How to avoid typical mistakes in English - part 2

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi and welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Birgit. I'm Dave. And I'm Rebecca. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hi everyone and welcome to this episode. Our topic today is typical mistakes and how to avoid them. We've done this type of episode before a few months ago and it's actually our most popular episode. So people seemed really interested in how they can fix these typical mistakes. So again today we're going to talk about some of the mistakes that we as trainers hear very often and how to fix them. And some of them are really easy to fix. They're just small things. I'm going to kick off with one that I hear very often and it's word order. So where to put certain things in your sentence. One is really I think it's quite an easy one to fix is time. So I often hear mistakes like I went two days to Hamburg instead of I went to Hamburg for two days or I've lived for five years in Frankfurt. No I've lived in Frankfurt for five years. So obviously the problem here is putting the time in the middle of the sentence. Obviously this does come from the German because in German you would do that. But in English the safest place for time is always at the end of the sentence. So it's quite an easy fix I would say. The other one on the same topic is frequency words. So if you're talking about always, often, sometimes, never to put it before the verb. So I often eat fish, not I eat often fish. So I often hear this people say oh I eat often fish or I go never to the gym or I go sometimes to the gym. I sometimes go, I never go, I always go, I often go. So these frequency adverbs to put them before the verb. So they're little things but they're kind of an easy thing to fix if you have that rule in your head. And I think Birgit is going to share another one with us. Yes, hello everybody. I'm going to share a learning for, it's a grammar issue. It's a hypothetical sentence you say, an if clause, if clause two. I hear that very often and some learners find it hard to remember even after I've explained it. It's a sentence like if I had a hammer I would do something with it or if I won the lottery. What you do is you use if and the simple past tense in order to transport a situation that's unreal and it's not true, hypothetical. And obviously what happens when people have this German sentence in their head, wenn ich einen Hammer hätte or wenn ich gewinnen würde, dann würde ich. What we hear very often, all three of us I believe is if I would have, if I would win, I would. And that's hopefully easy to fix as soon as you understand that you shouldn't be using if and would in the same part of an if clause. Yeah, so for example you should never say if plus would. So if plus would never could is a little way to remember. There are some tiny exceptions to that but generally if and would never could. Yeah. Right? Yes, and a good way to remember listening to songs or remembering famous song phrases, if I was a rich man, if I were something like that, that's past tense with simple past with if and that's correct in English. Often also used when you're giving advice, right? If you want to give advice to people or suggest something, if I were you, if I were in your shoes, or if I was the prime minister, I would do this, all these things. Definitely imaginary situation. Yeah. Yeah. Just to clarify as well, there's if I was and if I were, because people say is it if I was and if I were, and I just noticed we all use both there. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Officially, officially it's if I were, but you hear often very often in sort of everyday talk, it really is if I was, but officially I think if you were doing a grammar test, they would expect you to say if I were, but a lot of you hear also in songs, people use was, and so you can actually interchange it, but just wanted to clarify that in case anybody was confused. And this is if you hear something very often, even us, we wonder, oh, what's correct, we don't even notice sometimes. And Dave, I think is going to talk about another example. You wonder sometimes ourselves, so we hear that very often. Yeah. Hello, everyone. You're absolutely right, Birgit. Sometimes when we, even as natives, we've heard mistakes so often that we sometimes think, am I right or is the person right? So, for example, I needed an hour to drive here. This is just an example that I heard this week, which, of course, sounds cool, but in actual fact, in English, we would say it took me. So whenever you want to talk about how long it takes to do something, we have to say this take idea. So it took me one hour to drive here instead of I needed an hour to drive here. So that's one that when I hear it, I sometimes think, because it sounds okay, right? But you just sometimes think, can it be right? Am I thinking it's wrong here? But no, of course it is, it took me. So anytime when you want to talk about how long it takes you to do something, then that's what we need to say and not the word need in English. Okay, and the other one, while we're on the topic of ones that often confuse us as well, is this phrase, we are 10 in the department. Okay, again, sounds very okay, but in English, we would actually say there are 10 of us in the department, okay? Or if you're talking about on a holiday, when you went on a holiday, we would ask how many of you were there on the holiday or how many of you went on holiday? But of course, we often hear we are or we were 10 people. No, no, no, there were 10 of us in the group or something like that. Yeah, this of us, I think people are missing. Yeah, 10 of us, there's five of us. How many people are coming? There are five of us. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, another one I hear very, very often is this recognise, notice and realise. I don't know why, but I feel like Germans love the word recognise. They're always recognising everything. And I don't know why, maybe they just think it sounds really nice or whatever. They love this word. And they tend to overuse it in the wrong situation. So, more often, you would need notice or realise. For example, they will say, oh, I recognised there's a new coffee shop down the street. No, you noticed there's a new coffee shop down the street. Or, oh, I really, I didn't notice it. I didn't realise, I didn't know that. But recognise is quite specific. Recognise is to wiedererkennen, to see something again and realise that you've seen it before. Or to recognise, you see a person, you go, oh, I recognise that guy. I think I've met him before. I've seen him before. It's also as well, of course, anerkennen, so to recognise somebody's performance or good work. My boss doesn't recognise my hard work, for example. So, it has recognition, wiedererkennen, sort of anerkennen, yeah. So, try to remember that in a lot of situations, more often, you're going to need the word notice or realise. Oh, oh, I noticed you made a mistake in the bill. No, I recognise the