Beginner English Phrases For Conversation Part 7

Hi everyone and welcome to part seven of this beginner English phrases for conversation series.

Today’s phrase is ‘Do you speak English?’ Do you speak English? This is the most basic phrase that you can use to ask someone if they speak English or if they speak another language.

Different ways to ask ‘Do you speak English’ are ‘Can you speak English?’ Are you able to speak English?

So if someone asks you ‘Do you speak English’, how can you answer correctly? If you do speak English, you can say ‘Yes I do’ or you can just say ‘I do.’ ‘Yes I do’ or ‘I do.’

If you don’t speak English, you can say ‘No I don’t’ or you can say ‘I don’t.’ ‘No I don’t’ or ‘I don’t.’

So if you asked me ‘Shane, do you speak English?’ I would say ‘Yes I do.’

If you asked me ‘Shane, do you speak French’, I would say ‘No I don’t.’

If you want to say you speak a little bit of English, you can say ‘Yes I speak a little bit of English.’ Yes I speak a little bit of English.

Now let’s look at some common mistakes with this phrase. One of the most common mistakes is students saying ‘Do you speaking English?’ This is incorrect because after ‘do you’, we don’t use a verb ING. ‘Do you speaking’? No. ‘Do you eating’? No. ‘Do you playing?’ No. After ‘do you’ we need to use verb 1. To correct this, you need to say ‘Do you speak English?’

The second most common mistake is when students answer the question ‘Do you speak English’ by saying ‘Yes I am’ or ‘Yes I’m.’ This is incorrect because the question has ‘do’. That means the answer also needs to use ‘do’ as well. To correct this, you need to say ‘Yes I do’ or ‘No I don’t.’