Entertainment

Lyrics: Perfect Strangers

Listening 3 min Lyrics Intermediate

Vocabulary - 22 contextual words

Grammar - Double Negatives

Pronunciation - American

Improve your listening and writing skills by filling in the blanks in the song lyrics. These activities are designed for Beginners and Intermediates to learn new vocabulary related to a specific topic in a quick and fun way.

Perfect Strangers was a hit when it came out. The track is a collaboration between singer JP Cooper and Dj Jonas Blue. It is an upbeat song with a catchy tune. This song also uses double negatives, which are considered to be incorrect but are very common in pop songs. Can you spot them?

Exercise

Fill in the missing words: stay – don’t – forever – wasting – hold – you – change – walk – human – stay – explain – really – now – perfect – change – yesterday – reason – We’re – no – we – games – but ⇩

This activity is case sensitive so make sure to use capital letters when needed.

Grammar

Double negatives (doesn’t never, never does nothing…)

We do not normally use negatives with words like nobody, never, nothing, or nowhere.

In regional spoken English, however, we may encounter double/triple negatives such as doesn’t never and never does nothing.
They have the same meaning as doesn’t ever and never does anything:

He doesn’t never help when we need him. = He doesn’t ever help when we need him. (the negative is with do)
You never do nothing with nobody. = You never do anything with anybody. (the negative is never)

We can use double negatives with negative adverbials to make their meaning neutral. For example:
This strange fruit is not unlike a pear means that the fruit has some pear-like qualities, but is not exactly alike to a pear.
Richard is not unlike Karen in his management style, wouldn’t you say so?
This economic downturn is not unexpected.
Dinner last night was… not unpleasant… but I think it could have been better.
Sudden storms in the mountains are not unheard-of.