Mistakes of Advanced English Students
all of the below advice pertains to European English
not using the subjunctive. if + past tense (conditionals), e.g. ‘If I saw her regularly, we would be friends’ and the irregular conditional with ‘to be’, where “I was” changes to “if I were” e.g. ‘If I were stronger, I could move the cabinet’
order of clauses. in English you will always have: subject + verb + direct object + indirect object AND THEN indirect object (place) AND AFTER indirect object (time). e.g. ‘Harriet met Luisa for tea [at the café] [on Saturday morning]’
some uncountable nouns: ‘advice’ not advices, ‘news’ is singular, so ‘did you hear the news?’ ‘yes, I heard it’
knowing when nouns are uncountable but still using certain plural forms with them. e.g. correctly saying ‘hair’ but also saying ‘they are curly’ instead of ‘it’s curly’
some frequently misused phrasal verbs:
‘I never get to do what I want’ means ‘I want to do [x] but circumstances actively prevent me’ — not that you forget about it, but you’re stopped by something else.
‘I came across your notebook / email / any object’ means ‘I found it by chance when I wasn’t looking’ — ‘I came across her when I was in town’ means ‘I met her for the first time when I was in town’; to say you met someone you already knew by chance, you can say ‘I bumped into her in town’
“back up” — reverse a vehicle; “back down” — retreat from a fight or debate after it starts because you think the other person is beating you; “back away” — walk backwards from something before anything happens; “back out” — decide not to do something you promised to do.
mixing up “prefer” / “rather” / “would prefer” / “would rather”
we use prefer or would rather to talk about general preferences e.g. ‘I prefer going to the cinema than watching a film at home’ or ‘I’d rather go for a walk than a run’
we use would rather (informal) or would prefer (formal) to talk about specific choices e.g. ‘I’d prefer a beer to a soft drink’
we don’t commonly use ‘rather’ on its own in modern English, except maybe when talking about predictions for betting, e.g. ‘the experts rather Tamerlane to Shergar in the Grand National’
ON (single days) on New Year’s Day, on a birthday
AT (specific celebrations of two or more days) at Christmas, at Easter, at Purim, at Hannukah || also: at the weekend, at night
IN (long time periods) in week four, in June, in autumn, in 2018 — and (very short time periods) in the morning / in the afternoon / in the evening
being very direct with questions. nice phrases include: ‘you might do [x] when you have a chance’ ; ‘would you mind if [y]’ ; ‘sorry to bother you, but [z]’
nationality terms with the indefinite article are tricky — generally it’s okay to say e.g. ‘a German’, ‘a Brazilian’ etc., without saying ‘a German person’. this isn’t possible with nationalities that end in -sh, -ch or -ese however. so we never say ‘an Irish’ or ‘a French’ or ‘a Japanese’
be especially careful with East Asian -ese because there have been uses of ‘a Chinese’, ‘a Vietnamese’ in a derogatory way
saying ‘me and my friend’ instead of ‘my friend and I’ — it’s much more polite to put the other person first :)
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
izzy806
dededos