Shadowing Practice: Grammar rules you can stop sticking to - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This one ain't gonna please no pence.
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It's time to finally free ourselves from the tyranny of English's fake grammatical rules.
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I'm going to tell you where these illegitimate linguistic laws came from.
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Then I'll explain why absolutely none of them are worth sticking to anymore.
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Hopefully you'll join me for what promises to be a very liberating episode of Rob Words.
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I have broken one of these
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so -called rules in no less than all six of the sentences I have said so far, including this one.
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But did it make me any less understandable?
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I reckon not.
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You might not even have noticed some of them.
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And that's going to be one of my big points as we progress through this video.
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Oh, and I should mention about this virtual world that I find myself in, which is actually just a green sheet in my apartment.
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It is freezing outside.
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I'll get back out and about once the Berlin winter starts to play ball.
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But in the meantime, I'm here and I'm just going to trust future me not to superimpose me onto anything stupid.
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Now these are all actually rules that I encountered people spreading over 15
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or so years of writing and reading out scripts for TV and radio, which is what I did before I did this YouTube -y thing.
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As ever, if you disagree with anything that I say during this video, feel free to take me to task in the comments.
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Okay, let's get started with a rubbish rule of English.
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Number one.
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Don't split the infinitive.
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The infinitive in English is the form of a verb that has to at the start of it,
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like to be, to have, to bump, to grind.
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And I remember being told even back in school never to ignorantly put another word between
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that to and the verb that it's accompanying.
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Like I did just then.
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Doing so is called splitting the infinitive, because you are splitting the two elements of the infinitive apart from one another,
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and it is often described as a mistake. But why?
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Well, I don't know.
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I can think of no practical reason why splitting the infinitive is bad.
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So how have we ended up with this perceived rule.
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Well, I say, blame the Victorians.
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And I'm going to cruelly lay the blame at the door of one
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Victorian in particular, the writer of this highly influential book, A Plea for the Queen's English, by Henry Alford.
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Henry Alford was a grammarian and a pedant of the highest order, and he took it upon himself to write this book,
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setting out how he felt the English language language should be correctly deployed.
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In it, he made his own proclamation about splitting the infinitive.
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Using as an example the phrase to scientifically illustrate,
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he says, surely this is a practice entirely unknown to English speakers and writers.
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It seems to me that we ever regard the two of the infinitive as inseparable from its verb.
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Did you notice something.
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Surely this is a practice, it seems to me.
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This is all just what he reckons.
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And he's wrong.
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He's writing this in the 1860s when unashamed users of the Split Infinitive have up to this point included William Shakespeare,
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John Donne, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, William Worsworth, Benjamin Franklin, Lord Byron, Abraham Lincoln and George Eliot.
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It is a perfectly normal thing to do.
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So why has dear
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Henry Alford got it into his head that it isn't?
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Well, it seems likely that he
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and others like him were having their judgement clouded by a fervent desire to make English more like
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Latin – a language that has for centuries been considered of enormous prestige.
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And in Latin, nobody ever splits the infinitive.
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Why?
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Because it's impossible.
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But because English has this weird two -word infinitive, we can split it.
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There's a reason, there's a space there.
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Go ahead, fill it.
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Indeed there are times when to not split the infinitive is almost impossible.
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For example, if I write, I want to more than double my subscribers this year, please help me out, I have split the infinitive.
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But what's the alternative?
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I want more than to double my subscribers?
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That means something different, doesn't it?
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Like I want to double my subscribers and give each of them a kiss.
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Don't unsubscribe, it's okay.
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I probably won't.
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Unless you ask.
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And I want to double more than my subscribers makes it sound like I want to double something else, to.
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Also, sometimes splitting the infinitive can sound more natural than to not do it.
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See?
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Hot take alert!
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Wouldn't Hamlet sound a bit more like a normal person if the question were to be or to not be?
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Something to think about.
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So I'm going to happily continue splitting the infinitive.
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And you should feel like you can too.
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Onto nonsense rule number two.
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Don't never use no double negative.
