Episode 10 - How to avoid typical grammar tense mistakes

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts. I'm Rebecca. I'm Dave. I'm Birgit. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hello. So, today we are going to talk about common mistakes German speakers make when they talk English. And since last time we talked about the main tenses, the big five, we are going to concentrate on that today and give you hopefully useful tips how to avoid making these mistakes, or maybe some insights that will be helpful for your communication. Now, let's start with the first tense. And the first common mistake is the overuse of simple present tense in English. So, you see, a lot of people think they get by with just using I work, I live, I play. And they can communicate a lot of things with this, which in English language is not really true. So, you do have to change the tenses. And present tense is used in order to talk about things that apply in general. So, you live in Spain, like David lives in Spain, we have the he, she, it, s issue, he, she, it, s, musmid. And Rebecca lives in Frankfurt, we work as trainers, things like that, what hobbies you have, and things that happen on a regular basis. And that we do repeatedly, again and again. I was just thinking about why, you know, why is it that Germans do that? And I think we said, we talked last time about how cool it is in German, that you can use present simple so much. And this is the point, you know, you can use present simple really well in German, I know, which is great. And then maybe that is you think that's the reason being that a lot of Germans sort of go back to that. And they just think, well, this is easy. Definitely, because they translate very often from what's in their head. And you're absolutely right. Thank you to bringing that up again. Yes, what we do in German is exactly that, we use present tense for future. Ich gehe morgen ins Gym. So people try to translate, I go to the gym tomorrow. But then there's no future tense in English included in the sentence. And another example is Ich arbeite seit Jahren bei dieser Firma. So that's present tense in German language. But that doesn't transport this period of time when you started. Well, we will come back to the right tense in a minute, a little bit later. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And anything you would like to add from your side? No, it's good. We're listening carefully. Well, they say grammar is my main topic. Yeah, we're listening to the grammar queen. We're just like students, we're just paying attention right now. Listening and copy. Okay, so that's the present tense. Then we have the continuous or what we can also call the ing tense, ing, using, ing, doing something at the moment. Yeah, what you're doing at the moment, this is what we need the continuous for. And you see in German language, again, there is an equivalent, but nobody uses am machen sein. This does exist in German language, theoretically, maybe some people use it. But most people don't, and especially in a business context, you wouldn't say, wir sind gerade am telefonieren. But that's really what the English language uses all the time when it wants to translate. Somebody is doing something at the moment. So Rebecca and David are listening now. I believe they say something like that in Cologne, but correct me if I'm wrong. Don't they say this am tun in Cologne? Correct me if I'm wrong. I am tun, yes, yes. Well, it's a regional thing, really. And some of our listeners may now feel like, oh, I'm using that all the time. And that's okay. You see, it's a feature of the language, of the German language, too. Yeah, I just want to say I have a lot of clients who overuse, we just talked about they overuse present simple, but they love ing. I am doing, I am working, I am living, I am, you know, and I'm like, why are you inging everything? And I think this is because they don't use it in German, like the am machen thing. I don't think I've ever used that in my life in German, to be honest. I think now you said it, it makes sense. But I don't think I would ever say that. And so they kind of love ing. I'm like, calm down with the ing. So they tend to like, overuse it. Once they learn it, they kind of overuse it as well. So I think some even really, and what's interesting, I even have really high level students, they're really, really good. But they still mix up. Yeah, they still mix up present simple and the ing form. And it's actually the first thing you do in school. But somehow later on, it kind of gets forgotten. But that is a question. Is it the first thing? That's what I often wonder to myself. Is it the first thing that you do in school in Germany? Because of this, with this, the B form, they've already conjugated the B. And then they just had the verb with the ing. So do they do that, first of all, in the German school system, and then do the present simple? I don't know. Because it would make sense, maybe then, Rebecca, why they overuse that, because they learned it as the first tense, maybe. No, I think they learn, because I could see with my children, they learn the present tense first, and