6 Common Grammar Mistakes

Introduction

Have you noticed how some mistakes seem to hang around quite a while during your studies? Even at advanced level, after years of studying English, you find yourself making the same errors again and again.

Having taught a huge number of English students over the years, I’ve noted how the following 6 types of grammatical mistakes are often made at this level – the chances are you’ll be making one or two of these errors yourself:

• Prepositions
• Articles
• Verb patterns (ing/to/infinitive)
• Tenses
• Pronouns
• Countable and uncountable nouns

Task 1

Let’s see how good you are at spotting mistakes of this kind. How many errors of this kind can you spot in these sentences? Answers below.

1. I have to say that the staff was very polite in our hotel.
2. I strongly recommend you to pay a visit to my home city.
3. I wanted to work abroad and this played a big part on my decision to study English.
4. I try to do exercise in a daily basis.
5. My new job offers possibility of working from home.
6. I know how to use different Office softwares like Word and Powerpoint.
7. Nowadays the email and mobile phones enable communication to be instantaneous.
8. I’ve sometimes thought about to do a different job.
9. Maria is my best friend who I met her at college.
10. My friend knew the restaurant and suggested me to go there.
11. I think learning a language increases tolerance at society and among people.
12. My local market where I shop it quite often has some good bargains.
13. I lived there since I got married.
14. I don’t have enough time to take a part in sport.
15. When I was at school I didn’t realise how important learning English will have been.
16. Unfortunately, I had some problems getting the sports equipments.
17. I think you only have you to blame if you don’t study hard enough and fail.
18. I wasn’t able to pass my driving test yet.

Task 2

Were there any mistakes above that you didn’t find? What kind of errors were they? Try to identify the particular problems you have with English grammar and focus on these areas during your studies.

Answers

1. I have to say that the staff were very polite in our hotel.
   (countable x uncountable nouns)
2. I strongly recommend (that) you pay a visit to my home city.
   (verb patterns)
3. I wanted to work abroad and this played a big part in my decision to study English.
   (prepositions)
4. I try to do exercise on a daily basis.
   (prepositions)
5. My new job offers the possibility of working from home.
   (articles)
6. I know how to use different Office software like Word and Powerpoint.
   (countable x uncountable nouns)
7. Nowadays email and mobile phones enable communication to be instantaneous. (not ‘the email’)
   (articles)
8. I’ve sometimes thought about doing a different job.
   (verb patterns)
9. Maria is my best friend who I met at college. (not ‘I met her’)
   (pronouns)
10. My friend knew the restaurant and suggested (that) I go there.
    (verb patterns)
11. I think learning a language increases tolerance in society and among people.
    (prepositions)
12. My local market where I shop quite often has some good bargains. (not ‘where I shop it’)
    (pronouns)
13. I have lived there since I got married.
    (tenses)
14. I don’t have enough time to take part in sport. (not ‘take a part’)
    (articles)
15. When I was at school I didn’t realise how important learning English would be.
    (tenses)
16. Unfortunately I had some problems getting the sports equipment.
    (countable x uncountable nouns)
    
17. I think you only have yourself to blame if you don’t study hard enough and fail.
    (pronouns)
18. I haven’t been able to pass my driving test yet.
    (tenses)