Not a generic list. These are 60 errors taken from marked homework by Korean speakers, each one repaired and then explained by what Korean actually does differently. The heaviest areas here are prepositions, countability, subject-verb agreement. Nothing on this page is behind a sign-up.
An error you can name the cause of is an error you can stop making.
Korean has a full passive, but it is carried on the verb itself – passive suffixes -i-/-hi-/-ri-/-gi- (bo-da 'see' becomes boi-da 'be seen'), or -eojida, doeda ('become') and badda ('receive') for many verbs. The tense lives in that suffix, and the doer, when named, takes a particle like -ege or -e uihae ('by'). So the idea of the passive – and of leaving the doer out altogether – is completely natural to a Korean speaker. The new part is the English shape: a separate be verb, plus the third form of the main verb, plus by. Nothing conceptual has to be learned; a two-part structure has to be assembled where the first language used one word.
The takeawayThe meaning of the passive transfers free from Korean; only the two-part English machinery (be + third form) has to be built.
Korean verbs never change for the subject: jeo-neun gayo, geu-neun gayo – 'I go', 'he goes' – use exactly the same verb form. In the English passive, all the tense and all the agreement sit on be, so that is the spot to check: the room is cleaned but the rooms are cleaned; the photo was taken but the photos were taken. Because there is nothing in Korean to copy this from, English agreement is acquired entirely on the English side. It is the same habit that produces people is for people are, and it is the single place where the passive meets the standing Korean-L1 watch-list.
The takeawayIn an English passive, check the be verb against the subject's number – the participle never changes, only be moves.
Korean marks relations with particles that follow the noun: -e (at / to / on / in), -eseo (from / at), -(eu)ro (to / by / with). Because one particle covers several English prepositions, the English choice is the hard part – the first language offers no way to decide between them. That is the source of at weekdays for on weekdays: the single Korean -e has to be split three ways in English, into AT for clock-times and night, ON for days, IN for months. The same system explains go out of Korea, which is a motion-verb pattern (naga-da plus a place) rendered word for word; English wants LEAVE plus the country with no preposition at all, or GO ABROAD.
The takeawayWhere Korean has one particle, English usually has a choice of three prepositions – learn the English set as a sorted list, not as translations.
Korean's plural marker -deul is optional, so many nouns work perfectly well as collective singulars. That is the source of a standing set of English watch-items: people is for people are, three book for three books, and uncountables taking a wrong -s (stuffs for stuff, sheeps for sheep). The habit is not carelessness – it is a category that the first language simply does not force you to mark, surfacing under speaking speed in a language that forces it on every countable noun.
The takeawayEnglish marks number twice – once on the noun and once on the verb. Korean marks it optionally, and often not at all.
Korean drops anything the listener can guess, so under speaking speed an English subject or object can go missing: Is raining, I like very much. English always wants an explicit subject – including the dummy it and there (It's raining, There's a problem) – and an object after a transitive verb (I like it very much). Nothing is wrong with the Korean sentence; it is complete in its own grammar. The English requirement is an extra obligation that has to be met even when the meaning is already obvious.
The takeawayEnglish never lets a subject go missing, even when it carries no meaning at all – say the it and the there.
Korean marks the past with -ass-/-eoss- and the future with -(eu)l keo-, but it has no morphological perfect – no direct equivalent of have done or will have done. 'By then, already completed' is left to context and to adverbs. So the English future perfect (will have + past participle) is an entirely new structure rather than a re-labelling of an existing one, and it is easy to reach instead for the nearest familiar shape, the conditional would have, which at least contains a have. The anchor that fixes it is the question word: if the question asks will, the answer says will have.
The takeawayIf the question says will, the answer says will – would have is for imaginary situations, not for the future.
This is worth naming because it is genuinely hard. Korean relative clauses sit before the noun and carry no relative pronoun at all: the describing part comes first, then the thing described. English post-nominal relatives – the restaurant that we visited – therefore demand a full reordering plus a new little word that the first language does not possess. Handling both the defining kind (no commas, tells you which one) and the non-defining kind (commas, adds extra information) with no errors is not a small result; it is two structural changes made at once, under speaking speed.
The takeawayDefining relatives take no commas and pick out which one; non-defining relatives take commas and add extra information.
Korean marks emphasis with the topic particle -eun/-neun and by fronting the thing being talked about. It does not build an extra frame around the emphasised element. English does exactly that: it stops the sentence, opens a new clause, and hangs the spotlighted item inside it – It was my sister who broke it, What I need is more time. Because Korean handles the same job with a single particle, the tempting English slip is a topic-echo: my sister, it was her who ... – the topic named first, then pronounced again inside the frame. Building the clean cleft instead means suppressing an instinct that is entirely correct in the first language.
