- Hello lovely students and welcome back to English with Lucy.
And today, I've got a lesson that I think will give you a real confidence boost, or
at least I hope it does because we are going to take linguistic snobbery head-on and address
some common mistakes that you might be making that aren't actually mistakes.
Learning English is hard, I get it.
I've been teaching for quite a while now.
I'm coming up to my decade of teaching and I've seen the struggle and unfortunately,
there are some people out there who seem to exist specifically to make the path to English
fluency harder.
You know who you are guys.
I see it all the time.
It happens to me quite a lot.
I get called out in the comment sections of my own videos for making mistakes.
"You said this wrong."
"You wrote that incorrectly."
"You can't say this, you should say that."
But what the English language police failed to consider is that English is quite a fluid
language that doesn't always have hard and fast rules.
Pronunciation, grammar, sentence structure, and other English conventions have a tendency
to change from country to country and even city to city within the same country.
So we're going to take a look at a few of these common mistakes, so that you can feel
more confident about your own English.
But before we do that, it wouldn't be an English with Lucy video without a free PDF to accompany
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Okay, let's get started with our first section of the day, pronunciation.
Now I want to remind you that English is an official language in over 50 countries worldwide,
so there's a wide variety of pronunciation differences between countries and regions.
So I'm not going to dive too deep into that 'cause we could be here for hours if not days.
Also, I do already have some video lessons about the differences between American and
British English pronunciation and I'll link those down below.
As you may already know, I speak with a modern RP accent, so I'm going to focus on pronunciation
mistakes in my specific accent.
Let's kick things off with our first word.
This beauty.
Sometimes I stare too long at this word and it stops looking like a word.
How should this word be pronounced?
Should it be the?
Let me explain.
I have been told off for saying, that is the best sandwich ever, but I'm right to say that.
So here are the general rules.
We typically pronounce it as the when it comes before a vowel sound.
The enormous building.
We say the when it comes before a consonant sound.
The delicious cupcake.
Now here's where we get into our first mistake.
You would often hear English speakers use the first pronunciation, the, to add emphasis
to what is being said regardless of the sound that follows it.
For example, it's not going to be an ordinary rugby match.
It is going to be the rugby match of the year.
So, if anyone tries to correct your pronunciation in these situations, remind them of this little
fact.
Sometimes, and I do this a lot, I won't have decided what I'm going to say next.
So I might extend the into the while I think.
For example, if I'm reading a menu, I'm going to have the salad, please.
I just extended it because I was thinking, and that happens a lot.
I don't if you're like me, but I have no idea about what I'm going to order at a restaurant
until the waiter appears and then I have to make a snap decision.
Now, in British English we also have loads of words that have multiple pronunciations,
and because of that, you might have your pronunciation corrected by someone who thinks they know
the correct way.
Let's look at a few of these words, so that you can hit them with a bit of truth because
these are the words that you can pronounce incorrectly.
Number one, this one, controversy, controversy.
My preferred pronunciation is controversy, but controversy is also acceptable.
I suspect that this pronunciation may have been influenced by the American controversy,
but feel free to use either one or either one.
And that brings us to our next set of words.
Either and neither, or either and neither.
People love to correct this one.
They say it's pronounced either, not either, but guess what?
Either or either one is perfectly acceptable.
Use whichever feels right.
Neither or neither one is more correct than the other.
And you will catch me using both pronunciations in the same sentence.
I use them both equally.
Here are a few more common ones.
We have envelope and envelope.
We have this one with three, garage, garage and garage.
I was brought up to say garage.
And number five, my husband and I pronounce this differently and we grew up in the same
county of England, Bedfordshire, privacy, privacy.
I was taught to say privacy, he was taught to say privacy.
Number six, we have finance, finance, and finance.
I must say that finance is more common.
Number seven, data or data.
Number eight, zebra, more common in British English.
Zebra, more common in American English.
Notice that we say A to Z, they say A to Z.
I don't want to start conspiracy theory, but that could have something to do with it.
Number nine, this one always surprises me.
I was taught to say, harassment, but other people say harassment . And number 10, often
or often.
Do we say often like soften with no T, or often?
I was brought up to say often and then a teacher corrected me, so I switched to often, but
I hear both pronunciations used across the UK.
Now please remember, if your pronunciation and accent aren't perfect when using these
or any words in English, don't worry.
Even attempting to pronounce some of these rather difficult words is a feat in and of
itself.
So let's shake it off and move on to a bit of grammar.
So, this is where things start to get fun because people on the internet love to show
off their English skills by calling out others on their poor use of grammar.
But lucky for you, I'm about to set the record straight on a few of the most common errors
that really grind my gears.
I'm good.
Raise your hand, in your tiny little screen, if this has happened to you.
You're talking to someone and they ask you, "How are you?"
And you respond with, "I'm good."
To which they respond, "Don't you mean I'm well?"
Well, I think it's time to look at the facts.
Good is an adjective that modifies a noun.
So in the response I am good, good is simply describing that I, as the subject, am free
of problems and everything is fine.
We often use adjectives after the verb to be, they are called predictive adjectives.
For example, I am hungry, not I am hungrily.
Meredith is angry, not Meredith is angrily.
