The Focus of This Lesson Is the Top Five Tips for Avoiding Common Mistakes in English.

In this lesson, we're going to give you some tips on how to avoid common mistakes made by learners

of English. This is so that you can be aware of certain errors and keep them in mind when you learn.

Common errors are different for different language backgrounds, but we'll try to touch upon the

general differences.

Tip Number One: Watch Your Spelling!

One thing to be careful of is your spelling. When writing something in English, a single spelling error

could ruin the whole piece of writing. English words are tricky in a sense that the spelling does not

always match the way we pronounce a word. Be sure to use the spell checker on your computer, and

even then double check with your eyes for the correct spelling of heterographs, which are words that

sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Be careful with American spelling and

British spelling: use one or the other and don't change them around while writing. It's also a good idea

to double check the spelling of somebody's name, because that is a common mistake.

Tip Number Two: Watch Your Language!

Although English is relatively casual compared to languages that have levels of formality, you still

have to choose your words according to the company you find yourself in. In other words, language

that you might have learned from music or movies may not always be appropriate in professional or

proper situations and could well offend someone. If you're going to be in polite company, you might

want to reassess some of the words that are in your vocabulary bank. Words that are most likely safe to

use are from newspapers or the news on TV. Keep political correctness in mind as well-in other words,

be sure not to use terms that may offend certain groups of people. For example, the word "stewardess"

has been replaced by "flight attendant." It is better to stay safe and watch your language.

Tip Number Three: Watch Your Nouns

Nouns are easy when you learn them. They seem pretty straightforward, but some of them may be

tricky. We can divide nouns into count and non-count nouns. We can make the count nouns plural by

adding an "-s" or "-es" to the words, depending on the word. We cannot make non-count nouns into

plurals by adding an "-s." For example, we can pluralize the word "song" by adding an "-s," as in "that

is his favorite song" or "those are his favorite songs." However, we don't usually pluralize the word

"music," for example, by adding an "-s": "that is his favorite musics" is not used. We put something in

front of it to make the noun countable, which in this case would be "pieces of music" or "types of

music."

Tip Number Four: Know Your Vowels

Vowels in English are tricky. There are five written vowels: "-a," "-e," "-i," "-o," or "-u," but there are

many different ways to pronounce them. Depending on the combination with other vowels and

consonants, the sound of the vowel may change. People with different accents will also pronounce the

same vowel in a word differently, whether or not they speak it as a first or second language. So if

you're coming from a language with flat vowels, this might be a tricky thing to catch. A good way to

practice this is by shadowing native speakers and by better understanding the positioning of the

tongue. This way, you will not only become a clearer speaker yourself, but you will also be able to

catch the sounds that you didn't hear before.