The takeawayAn it-cleft spotlights a thing (It was X that...), a what-cleft spotlights an idea (What I need is...) – and neither takes an echoing pronoun.
Korean is topic-prominent. The topic marker -eun/-neun flags the thing being talked about, which may not be the grammatical subject: eonni-neun chaegeul ilgeoyo ('older-sister-TOP book read' = 'as for older sister, she reads a book'). Topic-fronting transfers into English as marked but often perfectly acceptable structure – and that is the good news here. English fronting is precisely a topic-comment move, so the -eun/-neun instinct is an engine, not interference. Beurokolli-neun jeoldae an meogeoyo and 'Broccoli I will never eat' are the same thought wearing two grammars. The only English-side extras: keep the subject pronounced ("... I will never eat", never dropped), and remember that a fronted negative forces inversion.
The takeawayIf your first language marks topics, English fronting is already yours – just keep the subject in place and invert after a fronted negative.
Korean counts through classifiers – han sigan ('one hour'), chaek du gwon ('book two CL') – so the noun itself never changes with the number. The counting work is done by a separate word, and the noun stands still. English does the reverse: it leaves the number alone and changes the noun. Singular only after ONE or A/AN (one hour, a match); plural -s from two upwards (two hours, three matches). One hours is the counter system showing through – a number and a plural both applied, because in the first language neither of them was ever attached to the noun in the first place.
The takeawayEnglish marks number on the noun, and the -s arrives at exactly two – never at one.
Korean attaches a particle to a noun to show its role – subject, object, location – where English uses a free-standing preposition. The two systems do not line up, so the English preposition is dropped or swapped: got along [with], comfortable [in], waited [for], talked [to] ... [through]. Because a Korean verb like gidarida ('to wait') takes its object with a particle and has no equivalent of for, that for simply has nothing to copy from. It is not forgotten; it was never generated. The consequence for study is practical: store English verbs together with their preposition, as a single unit, rather than learning the verb and then choosing a preposition at speaking speed.
The takeawayLearn the verb and its preposition as one item – wait for, listen to, look at, get along with.
Korean builds a conditional by adding a suffix – -(eu)myeon, roughly 'if' – to the verb. There is no separate if word, and there is no modal backshift: the verb carries the condition and nothing else in the sentence has to change. English instead reshapes the verbs across three types: second (if + past, would), third (if + had + past participle, would have) and mixed (past if-clause, present would-result). So a Korean speaker is not learning the idea of a condition, which they already have compactly; they are learning that English redistributes it across two clauses and moves the tenses backwards to signal unreality.
The takeawayThe one English-side rule to hold on to: no would inside the if-clause.
Korean marks the past with a suffix (-ass/-eoss) and the progressive with -go iss-, but has no form matching the English perfect (have + V3) or the perfect continuous (have been + V-ing). So the present perfect continuous has to be built from parts rather than translated. That makes a partial success genuinely informative: when the auxiliary chain comes out right – have been – and only the final word slips to a past participle, the hard structural work has already been done and what remains is a single ending. The shape to hold is the meaning: an ongoing action running from the past up to now is have been + V-ing.
The takeawayHave been playing is your own action; have been played is something done to you – the ending decides which.
Korean makes comparatives with deo ('more') placed before the adjective, and puts no ending on the adjective itself. English offers two mechanisms and insists you use exactly one: a short adjective takes the -er ending (small → smaller), a long adjective takes more (more influential). When a Korean speaker reaches for deo and translates it as more, the English -er can still be added on top out of a separate, correctly learned rule – and the comparative is marked twice. The tell-tale forms are more smaller, more bigger, more better: never wrong about the meaning, only about the arithmetic.
The takeawayShort adjective plus -er, long adjective plus more – one marker only, never both.
Korean forms the passive with an infix or with -eojida attached to the verb stem – the whole change happens inside a single word. English builds it out of two separate pieces: the auxiliary BE, carrying the tense and the agreement, and the past participle carrying the meaning. Because the machinery is so different, an English passive context can quietly slip back into the active, producing sentences like their names write where the subject cannot possibly be doing the action. The auxiliary is not optional decoration; it is the part that says the subject is receiving rather than performing.
The takeawayAsk who really does it. If it does not matter, or the subject is not the doer, use BE + the third form.
Grouped by grammar point, heaviest first. Every line is real.
Prepositions 11
I explained about the problem to my manager and discussed about the fix.
I explained the problem to my manager and discussed the fix.
