• 4-minute read
• 4th December 2018

3 Common ESL Errors (And How to Fix Them)

In some ways, English is a silly language full of conflicting rules about grammar and spelling. It certainly makes learning English as a second language difficult. To help our ESL readers out, though, we’ve made a list of three common ESL errors. Watch out for these in your writing!

1. Article Issues

Articles go before a noun to tell us something about it. In English, these terms include ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘an’. However, knowing which term to use can be difficult. Remember:

• We use the definite article (i.e. the) when referring to something with a known identity, whereas we use an indefinite article (i.e. a or an) when discussing something non-specific. For example, if we say ‘the dog’, we’re assuming that the reader knows which dog we’re talking about. But if we say ‘a dog’, we could be discussing any dog.
• ‘A’ goes before words that begin with a consonant sound (e.g. ‘a dog’). ‘An’ goes before words that sound like they start with a vowel (e.g. ‘an eagle’).

It’s also worth remembering that all singular countable nouns require an article. Countable nouns are those that refer to individuals you could count:

I have pet dog. ✗

I have a pet dog. ✓

‘Pet dog’ here is a singular countable noun because dogs are individuals we can count (in this case, there is one dog). As such, the first sentence above is incorrect because it does not use an article before the phrase ‘pet dog’.

2. Preposition Usage

Prepositions are common words that connect other words in a sentence. However, there are a lot of these terms in English, so it is easy to get them wrong sometimes. For instance, some ESL writers forget to include ‘to’ before an infinitive verb or miss it after a verb:

They chose start a business together. ✗

They chose to start a business together. ✓

I am listening music. ✗

I am listening to music. ✓

It is also easy to mix up some prepositions. Both ‘at’ and ‘on’, for example, can be used to indicate when something happened. However, ‘at’ is used when referring to a specific time, while ‘on’ is used when discussing an entire day. Mixing these up would therefore be incorrect:

I got home on 9pm. ✗

I got home at 9pm. ✓

We left at Thursday. ✗

We left on Thursday. ✓

As such, you should pay special attention to the prepositions in your writing. The more you practise using them, the more confident you will be about picking the right term each time.

3. Irregular Plurals and Verbs

Some of the worst rule-breakers in English are irregular plurals and irregular verbs. These terms don’t follow the usual spelling and grammar rules, so it is easy to get them wrong.

For example, most English nouns can be made into a plural by adding ‘-s’ at the end (e.g. cat → cats). But irregular plurals may have a different word ending, or they may not change at all:

These are all irregular plurals, so they do not follow standard spelling rules.

Most past tense and past participle verbs, meanwhile, are formed with the letters ‘-ed’ at the end (e.g. listen → listened). But irregular verbs do not follow this pattern, such as in the following:

As shown above, sometimes the simple past tense and past participle forms of an irregular verb are the same as one another. Sometimes they differ. And sometimes they’ll both be the same as the simple present tense version! You can see why this may become confusing.

Make sure you look out for these words in your writing. And if you are unsure whether you have used an irregular plural or verb correctly, check in a dictionary or ask a proofreader for help.