7 Common Mistakes in English You Can Easily Avoid Making

No one is perfect. Each and everyone of us have made countless mistakes in our lives, including in using English in our daily life. Fear not! Here are 7 common mistakes in English that we can easily avoid.

Each example has a common English mistake. See if you can figure out what the mistake is, and then read the tip for more information.



Grammar Mistakes

1. It’s or Its

Example Mistake: The spider spun it’s web. Its a very beautiful web.

Tip: “Its,” without an apostrophe, is the possessive version of a pronoun. In the above example, we should use the possessive “its” to talk about the spider’s web, because the web belongs to the spider.

“It’s,” with an apostrophe, is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” When talking about the beauty of the web, we’re saying that it is a very beautiful web. Therefore, we should use the contraction “it’s” instead of “its.”

So, if you’re not sure which spelling to use—”it’s” or “its”—try adding “it is” or “it has” to the sentence. If neither of those phrases works, then its is the word you’re looking for. For example, “the spider spun it is web” and “the spider spun it has web” do not make any sense. That’s why you should say “the spider spun its web.”

Correction: The spider spun its web. It’s a very beautiful web.

2. Subject-verb Agreement

Example Mistake: The list of items are on the desk.

Tip: In the above sentence, the list of items is one singular list (we are talking about ONE LIST ONLY, and not THE ITEMS ON THE LIST). Therefore, we should not use “are.” We should use “is.”

Correction: The list of items is (because there is only ONE list) on the desk.

3. Gone or Went

Example Mistake: She had already went to the bathroom before they got in the car.

Tip: If you aren’t sure whether to use “gone” or “went,” remember that “gone” ALWAYS needs an AUXILIARY VERB before it.

Auxiliary verbs include: has, have, had, is, am, are, was, were, be.

“Went” can’t have an auxiliary verb before it.

In the sentence above, we used “went” even though the auxiliary verb “had” is also present. Since the word “had” is there, we should use “gone” instead of “went.”

Correction: She had already gone to the bathroom before they got in the car.

4. Watch, Look, See

Example Mistake: Stop watching my private journal. / I look at the snow falling. / I don’t play tennis, but I look at them playing every day.

Tip: “See,” “look” and “watch” are often confused in meaning. However, they should be used in different situations. The difference between the three verbs can be explained in the following way:

Look — to look at something directly.
See — to see something that comes into our sight that we weren’t looking for.
Watch — to look at something carefully, usually at something that’s moving.
So, we can “see” something even if we don’t want to, but we can only “look at” something on purpose.

Correction: Stop looking at my private journal. / I watch the snow falling. / I don’t play tennis, but I see them playing every day.



Speaking Mistakes

5. Future Tense

Example Mistake: I will be going to the dance party yesterday.

Tip: The future tense is being used to talk about the wrong time in the sentence above, since the sentence is talking about something that happened in the past, yesterday. You should only use the future tense when something has not happened yet, but it’s going to happen in the future.

Correction: I will be going to the dance party tomorrow.

6. Literally or Figuratively

Example Mistake: I’m literally melting because it’s so hot. / Figuratively speaking, it’s 100 degrees out here.

Tip: This is a mistake because “literally” means “actually” or “really,” and “figuratively” means not real. “Figuratively” is used to exaggerate, or enlarge the meaning of something.

Correction: Figuratively speaking, I’m melting because it’s so hot (because you're not really melting). / It’s literally 100 degrees out here (because the thermometer reading IS 100 degrees celcius).

7. Casual or Formal

Example Mistake: (At job interview) “Hey, what’s up?”

Tip: Know your audience! Casual talk is for friends, not your boss. This isn’t formal, it’s slang. It can even be considered inappropriate or rude. To speak more formally in English, you should avoid contractions (say “how is” instead of “how’s”) and try to be more polite.

Correction: “Hello, how is everything going?”