Mistakes are not only completely normal but they are actually a very important milestone in any learning process and that is also the case with spoken English.
In your journey of mastering spoken English, you might make a few very common mistakes and these mistakes might be in the form of words or fillers or even tenses.
It is very easy to make these mistakes, especially for someone who is learning spoken English for the first time.
However, that does not mean you will continue making these mistakes especially when we are here to help you correct these mistakes so that you can speak in English in the most correct way possible and also be comfortable in doing so.
Mistakes are not always technical because sometimes these mistakes can also be in how fluently or confidently you speak English and they also count as very common mistakes.
So, grab yourself a cup of coffee and relax as we walk you through this amazing journey of looking at some of the most common mistakes in spoken English and how to avoid them permanently.
Here Are the Most Common Mistakes in Spoken English and How to Avoid Them
Words Mispronunciation
The first and probably the most common mistake made during spoken English is the mispronunciation of words.
There are many reasons for this and one of the most common reasons is that people trying out spoken English for the first time have probably learnt English through reading rather than listening.
This means that people who have learnt only through reading are not going to find out the true pronunciations of those words simply because they might be pronouncing them in the most technical way possible based on the spelling of the words.
That is why they might miss out on letters they need to pronounce and they might also pronounce letters that usually stay silent.
For example, if we look at the word “Wednesday”, the person who has studied English through reading rather than listening is going to pronounce it as” wed-nes-day” which is not correct.
The correct way to pronounce this would be “Wens-dey”.
This is a very genuine mistake simply because the person who was introduced to English through reading will never hear how the words are spoken phonetically and they will not be able to speak them correctly.
This mistake can be avoided by simply listening to native English speakers talk in English and this can be done by watching YouTube videos and even watching English movies with subtitles for better guidance.
Wrong Word Order and Usage
The most basic sentence structure is Subject + Verb + Object but sometimes people whose native language is not English and who follow different grammatical rules can mess up this order of basic English sentence structure.
This might not be the case with someone whose native language follows similar grammatical rules to English but for someone with a completely different sentence structure and different set of grammatical rules, this can be a very common issue.
For example, we might see the use of the word” only” in the wrong order and in the wrong place all the time and this is also very common with our students.
“I have eaten only”, “I’ll catch the bus only” etc.
The solution to a problem like this is to understand basic sentence structure better and to simply listen to native speakers using different words and how they follow different word orders in sentences.
It is very common to make the mistake of placing words in the wrong order but fixing this might take some time and you must also make sure to keep adverb placement in mind if you do not want to make this mistake.
Fillers Overuse
Up until now, we had been talking about mostly common technical mistakes that amateur spoken English speakers make but let’s now talk about something that is not really technical but sounds bad.
We are talking about fillers.
Fillers are words such as “um,” “ah,” “you know,” and “like” that we basically use between sentences or when we need a pause in the conversation or perhaps when we are thinking of what to say next.
If these words are used correctly then they can make you sound like a mature speaker thinking about what you are going to say next but if they are not used correctly then they sound very annoying and they will make the speaker sound like they do not know how to speak English.
The mistake we are talking about this usually the overusing of fillers and this usually happens to amateur English speakers simply because they have not learnt English through hearing but rather reading.
Since they have learnt English through reading, they have hardly come across fillers being utilised in the best possible which makes their experience with fillers very few and far between.
That is why amateur English speakers tend to utilise them a lot. Things sound even worse simply because they might not have fluency in speaking English and add a lot of fillers into the mix and you get a recipe for disaster.
The only way to stop and avoid a problem like this is to simply practice speaking in front of a mirror and record yourself speaking and actively trying to avoid fillers.
If you feel like you are going to use a filler, simply pause and not use it and over time you are going to improve a lot.
Incorrect Tenses
Let us now talk about the most common mistake that new English speakers make and we are talking about using the wrong tenses.
This is so common a mistake that it does not even get corrected by other English speakers just because of how rampant it is.
New English speakers sometimes make the mistake of using ‘is’ instead of ‘was’ as in an example like this, “She is talking to him yesterday” (correct: “She was talking to him yesterday”).
This sounds very wrong to someone who correctly utilises tenses and it simply does not make sense to English speakers.
That is why if you utilise the wrong tense because you do not have a good understanding of basic tenses and their utilisation in sentences, you are continuously going to keep utilising the wrong tenses.
If you do this in a situation where you are in a country where English is spoken natively and if you tell the wrong tenses to a native speaker then it can even result in the wrong meaning of a sentence.
