Your Common English Mistakes
and Why You Make Them.
Many students, adults especially, do not like making common English mistakes. Being incorrect is seen as a weakness and people do not like being weak. This is probably the number one problem with learning English. To learn English you NEED to make mistakes. Common English mistakes (for Spaniards) include knowing the difference between; make and do, using cognates or false friends correctly and just silly mistakes. Some examples with Spanish and English are: actually vs currently, embarrased vs pregnant or constipated vs congested.
If you go into a phramacy, blow your nose
and say you are constipated...the pharmasist
will prescribe you something to help you go to
the bathroom (constipated is when you can not
deficate) but you might have ment to say that
you are congested (can't breath through your nose).
Mistakes like these can be embarrassing (the way you feel...not that you are having a child), and can make people feel frustrated, annoyed and hopeless.
Time and time again my students ask me;
Why do I make so many mistakes?
People make mistakes because they are learning something new. Think about when you learnt how to do something, like ride a bike or surf for the first time? Did you jump on the bike and ride away like a pro? NO! You fell on your face! You hit bushes or lamp posts and you lost control; over and over again.
That is how people learn. They try...and then something goes wrong. Then they try again and avoid the last mistake, and a new one happens. SO again and again you are making common English mistakes and correcting yourself, learning something new. Knowing why you are learning English is the key to keeping motivated. Click here to learn more about staying motivated or finding your source of motivation.
How can I make fewer common English mistakes?
My answer to this question usually doesn't make my students feel better.
MAKE MORE MISTAKES!
What??? Why would you want to make more mistakes?Well, if you make common English mistakes, it is because you are using English and trying to use it properly. If you are not making any mistakes it means that you either have very good English OR...you are self concious and not using your English. I always tell my students to talk a lot and make mistakes so that I can correct them. Then they learn from their mistakes. That is why you make mistakes, TO LEARN FROM from them. That is why common English mistakes are nessisary. They are frustrating...but nessisary.
But many of you might ask,
What should we do if we don't have anyone to correct us? If we are studying alone at home?
In that case you need to adapt your learning. For example...if you are studying grammar from book (Like Krishanthan) and you don't know if you have made a mistake or just provided a new way of responding to the question... you will need to ask someone (a native speaker or English teacher) for clarification. Don't know a native speaker or teacher? NOW YOU DO! ME!! Ask me!
I hate making mistakes while SPEAKING with others. How can I stop this?
If you make mistakes while speaking with people, I'm sorry but you just need to ignore that fact. People know you are learning English as a second language. They don't care as much as you think. YOU care far more than anyone else. Obviously I am speaking about intermediate learners who can speak in English but make mistakes frequently.If you are a beginner you will make mistakes all the time. Try to accept that now. Mistakes are needed to improve. So accept it now. You are going to make mistakes but EVERYONE will be making mistakes. Don't worry about it. Just keep trying. Keep studying, keep talking, keep surrounding yourself in English and soon you will notice that you are makeing fewer mistakes (or that you just don't care anymore because people understand you and that is what learning a language is all about... communication). By accepting the mistakes that you make and will make in the future, you free yourself from frustration and anger that will only hold you back. Being frustrated does NOT help you learn English. Confidence and postive thinking keeps you going and will help you reach your goals faster!
Stay positive dispite making common English mistakes
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