Common English Speaking Mistakes (20 Phrases You’re Saying WRONG)

If you think any of these phrases are correct, then you need to watch this video.

In this video, I am going to show you 20 English phrases that you may be saying incorrectly. I will show you why these phrases are wrong and I will show you how to say these phrases correctly.

Make sure you watch until the end of the video because many of these phrases, you may be saying incorrectly and you don’t even know it. Okay, let’s look at the first phrase for today.

Incorrect phrase #1

The first incorrect phrase is ‘I’m study at university.’ This phrase is wrong because after ‘I’m’, we don’t use verb 1. We don’t say ‘I’m eat’ or ‘I’m work.’ This is grammatically incorrect. So to fix this phrase, we need to say ‘I study at university.’ We don’t need to say ‘I’m’.

Incorrect phrase #2

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I’m going to shopping.’ This phrase is incorrect because after ‘going to’ we don’t use a verb ING. So to fix this sentence, we can say ‘I’m going shopping.’ But, if you want to say ‘going to’, you can say ‘I’m going to the shops.’ This is correct.

Incorrect phrase #3

The next incorrect phrase is ‘How do you call this in English?’ This is incorrect because the word ‘how’ means by what method. So if you say ‘How do you call this in English’, you’re asking by what method do you use to make the name of this thing. So to say this correctly, we need to say ‘What do you call this in English?’ We use ‘what’ because we want to know the name. We don’t want to know how it’s done. We want to know the name of the thing.

Incorrect phrase #4

The next incorrect phrase is ‘Where are you come from?’ This is incorrect because we don’t use the words ‘are you’ with verb 1. So to say this phrase correctly, we need to say ‘Where are you from?’ But if you want add the word ‘come’ into your question, you can say ‘Where do you come from?’ But most native speakers, when they ask this question, they will say ‘Where are you from?’ This sounds more natural.

Incorrect phrase #5

The next incorrect phrase is ‘What is it mean?’ This is incorrect because after ‘is it’, we don’t use verb 1. After ‘is it’, we normally use a noun, an adjective or a verb ING. So to say this phrase correctly, we need to say ‘What does it mean?’

Incorrect phrase #6

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I did not understood.’ This is incorrect because after ‘did’, we do not use a past tense verb or verb 2. After ‘did’, we normally use verb 1. So to say this phrase correctly, we need to say ‘I did not understand.’

Incorrect phrase #7

The next incorrect phrase is ‘Please explain me.’ This is incorrect because if you say ‘Please explain me’ to me, that means you want me to say something about you to you. So to fix this, we need to add a subject. For example, you could say ‘Please explain this to me’, ‘Please explain that to me.’ But if you don’t want to use a subject, you can just say ‘Please explain.’ This is correct.

Incorrect phrase #8

The next incorrect phrase is ‘What your name?’ This phrase is incorrect because we don’t have a verb. So to fix this, we simply need to add the verb ‘is’. So you need to say ‘What is your name?’ or a shorter way to say this is by saying ‘What’s your name?’

Incorrect phrase #9

The next incorrect phrase is ‘My name’ and then you say your name. For example, ‘My name Shane.’ This is incorrect because again, we don’t have a verb. So to fix this, we simply need to add the verb ‘is’. So for me, I would say ‘My name is Shane.’ And again, the shorter way to say it is by saying ‘My name’s Shane.’

Incorrect phrase #10

The tenth incorrect phrase is ‘Is it correct to say?’ This is incorrect because we don’t have an object. If you say this to a native speaker, he will think ‘Correct to say what?’ So to fix this, you need to add an object. For example, ‘Is it correct to say that?’ ‘Is it correct to say this?’ ‘Is it correct to say “I am hungry”?’ You need to have an object.

Incorrect phrase #11

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I go to work by car.’ This phrase is incorrect because it sounds very unnatural and very strange. For example if I asked a native speaker ‘How do you get to work’, and he drives his car to work, he would say ‘I drive to work.’ I have never heard any native speaker say ‘I go to work by car.’ So to fix this, you need to say ‘I drive to work.’

But, if somebody drives you to work, you can say ‘I have a driver.’ Or for example, if your mum drives you to work, you can say ‘My mum drives me to work.’

Incorrect phrase #12

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I am work.’ This phrase is incorrect because you are not work. You are a person. After ‘am’, we don’t use verb 1. Easy, right!? So to fix this sentence, you can say ‘I am working’ or you can say ‘I work.’ It depends on what you’re trying to say.

Incorrect phrase #13

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I study at the university.’ This phrase is incorrect because normally when we use the word ‘the’, the person you are talking to knows what you’re talking about. They know which thing you are talking about.

But if you say to me ‘Shane, I study at the university’, I don’t know which university you study at. So to fix this, you need to say ‘I study at university.’ You don’t need to say ‘the’.

Incorrect phrase #14

The next incorrect phrase is ‘He from’ and then a country. For example, ‘He from Brazil.’ This phrase is incorrect because we don’t have a verb. So to fix this, we need to add in the verb ‘is’. For example, ‘He is from Brazil.’ He is from Canada. He is from America.

Incorrect phrase #15

The next incorrect phrase is ‘Does this the same as that?’ This phrase is incorrect because after ‘does’, we normally need to use a verb. But in this sentence, we are using ‘does’ with the word ‘same’ and ‘same’ is an adjective. When we use adjectives, we normally use adjectives with the verb ‘to be’. And in this sentence we are talking about one thing so we need to use the verb ‘is’. So the correct way to say this is by saying ‘Is this the same as that?’

Incorrect phrase #16

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I like to eat cakes many.’ This phrase is incorrect because ‘many’ is a determiner. We normally use determiners before nouns. So to fix this sentence, we need to say ‘I like to eat many cakes.’

Incorrect phrase #17

The next incorrect phrase is ‘Does it right?’ This phrase is incorrect because we’re using the word ‘does’ with an adjective. We normally need to use the word ‘does’ with verbs. So to fix this, we need change the word ‘does’ to the verb ‘to be’. So to fix this, we need to say ‘Is it right?’ ‘Is it right?’

Incorrect phrase #18

The next incorrect phrase is ‘Have two cars on the road.’ This phrase is incorrect because when we want to say something exists in the world or something is in the world, we normally use the phrases ‘there is’ or ‘there are’.

Another reason that this sentence is incorrect is because we normally don’t start a sentence with ‘have’ unless it’s a question and unless it’s an imperative. That means you’re telling someone what to do. For example, let’s pretend I want you to drink some water. I can say to you, ‘Have some water.’

So to fix this sentence, we need to say ‘There are two cars on the road.’ If there was just one car, we could say ‘There is a car on the road.’

Incorrect phrase #19

The next incorrect phrase is ‘I live at’ and then a country. For example, ‘I live at England.’ This is incorrect because when we’re talking about the country that we live in, we use the word ‘in’ and not ‘at’. So this sentence should be ‘I live in England.’

Incorrect phrase #20

The last incorrect phrase is ‘I don’t know what is it.’ This phrase is incorrect because ‘I don’t know’ is a statement. ‘What is it’ is a question. When you put a statement and a question together, it’s like this. It doesn’t go together. So to fix this, we need to have two statements. So we can say ‘I don’t know what it is.’ These two statements go together and make a grammatically correct sentence.

Conclusion

That’s it for today. Make sure you check out this video on 20 words that you’re saying wrong. If you haven’t checked out our English pronunciation course and our eBooks, check them out in the description below. Make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss any more videos just like this one.

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