then they continue. But I have an idea where it comes from the confusion. Because if you really look closely at the language in English, there is a lot of ing, but not always as a tense. So read, reading, the reading, substantivierung, so a verb becomes a noun, that's also adding ing. Never thought about that. And the gerund construction, so I'm looking forward to hearing from you, again, is using a lot of ing. So I believe there's a lot of ing usage in English language, but people don't know why. And they try to copy, and they copy, they get it wrong. I think that's an absolutely really good point. It really makes sense, because they just, because often I say, why are you using the ing? And they go, well, I just think it sounds nice, you know. And that's maybe you're right. So they just hear it often, but they're not really thinking about when to use it. That's actually, that makes loads of sense. So as a concrete example, when we want to say where you work, or where you live, it is the present simple, because it doesn't change. It's like a fact. I work, I live. I work, I live, not I'm living, or I'm working. Of course, though, if it is a temporary thing, which is the continuous, this short period of time, maybe now, or this week, or this month, within this word, as a connecting word, then, of course, you can say, yes, I'm living, I'm working on this project, maybe, for example, for this month, or this week. Yeah, that would be maybe a reason. Another thing that I think some people get confused about is when they say, oh, it's happening now, they think it has to be happening absolutely at this second, you know, like at the moment, we are all sitting here talking to each other. And I always have to explain, no, no, it could just be like, temporarily now. So at the moment, I'm reading a great book. I'm not reading it right now, because I'm sitting here talking to you. But in my free time at the moment, I'm reading a good book. But that is a temporary project that will finish at some point. And I think a lot of people don't know, they always think, oh, no, it has to be like exactly at this second. And it's not, right, Birgit? Do you get that as well? Yes, Rebecca. And that was a very good point. When I wrote my Big Five book, and I remember, it is so hard to explain why could it be like a temporary thing? And how can I then say, okay, which one can I use for that? And you said to me, there will be, it will come to an end at some point. So you will have stopped reading that book. So I'm reading it now. But I will not be going on to read it for like 10 years. Yeah, that's how I explain is, can you see the end? So if you say, I read a lot of books, it's your hobby. You can't see an end of that. You can't see that your hobby will at some point end. It's just like, generally, I read a lot of books. But I'm reading a good book at the moment, you know, there is an end to that book. So it's not forever. I watch Netflix, or I'm watching Netflix at the moment, I'm watching a good series at the moment. Generally, I watch Netflix a lot. But at the moment, I'm watching a good series on Netflix. So it's this, but I'm not watching it now, of course, because I'm talking to you. So it's this explaining this. Yeah, there's an end to this point. Yes. And that's excellent. I think that's the way that people, learners can understand. And you see, there's not much literature and written explanations out there that explains it in this way. The little aspects of use of English. Yeah, I agree. I agree. It's all right. They make it look very simple. But actually, when you get into it, it's not as it seems at first glance, I think. Yeah. Okay, I think that's the most aspects said about present continuous, ING. Let's have a look at simple past tense. So a lot of people know they should use past tense, but then if they're not used to talking English, they can't think of the right tense of the irregular verbs. So we remember the three categories, go, went, gone. It's always the second option you need if you talk about the past tense. That's sometimes an issue here. And it's got to be finished, your activity. It needs to be happened. It happened in the past at a point, could be five minutes ago. It could be a year ago when you were little. So we need to be clear about that. Everything that's finished needs to be communicated in the past tense. Yeah, I think also signal words are a good example for this. So when you have like ago or yesterday or last night, then you've got a clear finished time as well. It's a finished time in the past. Yeah. And of course, the issue here is the separation from our next topic is present perfect tense. The most difficult tense for German learners. As I said, we don't have this concept in German language. Ich arbeite seit Jahren für diesen Arbeitgeber. So you can't really, well, we shouldn't say I work for him since. So whenever you use since and for, there should be an alarm going on. You have to use a different tense here. And that's present perfect. I have worked or I have been working. And to make it worse, we have two different types. We have the continuous and we have the simple. And that's where