To improve this and to avoid mistakes like this the first thing you need to do is to have and good understanding of how tenses work.
The second thing you need to do is to understand when to use the past tense and when to use the present future tense and practice by conjugating verbs correctly and making sure they match every time with the time frame of the conversation.
Nothing is impossible with practice and that is why correcting this mistake is also not impossible.
‘Much’ and ‘Many’ Confusion
Much and many both are words utilised to refer to quantities but there is a lot of difference in how you are going to utilise them.
This is where we come to the concept of the countable and the uncountable noun.
‘Many’ is a countable noun and ‘much’ is an uncountable noun and that is why many can be utilised to denote something you can actually count such as books and cars as well as buildings and people.
You need to use much for things that simply cannot be counted such as time or water or even flavour and maybe emotions and other things like that you simply cannot segregate into countable units of measurement.
The mistake new English speakers make is that they confuse the two of them and they start using ‘much’ in place of ‘many’ and vice versa.
For example, they might use much in a sentence like this, “I don’t have much books”.
The amateur English speaker might also say something like this, “How many water do you need?”.
The correct version of both of these sentences are:
- “I don’t have much books” (correct: “I don’t have many books”)
- “How many water do you need?” (correct: “How much water do you need?”)
Avoiding this mistake is also probably the easiest because all you need to do is to use much for things that you cannot count and many for things that you can count.
Double Negatives Usage
Double negatives are a mistake that is not only done by someone whose native language is not English but it can also be done by someone whose native language is English.
For example, you might hear the utilisation of double negatives a lot within the African American community.
Common examples of double negatives are:
- “I don’t need no help” (correct: “I don’t need any help”)
- “She didn’t say nothing” (correct: “She didn’t say anything”)
However double negatives are also sometimes used by people who are trying to speak English for the first time.
The only way to avoid this is to understand what double negatives mean. A negative of a negative is a positive and then this is just as applicable in maths as it is to English.
This means that if you say that you do not need nothing of something that might mean you might need something.
In order to avoid this mistake, you need to force yourself to not use double negatives in regular conversation and also correct people who might use double negatives and ask them to correct you as well.
Lack of Contractions
Contractions in sentences are very important especially in spoken English because they simply help you sound more natural and more friendly and they make saying things faster and much more convenient.
If you do not know what contractions are then they are basically “I’m” instead of “I am” or “don’t” instead of “do not” and others like I’m, you’re, they’re, isn’t, haven’t.
Native English speakers are never going to use full forms of words that can be contracted simply because it sounds much more natural and conversational to use contracted versions of words.
That is why if you want to sound much more fluent and avoid the mistake of sounding like someone new to English then you should use contractions all the time.
Common examples of contractions would be:
- “I am going to the market” (more natural: “I’m going to the market”)
- “I do not like that” (more natural: “I don’t like that”)
The solution to this is to simply listen to native speakers and people who utilise English daily in their lives and understand how they utilise contractions naturally so that you can also understand how to not sound stiff or formal and sound fluid and fluent.
Overthinking Grammar
If you are someone whose introduction to English has been through written English and you are just moving into the territory of spoken English then you might make the mistake of taking grammar too seriously.
Don’t get the wrong idea because you should take grammar seriously, just not while speaking because when you speak the entire dynamic of English changes.
In a situation like that if you start following rules of grammar just like a script and if you overthink when it comes to utilising grammar in each and every sentence then it can lead to awkward pauses.
That is why when you are speaking in English, you should simply forget what you would do if you had to write the same because when you are writing you are using everything from full stops to commas and semicolons and colons.
However, no native English speaker utilises colons and semicolons while speaking and having a conversation with another person.
If you want to avoid this mistake then you should simply stop thinking about making grammatical mistakes while speaking and you should stop overthinking grammar and focus on communication and fluency.
Nobody is going to correct your grammar while you are speaking English.
We hope this blog has helped you understand what are the most common mistakes that new and amateur English speakers make when they are trying their hand at spoken English.
If you are someone who also makes these mistakes and you are simply finding it difficult to correct these mistakes, you do not need to worry because we are here for you.
We are LoveUEnglish and we are one of the fastest growing and the most reputed Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) English training institutions in the industry where we provide some of the most practical spoken English classes for our students.
Our courses have been methodically designed by some of the best English educators and academics in order to help people from all age groups and professions grasp perfect English within weeks.
We can not only help you make your English-speaking skills perfect but we can ensure that you are going to speak English as naturally as your native language with our courses.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we have in store for you.