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A double negative is when you use two negatives in one sentence or one thought short, like I ain't never been to space.
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The received wisdom is that in such a sentence the two negatives cancel each other out,
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meaning that I've just claimed to have at some point taken a trip beyond our atmosphere.
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For that reason, double negatives are considered a no -no. Although no -no is weirdly one double negative that apparently doesn't cancel itself
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Now, I'm not going to argue that double negatives are a great thing.
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I would never write one down, for example, it is ambiguous on the page and would potentially lead to some misunderstandings.
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But I am going to defend its use in speech.
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Because I don't believe that when said out loud, a double negative is particularly ambiguous.
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Remember that internet lady who said, ain't nobody got time for that?
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And then the smoke got me.
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I got bronchitis.
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Ain't nobody got time for that.
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Well, of all the countless memes that she sparked,
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did a single one of them rely on the interpretation that she in fact did have time for that?
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Of course not.
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In fact, the clip's popularity is partly down to how emphatic she is about not having time for that.
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And that emphasis is largely down to the double negative.
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As a rhetorical device, the double negative can be highly effective.
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And what's more, we've known that for over a thousand years.
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Just have a look at this.
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This is a quote from Anglo -Saxon England.
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It's in Old English, the language that would one day become the language we speak today.
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Ne rochte he yet, na ne wundra op en lice.
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In modern English, this translates to, he hasn't yet worked any miracles openly.
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But what it literally says is, not wrought he yet, no wonders openly.
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It contains a double negative.
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He's not worked no miracles openly yet.
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You see, in Old English, two negatives did not cancel each other out.
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Instead, they supported one another.
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Indeed, the philosophy was that if one part of the sentence was negative, it all should be for consistency's sake.
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Check out this old English quote too from an Anglo -Saxon bible.
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Ne josea navre, nan man god.
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Has not seen never, no man god.
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Or in modern parlance, no man ain't never seen god.
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It's a triple negative.
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Perhaps you're thinking, yeah but Rob, that is over a thousand years ago.
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We've evolved from then.
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Okay, if that's not
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Not recent enough for you.
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How about this from Middle English?
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How cool is this 13th century document, by the way?
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This bit says, I can't say no falsehood.
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A double negative.
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Or, if that's too old still, how about this from early modern English, from Shakespeare no less.
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I cannot go no further.
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Oh, you want even newer still, do you?
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Well, how about the last time you said neither one thing nor the other?
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That is a double negative.
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Neither this or that would make perfect sense.
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But But we use two negatives for consistency.
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It's a relic of that old English approach.
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So why say don't you not be feeling bad about using them?
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Now, I don't want you thinking that I'm making an argument against precision in language here.
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I'm really not.
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One of my issues with these rules is that they don't do anything to help with clarity.
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I do think that the words we use are important.
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Language is important.
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For example, you know how
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Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that
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Meta was doing away with facts -checkers?
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Well, your view on
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that story may well have been influenced by the specific language of the news sources you heard it from.
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On Ground News, they've pulled together over 30 different sources on that story from across the political spectrum, allowing us to compare the coverage.
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Look how left -wing outlets use terms like blindsiding and assault to describe Zuck's move as an attack on journalists and truth.
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Whereas many of the right -wing outlets lord it as a victory for free speech.
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Now as someone who's been a journalist for over a decade and a half,
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I can't stress enough how crucial it is to understand the political biases and reliability of your news sources.
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That's why I use
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Ground News, not just for their app and website, but also their excellent interest pages like those for the UK and Germany,
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which help me stay informed about the stories that I think matter most to me.
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If you want to see how language shapes the news and make sure you're fully informed,
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go to ground .news slash robwords or use my special QR code
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and get 40 % off unlimited access like I have to Ground News.
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Okay, on to our next bit of nitpicky nonsense, which is that none is always singular.
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Have you ever said something along the lines of, oh, we were going to go out tonight but none of us have any money,
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and been told, um, actually, it should be none of us has any money?
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I don't know where that voice came from.
