Common errors of fluent non-native speakers¶
At a glance
Priority: P0 · Complexity: ⅗ · Est. time: 2 h · Phase: 2 · Prereqs: articles & determiners, prepositions & collocations, tenses & aspect You're done when: you have a personal error log of your top 15 recurring mistakes, each with a corrected model sentence, and you catch at least half of them while proofreading and a third while speaking.
Why it matters¶
At B2+ to C1 you rarely make errors that block meaning. You make fossilised errors: habits that are stable, invisible to you and immediately visible to native readers. They cluster in a few families (uncountables, word order, false friends, calques from your first language, verb patterns, the "-ing/to" choice, tense in reported speech, and register slips). Because fossilised errors survive years of immersion, they must be found and trained deliberately: collect, classify, replace, rehearse. The payoff for a Staff engineer is credibility: your ideas are judged, in part, on how polished they sound. This page is a catalogue of the highest-frequency errors for Indian-English-influenced and other L1-transfer patterns in workplace English (note: Indian English is a legitimate variety; the aim here is global workplace clarity and avoiding forms that native and other international readers find confusing).
Core concepts¶
Method: how fossilised errors are fixed¶
- Collect real errors (from your emails, Slack, transcripts of recorded talks, colleague corrections, an AI or human proofreader).
- Classify them into families below; look for the top 3 families.
- Write a model sentence you can reuse (about your real work).
- Rehearse with spaced repetition (cards, or 5 sentences aloud daily).
- Notice in the wild: once you know the pattern, you will notice it in others' native usage.
- Re-test with a new recording/writing sample every two weeks.
Family 1: Uncountable nouns pluralised or counted¶
| Error | Correct | Note |
|---|---|---|
| informations, advices, feedbacks, softwares, researches, evidences, equipments, furnitures, knowledges | information, advice, feedback, software, research, evidence, equipment | Use a piece of / some / a bit of / a set of. |
| a feedback, an advice, a news | some feedback, a piece of advice, some news | |
| many data / a data | a lot of data / a dataset / much data (negative) | |
| less bugs / less errors | fewer bugs / fewer errors | fewer for countables |
| "The staffs / the peoples" | the staff / the people | staff collective; peoples only for nations |
| "How many time do we have?" | How much time | |
| "Some works to do" | some work / some tasks |
Family 2: Articles (see articles & determiners)¶
| Error | Correct |
|---|---|
| "I sent mail to the team." | "I sent an email to the team." |
| "We need to discuss in meeting." | "in a/the meeting" |
| "He is engineer." | "He is an engineer." |
| "The customers want speed." (general) | "Customers want speed." |
| "It is in the production." | "in production" |
| "We had discussion on this." | "We had a discussion about this." |
Family 3: Prepositions and verb patterns (see prepositions)¶
| Error | Correct |
|---|---|
| discuss about, emphasize on, mention about, explain me, reach to, enter into the room, attend to the meeting, request for | discuss, emphasize, mention, explain to me, reach, enter, attend, request |
| depend from / depend of, focus at | depend on, focus on |
| "I'm agree" / "I am not agree" | I agree / I don't agree |
| "return back", "revert back" | return / revert (or get back to you / reply) |
| "convey/say/tell me" confusion | say (no obj), tell (someone), speak (language/about) |
| "We are lacking of resources" | We lack resources / are short of resources |
| "I am having a doubt" | I have a question / I am unsure about |
| "It costs me a lot of time" (fine) vs "It takes me lot of time" | It takes me a lot of time |
"revert back" deserves a special note: revert alone means "return to a previous state" in standard English (to revert a commit). In Indian English "revert" often means "reply", which native and many international readers won't understand. Use reply, get back to you, respond.
