5 Very Common Mistakes English Learners Make

Let's begin with our five common mistakes.

#1.

Can you spot the mistake in the sentence below?

“It's a 2 hours drive”.

This one is very sneaky because there are actually 2 mistakes in that sentence. One is a very basic mistake and the other is a more advanced mistake. Let's take a closer look.

‘2 hours’ describes the drive. It's an adjective. Do we pluralise objectives in English?

Example

1 Red apple. Two Reds apples.

The answer is, no. We don't. We do not pluralise adjectives in English. So we need to remove the ‘s‘ at the end of the word ‘hour’.

I understand that two or anything higher than two tricks your brain into adding an ‘S’ because it’s more than one – it’s plural – but Stop! Resist the urge. Also, the second mistake is that we should have a little dash between ‘two’ and ‘hour’.

Example

“It's a 2-hour drive”. (Correct)

Here are some similar mistakes I have heard being made in the past.

Example

“That's a 5 minutes walk away”. (Incorrect)

“That’s a 5-minute walk away“. (Correct)

Let me show you another example.

Example

“We had a three weeks holiday in Spain”. (incorrect)

“We had a three-week holiday in Spain“. (Correct)

Here is another example’

Example

“I've got a $20 notes”. (incorrect)

“I’ve got a $20 note“. (Correct)

Remember, we don't pluralise an adjective when we describe things like duration, distance or amount, no matter how high the number goes.

#2.

Which of the two sentences below is correct.

“Kyle enjoyed the holiday in spite of the rainy weather”

“Kyle enjoyed the holiday despite of the rainy weather”.

It is the first one. The first one is correct. It is ‘in spite of’, or just ‘despite’ with no ‘of’. It should be:

“despite the rainy weather”.

‘Despite’ is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, not on the first syllable. These expressions are used to say that something surprising happens, or something surprising is true. ‘In spite of’ is slightly more informal than despite.

Example

“Despite being afraid of heights. Ravi still went skydiving”.

You could use ‘in spite of‘ in the above example instead of ‘despite‘, but it would sound more informal.

Another very common mistake I see is people writing ‘in spite’ all as one word. It is written with a space between each word.

Example

“In spite of”. (Correct)

“inspite of“. (Incorrect)

‘in spite of ‘ – three separate words. Despite appears alone just one word. Now let’s move on to our third common mistake.

#3.

“She said me she was tired”

The mistake is using ‘say me’. We don't say somebody something. How could we correct that sentence above? Well, we could remove the word ‘me’.

Example

“She said she was tired”. (Correct)

Or we could change ‘said’ to ‘told’ and keep ‘me’.

Example

“She told me she was tired”. (Correct)

 When we use the word ‘say’, it’s to say something. When we use the word ‘tell’, it’s to tell somebody something.

Try and correct the sentence below yourself.

“He didn't say me where he was going”.

There are two options here. You could have ‘he didn't say where he was going’ or ‘he didn't tell me where he was going’. But what if we want to use a person with ‘say’ like here below? There is a missing word. Think about what you could put in the gap.

“We said goodbye ……..  everyone before we left”.

We would put ‘to’. Have a look at the correction below on the next line.

“We said goodbye to”.  

We say something to somebody.

Example

“What did you just say to me”.

So some of the most common structures are say something. When we say something, we say, ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, and so on.

#4.

Win vs Earn

Let's take a look at the two sentences below. I want you to see if you can guess which one is correct.

“She wins a good salary”.

“she earns a good salary”.

She earns a good salary is correct. A lot of people tend to use ‘win’ too often and seem to forget about ‘earn’. Why? Because in some languages there is only one word used to represent both ‘win’ & ‘earn’. So what’s the difference? Well, we generally use ‘win’ when we get something because of luck, or in a competition.

Example

“Heather won $10 on the lottery”. (Correct)

“We won first prize in the baking competition”. (Correct)

We use ‘earn’ when we get money from a job or we use it to say we make a profit from a business.  

Example

“Heather earns $30,000 a year as a teacher”. (Correct)

Example

“The company earned $4 million last year”. (Correct)

Win

 ‘Win’ can mean to get something you want, particularly because of the effort you put in. You might win somebody's support, or you might win a contract In business.

Example

“Kelly won a lot of support by promising lower taxes”. (Correct)

“We won the contract despite stiff competition”. (Correct)

Now, we wouldn't tend to say ‘earn’ in those sentences. ‘Win’ collocates more strongly as:

win support / win  a contract .

Earn

Like ‘win’, ‘earn’ can also mean to get something we deserve although it sometimes collocates with different nouns.

Example

“After running 20 kilometres, she definitely earned a rest”. (Correct)

“The team earned the right to play in the final”. (Correct)

In the sentences above, we wouldn't use ‘win’, however, sometimes we can use ‘win’ and ‘earn’ with little or no difference in meaning, particularly with words like trust, respect, and reputation.

Example

“He won the respect of his colleagues with his brave speech”. (Correct)

‘Won’ or ‘earned’ would be fine there.

The following examples would also be ok:

“Alex has earned A reputation for being reliable”.

 “Alex has won a reputation for being reliable”.

#5.

 Meet vs Get to Know

To meet

This means to see or be introduced to someone for the first time.

Example

“I met my husband at a party”. (Correct)

To get to know

This means to gradually become familiar with someone or something.

Example

“I got to know him over the next few months”. (Correct)

To know

means to be familiar with sb. / sth.

Example

“I already knew his brother because he was in my class at school”. (Correct)

Other common mistakes I also hear when somebody is going or has been on holiday are:

I met the culture. (Incorrect)

I knew the culture. (Incorrect)

We don't ‘meet’ something in this context and ‘to know’ is simply the wrong word choice here as it sounds like you had complete knowledge of the culture.What you should say in this situation, is this:

“I got to know the culture”. (Correct)

You could also say:

“I met lots of people and got to know the culture”. (Correct)

It’s also a common mistake for people to say:

“I know him more and more”. (Incorrect)

The correct way would be to say:

“I’m getting to know him”.  (Correct)

“I’m getting to know him better”. (Correct)

Those are the most natural ways to say that you're becoming more familiar with someone.  

Quiz Time

Those are 5 very common mistakes. It's now time to check what you've learned with the quiz. There are five questions in total. Take your time to think about your answers before you answer the questions below. Try to answer the questions without looking at what you have just been reading.

1 - choose the correct option (A or B).

“James ……….. $40,000 a year working in a bank”.

A)       Wins

B)       Earns

2 - Is there a mistake in the sentence below? If there is correct it.

“Despite of wearing flip flops, Lucy somehow managed to win the three legged race”.

(Fun note! A 3-legged race is when 2 people race together but their inside legs are tied together. Three legs in total)

3 - Choose the best option (A, B or C).

“Over time you'll ……… your colleagues better”.

A)       Meet

B)       Get to know

C)      Know

4 - Is there a mistake in this sentence? If there is correct it.

“My school is a 10 minutes drive from here”.

5 – What’s missing from this gap?

“She didn't say anything …….. me”.

That’s the end of the quiz. I hope you enjoyed this post. I hope you learned something. Everyday there’s a new English Grammar post. Don’t forget to check back tomorrow, and if there are any other mistakes that you have noticed in this episode, make notes and let me know.