English constructions that may be a surprise for non-English-speakers

Pronunciation and Accent Improvement Courses in CT
Courses in American English/ESL in CT

American English contains many sentence structures that cause great problems for speakers of other languages.
We suggest that you understand them, (but not use them) because they are very common.

1. Using “HAD” to introduce a condition.
This is very common, and is not a “grammatical error.”
However, it may be a surprise to those who speak a language that has an “IF”.

Example: Had I known she was there, I would have said hello to her.
This means: “If I had known she was there, I would have said hello to her.”

Many people put the “had” at the beginning of the sentence,
they drop the IF, and change the order of the words.

Other examples:
Had she told me to buy bread, I would have bought some.
This means: “If she had told me to buy bread, I would have bought some”.

Had there been a good reason, I would have done it.
This means: “If there had been a good reason, I would have done it.”

2. Using “wooda”
“wooda” is short for “would have”.
But that’s not the problem. The problem is that many people use it instead of “had”.
It is considered a “grammatical error”.

If I wooda known she was there, I wooda said hello to her.
(The first “wooda” is the problem. The second “wooda” is just sloppy speech).

“Grammatically correct” English:
If I had known she was there, I would have said hello to her.

If you say “wooda” this way, most people won’t notice. However radio and TV announcers would not say it this way because it marks the speaker as “uneducated”.

Sometimes the “wooda” is shortened even more:
If Ida known she was there, Ida said hello to her.

“Grammatically correct” English:
If I had known she was there, I would have said hello to her.

People who say Ida this way, also say:
yooda
sheeda
heeda
weeda
theyda
Example: If weeda known she was there, weeda said hello to her.


3. Many people make the verb agree with the nearest word, not with the subject of the sentence.
Examples:
An in-depth set of lessons were created
This generation of Americans are fantastically generous


4. Dropping the relative pronoun.
This kind of construction is extremely difficult for anyone whose first language is not English!
Example:
The horse he rode in on is white.