25 Common Grammar Mistakes ESL Learners Make and How Teachers Can Correct Them

I did not anticipate encountering this issue, especially not in that school or among those students.

The school where I began my teaching career was the first fully English-medium institution in our town. Many students met or even exceeded my expectations. However, several students' grammar was simply weak. That question has remained with me for seventeen years. The following insights are drawn from seventeen years of classroom observation.

The 25 Mistakes

1. English Words, Urdu Thinking Behind Them

The most persistent source of error I have noticed across every level, from Grade 7 and Pre-Cambridge through Cambridge I and II to HSSC, is direct translation from Urdu. Students are accustomed to forming sentences in their first language mentally and then translating them word-for-word into English. The result is grammatically incorrect sentences: "My hand is paining", "I go to mess yesterday", and "She is knowing the answer". These are not careless mistakes. They are systematic ones. At SST Public School Rashidabad, I notice the same pattern at all levels. What differs is the temperament of the mistake; the root cause is the same.

2. Misusing Articles: a, an, the

One of the most common errors I have faced is the misuse of articles. Many of my students come from a language that has no articles at all. Their minds simply do not feel the difference. I have marked essays in which all articles are missing or used incorrectly throughout.

3. Subject-Verb Agreement

"She play in the garden every day." I have encountered this error frequently. The third-person singular -s presents a challenge even for upper-intermediate students preparing for examinations. The solution is to identify whether the subject is singular or plural and ensure the verb agrees in number.

4. Incorrect Use of Verb Tense

Another common error is the inconsistent use of verb tenses. For instance, a paragraph may begin in the past tense but shift to the present tense. This is not a careless oversight; rather, it reflects a lack of awareness that maintaining a consistent verb tense is essential in English grammar.

5. Prepositional Mistakes

"My brother is good in English." "She is married with Raja." Prepositional errors are among the most persistent, as there are few definitive rules for preposition usage. Prepositions must often be memorised in context with the words they accompany. I recommend that students use reference books containing commonly used prepositional phrases.

6. Uncountable Nouns Treated as Plurals

"He asked for some informations." "My teacher gave me good advices." This error stems directly from first-language reasoning, as Urdu allows plural forms for all nouns. In English, however, certain nouns such as information, advice, furniture, luggage, evidence, knowledge, and news are uncountable and must be memorised as such.

7. Double Negatives

Many South Asian languages use double negatives for emphasis, leading students to consider expressions like "I don't know nothing" as correct. I consistently explain that double negatives cancel each other out. Students should use not or never with any (anything, anyone, anywhere), but never combine them with words beginning with no (nobody, nothing, nowhere).

8. Complex Sentences and Missing Commas

"As I walked to school it began to rain." This sentence has a punctuation error. When a dependent clause such as "As I walked to school" comes first in a complex sentence, it must be separated from the main clause with a comma. It is a higher-order mistake and should be corrected as soon as it appears.

9. Comma Splices and Run-On Sentences

In my classes, many students write excessively long sentences without appropriate punctuation. ESL learners often avoid using full stops, perceiving them as a sign of weakness. I emphasise that short, simple sentences are preferable to lengthy ones filled with punctuation errors. When connecting two independent clauses, a semicolon or full stop should be used instead of a comma.

10. Incorrect Question Formation

"Where you are going?" The auxiliary shift is the one mistake I hear again and again every year. Students completely lose the inversion. The auxiliary verbs do, does, did, is, are, was, and were must precede the subject in a direct question.

11. Confusion Between Gerunds and Infinitives

"I enjoy to play." Using either form is not unreasonable to a learner, but only one is correct with each verb. I tell my students that certain verbs are best learned as collocations: verbs such as enjoy, avoid, and finish take the gerund, while verbs such as want, hope, decide, and plan take the infinitive. There is no hard-and-fast rule; it must be learned and practised.

12. Conditional Sentence Errors

At the secondary level, many students confuse the two main types of conditionals. A particularly persistent mistake is the use of will in the if-clause, a direct carry-over from Urdu. I teach my students one clear rule: there is no will or would in the if-clause, without exception.

