English Grammar Quiz (Common English Mistakes)

Do you really understand English grammar? Well in today’s video, you are going to find out because today’s English lesson will be a quiz with 10 questions.

These questions will be about common grammar mistakes in English, why they’re wrong and how to fix them. Are you ready? Let’s go!

Question #1

Number one. I have went to the beach last weekend. What is wrong with this sentence?

Let’s start off by talking about when this action happened. This action happened in the past. It’s a finished action. It is completed. How do we know that? Well because we have the words ‘last weekend’. So we know that the action is finished. It’s completed.

And when we talk about one finished action in the past, we normally use the past simple tense. And to use the past simple tense, we need a subject and then we need a verb 2, a past tense verb. But we haven’t done that here.

We have got a subject, then we’ve got ‘have’, and then we’ve got a past tense verb or a verb 2. Another thing that shows that there’s a problem with this sentence is that after ‘have’ we have used a past tense verb, a verb 2.

But normally after ‘have’, we need to use verb 3 or a past participle. So what’s the correct sentence? Well the correct sentence should be ‘I went to the beach last weekend.’ I went to the beach last weekend.

Question #2

Number two. I know him good. I know him good. What’s wrong with this sentence? Well what part of speech is ‘good’? ‘Good’ is an adjective, right? And we normally use adjectives to describe nouns.

But in this sentence, we are not describing a noun. We are actually trying to describe the verb ‘know’. And because we are describing a verb, what part of speech of speech do we need to use?

We need to use an adverb. Easy, right? So now you know that we need to use an adverb, how can we fix this sentence? Well, we can say ‘I know him well.’ I know him well.

Another mistake like this that I often hear is ‘I speak English good.’ But it should be  ‘I speak English well.’

Why? Because again, we are using ‘well’ to describe ‘speak’ and ‘speak’ is a verb so we need an adverb.

Question #3

Number three. Every students wants to learn English. What’s wrong with this sentence? Well we need to look at the word ‘every’. Is ‘every’ considered singular or plural? It’s considered singular.

So because ‘every’ is singular, that means we need to use a singular noun with ‘every’. So how can we fix this sentence? Well we can say ‘Every student wants to learn English.’ Every student (no S) wants (S) to learn English.

Another common mistake like this is when students say ‘Every countries wants to be free from Covid.’ But it should be ‘Every country wants to be free from Covid.’

Question #4

Number four. It’s enough spicy for him. What’s wrong with this sentence? Well look at the words ‘spicy’ and ‘enough’.

Which word is changing or modifying the other word? ‘Enough’ is changing the word ‘spicy’. And in this sentence ‘spicy’ is an adjective. And when we use a word to change or modify adjectives, we normally need to use an adverb.

And when we use adverbs to change adjectives, we need to put the adverb after the adjective.

So the correct sentence is ‘It’s spicy enough for him’, not ‘It’s enough spicy for him.’

Another mistake that students make like this is when they say things like ‘She’s enough old to drive.’ But it should be ‘She’s old enough to drive.’

Question #5

Number five. The car look good. The car look good. What’s wrong with this sentence? Well it’s about something called ‘subject verb agreement’.

This means the subject and the verb must go together. If they go together, then the sentence is correct. But when the subject and the verb don’t go together, it’s like this. And when this happens, it makes an incorrect sentence in English.

So let’s look at our sentence. ‘The car’ is just one thing, right? So it’s a singular subject. And because we have a singular subject, we also need a singular verb. So how can we make it singular? All we need to do is add S. Easy, right?

So the correct sentence should be ‘The car looks good.’ The car looks good.

Some other examples of mistakes like this are when students say things like ‘He want to go to the shopping mall.’ But it should be ‘He wants to go to the shopping mall.’

Question #6

Number six. He plays tennis at Fridays. He plays tennis at Fridays. What is wrong with this sentence? Well it’s about prepositions. In this sentence, we are talking about a specific day.

And when we’re talking about a specific day in English, we normally need to use the preposition ‘on’. For example, ‘on Monday’. On Tuesday. On Wednesday.

And if you’re wondering ‘Hey, why do we use “in” then’ well make sure you subscribe to the channel because next week we have a video coming out about ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’.

Okay so how do we fix this sentence then? Well the correct sentence should be ‘He plays tennis on Fridays.’ On Fridays. Another common mistake like this is when students say things like ‘He works in the weekend.’ But it should be ‘He works on the weekend.’

Question #7

Number seven. How to spell this word? How to spell this word? What’s wrong with this sentence? Well this mistake is about the choice of words we use to make the question.

The choice of words that we’ve used, it doesn’t make sense. Why? Because there is no subject. There is a verb – ‘spell’. And there is an object – ‘word’. But there is no subject. So how do we make this sentence correct?

Well we need to add a subject. Maybe the subject is ‘you’. Maybe the subject is ‘I’. Let’s pretend you want to talk about yourself. You can say ‘How do I spell this word?’ How do I spell this word? You see now we have a subject.

Another common mistake like this is when students say ‘How to do this?’ How to do this? Again, we don’t have a subject. So we need add a subject. For example, ‘How do I do this?’ Or ‘How can you do this?’

Question #8

Number eight. It is more clearly. It is more clearly. What’s wrong with this sentence? Well what part of speech is ‘clearly’? ‘Clearly’ is an adverb, right?

How do we know this? Because it’s got LY on the end. And most words with LY on the end are adverbs. And why do we use adverbs?

Well we normally use adverbs to change or to modify other verbs. But in this sentence we are using clearly to talk about ‘it’. And ‘it’ is not a verb, it is a pronoun. So that means we can’t use ‘clearly’ to describe ‘it’.

So because ‘it’ is a noun or a pronoun, what do we have to use? We need to use an adjective, right? So how can we fix the sentence? We change ‘clearly’ to ‘clear’. You can say ‘It is more clear.’ It is more clear.

Another common example I hear which is similar to this one is when students say things like ‘He is so loudly.’ But it should be ‘He is so loud.’

Question #9

Number nine. The gold is useful metal. The gold is useful metal. What’s wrong with this one? Well, ‘the gold’, what gold? Which gold?

Guys, when we use the word ‘the’, normally we know what we are talking about. It’s something specific. If I say ‘the’ to you, you should know which one or which thing I am talking about.

But if you say ‘the gold’, which gold are you talking about? There is a lot of gold in this world. Gold bars. Gold ore. Gold jewelry.

But I don’t know which gold, so that means we can’t use ‘the’ here. And because we are not talking about just one thing, we are talking about something in general, so that means we don’t need an article here. No ‘a’. No ‘an’. No ‘the’.

Now another problem with this sentence is that we just said ‘useful metal’. We are talking about just one metal and normally when we talk about just one thing, we need to say ‘a’.

For example, ‘a dog’, ‘a tree’, ‘a metal’.

So what is the correct sentence here? We should say ‘Gold is a useful metal.’ Gold is a useful metal.

Another common mistake that students make like this is when they say ‘The English is a hard language.’ But you just need to say ‘English is a hard language.’

Question #10

And the last one, number ten. He’s not going nowhere. He’s not going nowhere. What’s wrong with this sentence?

If you are trying to say that he’s not going to any place, this sentence doesn’t really make sense. Why? Because we’ve got two negatives.

And a ‘negative’ is when we don’t have anything. ‘Negative’ is like zero. So it’s like the sentence is saying ‘zero and zero’ and putting them together.

It doesn’t really give us any information. And in English, we don’t normally use double negatives. So to fix this sentence you could say something like ‘He’s not going anywhere.’ He’s not going anywhere.