Glizdka
Key Member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2019
- Member Type
- Other
- Native Language
- Polish
- Home Country
- Poland
- Current Location
- Poland
I'd like to bring up two examples here.
(1) "Relax, your doing fine."
(2) "If you would've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it."
Both of these mistakes are very common. I've heard and seen native speakers making them on a regular basis.
Number one is just a spelling mistake coming from the same pronunciation of your and you're (not sure whether it's true for all accents). I understand that the contraction you're is required because of how English grammar works. In the end, we're saying "you are doing" → "you're doing", but a huge portion of native speakers seems to not care about it. When speaking, they're saying /jɔː(r)/; when writing, they're just transcribing it. After all, writing is just a way of transcribing what is uttered. It's very common to "read 'out loud', but in your head". As a matter of fact, unlearning it is one of the first things you need to do when you want to learn speed reading. So when you see "Relax, your doing fine.", you read it "Relax, /jɔː(r)/ doing fine.", which makes perfect sense just as it does when it's uttered.
What's your attitude towards keeping both you're and your, or replacing both of them by just one, same word?
Number two is a full on grammar mistake. I understand it is important to distinguish between the condition clause, and the consequence clause, so the grammar in these clauses needs to differ. However, the conjunction 'if' already does this job, and the zero conditional (e.g. "people die if you cut off their heads") proves that just 'if' is enough to indicate which clause is which.
How much of a mistake for you is using "would've past participle" in both clauses? How much more difficult is it to understand such a sentence?
Ultimately, what do you think about the cases when the theory does not match with what can be observed? Is it grammar rules that should be revised because of how frequently they're broken in common speech, or is it those people, who should revise how they speak to follow the rules?
(1) "Relax, your doing fine."
(2) "If you would've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it."
Both of these mistakes are very common. I've heard and seen native speakers making them on a regular basis.
Number one is just a spelling mistake coming from the same pronunciation of your and you're (not sure whether it's true for all accents). I understand that the contraction you're is required because of how English grammar works. In the end, we're saying "you are doing" → "you're doing", but a huge portion of native speakers seems to not care about it. When speaking, they're saying /jɔː(r)/; when writing, they're just transcribing it. After all, writing is just a way of transcribing what is uttered. It's very common to "read 'out loud', but in your head". As a matter of fact, unlearning it is one of the first things you need to do when you want to learn speed reading. So when you see "Relax, your doing fine.", you read it "Relax, /jɔː(r)/ doing fine.", which makes perfect sense just as it does when it's uttered.
What's your attitude towards keeping both you're and your, or replacing both of them by just one, same word?
Number two is a full on grammar mistake. I understand it is important to distinguish between the condition clause, and the consequence clause, so the grammar in these clauses needs to differ. However, the conjunction 'if' already does this job, and the zero conditional (e.g. "people die if you cut off their heads") proves that just 'if' is enough to indicate which clause is which.
How much of a mistake for you is using "would've past participle" in both clauses? How much more difficult is it to understand such a sentence?
Ultimately, what do you think about the cases when the theory does not match with what can be observed? Is it grammar rules that should be revised because of how frequently they're broken in common speech, or is it those people, who should revise how they speak to follow the rules?
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