think the question is probably it could be about pronunciation but more often than not it's just about forgetting because in part two you're so focused on fluency pronunciation some nice vocabulary that you don't focus on the grammar and you're going and going and going and suddenly the past tense becomes the present it may be that in your mother tongue in your language the past is not expressed in the same way and so you're not focusing on it and you trip up and you start using the present okay it may be partly pronunciation like you say i visit it and you think you said visited but you didn't and it comes across as being the present tense so again this could be a pronunciation problem or a grammar problem okay the fix here here i think is just about focus is to really focus on the past tense so a really good idea for practicing part two anyway is to record yourself giving an answer to a part two question but as you're recording right only focus on the past tense right you're gonna give your answer but you're really gonna focus on the past tense to make sure you're using the past and then when you listen back only focus on the past tense don't worry about vocabulary or fluency no just focus did you get the past tense right and practice getting that focus now there is another trick and it's a nice technique it's a technique not a trick it's a technique um what's the difference well a trick sounds like something quick and easy and a technique is actually a process and a way of studying so this is a technique and you can take some pieces of paper right chop up chop up maybe cut up some pieces of paper right um and then on a piece of paper you choose a topic choose a part two topic that's talking about the past for example right a city i visited right by the way um i cut up pieces of paper my wife who's as sharp as a knife she said why are you doing that why don't you use these old name cards right i've got all these name cards that i don't use anymore on the back she said why don't you use those bright as a button she is so you take them and on them you write down some present tense or the verb of a phrase you're going to use in your part two so if we're talking about a city i visited i might write down go to paris take the train travel in economy class take the overnight train arrive early morning and so on right and then what do i do i just practice um telling my story or my talk in the past tense right with these sentences so first of all i just use them right i went to paris yeah um i took the train um i traveled in economy class hear that i traveled in i'm using the linking i traveled in economy class oh i actually took the overnight train because it was cheaper and then i arrived in the early morning because the train got into the station at eight o'clock and then i got off the train and i went for breakfast and you carry on and carry on right so we're using these nice little cue cards to help us practice and focus on the past tense lovely give it a go grammar mistake number three is using uncountable nouns like they are countable so uncountable nouns are nouns that you cannot count surprise surprise so for example water sugar rice right sugar as a noun you can't say a sugar no we say some sugar a lot of sugar right you can't count sugar if you do you say a grain of sugar maybe or a grain of rice a cube a sugar cube a cube of sugar you can count those but sugar is uncountable so we say a lot of sugar some sugar a little sugar not a few right how much sugar do you want not how many how much okay so these are uncountable nouns so listen to these examples and see if you can spot um the uncountable noun that i'm using as though it's countable here's the first one i read an information last week about healthy living i read an information information is uncountable so you can't say an information if you want to count it you have to say a piece of information okay or uncountable some i read some information last week about healthy living here's another one an advice i got from my friend was what's the mistake yeah and advice advice is uncountable right um you can't say an advice if you want to count it you must say a piece of advice otherwise it's some advice how much advice a little advice so some advice i got from my friend or a piece of advice i got from my friend was right and the last one spot this one another common one in ielts speaking i'd like to tell you about an important news i read last week yeah news and important news no you can't count news it must be some important news or again a piece of news okay good now probably what's happening here what's the problem usually this is translation usually that probably in your own mother tongue um either this word is countable um or it works in another way so advice right well in spanish you can count it right dos consequos but in english you can't it has to be a piece of advice i know it sounds strange but because it's different in english you have to think in a different way so the way around this is to stop translating try not to translate you know i remember when i was learning french at school right this idea of things of languages being different and the teacher said voila the table la table i said oh great la table and then she said le beoru the office and i said la bioro she said no no no i said well why this la table it's no because the table is feminine and the office is masculine what the table is feminine la table and the office lubioro is masculine and i i was like what on earth are you talking about feminine tables because in english it's the table the office there is no feminine or masculine right same in spanish la ventana right the window it's feminine right and even some words that are feminine in french are masculine in spanish they change gender what is going on so languages are interesting um and a really important message here is to try not to translate so what can you do well first of all let me tell you some of the most common uncountable nouns we get in ielts speaking on the common topics and then just work on work and practice on using them correctly so for example right many abstract nouns are uncountable like information advice news knowledge work pollution many mass nouns um are also uncountable equipment transportation traffic accommodation so take take a leaf out of my wife's book take a leaf out of somebody's book means follow their advice uncountable advice take these little cards right we've got some name cards write down some of the uncountable words and then just practice right information ah yesterday i got some information but practice juggling do you remember juggling words practice different tenses different forms i got some information how much information do i need is that a lot of information oh that's an interesting piece of information there's a little information on their website right so we're practicing getting it fixed that it's uncountable and we're using the much little sum or a piece of if that's for this word right great lovely little cards go and have a go let's move on the next grammar mistake is not pronouncing the ed in the past tense correctly or at all now you may be saying hang on keith that's a pronunciation mistake well if you um pronounce it incorrectly it's a pronunciation mistake but if you don't pronounce it at all it's gonna sound like the present tense and so it's also a grammar mistake two mistakes for the price of one oh dear so it's very important you get it right okay here's an example right let's have a look last month i want to see a new film called 1917. i