Common Mistakes to Avoid When Learning English

How’s everything going, English speakers?! I’ve been gathering some mistakes English learners use to make – especially Portuguese speakers.

Take a look at this list and brush up your English!

1. "I have 18 years old"

It must be the most common mistake for beginners and it happens because people associate English with their first language and forget about some important differences. In this case we use the verb “to be” to talk about someone’s age. So, it should be said: “I am 18 years old”

2. "R" sound and "H" sound

It's a big challenge for some people to pronounce these two sounds accordingly to their real pronunciation in English. They are NOT the same. There’s a big difference between “red” and “head”, “rose” and “hose”, “rug” and “hug”, etc.

If you want to improve your skills with these sounds, I recommend that you watch this video: http://www.engvid.com/pronunciation-h/

3. "Have a car in front of my garage"

This is a very common mistake, people think in Portuguese first, and later translate to English, if you do that, you got to stop as soon as possible! You can see that in this context the verb “have” doesn’t make any sense. We should use “There is/ There are” to say that something is located in a place or exists. 

“There is a car in front of my garage” should be used.

4. Then VS Than

A picture is worth a thousand words! ;)

5. Fewer VS Less

People usually don’t know when to use these two words properly. 

Use “Fewer” when referring to objects that can be counted. 

• E.g.: "I have fewer friends nowadays" 

Use “Less” when referring to quantities or qualities that cannot be counted. 

• E.g.: "I have less money than I wanted" 

What about you? Is there anything you’d like to know? Comment and let us know! Hope to see you soon!