LOVE AND GRAMMAR: English for Online Dating

Hello, my name is Emma, and today I am going to change your life.

How am I going to do that?

Well, I am going to teach you about love and about grammar.

These two things actually go hand in hand.

It might surprise you, but it's true.

So, let me explain.

Did you know that one-third of North Americans find love through online dating?

So a lot of North Americans are finding their partner, they're finding a boyfriend or a

girlfriend online.

So, this is why I drew this heart, because this is happening.

Love is in the air, it's happening, but - big but - and this is where grammar comes in.

Dating and grammar mistakes might stop you from finding love.

So, when you are doing online dating, you are not seeing each other face-to-face.

You are judging each other, a lot of the times actually based on what you write.

So because of that, and because we're writing a lot more nowadays to find a date, grammar

and spelling has become more important than it probably ever has been in the past.

Or at least it's more important from a love perspective.

So in today's video, I am going to teach you some key grammar mistakes to avoid so you

can find love.

So, I talked to my friends about this, and I asked them what grammar mistakes really

turn you off.

This means what grammar mistakes make you not want to meet a person.

Here is what they said.

They said when people make mistakes with "your", this makes them think the person is not educated.

So it's really important for online dating to use "your" correctly.

This is a common mistake in English.

Why?

Well, we have two words here, "your" and "your".

In conversation, they sound the exact same, but these two words actually have very different

meanings.

So let's look at an example of what someone might write on an online dating app.

They might say something like, "I like your photo."

Is this "your" correct?

The answer is no.

So how do we correct this?

Well, "your" is usually used with a noun.

Remember, a noun is a person, it can be a place, it can be a thing, or an idea.

So "your" is - would be used in this case.

I like your photo.

A good way to remember this is if you're thinking, "Is it this one?", "your" with this apostrophe

up here actually means "you are".

So what you can do is when you write something and you're not sure, is it "your" or "your",

try to put "you are" in and see if it makes sense.

When I say, "I like your photo", no, that does not make sense.

So whenever you use "your", and I have to do this too, even though I'm an English teacher,

this was one of the mistakes I used to make when I was a student.

So anytime I send out an email, anytime I send out a message, I always double check

that I used "your" correctly, because it's a very easy mistake to make.

So always check, is it "your" or "you are"?

Okay.

So another common mistake people make online dating is they often write "me too" incorrectly.

They make a spelling mistake, or they choose the wrong "too".

In English, this is going to sound like a weird sentence, but in English there are three

twos.

There is "to", there is "too", and then there is "two", like the number two.

So there are three twos in English.

This is actually a sentence I can't even write.

It's actually impossible to write this and get the meaning correct.

So a lot of the times when we talk online, we often want to show we are similar to the

person we want to date.

So maybe they say, "I love soccer."

And I say, "Me too.

I love reading books.

Me too."

We really want to find things that we have in common.

So we use "me too" a lot when we are online dating.

So it's very important to spell "too" correctly.

So how do we spell it?

Is it "me t-o" or is it "me t-o-o"?

The correct answer is "me too".

There are two o's in "too".

"T-o-o" is another way to say "also".

"Me too."

Okay, the third common thing my friends complain about with online dating is capital letters.

Sometimes they see a potential love interest, and that person writes to them like this.

"Where are you?"

What's the problem here?

Well, there's probably a couple problems, but the problem I wanted to talk about today

is that every letter here is a capital letter in English.

There are no small letters or lowercase letters.

When you write in all capital letters, it makes you look...

Let me show you a photo...

Or not a photo, a picture.

It makes you look like this.

When you write in all capital letters, it makes you look very angry.

So what's going to happen if you write in all capital letters?

A person's going to think, "Wow, this person is crazy, and they're very angry.

I don't want to meet this person.

They're probably angry or very mad."

So what do you do?

You use lowercase letters.

So I'll just fix "where" as an example.

And now that looks so much nicer, don't you think?

Much less angry.