13. Reported Speech Errors

Reported speech requires three changes: tense, pronoun, and sometimes time expressions. Students frequently omit one or more of these adjustments. For example, I often see "she said she is tired" instead of the correct back-shifted form "she said she was tired". Under exam pressure, students tend to overlook these changes, even though they should become automatic with practice.

14. Tricky Words: affect/effect, there/their/they're

It is very common for even strong learners to be confused by homophones and near-homophones. These are not grammar errors but word and spelling awareness errors. I ask students to maintain a list of confusing words, each with its meaning and a sample sentence. They must review this list once a week.

15. Passive Voice Errors

Students often overuse the passive voice or construct it incorrectly by omitting the auxiliary be. The correct structure requires the appropriate form of be followed by the past participle. I also explain when passive voice is stylistically appropriate, emphasising that it should not be used indiscriminately.

16. Inconsistent Capitalisation

"i go to karachi on monday." There is no capitalisation rule in the Urdu script, which leads to this transfer error. I always teach students to capitalise the pronoun I, names of people, places, languages, days, months, nationalities, and the first word of every sentence.

17. Apostrophe Misuse

A common issue is students inserting apostrophes into nearly every word ending in -s. Apostrophes are used only for contractions and possession, never for forming plurals. I reinforce this rule repeatedly until it is fully understood.

18. Make vs Do Confusion

In Urdu, the word karna means both "make" and "do", so the distinction is not apparent to many students. Collocational mistakes such as "do a mistake" and "make homework" are common. I group verbs into collocation sets: make for create, produce, and cause; do for tasks, activities, and work.

19. Double Comparatives

"She's more better." "This is the most easiest task." The -er/-est forms and the more/most forms are taught and practised separately, and students are then clearly instructed never to combine them. The rule is absolute: use one form or the other, never both.

20. Sentence Fragments

"Because he was tired." Many students use subordinate clauses as complete sentences. A complete sentence requires both a subject and a verb. Clauses beginning with words such as because, which, although, or when must be attached to a main clause.

21. Modal Verb Errors

"I must to go." "She can able to do it." Adding to after a modal verb is one of the most frequent errors I see at all levels. The rule is absolute: always use a bare infinitive after a modal verb, with no exceptions.

22. Present Perfect vs Simple Past

The present perfect is a confusing construction, as many languages lack an equivalent form. The distinction I explain is this: use the simple past for definite, completed time expressions; use the present perfect for indefinite time or when the action has relevance to the present. A common error in a British English context is "I saw him today" when the student means the action relates to the current day, which requires "I have seen him today."

23. Incorrect Word Order

English follows a Subject-Verb-Object structure, with adverbs, adjectives, and time expressions occupying specific positions. Urdu, by contrast, is a Subject-Object-Verb language, leading to word-order errors due to first-language interference. In English, adjectives precede nouns, and time expressions typically appear at the end of a sentence.

24. Phonetic Spelling

Some students who learn through the phonics approach spell words exactly as they sound, producing forms such as nite, cud, or recieve. Spelling is a distinct skill from pronunciation. I have found that keeping a personal spelling error log alongside wide reading are the most effective remedies.

25. Direct Translation from L1

Direct translation may account for as many as half of the mistakes in this list. When students cannot recall the correct English construction, they form the sentence in Urdu and translate it word for word. Errors such as "My head is hurting" are not random; they are systematically logical in the student's native language. The only remedy that works consistently is wide reading combined with patient, consistent correction.

A Note After Seventeen Years

After seventeen years of teaching, I have learned one thing: these errors are not failures. They are signs of a learner acquiring a second language, managing two grammatical systems simultaneously, building new neural pathways, and bridging the gap between meaning and expression over time. I have never seen myself as merely a paper corrector. The important work is understanding why an error occurs and teaching in a way that makes the correct form feel natural, logical, and permanent.

There is a solution to each of these issues. I have seen this consistently throughout my teaching career.