5 Common Mistakes English Learners Make and How To Fix Them

51,680 views ・ 2022-08-23

Learn English with Bob the Canadian


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Hi, welcome to this English lesson.
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As you can see, I am on the ground.
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I have my phone here.
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I'm gonna put my phone on the ground.
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This English lesson is going to be about some mistakes
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that English learners sometimes make.
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One of the mistakes I've noticed
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is sometimes people get confused with ground versus floor.
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So I am laying here on the ground.
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I have placed my phone on the ground.
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And this is a little different than this is the floor.
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It's a little bit dirty.
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I should have vacuumed before I made this video.
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I'm laying on the floor.
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I can put my phone on the floor.
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The floor is what you walk on
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or what you sit on inside your house or your apartment.
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So this is the floor, I'm laying on the floor,
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my phone is on the floor.
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So the difference you'll notice
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is that the ground is outside.
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I can put my phone on the ground outside.
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I can lay on the ground outside.
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So the ground is always outside of your house.
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So to review,
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I am on the ground and my phone is on the ground as well.
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01:01
The floor, I'm laying on the floor,
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my phone is on the floor.
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The floor is inside, the ground is outside.
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01:09
So welcome to this English lesson,
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where I'm going to talk about a few little mistakes
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that English learners sometimes make,
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and I'll explain what the right thing to say is,
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or the right thing to write is in each situation.
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01:21
(upbeat music)
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01:26
So another thing that I've noticed English learners
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sometimes get mixed up
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is when they're talking about whether something
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is on the ceiling,
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like this smoke detector is on the ceiling, or on the roof.
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Right now, I am standing on the roof of my house.
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01:42
I'm up here on the roof.
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The ceiling is the thing that is above your head
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when you are in your house or in your apartment.
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So this smoke detector up here is on the ceiling.
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Sometimes there are other things on the ceiling as well.
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A little while earlier, there was a fly on the ceiling.
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So once again, this is on the ceiling.
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The roof is the top of a building.
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I'm currently standing on the roof of my house.
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There are shingles on the roof of my house,
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there is a chimney on the roof,
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and there are some roof vents on the roof of my house.
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And I'm on the roof of my house still as well.
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I promise I did this safely, by the way.
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So to review, I am on the roof.
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This is the roof of my house, and this is the ceiling.
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There is a smoke detector on the ceiling.
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Okay, enough of the crazy stuff.
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I'm not climbing on the roof for the rest of this lesson.
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That part of the lesson is done.
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I wanted to talk though about another mistake
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that I often see English learners make.
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And usually I see this in the comments on my videos.
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Sometimes people will say, "Thank you for your job."
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This is not a correct English sentence.
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The correct sentence is,
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"Thank you for your work,"
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or you could say, "Thank you for your hard work."
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I do blame English speakers though for the confusion.
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We sometimes do use job and work interchangeably.
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For instance, you can say "good job" or "good work."
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You can say "great job" or "great work."
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Or you can say "excellent job" or "excellent work."
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All of those sentences are correct,
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but "thank you for your job" is not correct.
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The correct sentence would be "thank you for your work,"
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or "thank you for your hard work."
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Another mistake that I hear English learners make
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is to use a phrase that is correct in one country
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but not really common
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in any of the other English speaking countries,
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and it's the phrase, "How are you going?"
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As far as I know, this is a common greeting in Australia.
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I don't think it's a common greeting
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in any other English speaking country.
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It certainly is not used in my part of Canada.
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I would not say to someone, "How are you going?"
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I would say, "How are you doing?"
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Or "How's it going?"
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So I think in North America,
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we tend to say those two phrases.
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"How's it going?
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How are you doing?"
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And I think in Australia,
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it's a little more common to say, "How are you going?"
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If someone was to ask me, "How are you going?"
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If I was talking about a trip and they said,
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"How are you going?" I would say I'm going by car.
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So it's not a greeting here in Canada.
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It's a question you would ask
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to find out the means of transportation someone is taking
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when they go on a trip.
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So in Canada, "How are you doing?
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How's it going?"
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In Australia, I guess you can say, "How are you going?"
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Another common mistake I often see English learners make
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is that they use they're, their, and there incorrectly.
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So they are, or they're,
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is something you use to talk about
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what someone is going to do.
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They are going to go on a trip.
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Their is used to show possession.
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It is their car.
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And there is used to talk about a location.
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Here's one sentence
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that I hope will help you understand this.
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I hope it doesn't confuse you.
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You could say they're going to take their car
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in order to get there.
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They're going to take their car in order to get there.
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So they are going,
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so they're going to do something.
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The car belongs to them, so it's their car,
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and the location I'm just referring to as there.
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They're going to take their car
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in order to get there.
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I hope that helped a little bit,
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but it is a confusing thing, isn't it?
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By the way, they're all pronounced exactly the same.
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They're, their, and there.
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Well, thank you so much for watching this English lesson
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about some common mistakes that I see English learners make.
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I hope my explanations will help you avoid these mistakes
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in the future.
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Remember, if this is your first time here,
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don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there.
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Give me a thumbs up
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if this video helped you learn a bit more English.
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And, as always, if you have some extra time,
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why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson?
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(upbeat music)
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