Basic English Grammar - Can you find the errors?

Hi. My name is Rebecca and in today's lesson you'll have a chance to identify

a variety of different grammar errors in each of the sentences that you see on

the board. Each of them has a different kind of grammar mistake and by identifying

them, you'll be reviewing a variety of grammatical concepts in English.

Okay? So let's get started.

The first sentence "My brother has 15 years."

"My brother has 15 years."

What's the error there? Well, in this sentence the person is trying to give the

age of the brother, right? So we should say "My brother is 15."

or "My brother is 15 years old."

So when we give someone's age in English,

we can also just say the number.

You don't have to say years old but you cannot say,

is just 15 years. So even if I corrected it and I said "My brother

is 15 years.", that's wrong.

I have to say either "My brother is 15.",

or "My brother is 15 years old."

So remember that when you're talking about age.

In some languages, it is expressed like this,

as if you have the number of years.

But in English it doesn't work like that.

Let's look at the next example.

"I want drink something." "I want drink something."

There is definitely something wrong here.

Can you find it?

So we should add "to".

"I want to drink something."

After the verb "want" if you have a verb,

you have to use the infinitive.

You can't say, "I want drink",

"I want eat". You need to say,

"I want to drink", "I want to eat",

"I want to see", all right? So remember that.

You need to add the infinitive after want.

Next one, "Susan enjoyed from the movie".

"Susan enjoyed from the movie".

What's wrong there? Well, in this case we don't need the preposition "from".

In any case, we don't need a preposition at all.

So you just say, "Susan enjoyed the movie".

This is a very common error probably because in different languages they do need a

preposition with the verb "enjoy".

But in English we don't.

So you just say, "She enjoyed the movie",

"She enjoyed the show", "She enjoyed the concert",

"She enjoyed the class", and so on.

You need no preposition after the verb "enjoy".

Next one, "I like very much ice cream."

"I like very much ice cream."

What's wrong with that? It seems like all the words are there.

Well, all the words are there but the order of the words is not right.

So what we need to do is this.

So we need to change the order here,

"I like ice cream very much."

Why do we do that? Because normally in English we have the subject,

we have the verb, and then we should have or we're looking for the object

of the verb. So if I say,

"I like", the person is expecting to hear that someone who is listening is expecting

to hear what it is that I like.

So that's what I should say first.

I could say, "I like ice cream very much",

"I like music very much", "I like books very much".

So you want that information first and then "very much",

which is a detail can come after.

But first try to put the object,

the direct object. Last one, "Me and my wife live here."

"Me and my wife live here."

What's wrong with that? Okay.

This part. This part is incorrect because in English,

first of all, we don't mention ourselves first and then other people.

First we mention another person and last we're going to mention ourselves.

So it should be "My wife and..."

The other mistake is that we don't use the word "me" as the subject.

So we should say "My wife and I live here."

So we have two mistakes here.

The order was wrong and you don't use "me" in the subject or as a

subject. You should say "I".

Now, this is true even if you have more people.

"My mother, my wife, my brother and I",

but, "and I" will always come at the end of the list of people.

It's just sort of a polite way that we speak in English when we list a

number of people. We usually put ourselves last.

So, this kind of exercise is really important to be able to do.

It also allows you to think about grammar as it really appears in real life.

Various types of mistakes, not just one type of exercise but various types of exercises.

So you need this kind of practice.

Go to our website, the resources section of our website at engvid.com and you can

download there a list of 50 of the most common grammar errors,

which I put together for you and that should help you to identify which areas

of English you are weak in, okay?

So thanks very much for watching.

Bye for now.

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