finally watched it yesterday and i really like it although my friend hate it right so i'm not pronouncing the ed what it should be is last month i wanted to see a new film called 1917. i finally watched it yesterday and i really liked it although my friend hated it okay so there's a big difference so what's happening here well first of all let's look at the the grammar here here so in the past tense regular verbs take ed for writing but that ed can be pronounced three different ways sir so if a verb ends with again a voiceless sound like a walk talk like um then it becomes it we pronounce the first one atta walked talked hoped liked right walked talked hoped liked there's no voice it's voiceless okay say them with me because they are difficult consonants to get walked talked hoped liked and the way to practice it is to really slow down so you get it really clear okay walked walked walked now for verbs that end in a voiced sound like a live love can hear i'm doing this to feel it it's a d sound lived loved watched raised and it's a very soft it's not a duh it's a raised it's very soft right and that's the problem that's why it's often dropped because it's so soft and the third sound is the id sound so any verb that ends in a sound which is a t or a d so like visit or want it'll be id visited one tid okay that's the third sound so first of all knowing the three sounds and practicing them you can practice on this video is the first thing i think the biggest problem with this one is just that students have not trained their tongue it really is about going down the gym and working out training your tongue to make these difficult sounds we call them consonant clusters because there's two consonants together and in many languages either words don't end in a consonant or they just end in one so this is really really tough what can we do well again take a leaf out of my wife's get some cards right and just write down some of these um were any words actually any verbs just put them in the present or the infinitive right you can make life easier by grouping them so these are voiceless walk talk like walk talk like these are voiceless and then just practice putting them in the past so for example i walked to the office and again slow it down i walked to the office i walked to the office i talked to my colleagues i liked my lunch you don't need to make a story just practice these words making short phrases because it's important because the word after is is what's really important right because if you're just saying the word like talked talked talked you're on automatic pilot but when you make a sentence you're engaging your brain and you're forcing yourself to train your tongue and train your brain i talked to my colleague i talked to my boss i talked about football and you'll notice how the tur becomes very strong when we connect i talked about i talked about football and that can help you make it very very clear so have a go moving on right next up last but not least number five using will for the future in the wrong place and i'm talking about the first conditional so many people think we use will for the future in english and sometimes we do but not all of the time so can you spot the mistake here right so next year if i will have a chance to go i will visit london what's the mistake so next year if i will have a chance to go no if i have a chance to go i will visit london it's the first conditional right it's if plus the verb in the present comma and then the next clause is the subject with will do something will plus the verb right if i have a chance next year so although we're talking about the future we use the present tense to express the future if i a conditional future right a supposed or imaginary future but very probable if i have a chance to go next year i will visit london we call it the first conditional and it's a big very very common mistake it catches out a lot of people why does it catch people out and i think it's because students haven't automated this structure they may be translating and thinking also that you know we use will for the future not always the case so if you haven't automated it then the answer here or the fix is to automate it so practice the first conditional sentence is getting it automatic right if it rains tomorrow i will take my umbrella okay it's practice and practice of course um there is an interesting game you can play which is called the what if game but you have to talk to yourself and your family might think you've gone a little bit bonkers crazy mad so here's how it works right you say what if what if means like imagine right what will you do if what if it rains tomorrow and then you speak to yourself well if it rains tomorrow i will take my umbrella notice right not if it will rain tomorrow if it rains tomorrow i will take my umbrella and then you ask yourself again yes but what if your umbrella is broken well if my umbrella will be no is if my umbrella is broken i will borrow one from my friend look at yourself again yes but what if your friend is out of town well if my friend is out of town i will buy a new one and you go on with this socratic dialogue and your family think you've gone mad why are you talking to yourself well i was watching this video on youtube and he said that i should you know talk to myself right okay but you know it's true no it's true this is it's an interesting technique if you've got a speaking partner well do it together practice together but if you need to do it on your own this is how you can do it with the what if game great i guess with all of these grammar mistakes one of the key things is practice and getting correction right either record yourself and listen to the mistakes and be be on your guard look out for them or get a teacher get somebody who can be listening to you correcting you giving you feedback that's the best way and what a great segue just to finish up today to remind you about cambly because if you're looking for a teacher cambly online flexibility native english speaking teachers they can really help you it's so flexible and you can book whoever whenever wherever but get that correction to really help nail and crack these grammar mistakes brilliant thanks very much cambly in san francisco and that's it for today listen just to remind you if you haven't joined us on the facebook in the facebook group yet do come and join us it's um keith's mastermind community for ielts speaking longest name in the world but it's a fantastic group not because of me but because of the other students in there it's very active some great stuff going on if you want to improve your uh your speaking it's the place to be so come and join us right the links down below facebook group keith's mastermind community for ielts speaking listen if you've enjoyed the video please do um give it a thumbs up or give me a comment like it subscribe turn on notifications and enjoy the next video to carry on your learning journey for ielts speaking and i will see you next time take care my friend bye bye

Channel: English Speaking Success

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Keywords: ielts speaking, ielts speaking success, ielts keith, ielts speaking 2020, ielts speaking grammar tips, ielts speaking grammar mistakes, ielts grammar lessons, ielts grammar lessons for beginners, grammar ielts, grammar ielts speaking, grammar mistakes, grammar mistakes in english, grammar mistakes ielts, ielts grammar mistakes

Id: b5ltukSgXRs

Length: 35min 1sec (2101 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 22 2020