Don't make these mistakes in English!

Can you find the mistakes? "I am student", "I am agree", "Yesterday, I'm go downtown", "He no have money", "I want to meet the downtown". If you don't know, this is the lesson for you! These are mistakes made by students of all levels, so watch this video and learn to avoid these common errors.

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on five more common English learner mistakes. So if you have watched my other video on five common English learner mistakes, this is a follow up to give you five more. So let's not waste time and get right to it. Here we go with No. 1.

So this first mistake is common because in many languages, when you discuss jobs or your station in life, you don't use articles even if you come from a country where there are articles in the language. So for example, "I am student." "He is engineer." If I ask you, "What do you do", you need to use an article because "student" is countable; it's singular; and "engineer' is countable and it's singular. So you have to say, "I am a student." "He is an engineer." Now, let's move on to No. 2.

Okay. Here, we have two sentences on the board. We have, "I am agree." "Are you agree?" So in this situation, "agree" is a verb. We don't say, "I am agree." You can just say, "I agree." If it's negative, "I don't agree" or, "I disagree." And the question is not, "Are you agree?" It's, "Do you agree?" Now, if you are set on wanting to say "I am" and use "agree" in some way, you would have to say, "I am in agreement." This is very formal, but it is possible. Otherwise, you say, "I agree" or, "I disagree" and, "Do you agree?" Now, let's move on to No. 3.

This next mistake is about the use of the past tense. For new English speakers, because they can't form the past tense, sometimes they use the verb "to be" with the verb. So I have heard, "I'm go downtown yesterday." Or, "He was see his cousin." If you are speaking in the past, make sure you simply use the past simple verb. In this situation, we don't say "I'm go". The past of "go" is "went". "I went downtown." We don't say "he was see". The past of "see" is "saw". So this is about using the past simple form of the verb to speak about the past. Never say "I'm go", "I'm do", "I'm make". "I saw"; "I made"; "I did"; "I played". Okay? Now, let's move on to No. 4.

Now, this mistake is about using negatives. In many languages, whether they're European or Latin, Spanish, I hear this frequently. So you might hear, "He no have money" or, "They no like chocolate." So if you are making a sentence in the sent simple, and you want to make it negative, you have to use "doesn't" and "don't". So not "he no have" but, "He doesn't have." Okay? Not "they no like chocolate" but, "They don't like chocolate." So make sure you learn how to make negative sentences. "He doesn't"; "I don't"; "we don't"; "they don't"; not "he no", "she no", "I no". All right? Now, let's move on to No. 5.

Finally, here we have a word choice error. And this is because maybe speakers translate from their own language, and many languages, you can use the verbs "meet" or "know" to talk about going to places and getting to know cities and towns, for example. So, "I want to meet the city" or, "Yesterday, I knew downtown." Now, in English, we don't really use the verbs "know" and "meet" to talk about getting to know a place. You can use the verbs "explore" or "get to know" or "visit". So you can say, you know, "I want to explore the city." I want to go around the city." "Yesterday, I knew downtown" -- "Yesterday, I traveled around downtown." And you can also use terms like "get to know" a place. You can visit a place. You can explore a place. Okay? But you can't meet a park. You can meet a person, but you can't meet a place. Now, let's review all five of these mistakes one more time.

All right. So to review, No. 1, "I am a student." If you want to talk about your status in life. Are you a student? An engineer? Are you a teacher? Etc. you need to use an article to talk about jobs, professions, talk about your station in life.

No. 2, "I agree, not "I am agree"." Do you agree?" Not "are you agree?"

No. 3, "I went downtown." "I saw my cousin." So remember, memorize those past tense verbs. Not "I was go" or "I am go". "I went"; "I saw"; "I did". All right?

[engvidAlex]

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Thanks for studying with engVid. :)

[bahrawijaya]

I love your pronunciation . Its very clear for a beginner like me.

[borntodogood]

First time that i heard you, i immediately said you got a clean accent for anyone who wants to learn English. Without giving you flowers you're a Good English Teacher.

[baochau]

your accent is amazing. I try to sound exactly like yours all the time. Love your videos so much. I watched more than 100 videos from your channel and learnt so much. I want to say thank you so much

[GuellityMarcel]

Thank you very much, teacher Alex!
You help me a lot!

[carevv]

Thank you alex, it is very common using those wrong expresion when we (latin people) talk in english. I think that we have to hear and practice more.

[GabbyWallaceOfficial]

Loved this one! Thanks from a fellow online ESL teacher :-)

[itsrandihere]

Why do some people still hit that dislike buttton although this is an English learning video.

[khmertime]

I am really interested in your teaching. And many thanks for your help!!!

[sirgejor]

You are the best!!! Thank you teacher for your time and for teaching us.!!

[temertribe]

Thank you for these lessons. I have used them a lot to remind on my students to use the articles! Even I am not that a good teacher to explain to them how to use them in the correct way but at least they need to understand it

Always put the articles.
a, an, ...s and no article

1. He is a student.
2. This is an oven.
3. These are books.
4. That is KFC. :) :)

[MrAtefaziz]

Alex, you are an amazing English mentor, so clear, so simple and so fluent ..

[ufvmswi]

my best teacher, thank you for a clearly lesson .

I have a question :
Why you used ( he doesn't HAVE money) ?!
Isn't it supposed to use ( he doesn't HAS money ) ?!

I'm waiting your answer ... thank you ♠

[TheFirstExplorer]

I love the way he teach because it easy to understand. Thank you very much my best teacher.

[snky]

Great video. I am going to see more of them because you are explaining things really great and it's easy to understand you. Actually I learnt more from this 6min video than after 2 yrs lof living in UK :) Thanks and GJ 

[notsniw]

Can I say "He has no money" instead of "He doesn't have money"?

[khkekym]

I'm a student at envid I think this lesson for the beginners however I'm so grateful for your teaching/ helping us.

[kaah]

Hi Alex I'm brasilian and I'm learning so much with you! thanks for your lessons!

[parnikavishe]

Thank you so much Alex for making such easy to understand videos to learn English. Your videos are really helpful for beginner like me. You're awesome 😉✌️

[sumayahomar]

3:07
But we can say "I have no money" instead of don't Right?