Subtitles section Play video
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Charlie has less girlfriends than Harry
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oh that's sad it's true Charlie has less
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girlfriends than Harry well that's an
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obvious one isn't it any mistakes there
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no let's put London to the test with a
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grammar test let's go
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[Music]
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Isabella yes
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I'm going to show you a sentence okay
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and it may have a grammar mistake it may not
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I'd like you to correct the sentence if
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you think there is a mistake okay you
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should have been that okay is that correct
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the aim of this is to make me look really stupid isn't it
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no not at all not at all
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thank you very much you should have been there
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I would say
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you should have been there
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can you read it out loud you should have been there
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no you should of
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you should of been there should of been there okay
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can you go ahead and correct it if it needs correcting
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all right thank you very much
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so they all got this right but this is
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actually a really really common
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orthographical error amongst native speakers in English
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but why do native
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speakers commit this error the reason is
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because the pronunciation of the
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contracted form of the auxiliary verb
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have is pronounced exactly the same as
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the word of in connected speech
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for example instead of going out last night
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you should've stayed in instead of
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going out last night you should've
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stayed in əv əv əv
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so in connected speech the of
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changes to əv and likewise with the
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contracted version of the auxiliary verb have
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that changes from av to əv əv using the schwa again
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so then when we go to write words
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like should've would've and could've
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sometimes native speakers get confused
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and they write should of would of could of
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it's clear that a zebra can't change its stripes
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it's clear that a zebra can't change its stripes
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is there a mistake in this one
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yes go ahead do okay
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we're just going to take a quick break
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our website for further details back to the video
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err so first off it's like that it's clear that a zebra can't zebra can't change
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is there a correction to be made yes
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all right go ahead
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I think that's correct I well done man perfect
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yeah very good well done Isabella
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because it is is grammatically correct so you put the apostrophe there to change it from it is to it's
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now you might be thinking this is quite an easy sentence
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to correct but actually for lots of native
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speakers it's quite difficult and
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you might have noticed that some of our
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participants in this video did actually
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find it quite tricky when it came to
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this second its
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so we put this in to try
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to confuse people because often people
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incorrectly put an apostrophe before the
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S thinking that the possessive adjective
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requires an apostrophe but of course it
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doesn't now why do they think this it's
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because when it comes to singular nouns and we're talking about possession
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we need to use an apostrophe
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for example this is Charlie's whiteboard
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the girl's bike the president's suit and
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then what people do is they incorrectly
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apply this possessive apostrophe to the
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third-person non gender-specific
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possessive adjective like this the
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zebra hated its stripes but of course it
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should be it's without the apostrophe
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the same thing occurs as well with 'whose'
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people often put the apostrophe before
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the S incorrectly but it should be who's like this
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Charlie has less girlfriends in Harry. Charlie has less girlfriends than Harry.
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Oh that's sad! it's true. Charlie has less girlfriends
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than Harry. Well that's an obvious one isn't it?
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Charlie has a less girlfriends than Harry
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Any mistakes there? No
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Is there a correction to be made? And if so, go ahead! No
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May I correct it? All right, going over to the other side
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no no no than is a...don't do it! Had less..wait!
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No you can do it in present, has less than 'cos you're comparing! 'Than' we're gonna keep it 'charlie has less gfs than Harry
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no mistakes unless you spell Charlie a
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different way. Ha ha yeah. Or you could say not
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as many if you wanted to do that. Assuming
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Harry has any girlfriends. Good question, does he?
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He's good looking enough.. ha ha
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there we go
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it should be fewer girlfriends than Harry
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okay. And I think the apostrophe's
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wrong too isn't it? Yes the apostrophe should
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be there 'cos it's plural and that should be fewer
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it's like the Sainsbury's queue isn't it?
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five items or less
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they've changed it now to five items or
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fewer there we have it Sainsbury's even
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make the mistake as do many natives the
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correction should be fewer and it's
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because girlfriends is accountable
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Charlie has fewer girlfriends than Harry
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I'm the monogamous of the two and of
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course we had an apostrophe over here
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that needs to be removed because it's just the plural of girlfriend
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And of course we do not need an apostrophe for plurals
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now do we? We're not mental! That's
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all for today but thanks for watching
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and we hope you have found this both
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useful and entertaining if you're a
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native English speaker please comment
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below if you make any of these mistakes
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and if you're an English Learner we hope
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this video reassures you that it's okay
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to make mistakes if native speakers do
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it why shouldn't you please give us a
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thumbs up if you want to see part two of
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this grammar test and see you again soon
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for another video