All right, so now let's look at some other common things people do, and other common

mistakes people make when they are doing online dating.

Okay, so now I'm going to talk about some more mistakes that really are a turn-off in

the dating world, especially with online dating.

This next mistake is a little personal for me, and that's because it's a mistake my ex-boyfriend

used to make all the time.

And as an English teacher, that made me crazy; I hated this mistake.

So I'm going to show you what the mistake is.

"Should've", "should've", or you might see somebody write it as "should've".

And here I've written Emma's ex-boyfriend's mistake.

This makes me feel a little emotional thinking about this mistake.

So what is the mistake here?

"Should've", that sounds right, doesn't it?

It's not correct.

"Should've" actually is "should have".

When we create a contraction or when we want to speak in conversational English, we often

delete letters and put two words together.

These are known as contractions in English.

So we don't actually write "should've" because the word "of" is not in this.

We actually write "should've" where we have the apostrophe, we have a "v", and an "e".

When do we use "should've" in English?

We often use it when we are talking about regrets.

So I'll give you an example.

Imagine you are dating somebody and you forget to call them because maybe you're feeling

tired, you had a long day at work, and so you're online, the person you're interested

in is angry.

You might say to them, "Oh, I should've called you.

I should've texted you.

I should've come earlier."

Okay?

So we often use "should've" when we are talking about online dating because there are a lot

of regrets with online dating that can happen.

So "should've", no, never; "should've", this is even worse because this word doesn't exist.

It's just made up, so we'll get rid of that one.

It's the same with "would've".

We hear the word "of", but that's not actually what we are saying.

What we are actually saying is "would have", and the contraction form of "would have" is

"would", apostrophe, "ve", "would've", "should've".

You might even hear "could've".

None of these words have "of" in it.

Okay?

Sorry, I got so passionate I made a bit of a mess on the board just now, but this is

a mistake I really hate seeing.

Okay, here is just a tip in general.

Everyone makes mistakes; it happens.

Maybe you make a mistake with "its" or "whose" or "their"; you use the wrong one.

It's very common, but in the online dating world, this is really going to impact your

ability to find love.

So here is my tip; always, always, always edit.

Reread what you write.

Never just send a message; always read it carefully.

And if you are not sure about, you know, which word to use or spelling, you can always look

on YouTube or there's a whole bunch of different English resources available.

You can use a dictionary, but always check, because after you send out a message, that

can really impact your dating.

Okay, so the next example of a common mistake people might make in the online dating world

is they might confuse "then" or "than".

This is a very easy mistake to make, and it's because these words sound alike in English,

but they have very different meanings.

I'm going to make a confession now.

This is actually my own sister's most common mistake in English.

It breaks my heart as an English teacher, but my sister always makes this mistake.

So, this is for you, Audra; do not make this mistake anymore.

What do you use, "then" or "than"?

Well, notice I have a little clock here.

This clock means we're talking about time.

"Then" is used to talk about time.

We use it when we are talking about, like, an order of things.

So, for example, if you think about how to tie your shoe, first you put on your shoe,

then you take the laces and you tie them.

So, we're talking about a sequence of events.

What order something happens in, that's when we use "then".

When we're telling stories, we use "then" to talk about the order of what happened.

This is very different from "than".

"Than" is used to compare two things.

So, you'll see here two people.

This person is taller than this person.

So, when we compare, we use "than", and when we're talking about time, we use "then".

Alright, so now let's look at a couple other common mistakes people make and how to fix

them, because I want you all to find love.

This next tip is probably my favourite one, because it's actually really changed my own

writing.

What is the tip?

Well, when you write anything, it's important to think about the audience, or the person

who will read what you write.

What you want to do is make what you write as easy to understand and as easy to read

as you can.

So, one way to make things easier to read is to use paragraphs and to use space.

If you look at these two different...

Imagine these are computer screens.

If I look at this, and these are...

I know I just drew lines, but imagine these are words.

