I don't know about you, but i've never liked the advice don't worry about your grammar mistakes, just speak.
Because in my second language i do worry about my grammar.
Of course i don't want to make mistakes, but that statement don't worry about your mistakes, just speak there's some truth to it and that creates tension, Because focusing on communication being understood is important.
In fact, when we talk about fluency, fluency means the ability to communicate your ideas smoothly and effortlessly, without excessive pauses or too much hesitation.
It's focused on the real time communication that we have, not on being perfect or error free, but Accuracy matters too.
If there are too many grammar errors that can cause miscommunication and persistent mistakes, they get noticed.
So again, there's a lot of tension here.
If you worry too much about your mistakes, you're going to disrupt your fluency.
But if you only focus on communication, you may be making some persistent mistakes that undermine your smooth and natural sound.
So today we're going to focus one common grammar mistake.
I hear often mixing up word forms.
Now here's what I mean.
Imagine you hear someone say she's a very competition person instead of saying she's a very competitive person.
Or I want to improve my confident instead of I want to improve my confidence.
And here's one more.
I hear a lot I want to speak fluency instead of fluently.
Now all of these sentences are understandable, but the mistake is noticeable.
So let's fix it.
To get started, I want to be very clear about something first.
This issue that we're talking about is not a vocabulary problem.
The mistakes I just showed you of using competition rather than competitive, or confident instead of confidence.
These are not unfamiliar words.
My guess is you already know them and understand them perfectly.
The challenge is that most English words have different forms for different jobs in a sentence.
For example, we might have the word compete, which can become competition, competitive or competitor.
And a word like to succeed can become success or successful.
And when we're speaking in real time, our brains grab the form of the word that it knows best, not necessarily the form of the word that we need for the sentence.
And that's why we might hear someone say confident, when what they really need is confidence or competition when again, what they need is competitive.
And this pattern shows up time and time again.
So if you're making these mistakes regularly, they're worth fixing, not because people won't understand you if you don't, but because you're here working towards smooth, more accurate English communication.
And the good news is there's a pattern to these word forms.
Once you learn it, you can smooth out the rough edges and prevent future mistakes.
Now that pattern it's in the word endings, what we call suffixes.
Now super quick, if you need a reminder.
A suffix is an ending added to a word that changes what job that word does in a sentence.
Now, English has a lot of suffixes, but the forms I hear my students mix up the most often tend to be nouns and adjectives.
So that's what we're going to focus on today.
To introduce you to the patterns you need to know for today.
Here's something I want you to think about.
Imagine that the base form of a word is a little bit like a power tool.
And the suffixes are like the attachments.
I know this sounds kind of strange, but I'm super visual, so I love stuff like this.
But let me explain what I mean with an example.
Let's say you have the base word to compete.
It's your power tool.
You add on the suffix shun.
It becomes a noun, competition.
Or you snap on the suffix tiv and it becomes competitive, an adjective that you would use in a sentence.
And by giving it that suffix, you're giving it a new job.
In the end, you have the same tool, the same base word with different attachments, different suffixes, which all lead to different jobs.
So with this in mind, the pattern that you need to recognize is this.
Some endings signal a noun.
Other endings signal adjectives.
And once you know which is which, you'll know which form you need.
So let's take a look at some noun suffixes first.
When you're naming a thing, a person, a quality, an action or a result, you use the noun form.
I want you to listen carefully to the words that i'm going to share in a moment and really pay attention to how they end.
We'll start with competition and decision.
We've got that shun at the end and that suffix signals a noun.
Think for a moment about any other words that you might know that end with shun, like production, creation.
Anytime we have that word ending, we have a noun.
And now here's the next one improvement, development.
Here we have meant at the end, And once again this signals a noun.
So when we need the noun form in a sentence, you'll hear it like this.
She has made a huge improvement in her math score.
Now, in a moment, I'm going to give you some clues or hints to help you know when you need a noun versus an adjective.
But before we get there, let's look at a few more endings that we need to be aware of.
The next one for a noun is nis, happiness, awareness.
And then there's itty, flexibility, possibility.
Again, think about that suffix for a moment.
Do you know any other words that end with that sound?
What about creativity?
Then there's ENTS, as in confidence and importance.
This can be spelled with either an ENCE or ANCE.
In both cases, that suffix indicates a noun.
And lastly, we have ER as in competitor or teacher.
This can be spelled with either an OR or an ER.
And in this case, when we use that suffix, we're naming the person doing the action.
Again, each of these suffixes.
Each of these endings is a signal that you're naming a thing, a person, a quality or a result.
Now, as I said, in a moment, I'm going to give you some quick clues that'll make it very easy to know when you need a noun versus an adjective in a sentence.
But first, I want to show you what those adjective suffixes are.
And to start, let's make sure we're clear on what an adjective does.
We use this when you're describing what something is like or what someone is like.
So listen carefully to these words.
Competitive, decisive, creative.
That if ending signals an adjective.
Again, a word that we need to describe something or someone.