mistake in the bill. If you say, I recognise the mistake, that means you always made that mistake and I'm seeing it again, which is not quite the same as just, I noticed you made a mistake in the bill. Oh, really? I didn't realise. I didn't know that I did that kind of thing. So, yeah, be careful with recognising everything would be my advice. Birgit, do you agree with that? The Germans love the word recognise. Absolutely. That's easy to mistake for anerkennen or angesehen. Yes, that's what people do when I walk my dog. They recognise the dog. Yeah, exactly. The same with me. They don't recognise me, but they recognise the dog. Yeah, exactly. Beautifully explained, Rebecca, and that's taking me to the next subject. I want to talk about adverbial forms. So this is sometimes difficult for learners because that's an issue we don't have to think about when we talk in our language. Beautiful and beautifully. Why do we have two words in order to describe something? In English, if I talk about something, it's how is something. It's a beautiful flower. It's beautiful weather out there. That's the adjective. But if somebody does something in a very beautiful way, so whenever somebody is done in a beautiful way or in some way, it becomes beautifully explained, Rebecca. So we add ly here. That's a typical mistake. People who are not aware of the rule or haven't trained that enough, they just say whatever comes up first or what they feel. And I can remember when I learned English that it took a while to be 100 percent sure by feeling. Yeah, that's correct. But not always. You cannot always think about the rule when you talk. Do you hear that also? Yeah, I do. And I think the other tricky one is there are some exceptions. And this is the next problem. Of course, as always, there are always exceptions, for example, with the senses. So you don't say it tastes well. It tastes good. It sounds good. Not it sounds well. Although well, sound is a verb and well is the adverb. So you would normally say the adverb. But when you're talking about senses, looks good, not it looks well. You can say you look well as in you look gesund to somebody. You look healthy. You look well. But it looks good. Oh, the picture looks good. Yeah, you use in this case, you actually use the adjective, which is a bit confusing. Very confusing. And I thought you were going to talk about the exceptions because good, of course, doesn't get an L-Y. Yeah, it's well. So we have different adverbial forms. Hard doesn't change because hardly becomes a different meaning. That's tricky. Very tricky. David, do you agree? Absolutely. Speaking of tricky and another one, guys, a girlfriend from me. I heard that this week as well. I'm sure you've heard it. Always. Of course, it should be a girlfriend or a friend of mine. So when you're talking about something that you possess or a possession thing or a relationship, then we use of and not from. Yeah, I hear that one a lot. And another one that I heard this week in particular was it stands in the contract. And of course, again, it kind of makes sense. But in English, we would say it stays in the contract. Or it's written. Or it's written. It's stated in the contract as well. You can just say it's in the contract. Or it's in the contract. It's in the contract that this steht stands. And so this is quite common because anytime that you've got something written down on a piece of paper or also on a bill, for example, invoice, whatever it might be, then a German would probably say it stands on whatever it is. But it should be says or it's written or it's stated or something like that. My last one is just a really simple one. But I actually hear this even from quite high levels. They forget the difference between do you like and would you like. So I go to a company and they go, do you like a coffee? Where what they want to say is, would you like a coffee? So do you like is just generally do you like Italian food? Yes, I love it. Would you like? Would you like it now? I'm offering you. So it's a really simple thing. But wouldn't do. People mix that up quite often. I think it's just this spontaneous. Your brain doesn't always engage before your mouth opens. When you point it out, people know they go, oh, I can't believe I said that. That's so stupid. It's not stupid. It's just it's these quick sometimes when you have to react quickly, you think of like. So you just think, do you like? And you don't think of the would you like, I think. Yeah. Birgit, do you have a final one for us? I do. I very often hear again also from advanced speakers when they want to agree with me. But I have said something. Oh, I don't like spiders. And they say me, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's very common. I just had that today. Me, too, is something you can only agree with if that was a positive statement. Right. So if somebody said, I don't go to the gym often, you could only say me neither. Me neither. Me neither or neither. Yeah, that's American pronunciation or whatever. Yeah. So I like pizza. Me, too. Positive. Positive. Yeah. I don't like pizza. Me neither. Neither. Neither. So what do you say then, Rebecca? Neither or neither? Neither. Neither. Neither. Me neither. No, me neither. That's British, isn't it? I think it is a British American thing. But I wouldn't be 100% sure. I will ask my Irish husband. I'll sneak in some sentences later to see how he answers. But no, I'm pretty sure he would say neither as well. Okay. I'd like to come back to something on the invoice thing, actually, which you talked about earlier. Maybe a fun fact. I often see that Germans often use the euro or the pound sign. Oh, yeah. They put it... After the, yeah, we always put it before. That's right, yeah. And we always put it before. So just be aware of that. The sign goes before the number and not after. Yeah, that's a good one. And the other one I see when I'm doing presentations about sales or something, I'm checking people's presentations and I see the Mio for million. We don't say Mio, M-I-O. Yeah, that's right. It's just M. So it's 33 M million. Though someone will say, but the M could be for metres. And I'm like, talking about sales. And yes, we can use M for metres as well. But when we're talking about figures, it's 33 million. Let's say it's just an M. And like Dave said, the euro before the 33, not after. Yeah. Yeah, I see that very often. Yeah. Okay, guys, that was it from this week's episode. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you got a few tricks and tips from us to get out of those mistakes that you maybe make and how to correct them. Next time, it is our anniversary. One year of us together as a group, as a team, as a podcast. So we're going to be talking about our year, reviewing it, what we did, the highlights. And I hope you'll come by listening and share those good times with us. So see you next time. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions, or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website 3englishexperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.