Full video

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Haley has less girlfriends than Harry

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inside it's true Charlie has less

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girlfriends and Harry well that's an

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obvious one isn't it any mistakes there

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no let's put London to the test with a

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grammar test let's go

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[Music]

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I'm going to show you their sentence and

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it may have a ground mistake it may not

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I'd like you to correct the sentence if

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you think there is a mistake okay you

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should have been that okay correct

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aim of this is making look really stupid

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as no

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thank you very much you should have been

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there read out loud

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you should have been there okay can you

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go ahead and correct it if it needs

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correcting all right thank you very much

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so they all got this right but this is

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actually a really really common

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orthographical error amongst native

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speakers in english but why do native

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speakers commit this error the reason is

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because the pronunciation of the

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contracted form of the auxiliary verb

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have is pronounced exactly the same as

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the word of in connected speech for

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example instead of going out last night

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you should have stayed in instead of

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going out last night you should have

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stayed in so in connected speech that of

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changes to and likewise we'd be

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contracted version of the obvious but

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have that changes from using the schwa

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again so then when we go to write words

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like should have would have and cut off

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sometimes native speakers get confused

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and they write qu dot would of qu don't

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it's clear that as that bra can't change

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its stripes it's clear that can't change

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its stripes is there a mistake in this

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one

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yes go ahead do okay

3:04

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description box and you can head over to

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our website for further details back to

3:52

the video so first off it's clear that a

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zebra counts correction to be made yes

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[Music]

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I think that's correct now you might be

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thinking this is quite easy sentence to

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correct but actually there are lots of

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native speakers it's quite difficult and

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you might have noticed that some of our

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participants in this video did actually

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find it quite tricky when it came to

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this second if so we put this in to try

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to confuse people because often people

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incorrectly put an apostrophe before the

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S thinking that the possessive adjective

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requires an apostrophe but of course it

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doesn't now why do they think this it's

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because when it comes to singular nouns

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and we're talking about possession we

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need to use an apostrophe

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for example this is Charlie's whiteboard

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the girl's bike the president's suit and

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then what people do is they incorrectly

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apply this possessive apostrophe to the

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third-person non gender-specific

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possessive adjectives like this the

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zebra hated its stripes but of course it

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should be it's without the apostrophe

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the same thing occurs as well we lose

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people often put the apostrophe before

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the S incorrectly it should be who's

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like this has less girlfriends in Harry

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it's true Charlie has less girlfriends

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and Harry well that's an obvious one

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isn't there Charlie has a less

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girlfriends

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no go ahead

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[Laughter]

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[Applause]

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[Laughter]

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no mistakes

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no mistakes I initially spoke Charlie a

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different way yeah or you could say not

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as many as you're assuming her Harry has

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any girlfriends good question does he

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does good okay no not possibly there we

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go

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it should be fewer girlfriends

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don't okay and I think the apostrophes

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wrong so isn't it yes it possibly should

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be their crew and that should be fewer

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it's like the same Swiss pew isn't there

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five items or less

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they've changed it now to five items or

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fewer there we have it Sainsbury's even

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make the mistake as too many natives the

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correction should be fewer and it's

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because girlfriends is accountable

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Charlie has fewer girlfriends than Harry

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and the monogamous of the two and of

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course we had an apostrophe over here

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that needs to be removed because it's

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just the blue girlfriend and of course

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we do not need an apostrophe for plurals

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now Louie we're not men involved that's

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all for today but thanks for watching

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and we hope you have found this both

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useful and entertaining if you're a

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native English speaker please comment

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below if you make any of these mistakes

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and if you're an English Learner we hope

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this video reassures you that it's okay

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to make mistakes if native speakers do

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it why shouldn't you please give us a

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thumbs up if you want to see part two of

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this grammar test and see you again soon

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for another video

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you