English mistakes, by your first language
Most «mistakes» in English are not random — they are your first language's grammar doing its job in the wrong place. Linguists call it L1 interference, and it is predictable: each language leaves its own fingerprint. That predictability is good news — you do not need to fix «your English» in general, only the specific collision points between your language pair. Pick yours:
- Korean speakers
- Articles (a/an/the) with no Korean equivalent to anchor them
- Subject omission carried over from topic-marked sentences
- Konglish loanwords that look like English but shifted meaning
- Spanish speakers
- Dropped subjects — «Is important that we finish»
- False friends: actualmente ≠ actually, embarazada ≠ embarrassed
- Tener idioms — «I have 25 years», «I have reason»
Full guide · Grammar checker for Spanish speakers · False friends · Weave
- Chinese speakers
- Articles from nowhere — Mandarin has none at all
- Tense marking — aspect particles (了/过) instead of verb tense
- Countability — «two book», «furnitures», «informations»
- Russian speakers
- Article loss — the most systematic Russian-speaker error
- Calques: «make a photo», «I very like», «feel yourself»
- False friends: magazine ≠ магазин, accurate ≠ аккуратный
- Japanese speakers
- Articles with no Japanese anchor — a/the by memorization
- «As for the results…» — topic-prominent openers everywhere
- Katakana traps: マンション = apartment, クレーム = complaint
Full guide · Grammar checker for Japanese speakers · False friends · Weave
- Portuguese speakers
- False friends: pretender ≠ pretend, puxar ≠ push (it means pull)
- Dropped subjects — «Is necessary to check»
- Preposition drift: depend OF, married WITH
- Vietnamese speakers
- Tense without verb endings — «Yesterday I go»
- Plural marking — «three student», classifier logic
- Dropped -ed/-s endings carried from final-consonant habits
Why this beats a general grammar course
A general course teaches all of English. Your errors come from a much smaller set: the places where your language and English disagree. A Spanish speaker almost never writes «I sent report to manager» — a Russian or Korean speaker reliably does, because their languages have no articles. Learn your pair's collision points and you can self-edit faster than any generic checklist allows. Each guide above ends with the same loop: spot the pattern → understand why it happens → let the grammar checker catch the instances while the habit rewires. And if your finished draft is correct but still reads «off», that is usually translationese — it has its own page and a free checker.
More languages are on the way — the matrix grows by demand. Missing yours? The grammar checker already supports it.
English mistakes by first language — questions
Are these mistakes a sign of bad English?
No — they are a sign of a second language. Each pattern here is your first language's grammar applied where English does it differently: Korean and Russian have no articles, Spanish drops subject pronouns, Mandarin marks aspect instead of tense. Linguists call this transfer, and it is systematic — which is exactly why it is fixable: you are not fighting «bad English», you are relearning a small, known list of collision points.
My first language is not listed — will these guides still help?
Partially. Transfer patterns cluster by language family: if you speak Ukrainian, the Russian guide covers most of your collision points (articles, calques); Cantonese speakers share most of the Mandarin list. And some errors — article misuse, preposition drift, false friends — appear across almost every language pair. More languages are added by demand, and the grammar checker itself already supports yours.
What is the fastest way to stop making these mistakes?
Target the pair, not the language. Read your language's guide once so you can name your three or four recurring patterns, then let a checker catch the instances while the habit rewires — recognition plus repetition is faster than any general grammar course. Errors you can name are errors you start seeing before you make them.
My grammar is correct, but my English still sounds off. Why?
That is usually translationese — sentence rhythm, word choice, and structural habits carried over from your first language even when every sentence is technically correct. It is a different layer than grammar mistakes, and it has its own page and a free «sounds translated?» checker.