A creative adjective. process, a competitive person.
Then we have full, as in the words successful, careful, helpful.
Next up is us with OUS, as in dangerous, famous.
And we have three more, The first one is all as in practical, musical, national.
Then we have flexible and adaptable.
Here we have a bowl spelled with an A or a bowl spelled with an I.
In each case, it signals an adjective.
And finally, we have the suffix unt with ENT or ANT as in confident, important.
When we have words ending in any of those suffixes, it's a signal that you're describing what someone or something is like.
Now, before we get into those clues that help you know when to use a noun versus an adjective, I want to show you how this works with a few complete word families.
And we'll start with the base word we've already talked about a little bit, compete.
When we have competition, we've got that shun at the end, which means we have our noun, our thing.
For example, there's a lot of competition in this industry.
Then, with the word competitive, we have the IV sound indicating an adjective form that we're describing someone or something.
For example, she's a very competitive person.
And then finally we have competitor ending in OR for the person doing it.
For example, she's my main competitor in the event next week.
I want to take a look at one more word family to really get comfortable with these patterns.
And here we'll use the word decide.
That's our base word.
Now we can have the word decision.
Again, adding on that shun for the noun, the thing.
For example, that was a really tough decision.
Or we can snap on a different suffix, if, for decisive.
Once we've done that, we've turned it into an adjective.
For example, we need a decisive leader.
Now, if you want to see more examples of word families like this and really solidify this pattern, I've included several more of them in the written lesson on my website over at SpeakConfidentEnglishcom, and here's why i encourage you to take a moment to review them.
The more examples you see, the faster you'll start to recognize these patterns on your own.
You'll start to hear shun or if and know immediately which form you're dealing with.
So if you want that extra practice, head over to the blog post and i'll leave a link in the description below.
Now, what i love about learning patterns like this is well, number one it's much easier than memorizing a ton of word families.
But more importantly, you start to recognize them quickly.
You'll recognize them when you hear and read them.
And more importantly, you can start to choose the right form when you're speaking.
So now that you know those suffix patterns, here's a question you can use to help you choose the right word form every time.
Am I naming something or am I describing?
And that's it.
Just one question.
If you are naming something in your sentence the thing, the person, the quality you need the noun form.
And that means you need the words you know that end with shun, meant, ness, itty, and so on.
And then if you're describing something or someone, what it's like or what they're like, you need the adjective form.
So here you're going to use the words you know that end with if, full, a bowl, and so on.
I want to show you exactly how this works.
So we're going to look at a sentence with a mistake.
Ask this question to use it to identify which word form we need.
So here's example number one.
I want to improve my confident.
I shared this one earlier because it's one that I hear a lot from my students and I read often in emails that I receive.
So let's use that one question.
Ask yourself in this sentence, are we naming something?
Or are we describing something?
And if you're not sure, here's another way to think about it.
After the word my, are you naming the thing that you want to improve?
Or are you describing something?
If you said naming, you're exactly right.
You're talking about the quality that you want to improve.
And that means we need the noun form.
So if we go back to our noun suffixes, We have uns for the word confidence, and this gives us the correct sentence.
I want to improve my confidence.
The pattern to remember here is that most of the time, after a word like my, you're almost always naming something that you have or want.
So you need a noun.
Now let's look at this in another example to really see how this question helps decide between a noun form and an adjective form.
This time we're going to use the sentence, she's a very competition person.
Again, let's think about is this naming something, describing something or someone?
In this one we are definitely describing someone and that means we need the adjective form.
So again, if we go back to our list and we focus on the adjective endings, we know that with the word compete, we can add if for competitive And once again this gives us the correct word form to use.
She's a very competitive person.
Now here's another clue that you can often use.
After the word very, You're almost always describing, so you need an adjective.
In fact, having the word very followed by an adjective is one of the most common patterns in English.
And again, by learning these patterns we can avoid memorizing super long lists and just focus on recognizing those patterns and making quick decisions in the moment.
Now the one thing that will make this quick and easy in the moment of speaking is repeated learning and practice.
So again, if you want more practice applying this question to other examples, i've included several more in the written lesson over at my website.
Again, you can find that at speakconfidentenglishcom.
Going through more examples like this will help you recognize these patterns faster and start making the right choice more automatically.
So after you finish here, make sure you go check out that lesson to get extra practice.
Okay, you just saw how asking that simple question am I naming or describing can help us fix these common grammar mistakes or prevent them from happening in the first place.
But can we make this even easier?
Absolutely.
Again, the more you practice with examples, you'll start to notice other patterns that make it easier and faster for you to decide in the moment of speaking.
In fact, I've already mentioned two.
We briefly talked about words that follow my.
Most often we're going to use a noun.
And then words that come after very are usually an adjective.
So here are a few more clues that you can use.
First we'll focus on a few patterns that need words in the noun form, for example, words that follow my, the uh, for example my confidence, the competition, a decision.
Also words that follow the word more, as in more flexibility, more success.
And words that follow verbs like improve develop, build.
