Lesson 2: Common Mistakes, Contractions, Homophones, and Language Learning Tips

In this beginner-friendly class, we focus on:

• Common mistakes native English speakers make online and in daily life

• Idioms and contractions 

• Contractions for speed and emphasis Homophones 

• Improving listening: Disney movies, animated shows 

• Recommended shows and books for language learning

• Games for different proficiency levels​

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Lesson Guide

This lesson we talked about mistakes that native English speakers make that you may encounter (come across) while on the internet or in day-to-day activities. We also discussed idioms and contractions between two words. You may even have seen a contraction like this: y’all’d’ve (You all would have) which is typically heard in some dialects in the country/ southern part of the United States. It’s pretty famous online but don’t worry, you won’t come across it in writing unless it’s in a meme.

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But this is a good example of how English speakers tend to slur (or string together) words. If people speak quickly you’ll hear more examples of these verses if someone speaks slow and deliberate.

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It is important to note that contractions are used to speed up and shorten sentences. Typically we don’t break apart a contraction unless we are emphasizing it. You may startle someone if you do this but you will have their attention

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A homophone is a word that sounds the same but has different spelling and meaning like here and hear.

• Here: A place

• Hear: The verb “to listen”. You can remember this because hear has the word “ear” in it and we listen with our ears.

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Additional notes: If you want to improve your listening, listen to everything you can in English!

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Disney movies are great because the language they are animated in first is English. This means that not only will they use simple structures for children to understand, but the mouth shapes will have a closer resemblance to shapes we make in English.

• Another Movie would be Don Bluth’s Anastasia which was rotoscoped or traced over footage of real people

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TV shows include:

• Avatar the Last Airbender which is a favorite enjoyed by all age ranges in the United States.

• A couple of other good ones are the older Spongebob from 1999-2002 (If the picture is square-shaped it’s the right one) and Teen Titans. I don’t really recommend watching any animated TV shows if you’re a beginner from post 2005/2008 as they become a lot faster in both speech and pacing.

• A popular live action TV show from this period in the United States was Mythbusters which has a lot of science vocabulary.

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Books: A lot of books can be read to you on Audiobook, if you want to improve your reading you can always read American comics/ webtoons, but you may find that manga is more popular in the United States over comics. This is because we see manga volumes as a better deal due to the higher page count compared to comic issues which are more like thin magazines.

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Games: For B1 people I recommend games with text and speech (such as Genshin Impact), for A2 people I recommend games with only text (such as Stardew Valley) or text and speech. For A2 people, try not to go for games with a lot of story or lore for B1, try to go for games that have more story and subtext, which is text that has a double meaning to it, and will expose you to more B2/C1 topics.

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English Spelling Rules: Here’s a few spelling rules that are the most important from Grammarly

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Check Out the Presentation Here