http://www.engvid.com/ Native English speakers make mistakes all the time. In this grammar lesson, I look at five common errors to watch for by native and new English speakers. Make sure you're not learning bad English from a native speaker! http://www.engvid.com/5-native-english-speaker-mistakes/

TRANSCRIPT:
Hey guys, I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on five common native English speaker mistakes. So, these are mistakes that native speakers make in conversation with other native speakers. So for those of you who are just learning the language, this is good for you too because you will hear these mistakes being made on the street. And if you're wondering: "Hey, that doesn't sound correct. Why, why is that person not using correct grammar?" It's because they might not know that they are using incorrect grammar. Those of you who are English speakers: well, this is the stuff that drives English teachers absolutely crazy.

So, let's begin with number one: Double Negatives. Okay, so what's a double negative? There are three examples on the board. We have: "I didn't see nothing.", "She didn't do nothing.", "They don't buy nothing with trans fats." Okay, now you see two negative words in each of these three sentences. In the first one: "I didn't" so "didn't" obviously is a negative word. We have "nothing" which is also a negative word. So if you say "I didn't see nothing", you actually mean that you saw something. So you're giving the opposite meaning of what you actually want to say. So what word should replace "nothing" in these three sentences? "Anything", that's absolutely correct. So, you can say, "I didn't see anything.", "She didn't do anything." Or: "They don't buy anything with trans fats." Okay, so just remember: watch out for those double negatives.

Now, on to number two: "Less" vs. "Fewer". Okay, so this is a question of count and non-count nouns. Basically, when you use "less", you should only be using it with non-count nouns. So we're talking about nouns like honey, water, milk -- anything you can think of that you can't really count like abstract concepts like love or justice, for example. Now, things that you can count and are in plural form should be using "fewer".

So in these three examples there are three mistakes. We have: "There were less than 50 people at the club.", "There are less reasons to own a home phone today.", "I know less languages than my cousin." All of these are absolutely wrong because they all use "less", which you should be using for non-count nouns. But, if you look at this closely: "people" -- you can count people. You have "reasons" -- you can count reasons. "Languages" -- you can also count languages. So with all of these, you should actually be saying, "fewer, fewer, fewer". Now, I know this is a mistake that I hear commonly, especially with relation to people. "Less people" -- you should actually be saying, "Fewer people, fewer reasons, fewer,"-- sorry -- "fewer languages". So remember: if it's plural, it's countable, you're thinking "less/fewer". If you can count it, it's plural: "fewer".

Now, let's move on to number three: "I could care less." This is an expression we use when we want to say that we have almost no interest in something that one of our friends or somebody has just said. So for example: -"Spain won the World Cup!" And you might, say, hear somebody say, -"I don't care about soccer, I could care less about this.", -"Dianne bought a new purse!" -"I don't know Diane, I don't know her very well; I could care less about Dianne buying a new purse." -"Do you like U2?" -"I could care less about U2." Maybe because I'm not a fan of rock and roll or I just don't like the band, or I don't like Bono's political views or something like that.

Now, this expression: "I could care less", actually says that you care a little bit. So what you're trying to say is not exactly what you're trying to say. If you want to say that you have no interest or this doesn't affect you in some way, the expression is: "I could not care less." Okay? So let's just fix this up here and say: "I couldn't care less." This means your interest is so low that there's nowhere for you to go. If you say: "I could care less", maybe you care this much and you could still care a little more -- or sorry --, care a little less. Okay guys, so again, next time you want to show that you don't have any interest in a topic a person is talking to you about, say: "I couldn't care less."

Now let's move on to number four: "Have went". This is a problem of using the incorrect verb form. So basically in English, you're going to have three verb forms for each verb. So for example: with the verb "go" we have the present: "go", the past: "went", and we have the past participle which we use in the perfect forms of English, which is "gone". So when you use: "have + went", you actually mean: "have gone" and you should be saying: "have gone".