Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 374. The title of today's lesson

  • is never say I was a high school. Okay. Yeah. Students of ESL sometimes do this.

  • Over the years, I've caught it a number of times. I think just in the past week

  • it may depend on the article I'm covering , but I had several students use

  • this. Either they said you know , when I was a high school or when I was an

  • elementary school. Where they should be saying ... we should be rephrasing it in

  • other ways or ... Let's look at the notes. Let's cover it . Sometimes students of ESL

  • will say I was a high school or an elementary school etc. In English a

  • person cannot be a school. It's that simple. So here are some examples with

  • the X. This is wrong. When I was a high school I had a lot of pressure or you

  • know, they probably had a lot of pressure with tests. Things like that. So with the

  • X. That's definitely wrong. With the check. We have a number of ways

  • you could rephrase it and say it. No problem. So you could say when I was in

  • high school, I had a lot of pressure. That's fine.

  • Because then you're not saying that you're a school. You're saying you were

  • in the school. So that's okay. When I was a high school student . Now you can be a

  • student. A person definitely is a student. So when I was a high school student, I

  • had a lot of pressure. Sure perfect no problem. When I was a

  • high schooler. Yeah. For high school , we do use high schooler. Be careful, we don't

  • say an elementaryer or a colleger But we do say a high schooler. Okay

  • So that's another way you could say it. So when I was a high schooler, I had a

  • lot of pressure. Or another one here, When I was a student

  • in high school. So you could rephrase it with the "in" later. That would be fine too.

  • Or you know, in high school in the u.s. we always you know, name the years. So you

  • could go that way too. You could say when I was a freshman in high school, I had a

  • lot of pressure or when I was a junior or all my years .. throughout all my years in

  • high school I had a lot of pressure. You could say it like that as well.

  • Okay, and here's an example where a student did it with elementary school as

  • well. When I was in elementary school, I liked to watch cartoons. Yes. So again. A

  • person cannot be a school. Okay. You, you have to be you know, you have to use the

  • word for a person. Okay. So the correct way of course you know here all of these

  • should have checks. When I was an elementary school student I liked to

  • watch cartoons. That would be fine. When I was a student in elementary school I

  • liked to watch cartoons. That would be good as well. Or again here you go back

  • to grades. You could say when I was in third grade you know, you can mention the

  • year. You can say I like to watch cartoons. All right. And this is another

  • one too. I did another video before if you you know, if you like this one you should go

  • check out that one too. Sometimes students say when I was in first grade of high

  • school. You can't say that. Or first grade of college. Remember we use the word

  • freshman, sophomore, junior, senior for those. So you'd never say that. Check out

  • that video or you might want to also check out my video on graduate

  • undergraduate. And you know postgraduate students. You might want to check out

  • those as well. if you're confused about some of these terms. All right. Anyway,

  • that's the last little bit of a note here. The same rule applies for grade

  • school. So you can't say you were a grade school. You can't say you're a primary school or

  • a middle school or a junior high school. Whichever term your school is using. You

  • can't use that as well. You always have to say you were a student in ... When I was

  • a student in grade school or when I was a student in primary school. All of those

  • would be okay. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it . I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time.

  • Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 374. The title of today's lesson

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it