3 common conversation mistakes

Hi, James from EngVid. Special occasion here. Introducing Thomas the Turtle, your tutor.

So Thomas is a tutoring turtle. Tutor means teacher. We have Mr. E, professor, with a

slide of snake. Common man, because he's kind of dirty as a snake. And now we have Thomas

Turtle, tutor. Look for him. We're going to be doing some lessons on workbook. You'll

probably see Thomas Turtle, the tutor, on the workbook lessons, okay? Anyway, Thomas

Turtle is going to introduce to you some very common English mistakes, because that's what

a tutor does. They look at mistakes that people make, and they try and help you after you've

learned a lesson. Now, in this particular case, we're going to look at, one will be

a pronunciation mistake. In English, we have stuff. Stuff. Whose stuff is this? And we

have staff, okay? What's the difference? Students generally know when they see what the difference

is, but the pronunciation is difficult, and sometimes they get confused, or maybe you

don't even know what the word is. So let's go to the board. Okay, stuff in English are

general things. When you have, like, books and pens and things on a table, someone may

say to you, "Whose stuff is this?" And in this case, they mean, "Whose things do these

belong to?" Or you can say, "This is my stuff." Usually, we don't use stuff for one person,

because you can't say, "This is my stuff." It doesn't make any sense, really. So what

we say is, "Stuff is for many things," or a few. "This is my stuff." This makes sense.

It's not singular, okay? So, stuff is for general things that you have, and it doesn't

matter what they are. They can be paper, or a book, or a pen. They're stuff. It's a nice

catchphrase, or covers everything. Another thing for stuff is when you push something

hard into another thing, and it's not organized. So if I'm trying to stuff this in here, and

you can see, it's not organized. I'm just going to push, so stuff it in. It's not organized,

okay? So that's another thing. Sometimes stuff is for noun, general things. Sometimes stuff

is for verb, to push one thing into another thing, in not an organized way, using force,

okay?

"Staff," oh, sorry, let me finish this one. "Stuff," if you do the pronunciation, kind

of rhymes with "tough" and "bluff." "Tough" as in kind of strong, hard to break, and "bluff"

when you're pretending, bluffing. So if I say, "I'm going to kill you right now, right

through engVid," you go, "No, no, no, I'm just bluffing. I'm not going to do it. My

bluff is I don't have a gun, that's number one, and you're watching a video filmed five

months ago. You're cool. You're okay." So I'm bluffing. Usually use it in poker. People

will bluff. They will pretend to have cards that they do not have to trick you. That's

bluff, and "tough" means hard to break. This pen is tough, strong. So "stuff," "tough,"

"bluff," repeat. Again, "stuff," "tough," "bluff," repeat. And that's the difference

with "stuff" and pushing the verb.

"Staff," "staff," okay? "Staff," this is people who work in an office. When you go

to the office, there's a secretary. "Hello, good morning. Welcome to engVid. How may I

help you?" And then there are people working in the office. They usually help some higher

official like the president or another higher person in the office. That's called the "staff."

Who is your "staff," okay? Now, "staff" isn't just for that. It's also for offering assistance.

When you go to a store like McDonald's or a restaurant, there's restaurant staff. They

come up, "Hi, can I help you? What would you like today?" They are serving you or offering

you assistance. "Office" and "offer," two O's and F's. So the "staff" usually works

with the "off," "off," "offer" and "assistance."

The last thing, "stuff," which doesn't usually come up, or "staff," is this one. When somebody's

walking and they have that stick, that's a "pimp walk," by the way. But usually older

people have one, you know, an older person, kind of bent over. I know an old way to say

this is "staff," his walking staff. And here we have "staff," "laugh," "math." So let's

say it again. Ready? You can repeat. So "staff," "laugh," "math." That's the "ah" sound.

So the big difference when people have problems is usually the pronunciation, "ah" and "uh."

So "stuff," "tough," "bluff," "uh." "Staff," "laugh," "math," "ah."

