Your English Teacher Lied to You | 6 Fake Grammar Rules you learnt at school

Some of the English grammar 'rules' we learn at school are misleading because they are not rules at all. Some rules have exceptions and some are conventions rather than rules.

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We go deeper

00:00 1. Preposition followed by infinitive
02:04 2. WILL after IF
03:44 3. MUCH with affirmatives
06:06 4. WHOM in spoken English
08:46 5. Comparatives
13:04 6. Using contractions in written English

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[fazilisik]

The "on" in "go on" isn't a preposition.It's an "adverbial particle''.

[Zain-ksws]

The weird thing is that I have always known these rules, as "it doesn't seem right", behind my mind, but never thought of them as rules. Now it is more apparent.

[sarumano]

There's an Esperanto joke that English grammar is very simple - There is only ONE rule.

1. Every word in English has its own grammar rules
😁

[TheDiveO]

my first Englisch teacher was a narcissist only interested in ruling, not teaching language and its rules in any meaningful manner. Ironically, I learned English first through British computer books in the early 80's, actually preparing me to a level where I was still taking classes in school when I hadn't to anymore. Thank you so much for your channel, if only we have had it in the 80's...

[ДианаЛебедева-не]

Thank you for this great video and your examples. I am a teacher of English in my country, and as you probably know, teachers who are not native speakers have to learn all the time to be ready to answer all the questions their students may have :) The information you gave here is so valuable for me. Wishing you great success, Gideon!

[petersdotter]

"Rues of grammar" are rarely taught in the US these days. As a foreign language high school teacher, I've had to teach English grammar. I have to explain verbs, pronouns, prepositions. Amazing!

[semplicementeanita]

Come to think of it, English being a mashup of other languages (which individually have rules not compatible with the others) it's only logical that there are so many exceptions. A non-native speaker can learn the basic grammar rules but to be able to recognise the difference in meaning between "The lecturer closed the door and went on to teach the new material" and "He went on teaching although nobody paid any attention" takes a lot of experience, reading and above all getting the feel of the language. All those BUTs and irregularities make the study of English complex and challenging BUT I love it regardless.

[andrewmcdonnell]

I absolutely love these videos ❣️. I've been teaching English for 6 years in total, admittedly with a break in between. I teach English for a tech company in México City and I share many of your sentiments when it comes to language learning. Thanks for everything Gideon.

[mrtunapie]

A good teacher is someone who is engaging and interesting to listen to. You, sir, are a good teacher.

[richardharrow]

You must know the rules in order to break them. The way natives break the rules in colloquial speech is not the same as a learner would potentially break them :)

[agaw]

Hahahaha, listening to the video about rules to be broken, I learned some rules I wasn't aware of.
You're excellent teacher!

[pitulanek]

I love this! I've long since learnt to say that English doesn't really have rules, more like patterns and tendencies ;) Obviously, there are some rules but I make sure to say there is probably some exception I can't think of right now (but if you can - I say to my students - let me know, so I know for the future). My favourite is the "no *will* after *if*". At the start of someone's journey with the conditionals I don't even mention that yes, in some cases, you might see them worryingly close to each other. With more advanced students I say "there are some situations when you can say that but this isn't one, not yet."
About the contractions and writing - I think it might be some misconception carried over from formal writing. Students preparing for taking exams like CAE etc. have to learn to write some very formal pieces of writing and they often find it hard to remember not to contract in those. So maybe some teachers just expand the rule because of this? Not sure. But register sure is tricky sometimes! When I started learning foreign languages we mostly had course books, novels and maybesometimes some films to learn from. So we all sounded a bit pompous ;) Now my students find it hard to get rid of the "gonna" and "coulda" type of forms because they learn a lot from rather informal exchanges on the social media.

[saphorr]

13:00 Another nice example from Shakespeare is the double superlative for emphasis used by Mark Antony in describing Brutus' attack on Caesar: "This was the most unkindest cut of all"

[saracosta]

As an English speaker, I subscribe to the breaking conventions wholeheartedly. As a teacher, I can only say one thing: do not ever break them in a test.

[christopherdieudonne]

Some of these I knew about but contractions being ok in formal writing blew my mind. That's great to know !

[lukasgayer]

Thank you so much for your content. As a teacher I find it so helpful! Many of your examples and explanations are so great, that I am writing them down and can´t wait to tell them to my students during our lessons.

[freddiemercury]

I must admit that you are a HELLUVA teacher! Many thanks for your time as well as the lesson. Take it easy matey.

[peabody]

13:49 The use of contractions in formal writing actually can change a meaning or nuance, and this is made clear:

"You won't walk here" (formal, meaning doubt is present)
"You will not walk here" (formal, meaning force will be used if you try)

[RECAMPAIRE]

In French, we say : « this is the exception that proves the rule ».
I studied French, English, Latin and German at school : but for me English grammar was the most easy.

[sashole]

Another case of using "if you will" grammatically correctly is in the meaning of "as it were", "so to speak", "as they say", and so forth.