[Music] welcome to this another session on common errors in english we saw how some words behave very differently in connected speech in a sentence you know apparently either they do not become singular or plural so they cannot be used with either a n or s-e-s or we saw some verbs which have no past tense no present tense they have the same form or there are some verbs we saw in our earlier session which which you know do not have a progressive form that is the ing form you cannot say i am feeling comfortable that's you know ungrammatical in english you cannot say she is looking good or she is looking angry you know that's not dramatically good sentence you should say she looks angry or she looked angry or she looked tired or she looked pretty okay so the idea is there are some words which apparently may look like any other word but when you use them in a sentence they behave differently and if we do not keep their different behavior in mind we might make mistakes for us students of english language who have not been born talking english you know sometimes these errors happen due to over generalization you know we say eating so we can so we say why can't we say seeming or looking or feeling or appearing or etc okay that is why they are called common errors many learners of english many users of english make that kind of mistakes but it is easy to overcome them once you understand once you try to understand once you invest a little time and energy in learning today we will look at some sentence types which are frequently heard or seen read in the writing of in the speech of many of us it's learners who have not been born talking this language okay these sessions are not exhaustive but these sessions are indicative you know we are trying to say these areas are also there to be learnt but we cannot do everything in the classroom so we are giving you some indication in the hope that you will find time and you will be inclined to do more of these kinds and become the perfect user of the language including english which is what you ought to be which is what you have set out to be okay so let's wish ourselves good luck and go to the next screen look at some of these sentences frequently heard in the right in in the speech of an educated speakers you know even well-educated speakers say for instance some boys of rajendra hostel is making all the noise look at the next the third the fourth the fifth ok next what do you notice you notice that all sentences above are ungrammatical why are they ungrammatical what have they not done right this is what they have not done right you know the subject there does not agree with the verbs in terms of numbers which is a crucial rule of the english language grammar you know as i have been telling you english grammar doesn't have too many rules it has the rule of word order it has the rule of subject verb agreement in terms of number in terms of tense verb agreement in terms of tense that's about all these two or three rules other things are matters of usage which we should learn to use okay but this subject verb agreement is a very holy rule like you cannot enter a hindu temple with your shoes on you know like you cannot do certain kinds of things in certain places similarly you cannot make this mistake and expect to be taken seriously as a serious user of this language okay so what is wrong why are these sentences wrong go next many of you already know the answer why these sentences are wrong those of us who know the answer please rewrite these sentences removing all the errors this is the best way to learn nothing teaches you anything better than doing it yourself you may have you may make a few mistakes in the beginning you may feel bored tired you know disappointed but then please believe me please believe me the more you try on your own the more the greater your effort the better the longer the faster the learning it will stay longer with you it will become more perfect if there can be more perfect okay so that is why i say look at these sentences try and check where they have an error remove those errors and rewrite them and then check either with us or with a dictionary or with a book of usage and if you are right pat yourself on the back if you are not do them again okay there is no shame there is no harm okay let's go here we have done for you done them for you so for example look at the first sentence some boys of rajendra hostel it cannot be is because the word immediately before hostile is a singular so the speaker here has been misled by the word immediately before the verb so this is right some boys of rajendra are hostile are though hostile is singular but the verb does not have to agree with the word immediately before it the word has to agree with the head of the noun phrase what is the noun phrase some boys of rajendra hostel what is the head of the noun boys sum is the adjective of rajendra hostel is another phrase which modifies boys what is the number of boys it's plural number more than one boy two boys 20 boys 200 boys in rajendra hostel which may be apparently boys hostel they're making all the noise you know boys are rather noisy lot very happy easily very noisy easily and very hard working also equally easily you know right so here you have are making next sentence but in the next sentence the head of the noun phrase which is the subject is a singular noun only one of the six schedule trains so the word immediately before is that is the verb is trains it is not influenced by the word immediately before it is influenced by what verb what number the verb will be in is determined by the head of the noun the number of the head of the noun what is the head of the noun here one of the sixth trains what is one it is singular trains it is plural so we do not go according to trains we do we go according to one one is singular therefore the verb here should be is number c what will be the answer recording according you know in your opinion only one of the requested items where no not where because you are not talking about all the requested items you are talking about only one of the requested items which is singular a single you know therefore was only one of the requested you know company has asked you for your feedback and you are telling them dear company you are a great company i got all items on time except one so only one of the requested items was delivered late in the next sentence also like that the entire team with all its star players has gone because team is singular players may be plural we ordered six copies of this book but it should not be it is yet to arrive it will mean what book you have not asked for the book you have asked for six copies of the book so the copies have not yet arrived it is they are yet to be delivered so what is the plural of it they purna's collection of old folk songs you know the head is collection poorness is like d like a like an a determiner whose collection punas of what of old folk songs so that is why collection is the head okay is collection singular or plural collection is of course singular because it is singular it will take is is likely to be published soon next in all of the sentences above verb does not agree with the number of the subject here verb is influenced by the noun nearby many people make that mistake they are over influenced by the noun immediately before the word not necessarily you know find the head of the noun then you will avoid making wrong assignment of the number to the verb and you will not make that mistake which is commonly made i have given you the analysis already next next okay how do you know what is the head are there any rules well there is something called intuition you know there is something called intuition nobody tells you he is the king she is the king or that person is this person this person is that person but using our intelligence we reach those conclusions okay in some cases they put on a uniform an