Family 4: Word order¶
| Error | Correct | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| "Why you chose this?" | "Why did you choose this?" | Direct questions need inversion/do-support. |
| "I don't know why did it fail." | "I don't know why it failed." | Indirect questions keep statement order. |
| "Please explain me the design." | "Please explain the design to me." | |
| "He speaks very well English." | "He speaks English very well." | Adverb not between verb and object. |
| "I very much like it" | "I like it very much." / "I really like it." | |
| "Yesterday I have finished" | "I finished it yesterday." | See tenses. |
| "Always I check" | "I always check" | Frequency adverbs pre-verb. |
| "Only I did this." (meaning I did only this) | "I did only this." / "I only did this." | Placement of only. |
| "Tell me what is the plan?" | "Tell me what the plan is." |
Family 5: False friends and L1 calques (workplace edition)¶
| You said | Native reads it as | Say instead |
|---|---|---|
| "I will do the needful." | archaic/odd | "I'll take care of it." / "I'll handle it." |
| "Kindly revert." | "Please go back to an earlier state" | "Please reply by Friday." |
| "Prepone the meeting" | "prepone" is Indian English, unknown elsewhere | "move the meeting earlier" / "bring the meeting forward" |
| "Out of station" | "out of town/travelling" | |
| "I have a doubt." | "I doubt something (distrust)" | "I have a question." |
| "Actually" as a filler (e.g., "actually speaking") | means "in fact, contrary to expectation" | Use only for correction |
| "Eventually" (in false-friend languages meaning "possibly") | "in the end" | "possibly/perhaps" |
| "Sensible" (in some languages: sensitive) | reasonable | "sensitive" |
| "Pretend" (some languages: claim) | fake | "claim, expect, intend" |
| "Assist to a meeting" (Spanish/French assister) | help | "attend" |
| "Sympathetic" (many languages: nice) | feeling pity | "pleasant/likeable" |
| "Control" (French contrôler = check) | dominate | "check, verify" |
| "Realize" (French réaliser = accomplish) | become aware | "carry out, accomplish" |
| "Demand" (French demander = ask) | require | "ask for/request" |
(First-language specific false friends vary. Start a personal list.)
Family 6: Verb patterns (-ing vs to)¶
- Verbs + -ing: enjoy, avoid, suggest, consider, finish, mind, recommend, involve, keep, risk, postpone, admit, deny, imagine, practise. "I suggest moving the meeting." (not "suggest to move" or "suggest him to move"; "suggest that he move/moves").
- Verbs + to: want, need, decide, plan, hope, expect, agree, refuse, manage, afford, promise, offer, seem, appear.
- Verbs + object + to: ask, tell, allow, want, expect, advise, encourage, remind, require, force, enable: "allow us to deploy". (Allow + -ing without object: "allow deploying" is possible but "allow to deploy" is wrong.)
- Suggest/recommend + that: "I recommend that we use..." "I suggest (that) you start..." Never "suggest me to".
- Meaning-change verbs: remember doing (memory) vs remember to do (obligation); stop doing vs stop to do; try doing (experiment) vs try to do (attempt).
- Let/make/have + bare infinitive: "let us know", "make it work", "have him call". Never "let us to know".
- Prepositions + -ing: "look forward to hearing", "instead of using".
- Purpose: "to + verb" / "for + noun/-ing" - "We use Redis to cache results" / "for caching".
Family 7: Tense and time (see tenses & aspect)¶
| Error | Correct |
|---|---|
| "I am working here since 2019." | "I have worked here since 2019." |
| "Yesterday I have sent." | "Yesterday I sent." |
| "I am knowing him." | "I know him." |
| "He said me..." | "He told me..." / "He said..." |
| "If it will rain..." | "If it rains..." |
| Reported speech without backshift when unclear | "She said the deployment had failed." |
| "I will revert once I will get the update." | "I'll get back to you when I hear/get the update." |
Family 8: Agreement and singular/plural¶
- "The data are/is" - either, but be consistent.
- "One of the reason is" → "One of the reasons is".
- "Each of the engineers have" → "has".
- "A number of / the number of."
- "The list of tasks are" → "is".
- "Neither ... nor" agreement.
