Making mistakes in English is not new and if you want to avoid these mistakes, the following easy rules will allow you to do just that.
- Every sentence’s first letter is capital and there is a full stop or a period at its end. If the sentence is a question then it will end with a question mark and with an exclamation mark depending on the nature of the sentence.
- My name is James.
- How are you feeling today?
- That was an awesome hit!
- Every basic positive sentence will have this order.
Subject-Verb-Objective
(A negative sentence or a question sentence can have a different order.)
- James drives a car.
- They were watching a movie in the theater.
- Every sentence has a verb and a subject. The object in a sentence is optional. It is important to understand that a sentence that is imperative can only have a verb, however, the subject (the meaning of the sentence) is understood.
- James teaches.
- James teaches English.
- Listen! (i.e You listen!)
- A singular subject will need to have a singular verb and plural subjects will need to have a plural verb.
- James teaches in Dublin.
- The sun rises once a day.
- James and Wilma live in Manchester.
- Most people drink 4 glasses of water a day.
- Use a singular verb whenever two singular objects get connected by or, nor, either, and neither.
- James or Wilma is singing tonight.
- Either tea or coffee is fine.
- Neither James nor Wilma was late.
- If a verb is not separating the adjective from a noun, then adjectives will usually come before the noun in a sentence.
- I have a small cat.
- He killed a beautiful dog.
- His wife is dead.
- If more than one adjective are used together in a sentence then follow this order.
Opinion-Adjective + (Fact-Adjective) + Noun
- I saw a scary Italian movie.
- That was a lovely French cuisine.
- Collective Nouns can be treated as singular or plural, based on the type of English you are using.
British English treats collective nouns as plural with a plural pronoun and verb.
American English treats collective nouns as singular with a singular pronoun and verb.
(Board of directors, company, committee. These are examples of collective nouns)
British English
- The committee are planning a visit today. Then they might leave for London.
- The BMW have decided to stay with their logo.
American English
- My family is going for a picnic.
- GM motors is going to compete with Tesla.
- The word “Its” has a different meaning than “It’s”
- The silly cat broke its foot.
- He believes it’s raining outside.
- The word “Your” has a different meaning than “You’re”.
- I like your car. (something belonging to you)
- You’re looking very handsome in that coat. (It means “You are”)
- There is a different meaning for “There”, “They’re”, and “Their”.
- There is a lot of noise in the room. (mentioning a place)
- He is in their new office. (something belonging to them)
- I think they’re not returning today. (It means “they are”)
- “She’s” is a contraction that can mean “she is” and it can also mean “she has”. This rule applies to “He’s”, “it’s” and “James’s” as well.
- He is finished. She’s finished. James has finished.
- “He’d” is a contraction that can mean “he had” and it can also mean “he would”. This rule applies to “They’d” as well.
- He had done his job. She’d done his job. They would do their job.
- Every proper noun starts with a capital letter. It can be the name of anything, for example, James, France, Austin Martin, etc.
- Can you find India on the map?
- Sometimes I like to speak French.
- I wonder where James went.
- Every proper adjective will also start with a capital letter every time. Proper adjectives are can be made out of proper nouns. For example, from the proper noun of China, you get Chinese.
- Are the Pakistani players in the field?
- I like to travel on French trains.
- Germans are famous for their technology.
- Indefinite articles (“a” and “an”) are used for nouns that can be counted in general. Uncountable nouns and specific countable nouns get the definite article of “The”.
- I saw the American flag. A bird was sitting on its pole.
- All the water entered my room last night.
- Is there a Chinese restaurant nearby?
- Words starting with a vowel sound use the article of “an” and other words that start with a consonant sound use the article of “a”.
- A dog, a game of football, a big achievement, a Frenchman.
- An element, an orange, an unexpected guest, an ant, an inkpot.
- Uncountable nouns use “little, a lot, or much”. Using “Many or few” for countable nouns is appropriate.
- How many dollars does it cost?
- You are asking too much money for this car.
- There were only a few people boys left in the hall.
- There was a little traffic near my office.
- To express the possession of a singular subject, make use of an apostrophe before “s”.
To express the possession of a plural subject, make use of an apostrophe after “s”.
- The girl’s bag was pink. (single girl)
- The dogs’ tails were brown. (more than one dog)
- Prefer using the active voice in general (Dogs drink water) over the use of passive voice in general (Water is drunk by dogs).
- We eat apples at lunch.
Apples
are eaten by us at lunch.
- He drives a car.
a car
is driven by him.