When you first learn to speak English, the most important thing is to be understood. I know that this is the first priority for most of you and achieving this is a milestone you should be proud of. However, the next stage is to make yourself sound as natural and fluent as possible and fixing common grammar mistakes is very important.
Many English learners make the same small grammar mistakes again and again when speaking. The good news is that these mistakes are easy to fix once you notice them. In my one-to-one English lessons with my students, I listen carefully to identify their mistakes, help them practice the correct grammar, and build their confidence step by step.
Let’s look at eight common speaking mistakes and some simple grammar fixes you can start using immediately.
1. Forgetting the third person
Many of my students forget to use the third person -s when they are speaking. Here are two examples of this common mistake:
He like football.
She go to work every day.
In English, when we talk about he, she, or it, we need to add -s to the verb. Here are the same two examples in their correct form:
He likes football.
She goes to work every day.
I ask my students to create simple sentences about people or situations they are familiar with. Here are some examples:
He plays guitar.
She works at a hospital.
It rains a lot here.
I will then repeat each sentence with correct stress on the -s sound. The student listens carefully and copies the rhythm.
2. always using the present continuous
Another very common mistake is to use the present continuous for everything. Here are two examples:
I am liking pizza.
I am knowing him for years.
Remember when you are describing feelings, thoughts and states you use stative verbs which don’t take the -ing form. So the correct sentences look this:
I like pizza.
I’ve known him for years.
A good rule to follow is if you can see or touch the action you use -ing. If you can’t (like, think, know, love, want) you don’t use -ing.
A simple exercise I do with my students is to give them a list of verbs (run, eat, love, believe, walk, need, sleep, know) and ask them to decide if each one is an action or a feeling.
I want to now look at another common verb form mistake that students frequently make.
3. Mixing up the Past Simple with the Present Perfect
These two tenses are easy to confuse. Let’s look at two incorrect sentences:
I have visited Paris last year.
Did you ever see the Eiffel Tower?
So in the first sentence the phrase ‘last year’ tells us when the action happened, it’s a specific time in the past. When we know the exact time we use the Past Simple. The correct structure is:
I visited Paris last year.
The second incorrect sentence is related to a life experience something that could have happened anytime in your life not at a specified time. In this case we use the Present Perfect.
Have you ever seen the Eiffel Tower?
I know that learners find the Present Perfect tricky. I tell my students to remember that you use it with expressions like ever, never, already, yet and just.
Often in English learning it is the small words that cause fluency errors. I now want to look at one of these problems.
4. Forgetting to use Articles (a, an, the)
We will start by looking at three incorrect sentences:
I went to shop.
She is teacher.
The life is hard.
In the first sentence ‘the’ has been omitted ‘the’ refers to one thing and it’s specific. So the correct sentence is:
I went to the shop.
In the second sentence ‘a’ is missing ‘a/an’ refers to one thing and it’s not specific. So the correct sentence is:
She is a teacher.
In the third sentence the article ‘the’ needs to be removed. Sentences with no articles refer to general ideas. So the correct sentence is:
Life is hard.
I find a great way for learners to practice this is to look around their room and describe what they see.
This is a chair.The chair is blue.Chairs are comfortable
Many learners also mistakenly mix up the order of words. Now I want to look at one circumstance when this happens.
5. Wrong Word Order in Questions
In English questions, we usually change the word order. Here are two examples of incorrectly worded questions:
You are coming?
Where you go yesterday?
These should be changed to
Are you coming?
Where did you go yesterday?
A method I teach to correct these errors is to say a statement. For example:
‘You are tired’ or ‘You like Coffee’
I then ask the student to turn these into questions:
‘Are you tired?’ and ‘Do you like Coffee?
Moving on from this another frequent mistake is this common word omission.
6. Forgetting “Do / Does / Did”
Here are two incorrect sentences.
She not like coffee.
You went school yesterday?
Remember English needs helping verbs (do, does, did) in negatives and questions. So the correct sentences are:
She doesn’t like coffee.
Did you go to school yesterday?
Try saying the following slowly and notice the sound pattern:
She likes / She doesn’t like
You went / Did you go?
Doing regular practice like this will help you form sentences correctly when you speak quickly.
One of the biggest challenges my learners face is knowing the correct preposition to use. Lets look at this now.
7. Using the Wrong Prepositions
Here are examples of three very common mistakes:
I am good in English.
I’m married with a teacher.
She depends of her parents.
Prepositions are small words, but they can change the whole meaning. It is best to learn them in phrases, not one by one.
good at English
married to a teacher
depend on her parents
When I practice prepositions with my students I say the first part of a phrase, and they complete it.
good…? → “good at”
interested…? → “interested in”
My advice to improve this area of your English is to make a small list of prepositions each week and practice them.
The final common mistake I want to look at is:
8. Confusing 'Much' and 'Many'
Here are two sentences showing this mistake:
There are much people here.
I don’t have many money.
It is important to remember that Many refers to countable objects (things you can count) : many books, many apples. While Much refers to uncountable things: much water, much time. So here are the corrected sentences:
There are many people here.
I don’t have much money.
A good way to practice this is to look around your room and think up your own sentences: There are many books. I don’t have much coffee.
So always remember grammar doesn’t have to make speaking scary. These small fixes will help your English sound more natural and confident.
Bear in mind the goal is not to be perfect, it’s to be clear, correct, and confident.
With a tutor’s help, regular speaking practice, and a focus on one grammar point at a time, you’ll soon notice that your mistakes disappear and your English flows more easily than ever before.
