roddy 5,473 Posted October 23, 2015 Report Share Posted October 23, 2015 For me it's lead / led. I remember maybe 8 or 9 years back a client dropping me a note to say 'hey, you quite often get led/lead wrong: "this has lead the MIT to introduce..." A decade later, and I'm still doing it. I don't even want to think how many times I've done it and not noticed and sent it in. I'm sure it's lead to much embarrassment. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Lu 3,191 Posted October 23, 2015 Report Share Posted October 23, 2015 I have trouble with verb tenses. This was pointed out to me by a 同行 who speaks native Dutch and English, and with English verbs working slightly differently from Dutch ones I'm often not quite sure whether her corrections are influenced by her English or whether I really did get it wrong and if so, whether her corrections are right. In English I used to spell a certain word 'definately', but I figured that out after years of getting it wrong. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
L-F-J 53 Posted October 24, 2015 Report Share Posted October 24, 2015 Countable vs Uncountable A lot of people make this mistake. I do it all the time even knowing I should say many people. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
li3wei1 440 Posted October 24, 2015 Report Share Posted October 24, 2015 do you count stuff like "there's too many characters in my flashcard deck", which everyone gets wrong? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
c_redman 107 Posted October 24, 2015 Report Share Posted October 24, 2015 Possessive "it's" vs. "its", as in "The dog chewed its bone". Possessive nouns get "'s" added, as in "The dog chewed the dog's bone", so I automatically want to add it here to make "it's bone". After someone pointed out that "it" is a pronoun and not a noun, I remember the correct usage a lot better. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
vellocet 282 Posted October 25, 2015 Report Share Posted October 25, 2015 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
somethingfunny 794 Posted October 29, 2015 Report Share Posted October 29, 2015 I pronounce "uck" and "ook" the same. Which means book=buck, took=tuck, look=luck. It's not a big problem, but it was pretty funny when a friend and I realised this a few years ago. In terms of grammar, it's got to be semicolons. My solution has been to never use them, but I feel it harms the level of my written English. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
New Members Loyola 1 Posted November 26, 2015 New Members Report Share Posted November 26, 2015 When I was learning Chinese my English became terrible! I couldn't remember words like toaster. I would say "thing that cooks bread". Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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