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But I do remember being corrected like that back when I worked at the BBC,
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an organisation staffed by many of the most particular users of the English language you could ever expect to meet.
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And thankfully so, someone has to maintain standards.
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And on this occasion, it was explained to me that none is a contraction of not one,
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and therefore should only ever be treated as singular.
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Makes sense.
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You wouldn't say, one of us have money, would you?
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So I went along with it, for ages in fact, until I actually looked it up, and found that for centuries,
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writers have used none with the plural, like I did.
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See?
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And that's because, contrary to what I was told, none isn't just short for not one.
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Since at least the time of Henry VIII, it's been short for not any as well.
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So just as to say, do any pigs have wings? is okay.
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To say, none of the pigs have wings is also okay.
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And to deny that is to apply an approach that our language grew out of 500 years ago.
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So let's agree that none of us have to keep it up.
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I've actually broken two rules there.
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I've also flouted the next one on our list.
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Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
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This is a rule you might never have heard of.
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But one I just broke again, just there.
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It centres around words called prepositions.
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They're those little words like of, with, to, from, up, down, over, out.
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That you used before a noun or noun phrase or a pronoun to show its relationship with what's come before it.
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I go to the shops.
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The cat sits in my lap.
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Alan pierced his foot on a spike.
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They're essential elements of our language
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and it is often said to be a misuse of English to put one at the end of a sentence.
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But I reckon that's something we need to think over.
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It's an issue we need to get into.
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A myth we need to reckon with.
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Oh look, I've just broken that rule three times.
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But did it sound weird?
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I don't think so.
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The usual trick to avoid flouting this false law is to rearrange the sentence.
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But just listen to how much worse these are.
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That's something over which we need to think.
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It's an issue into which we need to get.
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A myth with which we need to reckon.
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Gross.
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Someone who's said to have shared my revulsion is a certain Winston Churchill.
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The story goes that on receiving a complaint about his use of a sentence -terminal preposition, he's said to have scrawled a note saying,
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this is the sort of pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put.
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Or words to that effect.
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It depends on where you're reading it and to The point is, the ugliness of the sentence demonstrates the folly of the rule.
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The idea
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that ending a sentence with a preposition is a misuse of
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a beautiful language is thought to go back only as far as the 17th century.
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Researchers reckon the first proponent of it was the English poet and critic John Dryden who, doing what critics do best, criticised the brilliant
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Ben Jonson's use of prepositions at the end of sentences, calling it a common fault with him.
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Now, the jibe is unlikely to have bothered
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Ben Johnson too much because he was comfortably dead at the time.
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But Dryden's opinion, and that's all it was, really, appears to have planted a seed that took root among the grammarians that came after him.
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And one book, written about a century later, is credited with turning that opinion, Interlexicological Law.
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It was written by an Oxford professor, Robert Louth, and called A Short Introduction to English Grammar.
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In it, he bemoans the fact that the preposition is often separated from the relative
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which it governs and joined to the verb at the end of the sentence, or of some member of it.
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He then gives an example, Horace is an author whom I am much delighted with.
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While he admits
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that popping the preposition at the end of a sentence is something our language is strongly inclined to
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and that it suits very well with the familiar style of writing,
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he also posits that not doing so is more graceful as well as more perspicuous.
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Ironically, perspicuous means easy to understand.
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So his argument for avoiding ending a sentence with a preposition is that it is inelegant and confusing.
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Which it just isn't.
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But note that also he doesn't dress this up as a rule, more just a preference for when trying to write formally.
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This preference is again likely down to scholars preoccupation with making English more like
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Latin, because again this is a rule that it's impossible to break in Latin.
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Word order doesn't allow it.
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But English is not a language descended from Latin.
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It is a Germanic language.
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And in Germanic languages, you can end a sentence with a preposition.
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Indeed, in German, it is often essential.
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However, Louth's book was hugely influential.
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It was used in British schools until as recently as the 20th century.
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Seriously.
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And And despite him not calling the preposition thing a rule, millions of school children came away with the impression that it was,
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school kids not generally being known for their appreciation of nuance.