- "There is many issues" → "There are many issues."
- "Everyone are" → "Everyone is".
Family 9: Redundancy and wordiness (habits from formal/legal English)¶
| Redundant | Concise |
|---|---|
| "return back" | return |
| "reason ... because" | the reason is that |
| "in order to" (often) | to |
| "at this point in time" | now |
| "due to the fact that" | because |
| "completely finished" | finished |
| "past history" | history |
| "basic fundamentals" | fundamentals |
| "advance planning" | planning |
| "each and every" | every |
| "with regards to / with regard to" | about / regarding (also "regards" is a greeting) |
| "please find attached herewith" | "I've attached ..." / "Attached is ..." |
| "as per my last email" | can read as passive-aggressive: "As I mentioned earlier" or just restate |
| "I would like to request you to" | "Could you" |
| "kindly do the needful" | (delete) |
Family 10: Register and politeness¶
- Over-formal openings ("Respected Sir", "Dear Sir/Madam, I hope this mail finds you in good health") in modern tech workplaces read as stiff; use "Hi Anna," or "Hello team,".
- Over-blunt ("Send me the report", "You didn't understand") when a softer form is normal: "Could you send...?" "I think there's a misunderstanding."
- "Please do the needful", "Kindly revert" (see above).
- "Sir/Madam" to a peer: unusual in Western workplaces; use first names.
- "Good morning" on a call at any time; time zones: "Good morning/afternoon/evening" depends on the recipient's time zone; "Hi all" is safe.
- Emphasis with capitals or bold: reads as shouting.
- "Simply", "just", "obviously" can sound condescending: "It's simple to fix" when the reader struggles.
Family 11: Pronunciation-linked spelling errors¶
Words often mis-heard or mis-spelt: definitely/definately, separate/seperate, receive/recieve, occurred/occured, environment/enviroment, government, necessary/neccessary, its/it's, loose/lose, affect/effect, principal/principle, complement/compliment, discrete/discreet, then/than, accept/except, advice/advise, license/licence, practice/practise (UK).
Family 12: Speech-specific patterns¶
- Filler and repair patterns ("basically", "actually", "like", "you know") - see pace, fillers, clarity.
- Overuse of "so" at the start: acceptable, but "so..., so..., so" chains.
- Question tags: "isn't it?" as a universal tag ("You are coming, isn't it?"): tag must match the auxiliary: "You are coming, aren't you?"
- Yes/no answering to negative questions: "You didn't attend?" "No, I didn't." (agree with the negative fact) vs "Yes, I did." Answers can confuse; safer: "I did attend" / "I didn't attend".
- "Can I get..."/"May I know..." "May I know your name?" is stilted → "Could I ask your name?"
- "What is your good name?" → "What's your name?"
- "Itself" and "only" for emphasis: "I will do it today itself" → "I'll do it today." (Indian English emphasis; native readers find it strange.)
- Present continuous with habits: "I am going to office every day" → "I go to the office every day". Also "go to the office".
- "Myself Rahul" → "I'm Rahul".
- "Tell me the doubt" → "What's your question?"
- "Discuss" a topic: "Let's discuss this in detail" (fine).
Resources¶
| Resource | Type | Why this one | Level | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Swan & Bernard Smith, Learner English | book | Chapters by first language listing typical errors of speakers of Hindi, Urdu, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, etc. | intermediate-advanced | paid |
| Michael Swan, Practical English Usage | book | Authoritative dictionary of usage problems. | advanced | paid |
| Cambridge Dictionary | dictionary | "Common learner error" boxes on entries, based on the Cambridge Learner Corpus. | intermediate | free |
| Oxford Learner's Dictionaries | dictionary | Patterns and countability labels; check every doubtful verb. | all | free |
| Grammarly blog | articles | Short explanations for confusable words and common mistakes. | beginner-intermediate | free |
English-Corpora.org (COCA)  |
tool | Verify any doubtful phrase ("revert back", "discuss about") by frequency and context. | advanced | freemium |
| YouGlish | tool | Hear a phrase used in real videos; check how natives really say it. | all | freemium |
| Google developer documentation style guide | style guide | The word list ("Word list" section) resolves many usage questions in technical writing. | intermediate | free |
| Purdue OWL | reference | Concise pages on common writing errors. | intermediate | free |
Hands-on lab (60 min plus ongoing)¶
- Harvest. Gather 20 samples: 10 sent emails/messages, and a transcript of a 3-minute recorded talk (use any auto-transcript tool).
