Common Errors in English

Every language has some confusing areas so does English. There are words that sound the same, some unusual spellings and complicated grammatical construction which puzzle a learner. Even native English speakers can find some of them difficult. Focus on the areas where you are consistently making mistakes. Study about it carefully or seek someone’s help in understanding it. Slowly and steadily you will get rid of your mistakes.

The most common errors in English are mentioned below along with their rules. You can abide by these rules and avoid these mistakes in your communication.

1. Usage of articles - A/ An:  Many of us get confused with the usage of articles - ‘A’ and ‘An’. We have learnt in schools that article ‘A’ is used before the consonants and ‘An’ is used before the vowels. Then why do we say an hour or a university?

• Rule: The rule for using articles says - Use article ‘A’ before the words starting with a consonant sound and ‘An’ before the words starting with a vowel sound. Thus we always put ‘an’ before hour as it is pronounced like the word ‘our’ and ‘a’ before university as it is pronounced like ‘yooniversity’.

2. Making plurals - The general rule for making plurals is to add the alphabet  ‘s’ after the word. This rule doesn’t hold well for the words ending in a consonant + Y and the words ending with O, -CH, -SH, -SS, -X, or -Z. 

For words ending with -O, -CH, -SH, -SS, -X, or -Z we add ‘es’ to make plurals. We drop ‘y’ and add ‘ies’ to make plural for the words ending with a consonant and alphabet ‘y’ we drop y and add ‘ies’ to make plural.

3. Capitalization:  This is the most common mistakes people make. Remember to always capitalize the proper noun which includes holidays, days of the week, places, and names.

4. Making participle: Most of the verbs do not change their spellings when they are changed to participles. For instance the past particle of put, shut and cut is put, shut and cut respectively.

5. Learn the difference between the most commonly misused words like

·         I and me

·         Your and you’re

·         Its and It’s

·         There, Their and They’re

·         Accept and Except etc.

6. Learn about using the apostrophe. Apostrophe is used to show possession like Mary’s, John’s etc.  and for contraction like It’s , you’re, they’re etc.  To show possession of a word ending with ‘s’ like Paras,  etc. we simply add apostrophe at the end of the word. The possession of Paras can be written as Paras’. 

You can seek help of your English teacher, grammar books or a grammar whiz friend to point out your mistakes and correct them. Else you can also look for them over the internet or find some good grammar book which can teach you about commonly made mistakes and how to avoid them. With your diligence you can be a pro in this global language for communication.

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