This Week In Bad English Grammar - All day or All the day? Small or Little?

hi there I'm Drew Badger the world's

first English Fluency Guide and I help

people develop English fluency and

speaking confidence in simple easy steps

to become a successful speaker you must

develop all seven of the essential

English fluency habits one of these

habits is the ability to use correct

grammar automatically so you eliminate

embarrassing and dangerous errors from

your speech so in this video we're going

to look at this week in bad grammar the

first one is something that's very

commonly misused all the day or all the

week because we do have an expression in

English all the time so if we're talking

about time in general people will

typically say well I read all the time

or I'm studying all the time but we

don't talk about that when we're talking

about a specific time period like we

don't say all the week for all the year

or all the day in those examples we

would talk about I do something all day

or all week or all minute or all hour or

all summer so the only time we're

talking about the when you would put the

in there is when we're just using the

expression all the time as maybe

something that you could use instead of

always so all the time is a really great

expression you can use when you're in a

conversation with people and you don't

want to say always or even if you're

just saying it's something you regularly

do as an example maybe I regularly study

Japanese on the weekend you can say oh I

studied Japanese all the time on the

weekends I'm talking about like a lot of

the time or always when I'm doing

something but remember we're only using

this for all the time we don't use this

when we're talking about a regular time

period like all the day or all the week

we just say all day all week all minute

all our all whenever number two is

another thing that's also very commonly

misused by people and typically this

depends on the language you're coming

from so really kind of as a general rule

for learning grammar you really have to

kind of get your mind thinking about the

way a native speaker would do it as

opposed to what you've been taught which

is how you translate things in your head

before you speak so you have to begin

thinking more like a native speaker and

that's what gets you actually using

grammar automatically as well as doing

cool things like having dreams in

English anyway the second one is I'm

exciting vs

I'm excited now this is for anything

where we're using an adjective to

describe something versus how you feel

about it so if I say I'm exciting it's

talking about me being the fun thing

like everybody loves me because I'm an

exciting person but if you're talking

about I'm excited by something else to

remember this you can talk about using

the word by after that so i can say i'm

excited by the idea of taking a trip to

France or I'm excited about doing

something so in that case you're talking

about the way you feel about a

particular thing so you were excited by

something you are scared by something so

if you are scary it means you are maybe

like really like a monster or you are

ugly you are scaring other people so be

careful about this when you're talking

about scared you're talking about a

thing doing something to you and that's

why you would use a verb kind of in that

way if you can think about it that way

like I'm scared like it sounds like a

verb like in the past tense or I'm

excited like it sounds like a verb in

the past tense so we're talking about

i'm excited because something did

something to you and they're making you

feel or it's making you feel in a

certain way so instead of i'm excited or

I'm exciting i should say like I'm

excited about something or I'm excited

by something rather than I'm exciting

the next thing is another one that's

very common and I saw it again recently

this week and that is little to talk

about having a little vocabulary but

notice how i pronounced it that the T

becomes more of a d sound little little

little we can say it very clearly and

say little but no one pronounces it this

way in a regular conversation little

little especially for American English

you might hear something like a little a

little when you're listening to British

English speakers but American English

it's going to be much more little little

now little and smaller actually mean

they're basically the same idea they're

describing the size of something like

you could say I have a small dinosaur or

have a little dinosaur and in that case

you're using both of those as describing

the size of something but typically

small is used when you're comparing

something because we can't say little

littler most little people don't say

that so we do say small smaller small

list and when you're talking about your

vocabulary as being small this is

typically in relationship to where you

think your vocabulary should be or the

maybe you know general vocabulary that

maybe other people might have so if

you're comparing something okay my

vocabulary is smaller than something

else so if it sounds like okay I should

use little like I can compare the two

things then you would say small but if

you can't really compare it if you're

just talking about the size of something

then you can describe that so you have a

small vocabulary or an even better

expression is a limited vocabulary

limited limited and finally how great a

job you're doing how great a job you're

doing if you want to describe maybe a

person place or thing and say wow you're

really fantastic or great you're trying

to describe how great of a person or how

great of a thing you need to have that a

in there you'd say i like how great a

job you're doing because we're

describing the job if we're going to

describe something where maybe you want

to describe the speed like i love how

fast you are so how fast i'm describing

the speed that's the thing i'm talking

about so we don't need to say up speed

like I love how fast you are we would

just say i love how fast you are i love

how slow you are i love how beautiful

you are i love how great you are but if

we're talking about a person place or

thing i love how great of a job you're

doing or I love how great a job you're

doing you're doing a great job this is

typically a pretty difficult thing to

say how great a job you're doing how

great of a job you're doing so the full

sentence maybe I love how great of a job

you're doing well that's the end of this

lesson I hope you have enjoyed it be

sure to like this video and subscribe to

the English anyone com youtube channel

so you can receive notifications when we

release new videos finally watch this

important video to learn about all seven

of the essential English fluency habits

or click on the link in this video or on

the link in the description below this

video to take our free English fluency

quiz it will tell you exactly what to do

right

now to start seeing real improvement in

your English fluency and speaking

confidence today