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Even our Victorian pal
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Henry Olford accepted that sometimes ending with a preposition was preferable.
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He wrote, where do you come from is the only way of putting that enquiry.
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Whence come you is of course pedantic, though accurate.
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Good lord, I agree with Henry.
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So I hope you see my point
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that even the greatest proponents of the don't end on a preposition idea never sold it as a rule.
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It is a myth perpetuated by self -appointed pedants rather than actual reference books.
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A made up rule of language that Winston Churchill demonstrated the pomposity of.
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Sorry, a law the pomposity of which Winston Churchill demonstrated.
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Yuck.
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OK, next dodgy grammatical gripe.
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Don't use less when you mean fewer.
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A few years back, Tesco, the massive British supermarket chain, found itself at the centre of a semantics storm.
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It was all down to the presence of these signs above some of the checkouts in its stores,
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telling people to only use those checkouts if they had 10 items in their basket or less.
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The source of the controversy?
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The sign said 10 items or less instead of 10 items or fewer.
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The criticism was that less and fewer have different, mutually exclusive meanings.
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Less means lower in amount, degree or value, and fewer is lower in quantity.
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So less should only be used for things that you can't count out.
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So yes, based upon those definitions of less and fewer, Tesco's sign was wrong.
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And such was the volume of the cause for the chain to ditch them that they did just that, replacing them with this utter cop -out.
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But I think Tesco were too hasty to buckle to pedantic public pressure.
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Because I think the definitions of less and fewer look less like this, and more like this.
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I think we can all agree that you should not use fewer for amounts.
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I want fewer milk in my tea does not work at all.
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But who the heck decided that you can't use less when talking about quantities?
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Well, apparently a guy called Robert Baker is the first person
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that the clever folk at Oxford have found writing about the subject.
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Back in 1770, he, in his reflections on the English English language,
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wrote that less is most commonly used in speaking of a number where I should think fewer would be better.
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He says, no fewer than a hundred appears to me not only more elegant than no less than a hundred, but more strictly proper.
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There are real echoes of Louth and Alford there, aren't there?
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He's just talking about what sounds better rather than any essential need to write in this way.
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Mr Baker is making his statement in the 18th century when, as our friends at Merriam -Webster point out,
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less has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred.
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They mean Alfred the Great, who ruled over a thousand years ago.
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In Old English, less could be used in this way.
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And looky here, here it is in the 15th century, a reference to less ploughs, and also in the 16th century, less faults.
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So again, we're seeing that the tastes of self -appointed grammarians of the 18th
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and 19th centuries are dictating how we speak today.
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But before you take what I've said so far as permission to forget the difference between less and fewer…
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Let me just say that I do see why some people are so particular about it.
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One such group are the compilers of the Guardian newspaper's style guide, who make their position quite clear.
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This is not just about supermarket signs that say seven items or fewer.
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Only seven.
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It can make a real difference in meaning.
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It then talks about fewer bad people, meaning something very different to less bad people.
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Which is true.
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Fewer bad people are lesser in number, whereas less bad people are not as bad as worse people.
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So I accept that here the distinction is helpful.
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It defeats an ambiguity.
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But is there any ambiguity at all in the phrase 10 items or less?
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And how about this situation?
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If I say to you, I have three fancy biscuits on my plate, do you have more or less?
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Doesn't that sound infinitely more natural than, I have three fancy biscuits on my plate, do you have more or fewer?
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More or fewer, it just doesn't work.
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I suppose my overall point here is that this less versus fewer distinction shouldn't and really can't be applied in all situations.
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And the more you look into it, the less reasons you find for treating it as a hard and fast rule.
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Ok, onto the next one.
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Hopefully has only one meaning.
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This is the newest of the grammatical gripes that I'm trying to dispel, because it has only been an issue for around 100 years.
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During the 20th century, beginning in the US, we got into the habit of using the word hopefully in a new way.
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A way that didn't strictly adhere to its meaning.
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We started saying things like, I did the accents.
