Appendix F: Common Grammatical Errors

Native speakers make grammatical errors in every language. Recognising these patterns helps you avoid them in your own speech and writing — and understanding why they occur deepens your grasp of grammar itself.

English

Pronoun Case Errors

The “myself” error: Using myself as a substitute for me or I:

• ✗ Please contact John or myself. → ✓ …John or me.
• ✗ Myself and Sarah attended. → ✓ Sarah and I attended.
• ✗ The report was written by myself. → ✓ …written by me.

Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject (He hurt himself). They are not formal alternatives to ordinary pronouns.

“Me and John” errors: Using me as a subject:

• ✗ Me and John went to Cambridge. → ✓ John and I went to Cambridge.
• ✗ Me and Sarah are going out. → ✓ Sarah and I are going out.

The hypercorrection: Having been corrected for the above, some speakers overcorrect and use I everywhere — including where me is correct:

• ✗ She invited John and I. → ✓ She invited John and me.
• ✗ Between you and I… → ✓ Between you and me…

Test: Remove the other person. You would never say me went to Cambridge or she invited I — adding another person doesn’t change the case of the pronoun.

Note: In English, always put yourself last: John and I, John and me — never I and John or me and John.

Who/whom confusion: Who is nominative; whom is accusative:

• ✓ Who called? (subject — he called)
• ✓ Whom did you call? (object — you called him)
• ✗ Who did you give it to? → ✓ Whom did you give it to? / To whom did you give it?

Test: Substitute he/him. If him fits, use whom.

Verb Errors

“I was sat/stood”: Confusing the progressive with the passive:

• ✓ I was sitting there. — progressive (ongoing action)
• ✓ I was seated by the host. — passive (someone seated me)
• ✗ I was sat there. — wrong in standard English

Similarly: He was standing ✓, not He was stood ✗.

These forms are common in British dialects but grammatically incorrect in standard English. The progressive requires -ing.

Would of / could of: Writing of instead of have:

• ✗ I would of gone. → ✓ I would have gone. / I would’ve gone.

The error comes from mishearing the contracted ’ve as of.

Other Common Errors

Less/fewer: Fewer for countable nouns; less for uncountable:

• ✓ Fewer people attended. (countable)
• ✓ Less water remains. (uncountable)
• ✗ Less people attended.

Its/it’s: This is confusing because apostrophes usually mark possession (the dog’s tail), but its is an exception:

• its — possessive (like his, hers, theirs — no apostrophe)
• it’s — contraction of it is or it has

Examples:

• ✓ The dog wagged its tail. (possessive — the tail belongs to it)
• ✓ It’s raining. (it is raining)
• ✓ It’s been a long day. (it has been)
• ✗ It’s tail was wagging.

Why no apostrophe? Possessive pronouns (his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs) never use apostrophes. The apostrophe in it’s marks a missing letter, not possession.

Test: Expand to it is or it has. If it doesn’t make sense, use its.

French

Subjunctive Errors

“Après que” + subjunctive: The conjunction après que takes the indicative, not the subjunctive (because the action has already happened):

• ✓ Après qu’il est parti… — indicative
• ✗ Après qu’il soit parti… — subjunctive (common but incorrect)

Compare avant que, which does take subjunctive (the action hasn’t happened yet): Avant qu’il parte…

“Malgré que”: Traditionally considered incorrect; use bien que or quoique instead:

• ✗ Malgré qu’il soit fatigué… → ✓ Bien qu’il soit fatigué…

Malgré is a preposition and should be followed by a noun: malgré sa fatigue.

Agreement Errors

Past participle agreement: In compound tenses with avoir, the past participle agrees with a preceding direct object:

• ✓ Les lettres que j’ai écrites. (direct object que = les lettres, feminine plural)
• ✗ Les lettres que j’ai écrit.

With être, the participle agrees with the subject: - ✓ Elle est partie. (feminine singular)

Native speakers frequently omit these agreements in speech.

Gender errors with common words: Some words have unexpected genders:

Tense Confusion

Passé composé vs imparfait: Using the wrong past tense:

• J’ai mangé — completed action (I ate / I have eaten)
• Je mangeais — ongoing or habitual action (I was eating / I used to eat)

Confusing these changes meaning: Quand il est arrivé, je mangeais (I was eating when he arrived) vs Quand il est arrivé, j’ai mangé (When he arrived, I ate — suggests sequence).

Future vs conditional: Mixing up -rai and -rais:

• Je partirai — I will leave (future)
• Je partirais — I would leave (conditional)

In speech, the difference is subtle but grammatically significant.

