 |
| Photo: Flicker. |
Somehow We all do speak Engish. Even if we are in a non-English country, Every one of us is using English. Whether it is in the study or while using social media or somewhere else. But Even those who are very good in English, often do many mistakes. We will mention below some common English Mistakes, many of us do in the writing.
Articles. (a, the )
People just forget about them. I know there are some languages, in which articles don’t exist at all. But in “English Language” they do exist. There are two articles. ” definite and Indefinite “. ” a ” is indefinite, and ” the ” is a definite article.
Here are two Examples.
- (I went to the zoo and I saw an Elephant.) What does it show? I went to the zoo and I saw some “random” Elephant. I am not talking about any particular Elephant.
- But everything changes when I say. ( I went to the zoo and saw the Elephant. ) “the” here means that we already talked about some specific elephant in the zoo and you know exactly which Elephant I am talking about. So this is a definite article.
Replacing the Full stop (.) With commas (,)
Comma (,) is not a full stop. What a lot of people do is create a super long sentence with many commas.
Example: { my parents came to visit, we went to a restaurant, then we went to see the palace, and then they left.}
This is a lot for one sentence. You have to separate it. I will do it like that. { my parents came to visit and we went to a restaurant. Next day we went to see the palace, and then they left.}
Something like that. So do not make this type of sentences with the bunch of commas.
Using Ampersand (&) in the texts.
You know the sign (&) and we use to see this sign in brand’s names. Like ( At&T ). There are many brands that use them. But we only use Ampersand in the names of brands. We never use it in an essay. You should never use it in a text. The American and British people understand that (&) means (and). But it looks really very weird when you put this sign in the text. Even if you know what it means, but don’t use it in the texts.
Unnecessary Capitalization.
If you have a look at some of my earlier Posts. You will note that before I used to capitalize the majority of words in the title. And this is how “title” works in English. Nouns, Verbs, Proverbs, are capitalized. But if you are writing a text, there are only three phases where you capitalize the first letter.
- The first word in a sentence.
- Name of objects.
- “I” is always a capital letter.
Some people write “you” also with the first capital letter. Some give its reason as they want to write to you in a polite way. But there is no such a thing in English. So always write it with a small letter.
Discuss.
Some people use “discuss” with “about”. For example ( I will discuss about something). This is wrong. The right way is to write ( Discuss something or talk about something).
What many of us do is translate some text from Google or any other translator and use it as it was translated. This makes a lot of mistakes.
If you want to write something in English eg; a post or an article. Write it in English by yourself. Don’t take some text from your own language, then copy and translate then post it as it was translated by some application.
Because the meanings of a translated text from one language will be a lot different than as you want to express them in other languages.
Using uncommon greetings and endings in your emails.
Many of us don’t know how to finish an email. We are coming with many different/beautiful phrases. But there are some common phrases that everybody uses. So use them, especially in your business or official emails.
For example: Looking forward to hearing from you. Hope to hear from you soon. Talk to you soon.
There are some other phrases too. But these are common. So use them. They make life easier.
Many dots (…) at the end of a sentence.
Many dear Indians/Pakistani and South Asian friends do this mistake commonly. For example ( can you please help me…..) 5 dots. Don’t do that. Nobody does this awkward thing. Even in university applications people are doing this. Maybe they are trying to become more romantic or showing eagerness by many dots. But this is not a professional way.
Using a verb “realize” when talking about projects.
The common mistake here is when people say (we came to realize that we shouldn’t be brought up this project). The word “realize” is only when you understand something. For example ( I just realize that I forgot my bag at home.) I just understood that I forgot it. That’s the only meaning of this word. If you are talking about ideas, about projects, then don’t use this word.
Mixing up collaboration with cooperation.
Cooperation is like when somebody tells you to cooperate. For example, police tell you “please cooperate with us etc”.
This is not something when two companies work together. Or when you want to work with some person, you collaborate. So you are asking for collaboration. E.g. ( let’s collaborate on this project ). The word “cooperate” is only when you are talking to someone who owes you something or like that conditions. Then you can say “you need to cooperate, you need to listen to what I say etc.”