How good is your English? Quiz 2

Are you ready for another quiz?

We’re going to test you with some more tricky English today.

And we’ll help you fix some common mistakes.

Here’s how this works.

We’ll ask you some questions and you have to choose an answer before the clock stops

ticking.

All the questions are based on mistakes that English students often make.

Some of you asked for some hard questions this time.

Students with different levels of English watch our videos so we don’t want to go

super advanced.

But we thought we’d throw in a couple of extra tricky questions this time.

So get ready!

Let’s start with an easy one.

This is a very common mistake.

Imagine you want to write something down but you don’t have a pen.

What will you ask your friend?

Can you lend me your pen?

Can you borrow me your pen?

Lend and borrow.

Lots of languages have just one word for these actions.

But in English we have two.

It’s the same action, but from different points of view.

Lending is when we give someone something.

And borrowing is when we take something.

Oh.

Can I borrow your glasses?

What?

Can you lend me your glasses?

Sure.

Thank you.

Yay.

So we lend things TO people, and borrow things FROM people.

Giving and taking.

And they’re temporary actions.

Oh, well give me your number.

Give me your pen.

I need it.

Just for a moment.

You’ll give it back?

I just want to borrow it.

Sorry, what was that?

There’s another word that’s similar: loan.

Students make mistakes with that too.

In British English, loan is normally a noun.

A loan is money that we borrow from a bank.

We say that too, but in American English, we can also use loan as a verb.

Then let’s have another question.

OK.

Imagine you’ve left your wallet or purse at home so you have no money.

You ask a friend to help.

Are both these questions OK?

Can I borrow $20?

Can I loan $20?

The verb 'loan' is like 'lend'.

It's not like 'borrow'.

Yes, if you want to say 'loan', you’d have to say ‘Can you loan ME $20?’ or ‘He

loaned ME his bike.’

And again, it’s just a temporary action.

Yes, if someone loans you money, you have to pay it back.

Here’s that fifty dollars I borrowed.

Oh.

Actually you owe me fifty five.

I thought you lent me fifty.

Five dollars interest.

Huh!

If you want more practice with lend, borrow and loan, here’s a link to a video with

more examples.

Let’s have a hard one now.

OK.

Imagine some friends invite you round for dinner and you have a great time chatting.

Then you look at the clock and realize it’s midnight.

What will you say?

Oh my!

It’s time I will leave.

Oh my!

It’s time I leave.

Oh my!

It’s time I left.

That’s interesting.

We were talking about the present and the future there, but we used a past tense.

Yes, it’s not a real past.

It’s because the phrase ‘It’s time’ has a special structure.

The technical term for this is a subjunctive.

We could also use an infinitive and say ‘It’s time to go’, but often we use the subjunctive

and say ‘It’s time I left.’

That’s tricky.

We need another example.

OK.

Listen carefully to what I say here: What time is it?

It’s time you got that watch repaired.

Three o’clock.

Did you hear it?

She said, 'It’s time you got that watch repaired'.

So, I said got.

Not get.

Past tense.

But you will hear people saying get too.

Yes.

Strictly speaking get is wrong, but in spoken English we often ignore subjunctives.

OK.

Let’s have another question.

Imagine your friend has just cooked you a meal.

Everything was delicious.

What will you say?

Thank you.

You’re a very good cook.

Thank you.

You’re a very good cooker.

Students often muddle up cook and cooker, and it can sound very funny.

A cooker is a large piece of equipment or stove that we use to cook food.

It’s not a person.

The person who does the cooking is a cook.

If you want more examples, check out this video.

OK, next question.

You’ve ordered a dish in a restaurant and it doesn’t taste good.

Your friend asks you ‘What’s it like?’

What do say?

No, I don’t like it.

It’s very salty and it has a strange peppermint taste.

This question confuses a lot of students.

‘Like’ isn’t a verb here.

It’s a preposition that means ‘similar to’.

So this question doesn’t mean ‘Do you like it?’

It means ‘Tell me about it.

Describe it to me’.

Here's another example, We went to a networking event last night.

Oh, what was it like?

Boring.

It was very useful.

There were about a dozen people there and everyone made a short presentation.

I didn’t like it.

Kathy’s not asking if you liked it, Jay.

She wants us to tell her about it.

Did you meet any interesting people?

Yes.

Well, I did.

I didn’t talk to anybody.

If you'd like more examples, check this link.

OK, one more question.

Imagine you’re going to a meeting that starts at 3 o’clock.

But the traffic is terrible.

And then you can’t find a parking space.

You run to the building where your colleague is waiting for you.

You’re worried that you’ll be late.

What question will you ask?

Am I in time for the meeting?

Am I on time for the meeting?

Am I in time for the meeting?

Yeah.

Don’t worry, we’ve got ten minutes.

I couldn’t find a parking space.

Come on.

Let’s go in.

If we’re in time for something, we’re not late.

‘In time’ means with enough time to spare.

On time is a little different.

It means punctually or promptly.

Oh, the train’s coming.

It’s right on time.

So ‘on time' means at the correct time The time that was scheduled.

Click here to see more examples, and I’ll put links in the description below to other

videos we’ve mentioned.

So now it’s time we finished.

Yeah, it's time we finished – that’s a subjunctive.

Did you spot it?

We hope you enjoyed this quiz.

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See you next week everyone.

Bye.

Bye-bye.