things starting to get complicated. That's a very common mistake people make when they learn. Yeah. So have you got a tip for them, Rebecca? I don't know, but I just I know I spend a lot of my time teaching present perfect. And I sometimes wonder, do we need this? And then, you know, you'll get American people who don't use it. You just don't use present perfect. They just say, I already saw that film where we would say I've already seen, you know, or they just skip it sometimes. And then that's really annoying because then the learner goes, well, my American colleague doesn't use present perfect. They do use present perfect, but I think in certain situations they skip it, which makes it tricky. I just thought from my perspective, I try to say, use simple words for it. So, you know, it's the past and the present coming together. Right. So something started in the past and going up to the present. So I call it past present because we talked about this last time. The present perfect. What the hell does that mean? Right. You know, but if you say past present, it kind of makes sense. And I think here the I hope I mean, I deal in signal words here, Rebecca and Birgit as well. You know, so have you got the for and the sins? Have you got the so far? Have you got the have you ever of all those already? Yeah. Yeah. I think signal words for present perfect are really helpful. They just, it's like logical. So if you've got sins, you need present perfect. If you've got ever, you need present perfect. And that helps, you know, but again, we talked about this last time, this naming, you know, present perfect, you know, for so many people, it's like, what does that even mean? So, you know, trying to explain it in a simpler way and keep it easier to understand. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to add two aspects because it's so confusing also because our past tense in German language is Ich lasse or Ich habe gelesen. So you could think habe gelesen is the same thing, which is not because it depends if you say Ich habe schon gelesen or Ich habe es letzte Woche gelesen. So that would mean two different types of grammar tenses in English. So you really differentiate from a different perspective. But I believe, I mean, I'm very much focused on British English. Present perfect is so much used in the language because so many things happen around us, which are schon gemacht, noch nicht gemacht, gerade eben. And that's all connected to present perfect tense. So that's what I tell my people. When they want to sound better and be professional, there's no way of omitting it. Yeah. There's no way around it. You've got to do it. Yes. Okay. It keeps us busy. I think the confusing thing is for Germans, as in the German language, you have this have or has and then this third form. Yeah. So they just think that's it. It looks like it, right? And and often also at the weekend, they say at the weekend, I've done this. So I don't know. Is it a translation thing that they've at the weekend and then habe gemacht? I think so. So that's a common mistake. Again, just getting them away from translating. So you've got to try and forget about, and I sometimes explain that I use my German and say, look, you know, to explain that it's not the same as your language. Just, you know, I mean, in the past, there was often this discussion about, should you use, if you're an English trainer, should you only use English? Or if you know the other language, should you use it? And in the past, people were like, no, no, you can't do that. A lot of new studies show that if you are able to communicate in the other person's language, pointing things like that out about the contrast in the grammar usage is actually really helpful. There's probably loads of English trainers listening now going, no, that's not right. But I disagree. I'm going to go out there and say right now, I disagree. If you speak that person's language and you have an understanding of their grammar. And that's, again, why big is, you know, insight is really helpful because big is German who speaks great English. So it's like she can describe those things. And like that, you know, you pointed out something today and I thought I've never thought about that. And that's your expertise. And I think that's often when people say, oh, you have to be, you know, you have to only speak English all the time in a training session. And I would disagree with that. So I just wanted to add that in. Yeah, absolutely right. And you see, if you had an American person who doesn't use present perfect, the learners wouldn't learn present perfect maybe. I don't know. I have, I know American trainers and they do teach it, but they're always like, oh my goodness, what is this? Like, why do I have to do this? But they do, sometimes they're forced to teach it, I think. But I don't know. OK, let's move on to the last tense we have on the list. It's the future tense. And there's more than one future tense, but we will look at a world future today only. And we can talk about other tenses in a different episode that's going to be too long. But what I want to or what we want to communicate is please use future