Common Mistakes

This portion of grammar is dedicated to mistakes that are commonly made specifically by Taiwanese's students studying English. These are mistakes that I have seen made over and over again in my 5 years experience of teaching English in Taiwan.

"there have" - You can't say "there have" in English. This mistake is often confused with "there are" and "there is". "There is" and "there are" already have the meaning of "have" embedded in them.

"I have ever" -  "Ever" can only been used when asking a question, so one can say " Have you ever been to Taiwan?".

"must to" -  This is incorrect, you can say "I must (verb)." or " I have to (verb)."  I think many students confuse "must to" with "have to".

Fun / funny - These are two different words however Taiwanese students often tend to mix them up. 

"I like to swimming" - When we use "like to" it must be followed by the root form of the verb, " I like to (verb)".  So we must say "I like to swim." , however if we use the Gerund form of  "swim", which is "swimming" we can say "I like swimming".

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Irregular Past Tense Verbs

PRESENT	PAST	PARTICIPLE		PRESENT	PAST	PARTICIPLE
be	was/were	been		leave	left	left
become	became	become		let	let	let
begin	began	begun		lie	lay	lain
blow	blew	blown		lose	lost	lost
break	broke	broken		make	made	made
bring	brought	brought		meet	met	met
build	built	built		pay	paid	paid
burst	burst	burst		quit	quit	quit
buy	bought	bought		read	read	read
catch	caught	caught		ride	rode	ridden
choose	chose	chosen		ring	rang	rung
come	came	come		rise	rose	risen
cut	cut	cut		run	ran	run
deal	dealt	dealt		say	said	said
do	did	done		see	saw	seen
drink	drank	drunk		seek	sought	sought
drive	drove	driven		sell	sold	sold
eat	ate	eaten		send	sent	sent
fall	fell	fallen		shake	shook	shaken
feed	fed	fed		shine	shone	shone
feel	felt	felt		sing	sang	sung
fight	fought	fought		sit	sat	sat
find	found	found		sleep	slept	slept
fly	flew	flown		speak	spoke	spoken
forbid	forbade	forbidden		spend	spent	spent
forget	forgot	forgotten		spring	sprang	sprung
forgive	forgave	forgiven		stand	stood	stood
freeze	froze	frozen		steal	stole	stolen
get	got	gotten		swim	swam	swum
give	gave	given		swing	swung	swung
go	went	gone		take	took	taken
grow	grew	grown		teach	taught	taught
have	had	had		tear	tore	torn
hear	heard	heard		tell	told	told
hide	hid	hidden		think	thought	thought
hold	held	held		throw	threw	thrown
hurt	hurt	hurt		understand	understood	understood
keep	kept	kept		wake	woke (waked)	woke (waked)
know	knew	known		wear	wore	worn
lay	laid	laid		win	won	won
lead	led	led		write	wrote	written

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Plural Nouns

Plural Noun Spelling

In English is we are talking about more than one noun we must refer to it in it's plural form. This is simply done by adding "s" onto the end of any countable noun. This is the case most of the time with the exception of the situations listed below:

We make a noun plural by adding "es" when the singular noun ends in the following letters:   
-s/-ss/-sh/-ch/-x/-o

examples:

church/churches
bus/buses
wish/wishes
box/boxes
kiss/kisses
potato/potatoes

When a noun ends in a consonant + "y" (-by/-ly/-sy, etc.) we make the noun plural by deleting the "y" and adding "ies"

examples:

baby/babies
family/families
secretary/secretaries
story/stories

Plural Noun Spelling 

Some nouns have a completely different word when we make them plural, these nouns are called irregular plural nouns. Refer to the chart below for a complete list of these nouns.

SINGULAR	PLURAL		SINGULAR	PLURAL
child	children		man	men
die	dice		mouse	mice
foot	feet		person	people
fish	fish		tooth	teeth
goose	geese		woman	women

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Sentence Structure

There are basically two things that you have to understand in order to write and speak good English.

