En unas publicaciones anteriores os enseñamos algunos de los errores gramaticales más comunes y cómo evitarlos. ¡Hoy os traemos más!
1. The third person singular (he, she, it) in the Present Simple tense has an “s”.
Wrong: He work every day.
Right: He works every day.
Careful! Some nouns that seem to have a singular form may be plural.
Wrong: Some people thinks that learning English is not easy.
The police is on duty in the street.
Right: Some people think that learning English is not easy.
The police are on duty in the street.
2. Capital letters.
The most common mistakes are with the days of the week, months of the year and all related to the names of countries.
Wrong: Regularly on sundays, in my town, many families meet residents from france, holland and ireland for afternoon tea to socialize and to speak english.
Right: Regularly on Sundays, in my town, many families meet residents from France, Holland and Ireland for afternoon tea to socialize and to speak English.
3. Words in apposition.
Words that are added to another word must be placed beside that word. Otherwise the result can be peculiar!
Wrong:
Found: bag belonging to a girl made of fine red leather. (The bag or the girl was made of leather?)
Right:
Found: bag made of fine red leather belonging to a girl.
Wrong: After declining for months, the Director of Finance tried a new tactic to help the company growth. (The Director of Finance or the company had been in decline?)
Right: After declining for months, the company’s growth had to depend on the help of the Director of Finance’s new tactic.
4. Be careful how you word notices too!
Automatic Washing Machines.
Please remove all your clothes when the light goes out.
Please remove all your clothes from the machine when the stop light goes out. Sounds less risky?
5. To depend ON.
One of the most common errors made by Spanish speaking students is not knowing what preposition goes after this verb.
Wrong: Where we go on our trip will depend of the weather. (This is a direct translation from Spanish)
Right: Where we go on our trip will depend on the weather.
6. Double negatives are not permitted in English.
Wrong: “ I didn’t do nothing yesterday” means that you did something yesterday.
Right: I didn’t do anything yesterday.
Remember that “any” is used with the negative and the interrogative.