5 Speaking Mistakes to AVOID in English

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  

Do you make these five common speaking  mistakes? Let's talk about it. 

Learning English is hard. There are  so many mistakes that you can make,  

but do you know what? As long as you are  practicing, you are progressing. Before we  

start, I have a little disclaimer. When you are  learning anything new, English or any other skill,  

it's totally normal to make a lot of mistakes.  This is extremely common and you shouldn't be  

embarrassed about making mistakes. But the fact  of the matter is, because you really care about  

English, you probably want to level up your  skills. You want to avoid common mistakes,  

and that's what we're going to talk about  today. I'm going to help you avoid five common  

speaking mistakes so that you can level up your  English. And like always, I have created a free  

PDF worksheet with all of these mistakes and  their solutions so that you don't make these  

mistakes in your conversations. All right,  let's get started with mistake number one. 

What time is it? It's seven twenty, or it's seven  twenty o'clock. Which one is the mistake? Can you  

guess? It's the second one? It's seven twenty  o'clock. When you are saying a time that has  

specific minutes, you do not need to say  o'clock. "It's seven twenty," is perfectly  

fine. So when should you use o'clock? That's  only when you are saying the hour. For example,  

"What time is it?" "It's seven o'clock," "It's  three o'clock," "It's 11 o'clock." Beautiful.  

Let's take a look at a sample sentence. "If  you have to be at work at eight o'clock, you  

better leave the house by seven thirty." Notice  that when I said only the hour, eight o'clock,  

I added o'clock. Sometimes in conversation we even  drop o'clock. "If you have to be at work at eight,  

you better leave the house by seven thirty." But  just make sure that you do not add o'clock in the  

wrong spot. Don't add it after seven thirty.  Are you ready for a little test? Take a look  

at this sentence. Where should we put o'clock? "Our flight leaves at six, so I want to be at  

the airport by four thirty." Where should we put  o'clock? You have three seconds to guess. 3, 2,  

1. "Our flight leaves at six o'clock,  so I want to be at the airport by four  

thirty." Great, don't be late for your flight. Let's go on to mistake number two. Have you ever  

heard this phrase? "Would you mind?" "Would you  mind helping me?" "Would you mind carrying this  

bag for me?" "Would you mind?" This is extremely  polite, and you're likely to hear this in daily  

conversation and in the workplace. But a common  mistake is how to answer this. So if I asked you,  

"Would you mind carrying that heavy box for  me?" And you said, "Yeah, certainly." Oh no,  

this is not the correct answer. I would say,  "Oh, okay. It's okay, it's okay. I'll carry  

it." So what should you say instead, and why  is yes incorrect? Let's see. Take a look at  

the original question, "Would you mind carrying  this heavy box for me?" I'm really asking you,  

"Is it a problem to carry this heavy box for me?"  So if I ask you, "Is it a problem?" and you say,  

"Yes," well, it means that you're not  going to do it, you don't want to do it. 

So how can you answer this correctly? Instead, you  can say, "Would you mind carrying this heavy box  

for me?" "No, it's not a problem." Oh, beautiful  answer, and you pick up the heavy box and I feel  

so loved. Let's take a look at a couple of sample  sentences because this is a tricky one. You want  

to answer correctly, you want the other person to  understand you as well. What about this question?  

"Would you mind giving me a ride to the office  tomorrow? My car is at the mechanic shop." Well,  

if you can do it, if you can help me. Should you  say yes or no? "Would you mind giving me a ride?"  

"No, not a problem." This is a great answer. Isn't  it a little bit strange? You're telling them,  

"Yes, I can help you," but your answer is  really "No, it's not a problem." Sometimes  

English is a little bit strange. Well, I have  a little quiz for you. I want to see if you  

can guess the correct answer here. Take a look. "Would you mind paying for my coffee? I'm sorry,  

I forgot my wallet, I can't believe it." Well,  if you want to help me, I'm your English teacher  

and you want to do something kind for  me, thank you, what could you say? "Yes,  

certainly," or, "No, it's not a problem."  What should you say? If you want to help me,  

I'll give you three seconds to decide. "Would  you help me buy this coffee? I'm sorry,  

I forgot my wallet." 3, 2, 1. You can say, "No,  it's not a problem." Oh, what a beautiful answer. 

All right, let's go to common speaking mistake  number three. All right, common speaking mistake  

number three. "This shirt is broken," or, "This  shirt is torn." Huh, both of these words mean  

that there's some damage, there's something  wrong, but there's only one that's correct.  

