We will look at 50 of the most common mistakes made by learners of English and how to avoid them. This will help you to speak and write correct English.
Articles
“I am programmer specializing in website development”
Is something missing here?
Well we need to say “I am a programmer”
The noun ‘programmer’ is a common noun “ it refers to a category or type of person.
If you have a singular common noun, you should always put ‘a’ or ‘an’ before it.
“Mia studies at an university”
This sentence looks correct but it’s not.
Here’s the correction: “Mia studies at a university.”
But, hold on, you might be thinking “ ‘university’
starts with ‘u’ which is a vowel, so we should put ‘an’ before it, right?
Well, no.
The rule is that you put ‘an’ before a vowel sound, not a vowel letter.
The word ‘university’ starts with a /y/ sound.
We don’t say ‘ooniversity’.
We say ‘yuniversity’.
The /yoo/ sound is a consonant sound, so no ‘an’ before ‘university’.
“Frank Sinatra is best singer I have ever heard”
This needs to be “Frank Sinatra is the best singer I have ever heard”
Any superlative form “ ‘the best’, ‘the worst’, ‘the hottest’, ‘the coldest’, ‘the most expensive’, ‘the least important’
etc. needs to have ‘the’ before it.
“I need an advice from you about buying a guitar”
Here, we need to say “I need some advice from you ” or, we can just say “I need your advice about buying a guitar”
‘Advice’ is an uncountable noun and we don’t use a or an before uncountable nouns.
Now, English can be a crazy language sometimes ‘idea’ is considered countable but ‘advice’ is considered uncountable.
So you can say ‘an idea’ but you cannot say ‘an advice’.
“The teachers should be friendly to their students”
The correct sentence is: “Teachers should be friendly to their students”
This is because we are making a general statement here, and to generalize with plurals such as ‘teachers’ we don’t use ‘the’.
Vocabulary
“He said me that he needed some money”
This can be either “He told me that he needed some money”
or “He said that he needed some money”
The verb ‘say’ does not take an indirect object “ that means, you cannot say ‘said me’, ‘said him’ and so on.
“Cara told that she had applied for the manager’s job”
Well, this should be “Cara said that” or “Cara told me that she had applied for the manager’s job”
The verb ‘tell’ usually needs an indirect object like ‘me’, ‘him’, ‘her’
etc.
“According to me, this is the best restaurant in town”
You should say: “In my opinion, this is the best restaurant in town”
You can say ‘according to’ when you want to give someone else’s opinion; it’s wrong to use it to give your own opinion.
“I met Scott for the first time in Geneva ten years before”
Common error.
It should be ‘ten years ago’.
When we mention an amount of time in the past, we use ‘ago’ and not ‘before’ “ you can say ‘ten years ago’, ‘two months ago’, ‘a few weeks ago’, ‘five minutes ago’ etc.
“Most of people have a computer at home these days”
Can you identify the error? Well, the error is saying ‘most of’.
Just say “Most people have a computer at home these days”
When we are talking generally, we always say ‘most people’, ‘most students’, ‘most homeowners’ etc.
If you are talking about a specific group, then you can say ‘most of the’: “Most of the students in my class passed the exam”
or as the teacher, I would say “Most of my students passed the exam with flying colors”
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Happy learning !
PTE Tricks 