So the response, I'm good, is perfectly acceptable, but often incorrectly considered a mistake.
But why?
And I consider this to be a mistake in the past and I'm pretty sure my dad still corrects
my mum on this when she's not actually wrong.
But why is this?
Well, I think that this unnecessary connection stems from the fact that some people assume
that I'm well is a shortened form of I'm doing well.
In this case, well, is more grammatically correct because we are modifying the verb,
doing.
The response, I'm doing good, would not be appropriate for grammar snobs because we don't
use an adjective to describe a verb.
Unless you are actually doing something good, like, donating to charity or volunteering,
then you would be doing good.
I'm doing good is still commonly used in some dialects of spoken English, so keep that in
mind.
But as a response to how are you?
I'm good is totally fine, so use it with confidence.
Number two, let's tackle less versus fewer.
And it took me ages to grasp this one myself and I may have incorrectly called people out
on this in the past.
Whoops, I repent.
Have you ever been at a shop and seen a sign that says, 10 items or less?
And have you ever stopped to consider that less isn't actually the correct word to use?
A snooty grammar critic would claim that the correct word is fewer.
Why?
Well, according to traditional grammar rules, fewer should be used when referring to countable
nouns.
Things that can be physically counted like books, cups, stuffed animals and other items.
While less should be used for noncountable nouns, those that represent concepts, or substances
that cannot be easily separated or counted, such as water, knowledge, and beauty to name
a few.
Now, I did mention in a previous video that using less instead of fewer is a common mistake,
but it's really important to know the rules before you break them.
You're allowed to break the rules.
Just not in exams.
In everyday English, many people tend to disregard the rules and use less in situations where
fewer would be technically more appropriate.
I think some of this disregard comes from the fact that it's not always obvious if a
noun is countable or not.
I think if you asked most English people on the street, what an accountable or uncountable
noun is, there'd be none the wiser.
Plus, replacing fewer with less almost always creates a sentence that is perfectly understandable
as it is.
We had fewer customers today than yesterday.
We had less customers today than yesterday.
Both are understandable.
This type of word switching is a common linguistic phenomenon where language evolves and adapts
to the usage patterns of its speakers.
As a result, the distinction between fewer and less has become blurred in colloquial
English and the sign hanging up in your supermarket is just an example of that.
Okay, on to number three, whom or who?
That's the question for now, that is...
Nothing seems to get grammar purists more riled up than someone using who when they
should have used whom.
Well, unfortunately for them, whom has been on a steady decline in use since the 1800s
and we may see it vanish before our very eyes.
Let's do a quick review, so you can see the traditional rule of thumb.
Who is used as a subject pronoun.
It's used to refer to an unknown subject of a sentence performing the action or being
described like in these examples.
She is the one who won the award.
Who ate the last slice of cake?
Whom is used as an object pronoun.
It's used to refer to an unknown object of a verb or preposition.
It typically follows a preposition or a verb that takes a direct object.
For example, to whom are you speaking?
Or whom did you invite to the company picnic?
These days it's often considered too formal to use whom in everyday conversation.
You're much more likely to hear, who you're speaking to?
Who did you invite to the company picnic?
We can survive perfectly without it.
I don't see many causes for confusion with the decline of whom.
For this reason, whom is rapidly losing its popularity, so don't feel too down if you
get corrected for using who instead of whom.
You probably won't have to worry about it for too much longer.
Let's talk about prepositions in their proper places.
Now, you may have noticed another common error in one of my examples in our previous section.
Who are you talking to?
That's right, I put a preposition at the end of my sentence and I am not bloody sorry about
it.
I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.
I've already addressed this in another video, so I'm not going to spend too much time on
it.
But in spoken English and honestly, in most written communication, it's absolutely fine
to end a sentence with a preposition.
For example, I've never been there before.
What are you up to?
We'll try to stop by.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise unless it's some sort of formal test, then you might
want to consider restructuring your sentences to appease the grammar perfectionists.
Last one, and this one really grinds my gears.
They and their are not only plural.
People get pretty angry about they and their being used as singular pronouns.
It is totally acceptable to use they and their as singular pronouns to refer to individuals
whose gender is unknown, irrelevant, or, and this is the one that gets people upset, people
who prefer not to be identified by a specific gender.
That one has featured more on the internet and in the media recently, but the previous
case, as I mentioned, unknown gender, irrelevant gender, have always used they and their.
Traditionally, they has been used as a plural subject pronoun.
However, as English has evolved, the singular they has gained widespread acceptance and
usage.
It helps to provide a gender neutral alternative when talking to a singular person without
making assumptions about gender.
The traditional use of his or her as an object pronoun placeholder is seen as slightly outdated.
We now see their used more frequently.
For example, someone left their umbrella in the office, instead of saying, someone left
his or her umbrella in the office.
It just makes sense to me to say their.
Or, your new patient said they would call back.
I didn't assume their gender.
They will call you back.
I probably don't know their gender.
They might have written an email.
They will call you back.
If someone tries to correct you about they and their and how they should only be used
as plural pronouns, just kindly remind them that you prefer to adapt to changes in language
rather than remaining stuck in the old ways.
So, that's it for this lesson.
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I will see you soon for another lesson.
Muah!