Lesson 1 – Introduction & Errors with countable and uncountable nouns

Welcome to the 200 Common Errors in English Course!

I’m excited to help you fix your mistakes and improve your English so that you can speak more confidently and fluently – without worrying that you’re doing something wrong.

Today I’m going to explain the structure of the course and the lessons.

The first 21 lessons focus on grammar mistakes. I’ll show you the wrong way to say it – the common error – and then the right way, the way a native English speaker would say it. And then I’ll briefly explain why, and I might also give a couple more examples to help you see how the grammar is used correctly.

The next section is all about vocabulary mistakes – using the wrong word. The English language has a lot of words that seem similar, but are actually different. I’ll teach you how to avoid mistakes made by both English learners and native English speakers, so that you’ll know how to use these words the right way.

After that, we’ll study spelling mistakes, which are so easy to make because English pronunciation and spelling are very irregular! A lot of words are spelled differently from how they might sound, and trying to learn spelling “rules” is frustrating because there are so many exceptions. But in these lessons you’ll learn the most common misspellings and how to fix them.

Next, we’ll work on pronunciation – and this section requires your active participation, as I’ll ask you to listen and repeat after me in order to say things correctly and avoid the common errors! Don’t be shy; give it a try. Practicing and fixing pronunciation mistakes will help you reduce your accent, so that other people can understand you better when you speak English.

The final part of the course focuses on learning and mindset mistakes. It’s about correcting bad study habits or bad thinking habits that language learners tend to have. In some ways, this is the most important section of the course because these things are at the foundation of everything you do when you’re trying to improve your English – so ask yourself if you’re making any of these errors!

THE FORMAT FOR EACH LESSON IS SIMPLE:

First, watch the video. You can pause it if you need to take notes.

Next, try the quiz so that you can review and test your understanding. You can check your answers by clicking “Finish quiz” and then “View questions.”

One extra thing you can do is to try creating your own sentences, putting into practice what you learned in the lesson.

As you finish each activity, make sure to click “Mark Complete” to check it off:

You’ll have permanent access to this course, so you can go back and review the videos anytime in the future. If you have any technical trouble, just send me an e-mail and I’m happy to help.

By the end of this course, you’ll know all about the most common errors in grammar, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, and learning and mindset – so that you can avoid them and speak better English.

Go ahead and start Lesson 1!

Hello students!

We’re going to start our course by learning about the most common grammar mistakes.

Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that when we speak English, our grammar is not always perfect (especially when it comes to sentence structure). The grammar of spoken English is a little more “flexible” than what we expect in written English. That means that usually people can understand you, even if you’ve made a small mistake with a preposition or a verb tense.

I don’t want you to think that grammar mistakes are serious or disastrous, and I definitely don’t want the fear of mistakes to prevent you from trying to use your English.

Mistakes are nothing to be afraid of… but of course we do want to fix them or avoid them – that’s why you’re taking this course!

Just remember: don’t be afraid of mistakes, and don’t let them stop you from speaking. But let’s learn how to avoid the most common ones together. We’ll begin with some common errors involving nouns and pronouns.

ERROR #1

Don’t say:

• I need some informations.
• He gave me a lot of advices.

Say:

• I need some information.
• He gave me a lot of advice.

Information and advice are considered uncountable nouns, and they are never plural.

In English, we have two types of nouns – countable nouns:

• one book, two books
• one person, ten people
• one picture, a hundred pictures

And we have uncountable nouns, which are often things we can’t count, or can’t divide into individual parts.

Here are some examples of uncountable nouns:

• Ideas and concepts: love, fun, sadness, work, money, peace, safety
• Information: advice, information, news, knowledge
• Categories: music, furniture, equipment, jewelry, literature, stuff, luggage
• Liquids/foods that can’t be counted as units: water, butter, rice, flour, milk

Uncountable nouns are NEVER plural, so it’s always incorrect to say advices, equipments, informations, etc.

Some uncountable nouns – especially information, advice, news, furniture, equipment, jewelry, and luggage – can be quantified by using the word “piece”:

• We bought two pieces of furniture – a bookcase and a dresser.
• She gave me three pieces of advice: study hard, have fun, and make friends.

There are some complications – for example, some nouns can be countable in some situations and uncountable in others.

The word room is countable when referring to the specific places in a house, apartment, hotel, etc. And it is uncountable when referring to space in general:

• Our house has five rooms: the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, and family room. (countable)
• I’ll make some room for these new books in the bookshelf. (uncountable)

If you want to see more examples of nouns that can be both countable and uncountable, click here.

There’s also a big list of uncountable nouns, which also identifies the nouns that can be both: https://ieltsliz.com/uncountable-nouns-word-list/

ERROR #2

Don’t say:

• How many equipment is in the factory?
• I have few knowledge in this area.

Say:

• How much equipment is in the factory?
• I have little knowledge in this area.

With uncountablenouns, we can use much, little, and amount of:

• How much stuff was stolen?
• I spent a little money at the store.
• The recipe calls for a small amount of butter.

With countablenouns, we can use many, few, and number of:

• How many machines are in the factory?
• I’ve read a few bookson this topic.
• The video was seen by a large number of people.

We can use some and a lot of / lots of with both:

• We bought some equipment / some machines.
• I’ve read a lot of books. / I have a lot of knowledge.
• He put lots of sugar in his coffee. / She ate lots of cookies.

Remember that a lot is always two words, never “alot.” That’s a simple mistake that a lot of native English speakers make as well!

That’s all for today – now you can take a quiz to practice and review these two mistakes and the correct way to say things. See you in the next lesson!