You know what? "This shirt is torn." This is  the irregular past tense of the verb to tear  

something. And we almost always use the verb to  tear for cloth or clothing. So you might say,  

"Ugh, I stepped on the bottom of my dress  and now it's torn." That means it's damaged,  

maybe you're going to have to sew it to fix it.  So what about that other word, broken? This is  

also an irregular past tense verb of to break. When can we use break? Well, we use it in a lot  

of other situations, but it's usually for hard  things. You can break a wine glass when you drop  

it, you can break your phone if you drop it. If  you drop it in water, well, sorry, your phone is  

broken. These things, the wine glass, your phone,  they are hard. They're metal, they're plastic,  

they're wooden. It's something that's hard  and it's broken. So I have a little quiz for  

you. Can you guess which word is the best for this  sentence? "The child cried when he discovered that  

his favorite toy was," broken or torn? I'll give  you three seconds. 3, 2, 1. "The child cried when  

he discovered that his favorite toy was broken." The toy is something hard, so we use to break.  

His toy was broken. What about this challenge  sentence? "My sister borrowed my shirt and  

when she gave it back, it was" broken or  torn? 3, 2, 1. Ah, when she gave it back,  

it was torn. What did she do to it? I guess she'll  have to fix it now. Because this is a shirt,  

it's a piece of cloth, it's something soft, we use  to tear or that past tense verb torn. All right,  

let's go to the next common speaking mistake. Common speaking Mistake number four. "Sorry,  

it's a mistake," "Sorry, it's a fault." Only one  of these is correct. Which one do you think it is?  

"Sorry, it's a mistake." We often use the word  mistake in the full phrase, "I made a mistake."  

"Sorry, I made a mistake. I washed your white  shirt with my red socks and now you have a pink  

shirt. It's my fault." Ooh, here's our second  word. So these two words, mistake and fault,  

have a very similar meaning, but they're used  grammatically differently. So let's take a look  

at that. Like I mentioned, the word mistake  is often used in the full phrase 'to make a  

mistake'. "Sorry, I made a mistake." And the word  fault is often used with a possessive pronoun,  

"That's my fault, I'm sorry." "You know  what? That's his fault." Children often say,  

"It's not my fault, I didn't do it."  So here we always have the possessive  

pronoun in front of the word of fault.  "It was my fault, I made a mistake." This  

is a beautiful way to use this grammatically. Let's see if you can get this correct in a little  

quiz. "You on ___ the project, but it's not  your ___. No one told you the guidelines."  

Which one should we use? "You made a mistake,  but it's not your fault. No one told you the  

guidelines." Beautiful grammar, beautiful  way to speak, and also a very kind sentence. 

All right, let's go to our final and fifth  common speaking mistake. This fifth common  

speaking mistake is often said in relationships  where you live with someone. Have you ever  

heard someone say, "Yes, I heard what you  said to me," and then someone else says,  

"But were you listening?" Oh, to hear, to listen.  They both mean that sound is going in your ears,  

but they have an important difference. So let's  break it down. The verb to hear is more general,  

it just means that sound is going in your  ears and you can perceive some sounds. "Yeah,  

I hear my classmates talking on the side of the  classroom. I hear them," but are you listening  

to them? The verb to listen means that you're  paying attention. "I heard my classmates talking,  

but I wasn't listening to them." Ooh, So you heard  some sounds coming in your ears, but you weren't  

paying attention to it. You weren't listening. Parents often tell children this, "Yes,  

you heard me, but were you listening?" You might  even hear this in movies and TV shows. If a couple  

is having an argument, one might say, "Yeah,  I heard you," and the other might say, "Yeah,  

but you weren't listening to me." That means  you heard the sounds going in your ears, but  

you were not paying attention. This is a subtle  difference. Let's see if you can get it correct in  

this little quiz sentence. "I was trying to ___ to  the lecture, but all I could ___ was the squeaky  

chair of my neighbor." I was trying to___," I'll  give you three seconds. "I was trying to listen to  

the lecture, but all I could hear was the squeaky  chair of my neighbor." That was so annoying. 

So this means you are trying to pay attention  to the lecture, but instead, that sound that  

was coming in your ears was just squeak, squeak,  squeak. Ugh, maybe you need to tell your neighbor,  

"Stop rocking on your chair, I'm trying to  listen to the lecture," and you should too. 

Well, there you have it. I hope that you were  listening carefully during this lesson so  

that you don't make these common mistakes in  your speaking in the future. Don't forget to  

download the free PDF worksheet with all  five of these common speaking mistakes,  

and their solutions in common sample sentences, so  that you can use these comfortably and confidently  

in daily conversation. And now I have a  question for you. Tell me in the comments,  

what is a common mistake that you make in  English? Let me know in the comments. I'm  

curious what it is, maybe I can make a lesson  in the future helping you to correct it. Well,  

thank you so much for learning English with  me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a  

new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next step is to download the free PDF  

worksheet for this lesson. With this free  PDF, you will master today's lesson and  

never forget what you have learned. You can  be a confident English speaker. Don't forget  

to subscribe to my YouTube channel for  a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.