Avoid common mistakes in English
Some mistakes made by foreigners while speaking English are more common than other ones. I hope this might help some of you and reading it will take only a few seconds... Let’s get started.
To tell and to say
We will learn the usage of the verbs 'to tell' and 'to say'. We say: I tell you. I say to you. We do not say: I tell to you. I say you. Analogically: I told you. / I said to you. not: I told to you. / I said you. I'm telling you. / I'm saying to you. not: I'm telling to you. / I'm saying you. I was telling you. / I was saying to you. not: I was telling to you. / I was saying you. I have told you. / I have said to you. not: I have told to you. / I have said you. etc.
To lose weight and to put on weight
Now we will learn the usage of the verbs 'to lose weight' and 'to put on weight'. Please notice, that a preposition 'on' occurs only in one of two given verbs and never in the other one. It is correct to say: I lose weight. Even though a lot of my students tend to say: 'I lose on weight' or 'I put weight' - these are not correct sentences. Please, study analogical examples below: I lost weight. / I put on weight. I have lost weight. / I have put on weight. I had lost weight. / I had put on weight. I will have lost weight. / I will have put on weight. etc.
Lesson3. I would also like you to have a look at the following list of words that very often I happen to see spelled wrong: accommodation, address, beginning, coffee, curiosity, disappear, disappointed, embarrassed, forbidden, guarantee, immediately, necessary, preferred, pronunciation, recommend, ridiculous, successful, unconscious, unfortunately, writing
Prepositions in, at and on
Now we're going to have a brief look at prepositions 'in', 'at' and 'on'. Common mistake number 1: I'm good in English. The sentence written above is NOT correct. Please remember that the preposition ‘at’ is used when describing people’s abilities in different pursuits. The correct sentence: I'm good at English. Common mistake number 2: There is a cat on the picture. The sentence written above is NOT correct. Please remember that the preposition 'in' is used when indicating place and location. The correct sentence: There is a cat in the picture.
- Step By Step Grammar 3: Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes nouns (we’ve talked about nouns in Step By Step Grammar 1) and pronouns (we will talk about pronouns in the future but to give you a rough idea these are examples of pronouns: he, she, it). E.g. White cat –...
- Not Exactly What I Meant
We all make mistakes and it just so happens that some of those mistakes are truly hilarious. I think the funniest ones I come across are made by non-native English speakers, including me. When I first moved to the UK I must have been 18 or 19 and my English,...
- Glottal Stop, Clipping And Elision
I got into a conversation with somebody on Twitter yesterday about the phonetic processes. To be truthful, it wasn’t much of a conversation and rather a question asked by them followed by my monologue with possible answers. They wanted to know ‘’what...
- Style Crimes
I am not a native English speaker; however, I like to think I speak English fluently. I live and work in an English speaking environment surrounded by British people and I cringe when someone tells me something and I have not the first idea what they’re...
- Agreement Between Subject And Verb
Listen up, it really is that simple! If a sentence has a singular subject it is followed by a singular verb and if it has a plural subject it is followed by a plural verb. Verb and subject must agree.She likes animals. She like animals. They like...