identity marker in armed forces they put a stars so you know three stars is a captain two stars in the lieutenant okay three stars plus something is a general or some such thing you know a major has only you know the lion's head here on the soul in in many other companies also people do that you know they decide the color of the uniform assistants in white but executives in light blue you know there are all kinds of things in real life there is no uniform in real life there are no name plates in real life there is intelligence intuition so you know about whom we are speaking we know there however are some rules we know something about the phrase phrase structure now so you know in all phrases regardless of how many motiva modifiers there are it is always the head to which the verb agrees in number so what is the head okay in in in a noun phrase like the geography master is what is the head the geography or master the boys of the first a section the voice of the first class a section who is the head the boys the first class the a okay like that you know go on the rule is pretty simple you know generally you see in languages languages are not like mathematics languages are not totally logical in that case computers would speak like you and me there is a logic of a different level you know which is more than mathematical you know there is intuition also in it so generally speaking you know eighty percent of the phenomena in language is rule governed some people say 85 90 percent of the phenomena in language may be rule governed okay so one of these rules is a noun plus no in a noun plus noun combination you know such as you know you have nouns like history teacher what is the head of the noun history or teacher state department home minister housewife you know some standard pronunciation may be hajif cinema hall okay booking counter right policeman unlike district magistrate what is the head ok what is the rule is there any rule the rule is pretty simple the rule says in a combination of this kind the usually it is the second noun which is the head even when you have three nouns look up dictionary you see it is best to do some work on your own discover to find to learn and then you know enjoy it that learning will stay with you for rest of the life but the general rule is that in a noun plus noun combination in a noun phrase such a noun is the head of the of the that clause or that phrase that you know of the following verb then in a noun plus noun combination it is the second noun so in history teacher is the teacher in the state department is the department in home minister is the minister in hershey for housewife it is the wife you know quite originally about 400 years ago 500 years ago in english meant a woman so housewife is a woman who does not have to go out for a living you know her family provides for her okay other women have to go out so that's an economic compulsion so england those days england in the chaucer's time made this distinction that here is a housewife as if okay she does not have to go out for a living okay and here are others who have to this usage has survived cinema hall what is more important cinema or hall so the principle is in a noun plus noun combination ordinarily it's the second noun which is the head okay but when you have a noun phrase of this kind inspected of police roses from bangalore okay the sea at in chennai right the mango jelly from vijayawada okay chief minister of andhra pradesh if that is the case what do you do in that case it is simple you know in a combination of this kind earlier noun plus noun go for second noun you know in a combination of this kind joined with two nouns joined with prepositional phrase then quite often it is the first noun not the second which is the head sound of that was exiled okay sons of pandu were exiled son of da sratha was exiled sons of pandu were exiled do not influence the number of the verb it is the word before them son of das similar so you know was but sun sub pandu plural so where that's usual then we come back but in a noun phrase connected with a preposition i said that you can create more long phrases look at any book look at the noun phrases see the data remove in between words and tomorrow ask yourself where who is the head and you this will make for good learning next so all the sentence is given in two above you know i have told you find the head of the noun next okay here is the answer you can compare underline words are you know in other words in a noun plus noun combination is the second noun which is the head okay come back in a noun plus noun but with free with with preposition in between it is usually the noun before the preposition okay it is usually the noun before the preposition which will be the head so the voice of the first a section so which is the first word before of boys actually it's not the first word you know it will be the noun the first noun of the phrase before the preposition so the first of the word the noise that they make here you know the noise is followed by clause that they make sitting on their benches and swinging their like such a long clause yet gets follows noise not benches not legs but noise which is singular sorry yeah knowledge which is singular no one except rajam and money was there but no one was there rajam and money come as second thoughts okay they may be plural plural but no one is the subject of the rest of the sentence and therefore the word must follow the clause of the subject the number on the subject trucks full of water are now brought to cities from the villages okay so trucks full of water down before the preposition turned out not to see it is from religion pretty simple i think you should have no difficulty next but you know the idea is look at more and more similarly here you know randomly a paragraph look at the paragraph there are some blank spaces which require similar number which require a word in the present tense see if they take singular or plural if you do them all correct that means you've got the language you know you can further learn it of course you know there is no limit to learning but you've got the basics all right you know so all blank spaces need to be filled in by a by a word in you know right or wrong you know one with either similar or plural form going according to noun word which you may use in either tense is given there so for example you know look at the question swami nathan you know every night after the mail with his head on his granny's lap nestling close to her things swami nathan now you know in the present tense what can it be feel or feels that is what you have to feel not felt not not past tense i know you know your english but you know here the challenge deliberate challenges put a little of your own okay so here you know the sentence will be swami nathan feels very snug and safe in the faint atmosphere of cardamom and cloves oh granny he cries ecstatically you didn't know what a great fellow azam is it is granny no but because the singular has already been used so you cannot say does granny knows then you will use the neutral form of the word the neutral form of the word is no does granny know prasam has a real police stress says nothing is it is it what does he want to put his dress for as granny his father is the police superintendent now you compare your work with the one given here for the right that's wonderful if you haven't please take another passage do them again until end again until such a time as you got it in your crib nothing gives you the confidence nothing gives you greater power greater faith in yourself than a job well done then a piece of knowledge you may have acquired that particular day then you will find that you have all the power of youth all the power of wisdom and you are not only able to do well yourself you also help you become a help to your family to your friends and help them and help us next thank you have a good day