Next mistake. Thomas Turtle, tutor, going to help us with "will" and "would." Excuse

me for a second. "Will," Thomas Turtle, "will" and "would." Of course, you've done grammar

so you say, "James, I know this already. Why are you telling me?" It's not that you

know it. It's the mistake you make with it. Generally, when students are thinking about

something they know will not happen, but they wish it would. Okay? So we should put "wish"

up here. They wish it would. They generally use "will" by accident. They say, "If I won

a million dollars, I would buy a..." No, so my mistake. That's what you should say. They

would say, "I will buy a car." And then as a teacher, I have to say, "Do you have a million

dollars?" They say, "No, teacher, I don't." "Well, how will you buy a car?" "Oh, teacher,

what do you mean?" And it's usually forgetting this. "Will," there's a lesson on OPA. Please

check it out. And it explains the OPA for what "will" does. One of the things it does

is makes a promise. "I will help you." Right? "I'm promising to do this." Another thing

is the future. "I will go to the store in five minutes." So when you're saying this,

you're talking about actual things we believe we can do. While "would" does have a sense

it's tied to "will," it's usually used as a conditional. And in conditionals, we're

saying, "If this, then this." And if this doesn't happen, this will not happen. So it's

got more of an imaginary feel. There's no promise to it. We're saying it's based on

what will only happen if something else happens. We use it for the imaginary to say, "I can

imagine it happening if these conditions are right." So if these conditions are right,

I can imagine this happening. If I saved a dollar a day, I would have a million dollars

in a million days. I can imagine this. It's not a fact. I'm not going to do it. So students

often get it wrong. Try not to. So if somebody says to you, "I know you don't like your wife.

What would you do to make yourself happy?" If you say, "I will kill her," you'll hear,

"Wow," and the police will arrest your ass. I said a bad word. They will arrest your bottom.

But if you said, "I would kill her to make myself happier," then we go, "Oh, that's not

very nice." But you won't go to jail, boys and girls. That's the important part. So keep

that in mind. If it's imaginary and it's not real, not actual, you don't plan on doing

it, you're not making a promise, use "would." So I said "okay" too many times. I'm changing

my word. Finally, thank you students all over the world. One day I had to walk to my boss's

office and get corrected in English because I heard the student say this so many times

I thought it was English until I had to think about it and go, "I'm confused now." I'm going

to fix you so you never do this to me again. All of you, never again. Okay, you cannot

use "near to." You may say, "I hear 'near to' all the time, teacher." Or, "I've heard

'near to' for my whole life." That's because you're not educated. There's no such thing.

It's when people take two different things and put them together and think they both

mean "close," so we'll just say it. These two things are this, "close to" and "near."

Easily confused to correct "near to," I understand why students do it, because you've got "near"

and "close to." They almost mean the same thing about distances, so, "Hey, why don't

we make super English? Yay, put them together." Okay? No, cannot do it, son. It's wrong.

By the way, I want to thank Ray for that. That's my new thing, "son." Okay, son, let's

go to the board. "Close to" means not exact, right? Approximate. We usually use it for

"near," and we usually use it for quantity. Close to 15 people came to my house. Maybe

12, maybe 20. I'm not sure, but it was close to. It's approximate. Okay? Next, here's one

we use for, usually use for relationships, "more than near." If I'm close to someone,

it means I like them a lot and we have a very emotionally tight relationship or strong relationship.

So if I say he's close to his mother, he really loves her because they're close. Not close

to his mother, they don't like each other. Cool? So close to someone means emotionally

strong bond. Next, the easy one, distance. This is close to my house. America is close

to Canada. Check on a map, and if you still can't find it, you need to get another map.

All right, "near." In this case, "near" and "close to" are the same. That's why I understand

why students make this mistake, because it's near time for me to end this class. It's coming

up in a second. But near, you know, near 5 o'clock means close to 5 o'clock. You can

change it. Or it's near my place, close to my place. They're similar here in distance.

But one thing near can do, close to can't do, is move. It's a verb. It has a verb use.

"As the day drew near," right? It means come closer, closer, closer. He neared the ceiling,

getting close, movement. So near means movement. This one doesn't. Okay? So now you know the

basic meanings for this, and you know never to say near to again. I know you had near

to perfect English, but you don't, son. Okay? Close to and near, then I know it's good.

Quick review, and then we'll be done. This video has been brought to you by the staff

of engVid. We like to put stuff in there that you can learn from. Okay? Stuff, remember,

things, staff, people who help or assist you. Next, we would like to help you further. We

can imagine doing so, and we will if you come to the site. Imagine, promise. See, we promise

to help you. Finally, close to and near. Close to 5 million people have seen this video.

By the time you see it, it'll be nearer to, let's see, I used the verb form, actually

comparative form, nearer to maybe 10 billion, like the population of the world. We can only

wish people. Anyway, thank you very much. This has been a production with James and

Thomas the Turtle, the new tutoring turtle, and please go to www. where's that? www.eng,

as in English, vid, as in video,.com, where you'll meet me, Thomas the Turtle, Slidesnake,

and Mr. E. Have a good day. Don't forget the stuff I taught you.