For example, improve fluency, develop or build confidence.
And then here are some patterns that require the adjective form.
Words that follow vary or so, like very competitive or so flexible.
Also words that come before a word like person, leader or speaker.
For example, a decisive leader, a confident speaker.
Similarly, words that come before words like skills, advice, or solution are adjectives.
For example, analytical skills. and practical advice.
Learning patterns like this is the first step.
It creates that awareness.
And then you're going to start to hear them and see them building up that awareness and recognition.
The more that you recognize these patterns, the easier it'll be to know which form you need in a sentence, without even asking the question that we talked about.
And, of course, the more that you practice this with intent, with focus, the more automatic this becomes.
Now, when I say that word practice, I don't mean just watching videos or listening to podcasts like this one.
Those help you understand English, but they don't help you build speaking fluency.
If speaking fluently and with confidence is your goal, then the number one way to get there is through speaking practice using the English that you learn out loud in real conversations.
In fact, recently I shared a full lesson about why you can understand English, but you may feel like you can't speak it fluently even after years of trying.
And one of the biggest reasons is believing that you just need to study more or learn more before you can speak.
But here's the truth.
Speaking is studying.
It's the most effective kind.
Every time you speak, you're training your brain to find what you've learned and use the language that you've learned the moment.
That is something that no vocabulary list or video can help you do.
So if you're ready to stop only learning English and start using it, I'd love to invite you into the confident women community.
The CWC is a women-only space where you practice English regularly through monthly topics, study guides, live workshops and conversation sessions with women from around the world.
This isn't about textbook English.
You talk about topics that actually matter in real life.
Things like setting boundaries, navigating work challenges, expressing how you feel, talking about your goals relationships travel, all of it.
And you'll always know what to practice next, because every month you get a clear study guide with vocabulary grammar, pronunciation and speaking tasks that are tied or focused to that month's topic.
As a result, you learn and build up new vocabulary and then use it immediately in real speaking.
It's a calm, supportive space where mistakes are normal and you can practice without pressure.
So if that sounds like something that you're looking for, you can learn more and join us over at Speak Confident English slash community.
I'll leave a link in the description below.
Now, throughout this lesson, I've touched on the importance of getting extra practice so that you build up the awareness, the recognition and the ability to use what you're learning.
So I want to go a little bit deeper here to help you know exactly how to do that.
And I want to begin with something very important.
Don't wait until an important meeting or conversation to use this knowledge.
By then it will be too late and most likely you'll freeze up trying to remember what you learned, which may lead to overthinking and losing your fluency.
Instead, I want you to practice now, before you really need it, so that it becomes automatic, so that you can use it when you need to.
So here are three ways to do that.
Practice strategy number one is creating that daily awareness.
For the next week.
Just pay attention to the word forms that you see in everything that you read, that you hear in podcasts and conversations.
When you see or hear a word with one of these suffixes, pause and ask yourself was that a noun or an adjective?
And if you recognize that it's a noun, then take a moment and ask yourself what would the adjective be?
Now you don't have to do this with every single noun or adjective that you hear or see.
That would maybe take your entire day.
But if you do this intentionally a few times throughout the day, just take a moment to think.
This is going to help build up that pattern recognition without a lot of pressure.
You're not performing.
You're just noticing.
And that brings us to strategy two, sentence transformation.
After you begin to build up that recognition, take a few moments, maybe five or 10 minutes, before an important speaking event like a meeting or presentation or job interview, and practice transforming sentences using these patterns.
For example, you might have a sentence like I am confident that I'm the right person for this job and then transform it into a different sentence.
For example, I have confidence in my ability to meet the demands of this position.
Or you might start with our team is flexible and then change it to our team has flexibility.
A practice like this drills the naming versus describing distinction so that it's there when you need it in the moment.
It's already automatic.
And then practice.
Strategy number three is to record and review.
Start speaking, start using these patterns out loud.
If you've watched any of my other videos, you probably already know that one of my favorite ways to get speaking practice is to record yourself speaking.
Do it for just a couple of minutes about your work or a topic that you care about, and then listen back to it.
And when you're working on this particular issue, listen for those noun versus adjective distinctions.
Listen to see if there are any mistakes and if there were, go back record again and fix them.
The goal of this strategic practice is that by the time you're in an important speaking situation, you've developed this automatic skill.
You won't need to think carefully about suffixes.
You'll just naturally choose the one that you need.
You'll choose the right word.
So, now that you've got a solution to prevent or avoid this common mistake while speaking, I want you to remember this.
At the beginning, I highlighted that yes, communication is a priority.
Being understood is important.
But when a mistake is persistent and noticeable, it's worth fixing.
The aim is not to be perfect. but to communicate more smoothly and more confidently.
And don't forget, if you want more practice with this, head over to the full lesson over at my speakconfidentenglishcom website.
I've included additional word families and examples that you can practice with.
As always, if you found this lesson helpful, don't forget to subscribe or follow, wherever you're watching or listening from today.
Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you next time.
