8 English Grammar Mistakes Even Advanced Students Make

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Sometimes your English could be 90% fine, but there are still some small errors. They don’t affect communication but of course we want to correct them. Today I’ll teach you eight common English grammar mistakes with examples from real students of mine.

  1. Don’t say “I wore a jeans”. The correct way to say it is “I wore jeans or I wore a pair of jeans”. The nouns: jeans, pants, shorts, scissors and glasses are special. Although each word refers to one singular item we can’t use “a” with these words. Instead, you can use no article or “a pair of”. For example “She’s wearing glasses”, “I bought a pair of shorts at the mall”, “There’s a pair of scissors on my desk” If you want to refer to more than one item use 2, 3, 4 etc pairs of pants, shorts, glasses, scissors and so on. For example “I have 2 pairs of white pants”. Let’s look at the next mistake.
  2. Don’t say “He loves team sports as soccer”. The correct way is “He loves team sports such as soccer” or “He loves team sports like soccer”. When you want to give an example, use “such as” or “like”. Don’t use only “as”. “Such as” is considered more formal than “like”.
  3.  Don’t say “I didn’t save money enough”. The correct sentence is “I didn’t save enough money”. The word “enough” comes before a noun, but after an adjective. For example “We have enough food”. “Food” is a noun, so “enough” comes before it. It’s the same with the word “money”. Money is also a noun so we use “enough” before the noun. It’s the opposite with adjectives, for example “You’re not tall enough to go on the ride”. “Tall” is an adjective, a word that describes a noun, so we use the word “enough” after the adjective, “tall enough”.
  4. Don’t say “I worked a lot IN last month” and don’t say “We’ll meet ON next Monday’.  The correct way to say it is “I worked a lot last month”, “We’ll meet next Monday”. We normally use “in” with months and “on” with days. However, when you use the words “last” and “next”, you don’t need” in” or “on”. You can simply say “last month” and “next Monday” without an extra preposition.
  5. Don’t say “It was so long time ago”. The correct ways to say it are “It was so long ago” or “It was such a long time”. Here are some examples of how to use the word “so” plus an adjective or an adverb. You can say “She’s so friendly”. “Friendly” is adjective. “This sandwich is so good”. “Good” is another adjective. “He works so hard”. “Hard is an adverb describing the verb “works”. However, if the adjective is followed by a noun, then we need to use “such” instead of “so”. Here are some examples of “such” plus an adjective plus a noun. You can say “She’s such a friendly person”. You can say “This is such a good sandwich” and “He has such a demanding job”. One exception is when the noun is plural in this case use only “such” not “such a”. For example “They are such friendly people”. “People” is plural so we use only “such”, not “such a”. “These are such good cookies”.
  6. Here’s a common mistake with the word “lend” and “give”. Don’t say “I lent to him some money”. The correct ways to say it are” I lent him some money” or “I lent some money to him”. This rule applies to “lend”, “give” and other verbs that have both a direct object and an indirect object. Here’s another example. You can say “He gave Rachel the keys” or “He gave the keys to Rachel” Both are correct, but it does not sound natural to say “He gave to Rachel the keys” That’s incorrect.
  7. Don’t say “Roller coasters make me TO feel sick”. The correct sentence is “Roller coasters make me feel sick”. Let “make” and “have” our causative verbs. They are followed by the indirect object and then the base form of the next verb without “to”. Here are some more examples “Our boss doesn’t let us leave work early”. Don’t say “let us to leave”. The correct structure is “let us leave”, “my mom makes me clean my room”, “I’ll have my assistant call you later”. In he case of the verb “help” we can use “to” or not, but it’s more common not to do so. So you can say “Please help me carry these boxes” or “Please help me to carry these boxes”. But it’s more common to just say “Please help me carry”.
  8. Don’t say “You stopped me make a mistake”. The correct way is “You stopped me from making a mistake”. The words “stop” and “prevent” are followed by someone or something and then the word “from” and finally the verb in the “ing” form. Here are some more examples”Tthe vaccine stops people from catching the disease”, “The waterproof covering prevents the equipment from getting wet.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Source: Espresso English Channel on Youtube

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