Top 20 Primary English Grammar Mistakes: Understand the Cause, Then Fix It
Why does the same mistake keep appearing?
Most parents assume the child is careless, but a mistake that repeats in the same place is usually direct transfer of Chinese thinking (language transfer). Chinese has no plural marking, shows tense through time adverbs, and often drops the subject — when a child applies that habit to English, the errors below appear. Understand the cause and the correction has direction.
Group one: nouns and plurals (mistakes 1 to 4)
- Mistake 1: missing plural -s (e.g. I have two book) -> Chinese has no marking; remind them two or more takes -s
- Mistake 2: adding -s to uncountables (e.g. informations) -> keep a list of uncountable words
- Mistake 3: wrong a/an (e.g. a apple) -> it follows the sound, not the letter
- Mistake 4: missing possessive 's (e.g. the boy bag) -> explain whose takes 's
Group two: verbs and tenses (mistakes 5 to 9)
| Mistake | Example | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tense unchanged | Yesterday I go... | Chinese shows past via yesterday | Past adds -ed / use went |
| Third-person -s missing | He like... | Chinese has no subject change | Singular he/she/it adds -s |
| Be-verb misused | He is go... | be works differently in the two languages | Pick is/are OR a main verb, not both |
| Verb after modal | She can sings | Modal takes the base form | Change sings to sing |
| Missing be in continuous | I eating... | Continuous needs be+ing | Add I am eating |
Group three: pronouns he/she and possessives (mistakes 10 to 12)
- Mistake 10: mixing he/she (unclear gender link) -> reinforce with imagery
- Mistake 11: it's / its confused -> it's = it is; its = belonging to it
- Mistake 12: your / you're confused -> same sound spoken, different in writing
Group four: prepositions (mistakes 13 to 16)
- Mistake 13: jumbled in/on/at for time -> remember at a point, on a day, in a period
- Mistake 14: listen music missing to -> learn collocations as a whole
- Mistake 15: married with -> the correct form is married to
- Mistake 16: good in should be good at -> fixed phrasal pairing
Group five: sentence patterns and comparison (mistakes 17 to 20)
| Mistake | Example | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Double comparative | more better | Use better on its own |
| Missing auxiliary in question | You like apples? | Add Do you like... |
| Wrong there is/are | There is many... | Match is/are to the subject's number |
| Missing do in negative | I not like | Change to I don't like |
How parents can help at home: four steps
- 1
Circle the error
Let the child find where it is
- 2
State the rule
Explain the cause in one sentence, not just the answer
- 3
Make a sentence
Use the same rule to make a correct one
- 4
Review next day
So the same error type can be caught independently next time
Related reading & courses
Key takeaways
- A mistake that repeats is usually Chinese thinking transferred to English, not carelessness
- Plurals, tenses, he/she and prepositions are the four big primary trouble zones
- Correct by stating the cause, not just giving the answer — that is what sticks
- Imagery, whole-collocation learning and flagging homophone pairs cut errors effectively
- A parent need not be an English teacher; sitting with the child to think the rule helps
Frequently Asked Questions
- Q1My child makes many grammar mistakes — more copying?
- Not necessarily. Copying helps with spelling but little with understanding the rule. More effective is having them circle the error, say why it is wrong, then make one correct sentence.
- Q2He/she keeps getting mixed up — what then?
- That is a gender-link imagery problem. Bind he/she to concrete characters with images, colours or a story, and practise until it is automatic.
- Q3Tenses keep being forgotten — how to drill?
- Lock onto the two most common first: past tense and third-person singular. Check those two fixed items after every piece of writing; building the review habit beats learning everything at once.
- Q4Do prepositions need to be memorised one by one?
- No hard memorising, but learn collocations as a whole — listen to, good at, married to — together with the following word, and the error rate falls sharply.
- Q5Do you have a course focused on grammar?
- Our English courses include targeted practice by the child's error type, with grammar as one strand. For arrangements, please enquire with the centre.
Sources
Online language education in Hong Kong · 17 years of teaching
Written by the Jinghua Language academic team. Founded in 2009, our centre specialises in live one-to-one online language tuition for students aged 3 to 18, covering Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, public examination preparation and recitation training, with 38 teaching and coaching awards to date.
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Published 2026-08-06