1. English is a “word-order-language”

What this means is that word order is necessary to the meaning of everything we say and write. When we speak English we discover that the word order is very inflexible and must be followed at most times. There are of course some exceptions to this, however the basic word order in English is as follows: Subject-Verb-Object-Manner-Place-Time (S/V/O/M/P/T)

Try to train yourself to use this pattern when speaking or writing. You must also be careful not to change the nouns around because it can really change the meaning of what you are saying.

For example: The customer paid the cashier. (The customer being the Subject and the cashier the Object) or The Cashier paid the customer. This sentence has a totally different meaning.

2. Sentence Structure

Sentence structure is the way we show a relationship between ideas and events. There are basically three different kinds of sentence structure that you must learn.

A) The simple sentence – this type of sentence simply contains a subject and a verb.
E.g. “ All the shoes were sold.”

B) The compound sentence – this type of sentence has two or more simple sentences that are connected by a conjunction such as: but, and, or, etc.
E.g. “ I asked her the question but she didn’t answer me.

C)    The complex sentence – this type of sentence has two or more simple sentences that are connected by a conjunction such as: when, since, as soon as, etc.
E.g. “ We knew we lost the game as soon as they made a goal 

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Grammar Quizzes

Requests: Will, Would, Could, Can, Would you mind...?

Questions: Will / Could / Would / Can
Will / Could Would / Can*	Subject	Base form of the Verb	Example
Will Could Would Can	you	give	me some help on Sunday?
		buy	some milk for me?
		fill up	my car with gas?

* Will, would, could and can are modals. Modals don't have -s in the third person singular.

Short Answer			Short Answer
Affirmative			Negative
Of course Certainly Sure	(I will) (I can)		I'm sorry, but I can't

 

Questions : Would you mind...?
Would you mind	Gerund	Example
Would you mind	giving	me some help on Sunday?
	buying	some milk for me?
	filling up	my car with gas?

 

Short Answer		Short Answer
Affirmative		Negative
No, not at all. I'd be glad to.		I'm sorry, but I can't

Notes to keep in mind:

1. We use will, can, could and would when we ask someone to do something. We usually use will and can for requests that are informal We use could and would to make the request less demanding	Examples: Friend: Can/will you help me with my homework? Boss: Could/would you type this letter for me?
2. We can also use Would you mind + gerund to make a polite request. A negative answer to this question means you agree to the person’s request.	Examples: A: Would you mind looking after my dog on Monday? B: Not at all (I’d be glad to)
3. Please can be used to make the request more polite. Notice the different word order on the right.	Examples: Could you please turn up the TV? or Could you turn up the TV please?
4. We normally expect the answer to be yes when we ask polite requests. When we can’t say yes we usually apologize and give a reason. * Don’t use could or would when answering a polite question, this is considered impolite.	Examples: A: Could you pick up my suit at the dry cleaners? B: I’m sorry, I can’t. I have a meeting after work. A: I’m broke, would you lend me NT 500. B: Of course ( NOT Yes, I would)

Exercise 1. Check the appropriate answer.

1. Mike would you please drive me to class today? My car won't start.
a. Yes, I would.	b. I'd be glad to.	Answerb.
2. Would you mind lending me NT 1000? I'm getting paid tomorrow.
a. No, not at all.	b. Yes.	Answera.
3. Mike can you take these books back to the library for me? I'm running late this morning.
a. I'm late for class too. Sorry.	b. No, I can't.	Answera.
4. Could you lock the door when you leave? My hands are full.
a. Yes, I could.	b. Sure.	Answerb.
5. Can you turn the radio down? I need to study for my test tomorrow.
a. Certainly.	b. Not at all.	Answera.
6. Will you pick up some milk on the way home this afternoon?
a. No, I won't	b. I'm sorry, I can't. I'll be late for work.	Answerb.

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Last updated: 2010-04-30 03:46:04