Common English Mistakes Russian Speakers Make (and How to Fix Them)

One language without articles, one with

If you are a Russian speaker writing English, your mistakes come from a deep structural gap between the two languages. Russian is case-inflected and synthetic. It has no articles at all, no present-tense verb "to be", a system of verbal aspect instead of the English tense ladder, and free word order because the endings carry the grammar. English works the opposite way.

That gap makes the common English mistakes Russian speakers make highly predictable. Some of them — especially articles and the missing "be" — become fossilized and survive years of study, so they are worth targeting head-on. Below are the ten that cause the most trouble, each with the Russian habit behind it and a fast fix.

1. Missing or wrong articles (a, an, the)

Russian has no articles, so this is the number one Russian-speaker error, and the most fossilized. Writers drop articles or misuse "the".

Off: "I am good person and I read book about history."
Native: "I am a good person and I read a book about history."

A mini-rule: first mention of a countable thing takes "a" or "an"; a thing you both already know takes "the". The full system is in the guide to a, an, and the for article-less languages.

2. The missing "be" verb

Russian drops the present-tense "to be", so "He is a doctor" is literally "He doctor" in Russian. The verb vanishes in English too.

Off: "He doctor. She very smart. They at home."
Native: "He is a doctor. She is very smart. They are at home."

Find every present-tense sentence with no verb and insert is, am, or are.

3. Present perfect versus past simple

Russian has one simple present and an aspect system, not the English tense set. So the present perfect, present continuous, and past simple get collapsed.

Off: "I live here since 2010 and I work here for five years."
Native: "I have lived here since 2010 and I have worked here for five years."

For something that started in the past and continues now, use the present perfect with "since" (a start point) or "for" (a length).

4. Uncountable nouns and agreement

Russian counts nouns that English treats as mass nouns, producing "informations" and "advices", plus singular/plural slips.

Off: "He gave me good advices and more informations."
Native: "He gave me good advice and more information."

Off: "The news are bad."
Native: "The news is bad."

Keep information, advice, money, and news singular. Never add -s to them.

5. Prepositions

Russian prepositions do not map one-to-one onto English, so they get added, dropped, or swapped — especially in fixed verb pairs.

Off: "It depends from the situation. On the picture you can see a house."
Native: "It depends on the situation. In the picture you can see a house."

Off: "I am waiting my friend."
Native: "I am waiting for my friend."

Learn the verb and preposition together: depend on, wait for, in the picture.

6. Word order

Russian word order is free because case endings carry the grammar. English is rigid subject-verb-object, so transferred order sounds off.

Off: "Very like I this book. This coin use the people."
Native: "I like this book very much. People use this coin."

When a sentence feels rearranged, rebuild it as subject, then verb, then object.

7. Double negatives

Russian requires negative concord — every negative word agrees. English allows only one negative per clause.

Off: "I don't know nothing and nobody didn't come."
Native: "I don't know anything and nobody came."

After a negative verb, switch nothing, nobody, and never to anything, anybody, and ever.

8. Capitalization

Russian writes days, months, languages, nationalities, and religions in lowercase. The habit carries into English as under-capitalization.

Off: "She is russian, speaks french, and we meet in january."
Native: "She is Russian, speaks French, and we meet in January."

Capitalize days, months, languages, nationalities, and the pronoun "I".

9. Collocations and light verbs

One Russian verb often covers two English ones, so set phrases get calqued into the wrong pairing.

Off: "Make a photo and say me the truth."
Native: "Take a photo and tell me the truth."

Off: "How do you call it? Can you borrow me money?"
Native: "What do you call it? Can you lend me money?"

10. False friends

Many English words look like a Russian word but mean something else. Spell-check will not catch these.

A quick self-check before you send

How Diglot helps Russian speakers

Diglot is built for the bilingual workflow, where you think in Russian and write in English. That is exactly where missing articles, the dropped "be", and false friends come from. Instead of only flagging a mistake, it shows the natural version and the reason, so you learn the pattern.

• Catch L1-transfer errors in context. The grammar checker for Russian speakers is tuned for the article, copula, tense, and preposition slips above.
• Rewrite translated-sounding sentences. The Russian-speaker paraphrasing tool turns word-for-word translations into natural English while keeping your meaning.
• Learn, do not just accept. Each suggestion explains the fix. See why translated text reads off in why your English sounds translated.
• One workspace for the whole task. Explore the full ESL writing tool built for non-native writers.

Your English is already good enough to communicate. Closing this short list of grammar gaps is what makes it read as fluent. Add the article, restore the "be", fix the tense, and your writing stops sounding translated and starts sounding like you.

Try the grammar checker for Russian speakers