Explain and discuss both take a direct object. The about is added by analogy with talk about, and it is the most common Korean-speaker slip at this level.
at weekdays
on weekdays
AT for clock times and night (at 7, at night); ON for days and dates (on Monday, on weekdays, on my birthday); IN for months, years and longer stretches (in July, in the morning).
WhyKorean uses one time particle, -e, for what English splits into AT, ON and IN, so the English choice is the whole difficulty – there is nothing in the first language to select from.
they waited me
they waited for me
English carries this grammar in a preposition sitting between the verb and the person: you do not wait someone, you wait for someone.
WhyIn Korean, 'to wait' is gidarida, and the thing you wait for is marked with an object particle attached to the noun – there is no separate little word standing between the verb and its object. The grammar lives on the noun, not in the space before it, so the English for has no Korean counterpart to copy.
I got along my neighbours
I got along with my neighbours
Get along with is a fixed unit – the preposition belongs to the verb and is learned with it, not chosen separately.
WhyKorean attaches grammar to nouns with particles rather than with free-standing prepositions, so the English preposition either goes missing or comes out wrong.
we talked each other on translator
we talked to each other through a translator
You talk to someone, and you talk through a translator – the means takes through, not on.
WhyKorean particles do not map one-to-one onto English prepositions, so both the missing to and the wrong on come from the same source: there is no Korean form to translate them from.
my family is together in here
my family is together here
Here already means 'at this place' – it takes no preposition. Same for there and home: come here, go there, go home.
Invested there for 3 years ago
I invested there 3 years ago / for 3 years
3 years ago names a point in the past; for 3 years names a duration. They are two different ideas and cannot be combined – pick one.
before I came to here
before I came here
Here and there already mean 'to this place' and 'to that place', so adding to doubles up: came here, went there.
WhyKorean postpositions map unevenly onto English prepositions – one particle such as -e can be 'to' or 'at' – which produces both missing prepositions and doubled ones.
I have been many countries
I have been to many countries
Have been takes to before a place: I have been to many countries.
WhyKorean marks the destination with a particle attached to the noun, so the free-standing English to has nothing to copy from and drops.
an impact for me
an impact on me
Have an impact on something or someone – the preposition is fixed by the noun, not chosen by meaning.
saw him in social media
saw him on social media
You see something on social media, on television, on the radio – the platform takes on.
Countability 8
a lot of stuffs were sold
a lot of stuff was sold
Stuff is uncountable: it takes no plural -s, and it takes a singular verb.
WhyKorean's plural marker -deul is optional and many nouns work as collective singulars, so the English -s has to be supplied deliberately – and a few nouns that look countable are not: stuff (not stuffs), sheep (not sheeps), information, advice.
there are too much stuffs to organise
there is too much stuff to organise
Stuff is an uncountable noun – no plural -s, and a singular verb with it.
WhyKorean's optional plural marker -deul lets many nouns function as collective singulars, so learners either omit the English -s or, having learned the rule, over-apply it to nouns that refuse it.
one of the best way to learn
one of the best ways to learn
After 'one of the' the noun is always plural – one of the best ways, one of my friends.
there are sushis on plates
there is sushi on the plates
Sushi is uncountable, like rice, bread or water: it takes no plural -s. If you want to count it, count the pieces – three pieces of sushi.
WhyThe usual Korean-L1 error is a missing -s, because -deul is optional; this is the mirror image – the plural rule learned and then over-applied to a mass noun that refuses it.
about one hours away
about an hour away (or one hour away)
After ONE, the noun stays singular: one hour, two hours. English changes the noun at exactly two, and never at one.
WhyKorean counts through classifiers – han sigan ('one hour'), chaek du gwon ('book two CL') – so the noun itself never changes shape with the number. English changes the noun instead, which is the switch that has to be learned.
broccolis I will never eat
broccoli I will never eat
Broccoli is a mass noun: always singular, however much of it there is. Irregulars and mass nouns keep their own shape – sheep, stuff, broccoli, rice, homework.
WhyKorean has a plural marker -deul but it is largely optional, and many count nouns function as collective singulars (haksaeng = student or students). The classic transfer is a missing English -s; this is the mirror image – the plural rule learned and enthusiastically enforced on nouns that refuse it.
many air conditioner
many air conditioners (or much air conditioning)
Many requires a plural countable noun; much requires an uncountable one.
many student from different country
many students from different countries
After many / several / various / different, and after numerals, the noun must be plural.
WhyKorean leaves number off the noun: haksaeng is 'student' or 'students' with no change of form, so the English -s has no counterpart to prompt it.
Subject-verb agreement 5
My friends is the same
My friends are the same
A plural subject takes a plural verb: friends are, people are.
