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另一方面 (Cantonese: ling6 jat1 fong1 min6; Mandarin: Lìng yī fāngmiàn) directly translates to “On the other hand”. But be careful when saying “On the other hand” in English because the meaning is very different! In Chinese, 另一方面 means “Additionally” or “Not only that, (but) …”. You use it to add another point to support your earlier comment(s) or …
“Would like” is a polite way of saying “want” (either in a question or in a statement). I’ve noticed that some Hong Kong Chinese people misunderstand the meaning of “would like”. They think “would like” means “used to like” because they know that “would” can mean the past tense of ‘will’. However, “would” means “used …
I sometimes hear people say hobbit when they mean habit. The mistake is more common with those who score below band 6. Habits are behaviours or actions that you do automatically from doing them repeatedly. I usually sleep late due to my bad habit of playing on my mobile phone at night. I’m trying to …
Many Hong Kong people say ‘borrow’ when they mean ‘lend’. Wrong: I often borrow money to my friend because she always pays me back quickly. Right: I often lend money to my friend because she always pays me back quickly. Borrow means take temporarily. Lend means give temporarily. Why is this mistake so common? Because, …
Very often, I hear HK Chinese IELTS candidates say “There have”. For example: “There have a supermarket below my place”. The correct way is “There is a supermarket below my place”. In spoken English, this often shortened to “There’s a supermarket below my place”. I guess the reason for the error is that in Chinese, …
Students often use the wrong grammar when asking direct “how” questions: WRONG RIGHT PRONUNCIATION Use the weak (schwa) sound Ə for “do you” and “it” How to pronounce? How do you pronounce it? HOW dƏ yƏ prƏNOUNCE Ət? click to listen How to say? How do you say it? HOW dƏ yƏ SAY Ət? click …
A common grammar mistake made by students is to say things like: Sorry I couldn’t answer your phone call. I was doing acupuncture. (針灸) Assuming that the doctor was performing the procedure, you could say: Sorry I couldn’t answer your phone call. I was having acupuncture done. The second way means that the doctor was performing acupuncture on …
If you like to eat the meat from dogs, then you like dog. If you like to play with/take care of/pat them, then you like dogs. This is the same for other animals which are countable (have a plural form), such as cats, rabbits, chickens, lambs (baby sheep), etc. For example: Whale isn’t sold in most countries because whales are an …
A simple but common error is to use a number and the plural form of a noun to form a compound adjective: We took a two weeks holiday. ✗ Let’s take a ten minutes break. ✗ I found a fifty dollars note. ✗ These must use the singular forms of the nouns (week, minute, dollar): We took a two-week holiday. ✓ Let’s take a ten-minute break. ✓ I found a fifty-dollar note. ✓ Note: hyphens (-) are needed.
IELTS高分祕笈: 9個常見的簡單詞彙錯誤 (中英文字幕) Published 22nd July, 2018 [fvplayer src=”https://ieltsbucket-seoul.s3.amazonaws.com/free/2018-6-10_common_vocabulary_errors/9_common_vocab_errors_subtitled-240p.mp4″ splash=”https://www.hkieltsteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/9_common_vocab_errors_chinesesubtitles_not_buttoned_APhoto_q70p_irfan_q85p_compressed_by_tinypng.com_.jpg” qsel=”true”] Video defaults to ‘mobile’ quality to save data usage. Switch to SD or HD for faster WiFi connections. Clearing browser cache restores default settings.