Spanish

Case and Pronoun Errors

Leísmo, laísmo, loísmo: Using the wrong object pronoun:

Standard usage: - Direct object (masculine): lo veo — I see him/it - Direct object (feminine): la veo — I see her/it - Indirect object (both): le doy — I give to him/her

Leísmo (common in central Spain): using le for masculine direct objects: - ¿Conoces a Juan? — Sí, le conozco. (standard: lo conozco)

Leísmo with masculine persons is accepted by the RAE; laísmo and loísmo are not.

Laísmo (Castile): using la for feminine indirect objects: - ✗ La dije la verdad. → ✓ Le dije la verdad.

Loísmo (rare, stigmatised): using lo for masculine indirect objects: - ✗ Lo dije la verdad. → ✓ Le dije la verdad.

Verb Errors

Dequeísmo and queísmo: Errors with de que vs que:

Dequeísmo — adding de where it doesn’t belong: - ✗ Pienso de que vendrá. → ✓ Pienso que vendrá. - ✗ Me dijo de que sí. → ✓ Me dijo que sí.

Queísmo — omitting de where it’s needed: - ✗ Estoy seguro que vendrá. → ✓ Estoy seguro de que vendrá. - ✗ Me alegro que estés bien. → ✓ Me alegro de que estés bien.

Test: Replace the clause with eso. Pienso eso (not pienso de eso), so no de. Estoy seguro de eso, so de que.

“Hubieron” for “hubo”: Making haber agree with its object:

• ✗ Hubieron muchas personas. → ✓ Hubo muchas personas.

Haber as an existential verb (“there was/were”) is impersonal and does not change for number.

“Haiga” for “haya”: Non-standard subjunctive form:

• ✗ Espero que haiga tiempo. → ✓ Espero que haya tiempo.

Other Common Errors

Redundant possessives: Adding possessives where not needed:

• ✗ Me duele mi cabeza. → ✓ Me duele la cabeza.

The indirect object me already indicates whose head hurts.

“A por”: Considered incorrect by some:

• Voy a por el pan. — regional (Spain)
• Voy por el pan. — standard

German

Case Errors

Dative/accusative confusion with two-way prepositions: Prepositions like in, an, auf, über, unter, vor, hinter, neben, zwischen take: - Accusative for motion toward (answering wohin?) - Dative for location (answering wo?)

• ✓ Ich gehe in die Stadt. (accusative — motion into)
• ✓ Ich bin in der Stadt. (dative — location in)
• ✗ Ich gehe in der Stadt. — wrong

Relative pronoun case: Using nominative where another case is needed:

• ✓ Der Mann, den ich sah… (accusative — object of sah)
• ✗ Der Mann, der ich sah…

The relative pronoun takes its case from its function in the relative clause, not from the antecedent.

Word Order Errors

“Weil” with main clause order: In colloquial speech, weil is increasingly used with main clause (V2) word order instead of subordinate clause (verb-final) order:

• ✓ (standard) Ich bleibe, weil ich müde bin.
• ✗ (colloquial) Ich bleibe, weil ich bin müde.

This is common in speech but incorrect in standard written German.

Verb position in subordinate clauses: Forgetting verb-final order:

• ✓ Ich weiß, dass er morgen kommt.
• ✗ Ich weiß, dass er kommt morgen.

Comparison Errors

“Als” vs “wie”: Using the wrong word in comparisons:

• ✓ Er ist größer als ich. (different — “than”)
• ✓ Er ist so groß wie ich. (equal — “as”)
• ✗ Er ist größer wie ich.

Test: Als for difference; wie for equality.

Verb Errors

“Brauchen” without “zu”: In standard German, brauchen (with negative meaning “need not”) takes zu + infinitive:

• ✓ Du brauchst nicht zu kommen.
• ✗ Du brauchst nicht kommen.

In colloquial speech, brauchen is often used like a modal verb without zu.

“Wegen” + genitive: Wegen traditionally takes genitive, but dative is increasingly common:

• ✓ (standard) wegen des Wetters
• (colloquial) wegen dem Wetter

Why These Errors Occur

Several patterns explain why native speakers make these mistakes:

1. Analogy: Speakers extend a pattern where it doesn’t apply (hubieron by analogy with other verbs; less people by analogy with less water).

2. Hypercorrection: Overcorrecting a perceived error creates a new one (John and I as object; wegen dem overcorrected to wegen des in all contexts).

3. Phonetic reduction: Speech sounds blur distinctions (would’ve → would of; qu’il est → qu’il soit sounds similar).

4. Register shift: Informal patterns enter formal contexts (weil + V2 in writing; was sat in standard English).

5. Dialectal variation: Regional forms differ from the standard (leísmo in Spain; I was sat in northern England).

Understanding grammar means recognising these patterns — not to be pedantic, but because precision in your native language translates to precision in languages you learn.

Previous: Appendix E: Unusual Grammatical Features

Next: Appendix G: Word Order Typology