- Mark. Highlight errors; classify them into the 12 families.
- Rank. Count. The top 3 families are your focus for 4 weeks.
- Model sentences. For each of your top 15 errors, write a corrected sentence about your real work and add to a spaced-repetition deck.
- Daily 5. Every day speak five of the model sentences aloud in different contexts.
- Re-test. Repeat the harvest after two weeks; measure change in error counts per 100 words.
- Ask for review. Give a colleague who writes well a 300-word piece and ask them to mark only "sounds unnatural" spots, not grammar; compare with your list.
Questions¶
L1 - Recall¶
Q1. Name five nouns commonly wrongly pluralised by fluent non-native speakers and give the correct handling.
Answer
information, advice, feedback, software, research, evidence, equipment. Use as uncountable ("some feedback", "a piece of advice", "a lot of research") or use a countable alternative ("a suggestion", "a finding", "a tool").
Q2. What is wrong with \"Please revert back to me\" and how do you fix it?
Answer
Revert in standard English means return to a previous state; using it for reply is Indian English and often misunderstood; back is redundant. Say "Please reply by Friday" or "Let me know what you think" or "Can you get back to me by Friday?"
Q3. Which are wrong: discuss about, explain me, mention about, request for, attend to the meeting, reach to?
Answer
All are wrong. Correct: discuss X, explain X to me, mention X, request X (or ask for X), attend the meeting, reach X.
Q4. How do you form a direct question and an indirect question with \"why\"?
Answer
Direct: "Why did the job fail?" (auxiliary before subject). Indirect: "I don't know why the job failed." (statement order, no auxiliary).
L2 - Apply¶
Q5. Correct: \"I have a doubt about the design. Can you explain me why you choose Kafka? I will do the needful and revert back tomorrow itself.\"
Answer
"I have a question about the design. Can you explain to me why you chose Kafka? I'll take care of it and get back to you tomorrow." (doubt = distrust; explain to me; direct/indirect question order + past tense chose; do the needful is not idiomatic; revert back and itself are both non-standard.)
Q6. Correct: \"Many informations are needed. The staffs are agree that less bugs were found. One of the reason is that each of the team have a different process.\"
Answer
"A lot of information is needed. The staff agree that fewer bugs were found. One of the reasons is that each of the teams has a different process." (Uncountable information; staff is plural collective; not are agree; fewer; one of the reasons; each ... has.)
Q7. Which verb pattern is correct? (a) \"We suggest to migrate\" / \"We suggest migrating\" / \"We suggest that we migrate\"; (b) \"allow us deploying\" / \"allow us to deploy\".
Answer
(a) "suggest migrating" or "suggest that we migrate" (never "suggest to migrate"); (b) "allow us to deploy".
Q8. Turn into natural workplace English: \"Respected Sir, Please find attached herewith the document, kindly do the needful at the earliest and revert.\"
Answer
"Hi Anna, I've attached the document. Could you review it by Thursday and let me know if you have any comments?" (First name greeting, direct verb attached, a concrete deadline instead of "at the earliest", and let me know instead of revert.)
L3 - Judge and choose¶
Q9. A colleague uses \"prepone\" and \"out of station\" in a global team channel. Do you correct them? How?
Answer
These are legitimate Indian English words, but not understood by most international colleagues. Don't correct publicly. In a private note or by modelling: "Shall we bring the meeting forward to Tuesday?" If misunderstanding has actually occurred, mention it as information: "Some people outside India might not know 'prepone', so 'move earlier' is safer." Respect varieties while optimising for shared understanding.
