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Monday, April 6, 2009

E-Portfolio 6 - My Common Grammar Mistakes

Probably for many people, English is the most confusing language. It has past tense, present tense, and future tense. The grammars have many rules to follow and yet there are times when those rules cannot be applied. The three common grammar mistakes that I do most of the time are verb tense, preposition, and parallel structure.

Verb tense probably is my biggest problem. When writing an essay, I will get confused with the tense. For example, "the known procedure of taking Embryonic Stem cells from an embryo involved destroying the embryo", the "involved" here according to my teacher supposed to be "involves" as the method is not happened in the past, but everytime ESC is taken from an embryo, the embryo will be destroyed. Thus, it should be "the known procedure of taking Embryonic Stem cells from an embryo involves destroying the embryo". The reason I was confused with the tense is because when I write an essay, I will just read in my head and sometimes my head says it is the correct tense. However later if I read out loud then I will find that the tense is not correct.

Preposition such as "in", "on" and "at" is also my common grammar mistakes. For example, "I was always very good in Geography when I was at school". The right answer is "I was always very good at Geography when I was at school". The reason it is "at" is because we cannot go inside Geograpy. We can only be good at something, not good in something. I make this mistakes all the time. I get confused when to use "in", "on" or "at".

Another grammar mistake I make is parallel structure. For example, "Susie not only needs attention but also many compliments", the correct sentence is "Susie not only needs attention but also needs many compliments". This mistake occurs very often because I want to say many things related to a subject. Therefore, if I do not read out loud or if the teacher do not pointed out that this sentence is wrong, I will think the sentence is correct.

Personally, I usually write a sentence based on how I say it. Therefore, sometimes the sentence is informal and the grammar is not correct. In the future time, I will try to be more careful in writing an essay and I will try to read out loud to listen for the mistakes in the essay. I want to be fluent in writing a great essay :D.

1 comment:

  1. In your paragraph of talking about preposition,it is a little bit strange to say we don't use 'in' because we cannot go inside Geograpy. 'be good at sth' always be treated as a whole phrase. In my opinion,to better understand what preposition should be used,we need to read more English article.It iis quite confused if we just differentiate preposition by the meaning.

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