Having Perfect Grammar (Like a Native)

Hey guys, what’s up?

Ethan, your Fluency Coach, here.

So, right now I am speaking to you from Thailand.

I am here visiting for the next couple months.

And in fact, you might hear some roosters kinda squawking in the background.

So I apologize if that takes away at all from the quality of this video, but today I just

wanted to share with you something that I was thinking about the other day because here

in Thailand there are a lot of expats.

Expats are people who are living in a country that are not originally from that country.

So many people come from Europe, from the United States and Canada, from all over the

world to live here in Thailand, because it is such a wonderful place.

And the other day I met some people who are English teachers here.

And they have been living here for a long time, teaching English, they have married

Thai women, and have children here and everything.

So they are very established here.

But they teach English here and they were from Wales, which is in the United Kingdom.

And I thought it was really interesting because people from Wales have a very different way

of speaking than people from other parts of the United Kingdom and other parts of the

English speaking world.

In fact, I would probably bet that you have never even heard a Welsh accent.

You can find many examples on YouTube.

But my point here is that these guys speaking to them, I noticed that they make a lot of

grammatical mistakes, what would traditionally be thought of as grammatical mistakes.

Like for example, something that stuck out to me a lot was that they mix up the conjugation

of the 3rd and 2nd person.

And I know as an English learner you have probably gone over conjugation many, many

times.

Until the point of actually being nauseous, and not wanting to study these conjugations

anymore.

And so it’s quite funny to see a native English teacher that is confusing two different

conjugations INTENTIONALLY.

So why does this happen?

It doesn’t just happen with Welsh speakers.

This happens with many different dialects, for example, certain people from the South

of the United States, I have noticed the same thing.

Just to give you an example in case you don’t know off the top of your head what the third

and second person are, would be the conjugation for he, she, it is third person.

The conjugation for you is second person.

So they might say, “He go.”

When we would say that the ‘grammatically correct’ term/conjugation is, “He goes.”

So what I want to point out with this is that natives make mistakes ALL THE TIME.

We make mistakes intentionally ALL THE TIME.

And we don’t care.

We’re not constantly thinking in our heads like, “Am I speaking grammatically correctly?”

“Did I conjugate that verb right?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t know, what are they going to think of me?”

We don’t do that!

And natives will make mistakes like this all the time.

Just the other day, another friend of mine who is teaching English here said that she

was frustrated because she has a friend here who is also an English teacher who was texting

her and had mixed up the two “Yours.”

So we’d say your, Y-O-U-R is possesive or you’re, Y-O-U-‘-R-E is the contraction

of YOU ARE.

And there’s other very common mistakes like, “THERE, THEY’RE, and THEIR” and a matter

of fact, I’m going to post an article that I found that points out I think it’s “30

mistakes that native speaker make all the time.”

So the first thing that I want to say is that if you speak English and you’re making grammatical

mistakes, do NOT feel bad!

Try to get out of your head, stop thinking so much about what people are going to think

if you’re not speaking grammatically correctly.

It doesn’t really matter.

What we, what’s important to us native speakers, and what I believe is the most important thing

if you want to communicate, is CONFIDENCE — Actually being able to speak clearly,

and confidently.

So you don’t have to have perfect grammar.

You can make mistakes.

But you should make them confidently.

You shouldn’t be constantly doubting yourself.

You should try to get out of your head when you’re speaking with someone.

That is not the time to be thinking about your correct or incorrect grammar.

Time to think about grammar is when you’re actually studying.

And I’m not trying to make an excuse saying that grammar is not important at all.

It is important.

But I believe that if your goal is to communicate, which is the goal of most English speakers,

then you should be trying, to your best capability, to speak.

Speak with A LOT of mistakes!

But speak, and be understood.

Once you are able to do that, to speak confidently, to communicate with other English learners

and with native speakers, then it’s time to start concentrating on the higher levels

of English like grammar.

You know, we native speakers don’t learn about grammar until we are maybe 12 or 13

years old because it’s not important for communication.

Now, if you want to speak English well, like you want to give a presentation, or you want

to do business meetings, or you want to be able to give a speech in front of people,

then you want to be able to speak nice and correctly and formally.

But, to begin, the first thing that is important is to BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE, to START SPEAKING

with people, with anyone that will listen to you in English, or even just speak to yourself,

RECORD YOURSELF, all of these are good ways to start building your confidence and to start

speaking clearly.

All right guys, I want to just to close up this video, I want to share with you an article

all about making mistakes and how to speak English, “Without Mistakes.”

Just click here and you can go read that now.

All right guys, please let me know what you thought about this video, like it below, subscribe

to us so you can get more awesome videos like this, and comment if you have any ideas for

new videos that you would like us to make, and we might just make it for you.

All right guys, go out there, and kick ass with your English.

Aww yeah!