WhyKorean verbs do not change for person or number (na-neun gayo, neo-neun gayo – same verb), so English agreement is built entirely English-side.
korean people is
Korean people are
People is a plural noun: people are, people have, people work.
WhyKorean verbs do not change for person or number, and nouns like people are treated as collective singulars – so there is nothing in the first language to copy English agreement from. It is built entirely English-side.
her mum have
her mum has
A third-person singular subject takes the -s form: her mum has, he works, it matters.
WhyKorean verbs never change for person or number: jeo-neun gayo, geu-neun gayo ('I go', 'he goes') use the same gayo. English agreement is therefore acquired entirely on the English side.
many trees was in the village
many trees were in the village
A plural subject takes a plural verb: are, were, have, do. Existential there was is singular; there were is plural.
WhyKorean uses one flat verb whether there is one tree or a thousand – namu-ga manh-ass-eoyo does not change form for number – so the English verb has to be re-marked deliberately.
at some locations there is no people
at some polling stations there were no voters
There is is singular and there were is plural – and the whole sentence must sit in the tense the story is in.
WhyKorean marks neither number on the noun nor agreement on the verb, so both halves of the existential have to be built English-side.
Tense 5
First I stayed in here I'm very nervous
When I first stayed here, I was very nervous
A past story needs a linking word (when) and the past tense right through it – once the frame is past, the verbs are past too.
WhyKorean marks tense with verb suffixes rather than a separate auxiliary and often sets the time once for a whole stretch of speech, so the English past can lapse mid-story.
last week is very hot
last week was very hot
A past time marker (last week, yesterday, in 2020) moves the verb to the past too.
I misunderstand
I misunderstood
Misunderstand is irregular: misunderstand → misunderstood. A past event needs the past form.
when I arrived, I want to see the colleges
when I arrived, I wanted to see the colleges
Past stays past right across the sentence: once one verb is in the past, every finite verb in the sentence follows.
WhyKorean sets the time once, with a past suffix on the final verb or a time word, and leaves the rest of the sentence neutral – so English's requirement to re-mark every verb has to be added.
I have been there for 8 years ago
I went there 8 years ago / have been there for 8 years
For marks a duration and ago marks a point in the past. They cannot be combined, and ago requires the past simple, not the present perfect.
Articles and determiners 3
very old city
a very old city
A singular, first-mention, countable noun takes a: a very old city, a modern city.
WhyKorean has no articles at all, so first-mention count nouns lose their a – there is no equivalent form in the first language to prompt it.
I went to music festival
I went to a music festival
A first-mention countable noun takes a or an.
WhyKorean has no a / an / the; specificity is carried instead by demonstratives (i 'this', geu 'that') and by word order, so the English article has no source to transfer from.
playing a piano
playing the piano
Musical instruments take the: play the piano, play the violin. Sports and games take no article at all: play tennis, play chess.
Modal verbs 3
so that I could speak
so that I can speak
For a purpose that is true now, use can (so that I can speak). Could is for past purposes (I studied hard last year so that I could pass) or polite and hypothetical ones. Present goal → can; past goal → could.
it must been a trick
it must have been a trick
Past deduction is modal + have + past participle: must have been, can't have gone, might have forgotten.
Maybe it is the dog, because the food is gone
It must be the dog, because the food is gone
English grades certainty with a modal, not with an adverb: must for sure, can't for impossible, might / may / could for possible.
WhyKorean marks 'probably / it seems / surely' with sentence-final endings (-gess-, -eul geot gata) rather than with separate modal words, so the natural reach in English is for a standalone adverb like maybe.
Word order 3
other countries people
people from other countries
English keeps short adjectives in front of the noun but re-hangs longer modifiers after it, using of, from or that: people from other countries, the book that I read.
WhyKorean is strongly head-final: modifiers, including whole relative clauses, come before the noun, stacking modifier + modifier + noun. Other countries people is that stacking carried straight into English.
I pretty like his house
I really like his house (or: I quite like his house)
Pretty cannot modify a verb – it modifies adjectives and adverbs (pretty good, pretty quickly). To soften a verb, use really or quite.
here is together my family
my family is together here
English fixes subject-verb-object order even after a fronted word like here – the subject still comes next.
WhyKorean is subject-object-verb and frequently leads with the topic rather than the grammatical subject, so under fluency the English order drifts to match.
Collocation 2
people don't go out of Korea
people don't leave Korea / don't go abroad
English keeps go out of for small enclosed spaces – a room, a building, a lift. For a whole country it switches verb entirely: LEAVE (transitive, no preposition) or the set phrase GO ABROAD / TRAVEL ABROAD.
