Practice English Speaking&Listening with: 09 commonly misused phrases in English - Free English lessons

Hi guys my name is Sonia and I will be your trainer for today’s lesson. Well, I promise

in fact mother promise today’s lesson is going to be very interesting. Okay hold on

did I just say mother promise? I mean think about it, okay it’s me whose promising you

something and it’s not my mother, so do you think it’s fair to drag my mom into

this? Sorry mom not really, mother promise is something I should have not said, so that

is what we are going to do today guys. We are going to listen to a couple of phrases,

which we have been using incorrectly all this while and we should stop doing this right

away. Alright, so let’s get started.

The very first is like I just said, Mother Promise.

So remember you’ll never use this, mother promise, you’ll just say something like;

I promise I will surely attend your party tomorrow. That’s it as simple as that, just

use the word promise, when you want to assure someone that you’re definitely going to

do something. The next one that I have for you is a very common one, you know when you’re

at a party and you want to introduce your cousin to someone, quite often I’ve heard

people say, This is my cousin sister or this is my cousin brother , well if you come to

think about it , Who is a cousin? Now cousin is basically a child of one’s uncle or ones

aunt. So if you just say, Hey you know what this is my cousin and his name is Sam or she

is my cousin and her name is Samantha. So here you don’t really need to say cousin

sister or cousin brother. Just use the phrase or use the word cousin, omit the sister and

the brother. That’s absolutely not required, this just doesn’t exist in the dictionary.

You just use the word cousin next time. The next one I have for you is something really,

really interesting and this really bothers me, trust me. Good name, someone walks up

to you and says, what is your good name? And think about it you know, whenever a parent

names their child, they always give it in a good intention. My parents named me Sonia

and they did it with a very good intention. They wouldn’t think that my name would be

good or bad now, wouldn’t they? So absolutely wrong, just you know erase it out of your

memory. You would always ask someone, what is your name or could you tell me your name

please? That’s it. The next one that I have for you here is again a very interesting and

a very common error that we unfortunately make quite often, alright. You must have noticed

this in your emails, sometimes if you have to send an email for your work purpose or

personal reason. If you send an email, you put down a line at the end of it and you say,

Please revert back for any questions. Now let’s think about this a bit, please revert

back. What does the word revert mean? According to the dictionary, the word revert means to

reply to someone. So if you just say revert, please revert for any questions, that’s

more than enough. You don’t need to use the word back, because they are two words,

which kind of sound similar, so revert back no, no. Just revert. Please revert for any

questions or please revert with your response. Remember that very important, you don’t

wanna make a bad impression at office now, Do you? The next one we have now is, Picture.

Now what does the word picture mean? The word picture means a drawing or a painting. Remember

this okay, the word picture means a drawing or a painting. So quite often I’ve heard

people say, you know what I’m going to watch a picture over the weekend. Is that correct?

No not really, because what you want to say really there is, I’m going to watch a movie

over the weekend. It’s not a drawing or a painting that’s going to play in the theatre,

is it? it’s going to be a movie. So you will use the word picture only, if you wanna

talk about a drawing or a painting, if it’s a film, you can call it a film or a movie.

As simple as that, don’t make this mistake. It’s something very easy make sure you remember

this one. The next one I have for you also is something which bothers me a lot, something

I’ve heard very often in everyday conversation and its absolutely so incorrect, stop doing

this, if you do this right now. This one is, Mention not. As per the dictionary there’s

nothing like, Mention not. If someone says, thank you. Thank you for the gift or thank

you for the tickets or thank you for your help, you can simply respond by saying, you

are welcome, as simple and sweet as that, You are welcome, you can even say something

like, it’s my pleasure or it was not a problem at all, but don’t say mention not, because

it’s simply incorrect guys, don’t do it anymore. The next one I have for you on the

board is, Pass out. Now what does pass out mean? Pass out means to become unconscious,

it means to become unconscious, when you are really drunk. Now this one you really need

to be very careful with. Now if someone has had a lot of drinks and they weren’t able

to handle the drinks, what you could say is, my friend passed out or she had a little bit

too much. Which means that she fell unconscious, because she was really drunk. However I have

heard people say, I just passed out from college last year or she’s going to pass out from

college next year. You don’t pass out from college; you graduate from college, so instead

of pass out, what you can say is, Graduate. Don’t use this one, it’s so incorrect,

there’s absolutely no similarity between pass out and graduate. So make sure that you

don’t make this mistake again. I have another two interesting one’s for you on the board.

This one actually takes me back to my childhood, I remember when I used to play games, I used

to mostly lose okay I was the bad game player, but I used to keep teasing my friends, I used

to say, You are a cheater cock, You are a cheater cock. And then when I realized later,

when I was taught in school and in college I realized, Oh my god all this while, I’ve

been making such a big mistake, there’s no word like cheater cock, you would simply

say, cheater. You are a cheater, you cheated and you won. Now cheater is someone, who is

dishonest in order to gain some kind of advantage. So the next time all you need to say is, you

are a cheater, don’t use this, its incorrect. And the final one on the board for you is

for all those guys, who are planning to get married, for all those lovely ladies there,

who are going to get married soon. You know when you have to introduce your to be husband

or you know, your to be wife to someone. We tend to say something like, well you know

what he is my would be husband or she is my would be wife, but actually that is not correct.

You would not want to say would be, instead what you can say is, Fiancé or Fiancée.

Alright would be is absolutely incorrect, so if you are a guy and you are going to get

married and you want to introduce your to be bride, you can say, She is my fiancée.

And if you are a girl and you are going to get married soon, you can say that, He is

my fiancé, it’s as simple as that, it’s a lovely word. It’s derived from another

language, okay that’s why the sounds are slightly different, but remember would be,

no would be. Either fiancé or fiancée. So these are a couple of common errors that unfortunately,

we have been making till now. And from this moment on, I want all of you to stop making

these errors. Use the right words and if you have any friends, who still make these mistakes.

You know go ahead and correct them also, it’s always a good thing to do. So this brings

me to the end of the lesson today, I hope you really enjoyed it? I will be back soon

with another interesting lesson. Till then keep learning and keep watching. Bye, bye.