Q10. Is \"the data are\" better than \"the data is\"? Which do you write?
Answer
Both are accepted. In scientific and formal writing data are is traditional; in business and technical writing data is (mass noun) is now normal and less stiff. Choose one for the document; "the data show" reads as formal and "the data shows" as neutral. Don't waste attention on this; fix errors that actually mislead.
Q11. \"Actually\" as a filler: is it an error?
Answer
Not an error grammatically but it changes meaning: actually signals contrast with expectation or correction ("Actually, the deadline is Friday"). Using it as a filler ("Actually, I work at Maersk") can imply that you are contradicting the listener. Replace with nothing, or in fact only when contrasting.
Q12. You find that your top error is a missing article in speech. Should you focus on eliminating it in speech or in writing first?
Answer
Writing first: you have time, the errors are visible, and correct patterns become automatic through repetition. Speech follows slowly. In speech, prioritise fluency and clarity; article slips there barely reduce intelligibility, while pauses and rewording do. Use writing as your training ground and record spoken samples monthly to see transfer.
L4 - Real-world decisions¶
Q13. You lead a team of 12 engineers across 5 first languages. What team-level approach improves clarity without shaming anyone?
Answer
Adopt a written "plain English" convention (short sentences, no idioms in incident comms, defined terms), publish a shared glossary of ambiguous terms (revert, prepone, sanity, table this, ship), normalise asking "what do you mean by X?", record decisions in writing, and offer optional peer review of important docs. Model it yourself: put your own errors on a slide ("here's a mistake I made and fixed"). This makes correction cultural, not personal.
Q14. A hiring committee note says: \"Great technical depth, but communication was hard to follow.\" How would you diagnose whether the issue is errors or structure?
Answer
Compare a transcript with a recording: if the transcript reads clearly, the issue is delivery (pace, stress, intonation). If the transcript itself is confusing, check structure (conclusion first? signposts?), long sentences and vague references before grammar. Grammar slips usually don't cause "hard to follow"; missing structure, vocabulary imprecision and pacing do. Fix in this order: structure, precision, pace and stress, then residual errors.
Q15. You are about to send a critical email to the CEO's office and you are unsure about three phrasings. How do you decide, given no time for a full review?
Answer
Simplify: choose the plain construction you are sure of, even if less elegant ("We will deliver by 15 March" instead of a risky idiom). Check the two riskiest phrases in a corpus or dictionary in 2 minutes (COCA, Oxford Learner's), read the message aloud, remove hedges and idioms you cannot verify, and ask a native-speaking colleague to skim only for "does anything sound odd?". Clarity beats sophistication for high-stakes messages.
Real-world use cases¶
- Weekly error-log ritual: 10 minutes each Friday, log three items, write model sentences.
- Interview preparation: rehearsed "signature sentences" without your top errors.
- Cross-team RFCs: a peer review focusing on unnatural phrasing before publishing.
- Customer escalations: stripped-down, error-safe language.
- Mentoring non-native colleagues: sharing the error catalogue as a non-judgmental checklist.
Pitfalls & anti-patterns¶
- Assuming exposure alone will fix fossilised errors.
- Correcting everything at once; focus on three families at a time.
- Relying on autocorrect/AI to fix text without learning the pattern (it hides errors, doesn't remove them).
- Treating regional varieties as wrong instead of picking the safest global form.
- Over-formal or archaic email phrases from templates.
- Learning rules without producing sentences aloud.
- Not re-testing; you cannot see progress without measurement.
Checklist¶
- I harvested 20 real samples and classified my errors by family.
- I have a personal top-15 error list with model sentences.
- I am reviewing the model sentences daily for at least two weeks.
- I can explain why "revert back", "discuss about", "informations", "explain me" are wrong.
- I answered all L3 questions out loud in under 3 minutes each.