If I look at this, I might feel like, "Wow, that's a lot of writing.

I don't really want to read all of that.

I'm feeling tired, there's too much, I'm not going to read it."

So this actually happens a lot with online dating.

When people write too much, and they don't use paragraphs, and they don't use spacing,

other people don't want to read, because they feel like they're reading a novel, okay, instead

of just a simple message.

Now, if you look at the second screen, I have lots of space, okay?

So I have just a couple points, space, couple points, space, couple points.

This is way easier on the eyes.

So when somebody sees messages like this, they're more likely to read them because they're

not overwhelmed.

They don't feel stressed seeing so much writing.

Something like this looks easy to read, and it looks like it's going to be a quick read.

So when you write, use lots of space and use paragraphs.

So what is a paragraph?

Well, in English, we usually write things in maybe four to five sentences per paragraph.

A paragraph is just - we explain an idea in a paragraph.

So if you are talking about an idea, maybe you have three things to say about this idea,

you would write that in one paragraph.

And then you have a second idea, you write about that in the next paragraph.

So idea equals paragraph, new idea equals a new paragraph.

And so, for example, here we have three paragraphs.

We have one paragraph, two paragraph, three paragraphs.

A paragraph essentially is how we organize our ideas.

So, to become a better writer, especially in online dating, think about the audience.

Think about what is easiest for the audience.

What would you like to read?

Sometimes I like to think about that.

What makes it easier for me to read something?

And then I follow those tips myself.

Okay, final tip for today.

It has to do with the word "can't".

I have here three words - "can't", "cannot", "cannot".

One of these is really good to write when it comes to online dating.

Two of these are not so good.

Can you guess which is the best one to write and which ones are not the best ones to write?

Well, let's look at these.

I have the same sentence here.

I can't go.

I can space not go, or I cannot go as one word.

So one of these, let's start with grammar.

One of these is actually incorrect from a grammar perspective, okay?

Which one is incorrect?

If you said this one, you are correct.

"Cannot" is actually one word.

It's together.

So this is actually not correct.

"Cannot" is how we would write this.

I cannot go.

So this is correct from a grammar perspective, but when we're talking to people in online

dating, we want to use conversational English.

We don't want to sound like we are a professor and that we are using the most formal English.

"Cannot" sounds very dramatic.

It sounds like very formal English.

So if you use this, people might think that you are arrogant.

It's actually better to use words like "can't", "I can't go", because this is actually what

we use in everyday conversation.

So even though "cannot" is correct from a grammar perspective, from a conversation perspective,

it seems too formal.

So "can't" is the best one to use out of these three.

So we have covered a lot.

I hope you've learned a lot because, again, the purpose of this video is to help you find

love, or maybe you have love and you have friends who are looking for love, so you can

give great advice now about online dating.

These tips are really important because they really matter.

If you make these mistakes, they really will impact your ability to find somebody online.

So be very careful when you write in online dating.

We've covered a lot here.

Again, the key is practice.

Practice makes perfect.

If you don't know something, always double-check.

The internet is a great resource.

You can check my videos; I have tons of videos on different grammatical mistakes people make.

There's a lot of different resources online.

When you are first communicating with someone, that is the most important time to have good

grammar because you are showing...

It's a first impression, so you want to make a really good first impression and not make

mistakes.

Maybe a little later, once people get to know you better.

If you make the occasional mistake, maybe it's not as big of a deal, but when you're

first meeting somebody, especially when it comes to dating, these things really do matter.

So, I'd like to invite you to visit our website at www.engvid.com, and there you can actually

practice what you learned in this video by taking our quiz.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel; I have many different resources on grammar

and spelling, and I highly recommend checking them out.

Finally, you can check out my website at www.teacheremma.com for more free resources.

So, thank you for watching, everyone.

The thing I want you most to take away from this video is that grammar matters, especially

when it comes to love and online dating.

Okay?

So, grammar...

Grammar does matter.

Thank you for watching, and until next time, take care.