Common mistakes in written English

Learning all the rules of the English language is difficult. Even in Russian, we sometimes make elementary mistakes, although it would seem, we learn it from childhood.

We have compiled a list of the most common mistakes in written English. Check if you know all the rules.

Confusing the articles “a” and “the”

This is one of the most common mistakes. The easy rule, which we teach one of the first, for some reason is very quickly forgotten.

In order not to confuse these articles, it is enough to remember that we use “the” with something specific, and we put “a” before a common noun. Copy and save this rule if you forget about it often.

We put a lot of commas

We love to build longer sentences. Either this is Lev Nikolaevich's syndrome, or something else. In English, it's best not to try to write complex sentences. Reduce and break everything to the maximum, replace commas with periods. This will significantly reduce the number of errors. And the text will become easier to read.

We put an ampersand (“&”) instead of “and”

We often see that in brand names instead of the word “and” there is an ampersand“&”.In ordinary texts, this will not work. It is not necessary to replace the unit with a graphic symbol. It will look strange, to say the least. Especially if you are writing a formal letter or resume.

Wrong completion of emails

English has established phrases that need to be placed at the end of emails. You can find these phrases in any reference book or textbook. List a few of them to use, and don't forget to include them in your emails.

Important: there are different goodbye phrases for official and unofficial letters. Here you need to remember which of them we put in a letter for friends, and which - in letters for work.[fourteen]

Capitalize words

To show our respect, we often capitalize the pronoun “You”.There is no such thing as English. The only pronoun we capitalize is “I”.

With a capital letter in English, we also write the names of people, proper names, and the first words in sentences. You don't need to overuse capital letters here.

Looking for similar words

When translating Russian texts into English, we are looking for words with similar pronunciations. But after all, their meaning does not always have to coincide. For example, the words “realize” mean “to realize”, not “to realize”.But some for some reason continue to realize their idea.

Check the meanings of words in dictionaries if you are not 100 percent sure about them.

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