#amcorrecting — Public Fediverse posts

I often see some variation of "XY is highly discussed by society," which is awkward phrasing. Try instead: "widely debated," "a hot topic," or "sparks debate."

#esl #AmCorrecting

There is an 'n' before the 'm' in the word 'environment'.

#esl #AmCorrecting

I would discourage starting your introduction with "Nowadays, ...", "In the modern era, ..." or "In recent years, ...", unless the essay question is specifically about comparing the past and the present. While these phrases are correct, they are overused.

For more sentences you might want to avoid, see: https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-writing-tips-sentences-to-avoid/

#esl #AmCorrecting

The plural of 'person' is almost always 'people'. We only use 'peoples' to refer to distinct ethnic groups and 'persons' is only used in legal texts.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/vocabulary/persons-people-peoples/

#AmCorrecting #esl

We use 'number of' with countable nouns, not 'amount of', e.g. 'a great number of people'.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/amount-of-number-of-or-quantity-of

#AmCorrecting #esl

We use "high-paid" with people (e.g. "high-paid workers"). For work, we use "high-paying" (e.g. "high-paying jobs").

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/high-paying
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/high-paid

#esl #AmCorrecting

Use "be" with "fun": "That is fun." This collocation often confuses German learners of English because in German "Spaß" collocates with "machen": "Das macht Spaß."

#esl #AmCorrecting

The verb "to lose" is spelled with a single "o", the adjective "loose" with two.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/lose-vs-loose-usage

#esl #AmCorrecting

Some nouns that begin with a vowel that makes a consonant sound. They require the indefinite article "a", not "an". For example, it is "a university".

#esl #AmCorrecting

You "serve an apprenticeship" or "do an apprenticeship". "Apprenticeship" does NOT collocate with "make".

#AmCorrecting #esl

The noun for the verb 'to consume' is 'consumption', NOT 'consume'.

#AmCorrecting #esl

In German, we use the term 'Corona Pandemie' to talk about COVID-19, but in English the terms used most often are 'COVID-19 pandemic' or 'coronavirus pandemic', NOT 'corona pandemic'.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=corona+pandemic%2Ccovid+pandemic%2Ccovid-19+pandemic%2Ccoronavirus+pandemic&year_start=2018&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=0&case_insensitive=false

#AmCorrecting #esl

If you want to say that something influences or causes someone or something to change, you can say 'it has an effect on XYZ' (effect as a noun, spelled with an 'e') or 'it affects something else' (the verb affect spelled with an 'a'). While the verb 'to effect' exists, it has a different meaning.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/affect-or-effect

#AmCorrecting #esl

'To care about something' and 'to take care of something' mean different things and German learners of English often confuse the two.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/care
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/take-care-of-something

#AmCorrecting #esl

Please don't use 'kids' in formal writing. You can write about 'children' or about 'students' in an educational context.

#AmCorrecting #esl

#AmCorrecting #esl The word 'amount' collocates with 'large', not with 'big': 'A large amount of XYZ.'

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=large+amount%2C+big+amount&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

In the phrase "too much", we spell "too" with two o's.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/to-too/

#AmCorrecting #esl

Don't use an apostrophe before the plural -s. We use possessive -'s to say that something or someone belongs to a person, is connected to a place, or to show the relationship between people.

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/grammar/online-grammar/possessive-s-and-s

#AmCorrecting #esl

There are countless more descriptive alternatives to the adjective "bad". Use them! 😉

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-thesaurus/bad

#AmCorrecting #esl

German learners of English often translate "Unternehmen" with "firm" or "concern" when they mean "company".

#AmCorrecting #esl #FalseFriend

There is only one 't' in 'platform'.

#AmCorrecting #esl

Indirect questions embedded in declarative sentences take a full stop, not a question mark.
For example: "This raises the question of what disadvantages XYZ has."

#AmCorrecting #esl

Adjectives with the suffix -ful end in one 'l', not two.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-ful

#AmCorrecting #esl

'Respectless' is an archaic term. The English translation for German 'respektlos' is 'disrespectful'.

#AmCorrecting #esl

In English, we don't use split-level quotation marks („ “) as in German. We use either single (‘ ’) or double (“ ”) quotation marks.

https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/easy-learning/when-do-you-use-quotation-marks-or-in-english

#AmCorrecting #esl

German learners of English often confuse the words 'politics', 'politician' and 'policy'. Know which is which!

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/politics-political-politician-or-policy

#AmCorrecting #esl

We 'discuss something'. It is grammatically incorrect to say we 'discuss about something'.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/thesaurus/articles/to-talk-about-something

#AmCorrecting #esl

Use 'have' and not 'have got' in semi-formal and formal writing.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/have-got-and-have

#AmCorrecting #esl

In English, we use a period for the decimal point.
https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/commas_with_numbers.htm

#AmCorrecting #esl

Don't use 'to mean' as a synonym for 'to be of the opinion that'. German 'meinen' may sound similar, but in this context, it's a false friend.

"He thinks (NOT *means) that there are more important things in life than money."

#AmCorrecting #esl