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We began using hopefully as an alternative to I hope that, or with any luck, terms like that.
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And that's a way that it hadn't really been used before.
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Prior to that, hopefully had only meant what its makeup suggests, to do something while full of hope.
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Or in a hopeful manner.
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For example, I was feeling lucky, so I hopefully bought a lottery ticket.
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Now, there are people who cling to the idea that that is the sole meaning of hopefully,
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and it should not be used in this newfangled way.
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But unfortunately for them, these people have already lost the argument.
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Bar more people would interpret I hopefully bought a lottery ticket as expressing hope that you bought a lottery ticket,
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like I hopefully locked the door before I left the house
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this morning than like you made the purchase in the hope of winning. In fact, I reckon these days someone can use the word hopefully thousands
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of times during their lifetime without once meaning in a hopeful manner.
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What's more, the new meaning is really useful.
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I can't think of another single word that can replace hopefully in a sentence like this.
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And we're not the only ones to have come to that conclusion.
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In German, the equivalent, Hoffentlich, has evolved to serve exactly the same function.
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So basically, don't let anyone tell you that you're using it wrongly if you do use it in the 20th century fashion,
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because the meaning has undoubtedly evolved.
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So there you go, less than seven rules of English grammar you hopefully ain't no longer going to even bother with.
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If you have enjoyed this video, I hopefully ask you to subscribe and to maybe watch this video next and I'll see you over there.
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Take care.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Grammar rules you can stop sticking to”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: English, rule, fewer, negative, language. This video has 205 sentences and 3806 words to shadow. The speech runs for 23:50. The speaker talks at a natural 160 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| fewer | /ˈfjuː.ɚ/ | Less; a smaller amount of something non-integral commonly expressed as an integer |
| reckon verb | /ˈɹɛkən/ | To count; to enumerate; to number; also, to compute; to calculate. |
| verb noun | /vɝb/ | A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being. |
| subscriber noun | /səbˈskɹaɪbɚ/ | A person who subscribes to a publication or a service. |
| phrase noun | /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/ | A short written or spoken expression. |
| nonsense noun | /ˈnɒn.səns/ | Letters or words, in writing or speech, that have no meaning or pattern or seem to have no meaning. |
| demonstrate verb | /ˈdɛm.ənˌstɹeɪt/ | To show how to use (something). |
| cancel verb | /ˈkæn.sl̩/ | To cross out something with lines etc. |
| openly adverb | /ˈoʊpənli/ | In an open manner; visibly. |
| myth noun | /mɪθ/ | A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are… |
| lottery noun | /ˈlɑtɚi/ | A scheme for the distribution of prizes by lot or chance, especially a gaming scheme in which one or more tickets bearing particular numbers draw prizes, the… |
| evolve verb | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | To move (something) in regular procession through a system. |
| whereas | /(h)wɛɹˈæz/ | In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although. |
| bother verb | /ˈbɑðɚ/ | To annoy, to disturb, to irritate; to be troublesome to, to make trouble for. |
| journalist noun | /ˈd͡ʒɝnəlɪst/ | The keeper of a personal journal, who writes in it regularly. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| count out verb | To exclude; to dismiss from participation or eligibility. | |
| do away with verb | To abolish; to put an end to; to eliminate. | |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| go along with verb | To acquiesce to or comply with a proposal, despite lacking a desire or value for it. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Ooh, I’ve actually broken two “rules” there.
- It’s an issue we need to get into.
- Don’t use less when you mean fewer.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have broken · have said · have noticed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being told · is called · is often described |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | radio, which is · nonsense, which is · people who cling |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 80 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, ain't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: myth /mɪθ/, bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, twentieth /ˈtwɛn.ti.əθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: distinction /dɪˈstɪŋkʃən/, influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, sheet /ʃit/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
- Long words — get the stress right: influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/, supermarket /ˌsupɚˈmɑɹkət/, ambiguous /æmˈbɪɡ.ju.əs/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, organisation /ˈɔː.ɡə.naɪˌzeɪ.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like fewer, reckon, verb.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.