tense if you talk about the future in English. Yeah, I will see my mom later. I will go shopping or I'm going to do something later because that's really what the language wants to communicate and it needs this. Is this right, Rebecca? Yeah, I think absolutely. And I think for me, one of the things I've noticed is because when we use will we go I'll, we often put it together. We don't often don't separate I will. We often go I'll, he'll, we'll. And I think sometimes perhaps this is just my guess that Germans don't always hear that. They don't actually hear the all. So they then I say, OK, I'll close the window and they just hear I close the window or the classic one at the moment online. I'll share my screen. OK, I'll share my screen. And they always say I share my screen. And I'm always I would say to them, no, I will. I will. Will is a future. I mean, it's only like a second in the future, but it is still future. And it's like an offer. I'm offering to do something spontaneously. I'm doing you know, I'll do it right now. And I think maybe that's an issue bigger. They just don't hear the all. Definitely, definitely. And I always point that out, even with the present perfect and other shortenings. People don't hear that. They don't. It's as you said, yeah, I share my screen. So you have to listen really carefully. And and it's yeah, I can't hear a hundred percent. Yeah, it's just that all. Yeah. But the thing is, if it's missing you here, I notice that a native speaker would notice it. But yeah, it's just a small thing. But yeah, that was what I wanted to add about Will. I mean, I think the thing with the I'll open the window or I'll close the window. Obviously, it's this kind of spontaneous decision. There's also a use of the will when you want to promise something. And again, that's something where we often don't hear that as natives from German speakers, because I don't know if it's not known, but this idea of promising something. So I'll send you the mail later or I'll get back to you soon. It's this kind of promising. I mean, you can use the word promise if you want, but you don't have to. But often you should use or you should use the will form afterwards. And that's another occasion, I think, Rebecca, where you don't often hear the will, you just hear the present simple. So coming back to the overuse of the present simple, even though it's a future. Yeah, again, exactly. It fits in with this present going back to overusing present. This is one of the situations where people overuse present. They're just missing the all. Yes. And they translate from their thought. I send it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we don't need that. Okay, wonderful. That was hopefully very helpful and interesting for the listeners. And now the last bullet point on our list today is questions, forming questions. And Dave will say something about that, because sometimes people make mistakes. They ask a question like in German. Gehen wir gleich? Go we? Go we later? So that doesn't work in English very often. Yeah, I have to say, I think forming questions for so many people is really, I don't know. And I spend a lot of time on it. But people, I don't know, forming questions creates a lot of difficulty for people. So I think Dave's got a nice little system that he uses, right? Well, I hope so. I mean, you're right. It's something that maybe, again, like with the past tense, which I talked about it earlier, maybe it's just the stress of the moment that they can't quickly think of the question word. And so they just miss it out, which is okay. But that's basically what I try to use is this sort of five-finger rule, whereby the thumb, so the thumb, the first finger, if you like, the thumb is the what normally. So the question word, what, when, where, why, all this. And then the first finger is the auxiliary verb or the helping verb. So it's whatever the tense is, it changes. So of course, if it's the present continuous, it's the is or are, if it's the, you know what I mean. Then you have the middle finger, which I shouldn't show you, of course, is the person. And then you have the main verb. And then you have, and that is where I always say the signal words at the end, try to remember the signal words according to the actual tense. And that maybe helps you to remember. I've got a little drawing on this. I'll put this in the show notes later. So you can have a look at it. It was drawn by my son. So I hope you'll appreciate that. Yes, thank you, Dave. That's brilliant. Okay. So that were quite a few common mistakes German speakers make. And that was our intention to point to a few of them and talk about them. Hopefully you enjoyed that. So next time we're going to talk about how to find opportunities to speak, really, because this is interesting. Where can you find a sparrings partner opportunities and get more confidence in your speaking practice? Hopefully, you'll be listening again. Bye for now. Thanks for listening now. Bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions, or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website, 3englishexperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.