COMMON SPELLING MISTAKES

1.-Capital letters. Nationalites and languages "English, Spanish,..." and days of the week "Sunday, Tuesday,..." are written with capital letters in English. 2.-Plurals. Words ending in the sound /f/, like "leaf, wolf or knife" have their plurals with the ending "-ves" 3.-Third person endings. Verbs like "finish, kiss, watch" are added "-es" Verbs like "study, cry" change into "studies, cries", but verbs like "buy, stay" are only added an "-s" 4.-Past tenses. Regular verbs like "study, cry" are written "studied, cried" 5.- Comparatives and superlatives. Adjectives and adverbs ending in "-y" like "funny, noisy" are written "funnier, noisier, the funniest, the noisiest" 6.- Verbs and adjectives of only one syllable. Verbs like "stop" and adjectives like "big, hot" (consonant + short vowel + consonant) double their final consonant when they are added a past tense ending or a comparative, superlative ending, "stopped", "bigger, biggest".

COMMON VOCABULARY MISTAKES

1.- The article "the". In some expressions like "go to bed, to work; have lunch, dinner; go home; be in hospital; study in highschool; be in prison" the article is not used in English. Also it is not used when you refer to something in general: "English people, children, music, horror films, personal problems, homework, housework, American cars,..." 2.- Irregular plurals. Words like "child, foot, tooth, knive, wolf" have irregular plural forms, "children, feet, teeth, knives, wolves 3.- "Arrive at/in" and "get to" are synonyms but cant change their prepositions 4.- The verb "have". This verb can be used either with "do,does, did" or with "got", but it shouldnt be used without an auxiliary. "He doesnt have any friends, he hasnt got any friends ", but NOT "He hasnt any friends". "Does she have a house in London?, has she got a house in London?", but NOT "Has she a house in London?". 5.- The verb "to be born". Its always used with a passive form, but its meaning is active. "She was born in 1971" 6.- "During" and "for". With numbers we use "for", for example, "I was in Scotland for 3 days", and with periods of time we use "during", "We met them during our holidays in Spain".

7.- The verb "like". It cant be followed by "that". "He would like his friends to help him", NOT "he would like that his friends helped him". "She likes books to be long", NOT "She likes that books are long". 8.- "Meet" and "know". "Meet" means to know someone for the first time or to find someone. For example, "I met her in the local pub", but "Ive known him since school.". 9.- Present perfect. In English we use present perfect, not present simple, to talk about actions or states that started in the past and still continue now. For example, "Ive lived in Almansa since 1999", NOT "I live in Almansa since 1999", or "Ive studied English for 10 years", NOT "I study English for 10 years". 10.- Modal verbs. The verbs "can, could, should, must, may, might" are used like the verb "to be", that is, without auxiliaries for negatives and questions, "They cant come", "Can you come?". Besides, they dont have the third person "-s", "She must do it now", and they can only be used in one tense, that is, they cant be used in present perfect, past, continuous and future tenses. 11.- "Agree, disagree with". The verbs "agree" and "disagree" are used like an ordinary verb with auxiliaries. For example, "I dont agree with you, she disagreed with them,

do you agree with me?", and NOT "Im not agree with you, she isnt agree with them, are you agree with me?" 12.- The difference in meaning between "-ing" a "-ed" adjectives. Adjectives ending in "-ing" , like, for example, "tiring, boring, exciting" have an active meaning, they mean "making other people feel tired, bored, excited". And adjectives ending in "-ed", like "tired, bored, excited" describe how someone feels. For example, if you are "boring" you make other people feel "bored" by you. 13.- Verbs ending in "-ing" are used in English to talk about actions in general, and have the same meaning as the infinitive. "Flying isnt dangerous", "Living in a big city can be very stressing". On the other hand, after a preposition verbs are always used in their "-ing" form. "Im afraid of travelling to the Far East", "What do you think about living in the country". 14.- "People" is a plural word. So you have to say "people are, were" and NOT "people is, was".

COMMON PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES - Third person and plural "-s, -es" "He live in Manchester", "She want to travel to Rome", "He watch television everynight" "We have to make three sentence", many fox" -Regular verbs "He washed /d/ his clothes by hand", "Theyve learned /d/ many things this year", "I finished /d/ early" RULE: The past simple tense is pronounced /t,d/ after vowels, and all consonants except "t,d" -Contractions "arent" "werent " must never be pronounced as two separate syllables, they are just one syllable: / nt/ /w nt/. TIP (CONSEJO): If you cant pronounce the contractions as one syllable pronounce them as if they are not contracted: /W not/ /wW not/ -Irregular verbs "caught, taught, thought, brought, bought" are always pronounced / /, the consonants "gh" are silent -Suffixes: "-or,-er" "doctor", "computer," are pronounced with the vowel / W / -Articles "the, a" and pronouns "them, her" are usually pronounced with the vowel / W /, because they are not stressed (no se acentan) "In that forest there are

-Confusing words "since" is pronounced / / "live" // but "life" /a/ "vegetables" has only three syllables "busy" is pronounced / bz / "spinach" has two / / vowels "cupboard" has the sound /W/ in the second syllable -Difficult consonants "sh" is always pronounced / / and also the words "sugar" and "sure" The spellings "-ur, -er, -ir" are always pronounced with the same vowel / /

SPOT THE MISTAKES! The number in brackets at the end of the line represents how many mistakes have been made. ESSAY "A WEDDING" 1. It was a long time since I didnt go to a social event. (1) 2. Even I dared to dance.(1) 3. I'm going to describe the last wedding which I have been. It was my best friend wedding.(3) 4. All the guest was wearing tropical clothes. (1) 5. The wedding took place in a beautiful beach in Lanzarote. (1) 6. There wasn't wind. I think this is a sign of lucky, because the usual is a lot of wind.(3) 7. It was my sister-in-law wedding. (1)

8. Also the aisle it was decorated with a lot of bouquet of flowers.(3) 9. In that moment, when arrived the bride and groom, they proposed a toast and then we started to dinner.(3) 10. It's a beautiful place because there are a beautiful views (2) 11. Everybody were looking for a drink but the waiters informed us that anything will be served until the newly-weds arrived.(4) 12. The bride wore a white and tight dress.(2) 13. Her bouquet of flowers gave me. She is a bit scruffy and she could forget it in anywhere.(3) 14. She was getting married with Daniel.(1) TYPE OF MISTAKES Tense Verb concord Noun concord, singular/plural Word order Saxon genitive Preposition (wrong or omitted) Quantifiers (some, any etc. wrong, omitted or unnecessary) Vocabulary Conjunctions (add or omit) Double subject

KEY Tense (1, 3,11,11) Verb concord (4, 11) Noun concord, singular/plural (8, 10) Word order (2, 8, 9, 12, 13) Saxon genitive (3, 7) Preposition (wrong or omitted) (3, 5, 9, 13) Quantifiers (some, any etc. wrong, omitted or unnecessary) (6, 10,11) Vocabulary (9, 13,) Conjunctions (add or omit) (12) Double subject (8)