Research says, India has the second highest number of English speakers.
However, English remains a foreign language to the locals as some common mistakes Indians still make prove this.
Let’s fix just 10 of these mistakes and have Indians inch closer to becoming a flawless English speaking country.
Here we go!
1. When introducing themselves, Indians tend to mix up both the possessive pronoun ‘myself’ and the subject pronoun ‘I’.
Incorrect: Myself I am Suresh babu.
Correct: I am Suresh Babu.
2. Present continuous tense cannot be used for situations such as the example below. Simple present tense is the correct form:
Incorrect: I am having four brothers and three sisters.
Correct: I have four brothers and three sisters.
3. “Do not” should not be used after the subject pronoun (He, She, It).
Incorrect: He do not have a laptop.
Correct: He does not have a laptop.
4. The helping verb, “does” is used at the beginning and the main verb, “have” denotes possession or ownership.
Incorrect: Does she has a car?
Correct: Does she have a car?
5. Hmm…
Incorrect: (Question) “Today office is there?” (Answer) “No, office is not there. Today is Bharat bandh.”
Correct: (Question) “Is today a working day?” OR “Are we working today?” (Answer) “Yes, we are working today or no, we are not working today.”
6. Saying “That only” was the wrong way to emphasize what the speaker has already said.
Incorrect: That only, she is very arrogant.
Correct: That was what I said. She is very arrogant.
7. The word, “Prefer” is always followed by the preposition “to.”
Incorrect: I prefer coffee than tea.
Correct: I prefer coffee to tea.
8. The helping verb “did” is followed by the present tense of the verb and not the past form.
Incorrect: He did not wrote the test last week.
Correct: He did not write the test last week.
9. The meaning of the verb cope is to manage. ‘Cope’ is followed by the preposition ‘with’, and never followed by ‘up’. Even professionals commit this error too.
Incorrect: I cannot cope up with this pressure.
Correct: I cannot cope with this pressure.
10. Note that the hair on everone’s head is considered uncountable so, “hairs” is always not correct.
Incorrect: He has white hairs.
Correct: He has grey hair.
Okay. Let’s stop here today. Where are you reading from? Do you make some of these grammatical mistakes? Please tell us in the comments. Don’t forget to SHARE this post. Thanks for reading.
