Grammatical Accuracy

Some people wonder why there is a need to have grammatical accuracy in English, when even some native English speakers commit grammatical mistakes themselves. I used to ask that myself too, but as I listened more carefully to how both (native English speakers and non-native English speakers) express their thoughts, the reason dawned on me.

Native English speakers can say what they want without much difficulty due to their familiarity of the language. If they have difficulty expressing a certain concept/thought in a certain way, they can just use other ways of saying those things. They may commit some mistakes in grammar, but the mistakes do not distort or change the meaning of the sentences they want to convey, thus, it doesn’t give the listener much of a problem understanding them. On the other hand, the mistakes many non-native speakers of English commit are those that often change the meaning of sentences they want to express, and thus create a misunderstanding. That’s exactly the reason why non-native speakers have to study grammar more than native speakers.

Common Mistakes in Grammar

• Nouns
Ex. My neighbor has ten childrens.
(“Children” is already in the plural form, so there’s no need to add “s”.)

Ex. There are three sheeps in the meadow.
(Some nouns such as sheep, deer, salmon and trout have the same form in the singular as in the plural.)

Ex. My scissors is sharp.
(Certain nouns such as scissors, pliers, tweezers and tongs are always in the plural form and need plural verbs. So, the “is” in the above sentence should have been “are”.)

Ex. Picking the right candidate for the contest involves a lot of criterias.
(“Criteria” is already in the plural form.)

• Pronouns
Ex. Everybody have their work to do.
(The indefinite pronouns each, anyone, anybody, , everybody and everyone are referred to by singular pronouns. The sentence should have read “Everybody has his work to do.)

Ex. I watched a movie with my wife last night. He liked it very much.
(He’s talking about his wife and then he used “he” to refer to her afterwards.)

• Adjectives
Ex. She is the most fairest girl I have ever seen.
(“Fairest” is already in the superlative degree of comparison, so using “most” before it makes the meaning redundant.)

Ex. He is worst than my ex-husband.
(If only two things/people are being compared, “worse” should be used instead of “worst”.)

Ex. I met little people in the conference.
(“Little” is used to refer to noncount nouns. “Few” should have been used in the sentence above, unless of course the writer/speaker was referring to midgets or dwarfs, or if he used the word little “figuratively”.)

• Verbs
Ex. Few is expected to fail the test.
(The indefinite pronouns both, many, several and few take a plural verb.)

Ex. They hanged the old fiddle in the woodshed.
(Some are confused with hanged and hung. “Hanged” means to kill somebody or yourself by fastening a rope around the neck and removing any other support for the body. “Hung”, on the other hand, means to suspend or fasten something so that it is held up from above. In this sentence, it seems as if the old fiddle was killed, which of course doesn’t make any sense.)

Ex. I go to school yesterday.
(The word “yesterday” indicates a past event, so the verb used should have been “went”.)

Ex. She swimmed very fast the last time we were at the beach.
(“Swam” should have been used instead of “swimmed.”)

Ex. He don’t know anything about it.
(“Doesn’t” should be used instead of “don’t” because the subject “he” is singular.)

For Other Factors Affecting English Speaking Skills Click Here