Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make

Anna Murray

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Today we learned about “Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make“.  Let Anna Murray shares with you the most common English grammar mistakes that native English speaker would never make. Native speakers, on the other hand, frequently make these most common English grammar mistakes.

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Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make

Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make | Anna Murray

How can I become fluent in English?

Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make

10 Common Grammar Mistakes That Native English Speakers Make

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Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make

Answer by Anna Murray, ( ELT teacher, SLA enthusiast.  Master of Italian & Pedagogy and Methodology). All credit goes to  Anna Murray Thank you!

7.1/10

Absolutely. They’re typically just different from the non-native speakers.

(First, you have to put aside various non-standard dialects — as one or two others mentioned here already, those aren’t technically mistakes, just non-standard. English is made up of these dialects; it’s just that one or two were standardized and made canon at some point in history.

You also find a number of differences between, say, British and American English — at the weekend and on the weekend, for example, or in hospital and in the hospital. That’s not what we’re talking about. I’m also going to put aside punctuation and other writing-specific errors and focus on oral communication.)

Errors–and by error I mean systematic ones that normally educated native speakers of the standard dialect frequently make–tend to be quite different.

High-level English learner errors that native speakers would never make:

Tense confusion, depending on the origin language. French and Italian speakers tend to say, “I have gone to that movie yesterday.” A German speaker might say, “I am always reading the newspaper every morning.” Everyone tends to overuse the past perfect–“I had gone to school last week and had done all my homework.” (with no context that would trigger the past perfect, such as “…before I dropped out and burned my books.”) Native speakers rarely select the wrong tense.

Modal confusion: “Tonight I will go home early because I must study.” This is fine for communicative purposes, as any native speaker would understand immediately what is being said, but no native speaker would normally phrase it this way. We would probably say, “Tonight I’m going home early because I have to study,” or “Tonight I’m going to go home early because I’ve got to study.”

Prepositions, phrasal verbs, and articles. They’re idiomatic and tough. Native speakers tend not to have problems with these.

Native speakers, on the other hand, frequently make these mistakes…

Confusing the three principal parts of irregular verbs–“drink, drank, drunk,” for example, or “lie, lay, lain.” Non-native speakers learn right off the bat that the second part is for the past simple and that the third (participle) goes after “to be” in the passive or “to have” in the perfect tenses. “I have drank,” is incorrect but common. “I’m going to lay on my bed,” is another. (Non-native speakers may also make these mistakes, depending on their level, but they tend to shed these errors as they become advanced, knowing the rules behind them.)

Confusing elements that are phonetically similar: e.g. “could’ve” rendered “could of” in writing and then in turn in speech. A non-native speaker probably wouldn’t do this because it just doesn’t make any sense semantically, and they’re more aware of each word that they say than your average native speaker.

Subjunctive and conditional errors. “If I was rich” should be “If I were rich” and “If I would have known…” should be “If I had known.” The subjunctive is dying, and the correct formation of a conditional sentence is starting to falter as well. (non-native speakers may also make these mistakes, because conditionals are a little complicated.)

Double negatives–“I wouldn’t know nothing about that”–but these tend to be a lot rarer among educated native speakers and frequently associated with a lack of education. (You also find these among non-natives speakers.)

Lack of awareness of countable and uncountable nouns: e.g. “There were less people there” instead of “There were fewer people there.” However, a native speaker would never refer to “informations” as non-native speakers frequently do.

Adverb/adjective confusion: “I’m good.” “I feel badly about that.”

Subject/object confusion–not just the distinction between whom and who, which is now so rare that most ESL books cite whom as optional, but also subject/object pronouns: “This picture is of my husband and I at the Grand Canyon.”

Of course, most of these mistakes might also be made by non-native speakers, especially at lower and intermediate levels–but as I said before, non-native speakers tend to be made more aware of them through ESOL classes and instruction.

They are, for the most part, actively seeking to eliminate errors from their usage in a way that native speakers usually aren’t. It is, however, difficult to get to the point in a foreign language (as an adult) at which one makes ZERO mistakes, especially when it comes to prepositions and more complex sentences, and especially in speaking, when one doesn’t have the luxury of leisurely revision.

On the other hand, if a non-native speaker isn’t studying but picking up the language organically (as most low-income immigrants do), they will probably pick up the language that is being spoken around them, which might include many of the above mistakes.

