Learn the 3 Steps to Fix your Broken English
Do you want a quick way to take your English up a level?
I’m Greg Pioli, the creator and director of Online Language Academy, and I want to fix your broken English!
Over the past 10+ years I’ve seen hundreds of Spanish speaking students make the same mistakes as you, most of which are caused by interference from Castilian.
If you fix these common mistakes, you will instantly become a more advanced speaker of English.
After extensive research and personal teaching experience, I have put together this eBook, giving you the most important 16 mistakes that Spanish speaking students make and how to fix them, and in this video I discuss 3 of these mistakes.
To download the eBook and get all 16 steps to fix your broken English, click here!
❑ Why is this wrong?
This overuse of the word of is caused by directly translating from Spanish (el gato del padre de Joe). If you use of once in a sentence (e.g. the cat of Joe), you sound very foreign. However, if you use it twice (e.g. the cat of the dad of Joe), it becomes quite difficult for native speakers to understand what you’re talking about.
❑ The correction
Use the apostrophe to express possession (you might have learnt this as the “saxon genitive”, though native speakers generally just call it the apostrophe). So we would say Joe’s dad’s cat (3 simple words) instead of the cat of the dad of Joe (7 words!). We could go on and on and say, for example, Joe’s dad’s ex-wife’s son’s friend’s cat’s food.
❑ Example phrases
❌ It’s the birthday of the wife of my friend today.
✅ It’s my friend’s wife’s birthday today.
❌ This is the favourite song of my mum.
✅ This is my mum’s favourite song.
❌ The band of my friend is playing a concert tomorrow.
✅ My friend’s band is playing a concert tomorrow.
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🇬🇧🔧Quick Fix 2: We are 5 people
❑ Why is this wrong?
We are 5 (or we are 5 people) is a direct translation from Spanish (somos 5 personas). You must be careful here, because if you say “We are 5” you are actually saying that you are 5 years old, not that there are 5 people in your group.
❑ The correction
Instead of “we are”, we have to use the expression “there are ... of us”. This might sound a bit strange, but it is the only way in English to express number of people that are in your group.
❑ Example phrases
❌ How many are you?
✅ How many of you are there?
❌ We are 5.
✅ There are 5 of us.
❌ We were 5 at the meeting yesterday.
✅ There were 5 of us at the meeting yesterday.
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🇬🇧🔧Quick Fix 3: This is the strangest thing I've never seen
❑ Why is this wrong?
Never? If you’ve never seen it, how do you know it’s strange? This confusion comes from the fact that in Spanish you say ...que jamás he visto, and generally, never is a good translation of jamás. However, it does not work in this context!
❑ The correction
Instead of never, we need to use ever. Think that the meaning of ever is similar to “at some point in my life”. This is not a literal translation, but it it works (e.g. This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen = This is the strangest thing I’ve seen in my life).
❑ Example phrases
❌ This is the best pizza I’ve never eaten.
✅ This is the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.
❌ It was the best holiday I’ve never been on.
✅ It was the best holiday I’ve ever been on.
❌ She’s the nicest person I’ve never met.
✅ She’s the nicest person I’ve ever met.
Owner of OLA Online Language Academy
★Degree in French (University of Kent at Canterbury)
★DELE Superior (Spanish) (Instituto Cervantes, Leeds)
★TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) (i-to-i.com)
Listening Exercise: In My Life
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