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Most Common Mistakes inEnglish

Dr. Christine Coombe

Emirates/Dubai Mens College

Toastmasters

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Errors in English

The concept of error is based on

My perspective

Is based on American English

Recognizes that the native speaker isa misnomer

There are many more non-nativespeakers of English in the world than

native speakers Recognizes the importance of global

English

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My Top Ten

Verb Forms

Adjective Placement

Prepositions

Misc. Grammar Pronunciation

Punctuation

Spelling

Meaning

Ambiguity (2 types)

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Verb Forms

Oftentimes the degree to which youknow the verb system in Englishindicates your level of language

proficiency i.e. mastery of the past tense indicates anintermediate level

English teachers cite the following asmajor problems with verbs: Overuse of the infinitive

Indian usage of present continuousbecoming a fossilized error in Arab students

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Adjective Placement

Many languages place adjectives after the noun French: Une voiture bleue

Order of adjectives is often challenging Opinion adjectives (nice, beautiful, delicious)

Fact adjectives (long, young, hot, large) Opinion adjectives go before fact

Adjectives of size and length go before adjectives ofshape and width

When there is more than one fact adj, use this order

How big?

How old? what color?where from?what is itmade of?

A small black plastic bag

An old white cotton shirt

Big blue eyes

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Prepositions

Little words in English cause thebiggest problems!

Phrasal verbs add to the confusion

Run away

Get by

Look out

Take off Fill in

Cut down

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Grammar Slammers

There/their/theyre

a/an before h

Its/its Your/youre

Who/which or that?

Anyone vs. any one

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There/their/theyre

There is used in two ways

Can specify a place

Can be used as an expletive or empty

word to start a sentence

Their is the possessive form of

they

Theyre is the contracted form of

they are

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A/An before h

Before a pronounced h, the

indefinite article should be a

A history book

Before a silent h, use an

An hour

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Its/its

Its is the possessive form of the

pronoun

That is a good book. Its title is..

Its is the contracted form ofit is

orit has

Its time to go.

Its been great.

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Your/youre

Your is the possessive form of a

personal pronoun

I like your website.

Youre is the contracted form of

you are

Youre a dedicated student.

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Who/which or that?

Who (or whom) refers to persons

Which refers to animals or things

That can refer to either persons

or things

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Anyone vs. any one

Anyone means any person

Not necessarily any specific person

Can refer to multiple people simultaneously

As two words, any one refers to asingle person

Examples:

Anyone can download my software. But the

software can only be used by any one user

at a time.

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Pronunciation

Learners define good pronunciation assounding like a native speaker

Many factors effect pronunciation Stress

two-syllable nouns and adjectives--stress on the

first syllable (i.e. apple, hotel, lagoon, suspect) words which can be used as both nouns and verbs

noun has stress on the first syllable "You are thesuspect!"

verb has stress on the second syllable "I suspectyou.

compound nouns are fairly equally balanced butwith stronger stress on the first part (i.e. hairbrush)

Individual Sounds P/B for Arabic Speakers; L/R for Asians and F/V/W

for Indian Speakers of English

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Punctuation

Quotes before or after the period?

Quotation marks go After a period or comma

Before a colon After a question mark (unless the entire

sentence is a question)

End punctuation after URLs

There isnt any! Apostrophes

When in doubt, leave them out!

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Spelling

Continues to be problematic even

with Spellchecker!

Spell check is good to check spelling

It cant determine meaning

They cannot determine weather the

word is the one wanted.

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Meaning

Literal and non-literal meanings

(usually called idioms) must be

considered

Each of the following has two

meanings. What are they?

Bite your tongue

Kick the bucket

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Ambiguity

A word, phrase or sentence having more

than one meaning

There are two types

Structural French culinary professor

Is the cooking French or is the professor French?

Lexical

Ill meet you by the bank. Does by the bank refer to a place where you

withdraw money or to a river bank?

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Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed your brief foray

into common mistakes in the

English language.

Dont let the fear of making

mistakes prevent you from

communicating!