Reference: Anna Murray. “Do native English speakers make grammatical mistakes while speaking or writing??” originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Expert Tips From The World-Renowned Experts :

Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make

  Duoligno – Slip-ups

Native speakers make mistakes all the time when they speak and it has nothing to do with prescriptivism. Sometimes, the brain strings the words together in a weird way, doesn’t conjugate a verb the way it normally would, uses a similar-sounding but different word than intended, or even uses the wrong pronoun. Those aren’t peculiarities of any idiolect. They’re slip-ups. They don’t typically impede communication because context prevents confusion.

Thank you, Duolingo – Duolingo is the world’s most popular way to learn a language. It’s 100% free, fun and science-based. Practice online on duolingo.com or on the apps! (By Duolingo – odi_et_amo).

  LingQ – Good & Well

The confusion around when to use good and when to use well is easily cleared up when you think about what kind of words they are. Good is an adjective, which are used to describe nouns:

“The little boy is good, he shared all of his toys.”

The adverb “well” describes the verb “wrote” in the first sentence and “did” in the second.

When you know this about good and well, you see how inaccurate it is to say something like “I did good”. Did is a kind of verb (it’s called an auxiliary or helping verb), so we need to use the adverb “well” in this sentence.

That said, it is increasingly common for people to answer “How are you?” with “I’m good, thank you.” While the rules of English grammar state that this is incorrect, it is so often used that to most it sounds totally correct.

English is a living language, always changing to suit the people who use it, so don’t be too scared to bend the rules sometimes.

Thank you, LingQ – Learn languages enjoyably with interesting, authentic content in a global community. Listen and read, grow your vocabulary, learn from anything on the web. (By LingQ – Jahrine)

GrammarCheck – 20 Writing Mistakes Even Native Speakers Make (Infographic)

Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make | Thank you, Grammar Check.

Thank you, Grammar Check – Now you can grammar and spell check any text or document online. Simply copy and paste your text onto our website to proofread, review, and correct it.

  Espresso English – 13 Grammar Mistakes That Even Native English Speakers Make (Infographic)

Most Common Grammar Mistakes that Native English Speakers Make | Thank you, Espresso English.

Thank you, Espresso English – Espresso English – Everyday English Lessons. Espresso English courses are self-paced, meaning you learn at your own rhythm. You can take one lesson a day, one lesson a week, or ten lessons a day.

  EngVid – 5 Native English Speaker Mistakes (Video)

Thank you, Youtube – Learn English with Alex [engVid]

Thank you, EngVid – Learn English for free with 1407 video lessons by experienced native-speaker teachers. Classes cover English grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, IELTS, TOEFL, and more. Join millions of ESL students worldwide who are improving their English every day with engVid.

VOA – “could of” or could’ve

“I could of gone to New York last weekend.”

However, the word of is a preposition. The sentence needs a verb instead. The confusion is caused by the shortened, or abbreviated, version of “could have.” It takes an apostrophe followed by the letters ve. The spelling then is could’ve.

The preposition of sounds just like the shortened version of the verb have, which is pronounced ’ve.

In speaking, this is not a problem, since both phrases sound the same.

In writing, an easy way to remember the correct form is that could, would and should are helping verbs. So another verb must always follow them.

In the example, “I could’ve gone to New York last weekend,” have and gone are forms of verbs. Of is a preposition and would never appear after a helping verb.

Thank you, VOA – Learning English is VOA’s multimedia source of news and information for millions of English learners worldwide.

  heylangu.com –  It’s vs its

This is such a common mistake it’s unbelievable. Sometimes, perhaps out of laziness, people don’t use the apostrophe that distinguishes one word from the other. But very often people genuinely don’t see the difference! The same thing often happens with “your” and “you’re”. Really.

EXPLANATION: When you want to use a verb and make one word out of two (it’s = it is/it has), you use an apostrophe to form what’s called a contraction. Its is a possessive form of it and simply means “belonging to it”.

EXAMPLES:

It’s a very difficult word to pronounce.
The cat was chasing its tail.

Thank you, heylangu.com – Welcome to Langu. Learn IELTS, English, Spanish, French, Italian, German & more online with a real teacher in a real classroom – no matter where you are. (Heylangu – Marta Kuźnicka)

Saundz – Your vs You’re

I would say that I have seen both native and non-native speakers make this mistakes over and over again. “Your” is a possessive adjective. This is used to refer to someone’s possession such as “your house”. “your belongings”, and “your dog”. On the other handm, “you’re is a contraction of “you’re”. Hence, “you’re pretty”, “you’re late”, and “you’re right”. The same principle applies with “theirs” and “they’re”;”its and “it’s”. The list goes on.

Thank you, Saundz –  Saundz online education software helps non-native speakers learn the 40 sounds of American English. Students can practice their English pronunciation skills.

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