10 Common spelling and grammar mistakes made by native English speakers | Can you correct them?

English is a complicated language and  it's hard to learn and use it perfectly even for native speakers.

Hello and welcome everyone, this is Minoo at Anglo-Link.

It is inevitable that we develop mistakes along our language journey.

There is no shame in that!

All we need to do is to become aware of these  mistakes, and correct them slowly and surely until they go away.

So, in this lesson we're going to look at some common mistakes that I hear and see from native speakers around me, 

and see if you can figure out what they should have said or written instead.

So, when you're ready, let's look at the first mistake, which is a spelling mistake.

So, No.1

He wasn't happy about loosing the match.

What's the spelling mistake in this sentence?

The mistake is obviously 'losing'.

Losing is spelled l-o-s-e when it means fail to win.

The other word 'loose', notice the difference in pronunciation as well lose and loose,

means not tight. For example: A loose shirt.

Right! Let's look at spelling mistake No.2

I like the style of this shirt, but I don't like it's colour.

What's the spelling mistake here?

This is a very common spelling mistake where 'its' should be spelt without the apostrophe.

'Its' without the apostrophe means belonging to an object.

Whereas, 'it's' with the apostrophe is the contraction of 'it is'.

So in this sentence, we're talking about belonging to the shirt

so, we should use its. i-t-s. No apostrophe!

Right! Let's look at spelling mistake No.3

CD's came out in the 1980's.

What are the two spelling mistakes here?

The mistakes are again to do with the use of apostrophe.

You know that the plural doesn't have an apostrophe.

So, one CD, two CDs.

If you use the apostrophe you want to say, like we saw before, belonging to the CD.

For example: The CD's (apostrophe-s) title.

Let's look at spelling mistake No.4.

You should of been more careful!

You probably saw that straight away!

'Of' doesn't belong here. The word that belongs here is 'have'.

You should have been more careful! But, contracted: You should've been more careful!

Now, 'of' and 've' sound very very similar and that creates the spelling mistake with native speakers.

And here are some other common native spelling  mistakes because these words sound exactly the same.

Your, here, there, to, and who's.

So, remember these and make sure you don't make them yourself.

Right, now let's look at some common grammar mistakes I hear from native speakers around me.

Here's the first one:

There's some strawberries in the fridge.

What's the mistake and how would you correct it?

I'm sure you got that. 'Strawberries' is a plural noun. So, we shouldn't say 'there is' but 'there are'.

Use 'there is' only with singular nouns and  with uncountable nouns.

For example: There is only one strawberry left.

Or: There's a lot of bread left.

Let's look at common mistake No.6. Another grammar mistake.

And I have two sentences here for you. So, we're looking for two mistakes.

Look at the amount of cars in the car park today! There were less cars yesterday.

Take your time. See if you can find the two errors here.

The mistakes again are to do with singular and plural nouns.

Cars is a countable and plural noun therefore, you shouldn't say 'amount' you should say 'number'.

Look at the number of cars in the car park today!

And also, it's not correct to say 'less cars'. We should say 'fewer cars'.

Words like amount, little, or less should  be used with uncountable nouns. For example 'traffic'.

Amount of traffic, little traffic, less traffic.

Let's have a look at No.7

If I would have known, I would have told you.

How would you correct this?

I'm sure you noticed that this is a conditional three sentence.

So what should we put in the 'if' clause?

Past Perfect! If I had known, I would have told you.

However, don't be surprised if you hear this, occasionally, in certain American dialects.

Okay! Let's look at mistake No.8, which will surprise you.

Have you took the letters to the post office?

Yeah, I done it yesterday.

Can you spot and correct the mistakes? There are two of them.

I'm sure that was an easy one for you because  you've been memorising the list of Irregular Verbs for many years.

Obviously, it's not: Have you took. But: Have you taken.

And not: I done it yesterday. But: I did it yesterday.

So, you may be surprised to hear from me now that

even native speakers sometimes confuse the Past Simple  and the Past Participle forms of Irregular Verbs in English.

Okay! Moving on to mistake No.9

John and me never used to fight.

Spot the mistake here.

I hope you got this one.

The correct answer is:  John and I never used to fight.

You know that 'I' is the subject pronoun, and 'me' is the object pronoun.

In this sentence, John and I are in the subject position.

Now, if John and I were in the object position obviously, you would use 'me'.

For example: He spoke to John and me yesterday.

And finally, No.10

We was at the cinema last night.

I'm sure you spotted and corrected that straight away.

It's not 'we was' but 'we were'.

Obviously, you, they, were. And I, he, she, it, was.

I was very surprised when I heard some of the native speakers in the area where I live using 'was' for all pronouns.

Right! That's the end of the lesson.

For lessons and exercises on all topics, please visit my website

Ango-Link.com.

And please remember to subscribe and allow notifications to know when my next lesson is online.

Thanks a lot for watching, and I'll see you again very soon.

Goodbye for now!