WhyIn Korean, leaving somewhere is a motion verb plus a place: naga-da means 'go out', and you can go out of a country as easily as a room. The particle does the directional work, so the verb stays general – translated word for word it becomes go out of, which is grammatical English but not what anyone says about a country.
I did a few matches but I never won
I played a few matches but I never won
Games and matches are played. English splits the light-verb territory three ways and each noun has already chosen its verb: PLAY a match, a game, the piano; DO homework, the dishes, your best; MAKE a plan, a mistake, dinner.
WhyKorean hada ('do') is the workhorse verb of the language and happily covers do, make and play – gongbu hada ('study-do'), geim hada ('game-do' = play a game), sukje hada ('homework-do'). English gave that territory to three different verbs.
Comparatives 2
more better
better
One comparative marker only – either the -er ending or more, never both.
population more smaller than other countries
population smaller than other countries
Short adjectives add -er (small → smaller, big → bigger); long ones take more (more important, more influential) – but never both.
WhyKorean makes comparatives with deo ('more') placed before the adjective, with no ending on the adjective itself. In English, deo surfaces as more while the -er is added as well, so the comparative gets marked twice.
The copula 2
I interested in UK property
I'm interested in UK property
English needs the verb to be before an adjective: I am interested, she is tired.
WhyIn Korean the 'be' relationship can be left implied, and an adjective behaves like a verb and can be the whole predicate – so no separate copula is needed, and it goes missing in English.
Seoul more influential
Seoul is more influential
English requires be before an adjective: the city is influential, the population is small.
WhyIn Korean an adjective behaves like a verb and can be the whole predicate, so no separate be is needed – the equivalent of 'Seoul influential-is' is one word. In English the be is obligatory and has to be supplied.
future perfect 2
would have had
will have had
The future perfect is will have + past participle: it looks ahead and says something will be finished by a future point. Would have is the conditional and belongs to imaginary or 'if' situations. If the question says will, the answer says will.
WhyKorean has no perfect tense at all. It marks the past with -ass-/-eoss- and the future with -(eu)l keo-, and leaves 'by then, already completed' to context and adverbs – so the English future perfect is an entirely new structure, and the hand reaches for the nearest familiar shape, the conditional would have.
would have adopted
will have adopted
A question in the future perfect (What will you have done by...?) must be answered in the future perfect: will have + past participle.
WhyKorean has no morphological perfect, so there is no direct equivalent of have done or will have done to transfer; the structure has to be built new in English.
Inversion 2
Very surprised was I when I saw the mess
I was very surprised when I saw the mess
English inversion is triggered by a fronted negative (never, rarely, not only), not by emphasis in general – an emphatic adjective at the front does not license reversing subject and verb.
WhyKorean is strongly head-final (SOV), with the verb last and modifiers before what they modify. Under emphasis, Korean speakers sometimes over-reverse the English order, producing very tired am I today.
Never I have seen a sadder plate
Never have I seen a sadder plate
When the fronted element is negative, English demands inversion after it: the auxiliary comes before the subject. Never will I eat that; Never have I seen.
The passive 2
was choosed
was chosen
The passive takes the third form of the verb, and choose is irregular: choose / chose / chosen.
their names write on very big rocks
their names are written on very big rocks
The names do not do the writing – someone wrote them – so English uses the passive: BE + past participle, are written or were written.
WhyKorean forms the passive with an infix or with -eojida on the verb stem, which is very different from the English two-part BE + V3. Because the machinery is so unlike, an English passive context can slip back into the active.
Perfect tenses 2
I have been climbed
I have been climbing
The present perfect continuous is have/has been + V-ing. Have been climbed is a different thing altogether – a passive – which is why it sounds wrong for an action you did yourself.
WhyKorean marks the past with a suffix (-ass/-eoss) and the progressive with -go iss-, but has no form matching the English perfect (have + V3) or perfect continuous (have been + V-ing). The PPC therefore has to be assembled from English parts rather than mapped across.
I have been studied English for years
I have studied English for years
Have been + past participle is the passive – something done to you. For something you did yourself, use the plain present perfect: I have studied.
Pronunciation 2
chall-en-ged
challenged – 'CHAL-unjd' (two syllables, soft g)
The -ed ending does not add a syllable here; challenged is two beats, ending in a soft -jd.
developted
developed – dih-VEL-upt
Developed ends in a simple /t/ sound: no extra syllable and no -ted.
clefts 1
The one who broke it, it was my sister
It was my sister who broke it
An English it-cleft is a single frame: It was X who/that ... – there is no second, echoing pronoun.
WhyKorean marks emphasis with the topic particle -eun/-neun and by fronting, not with an extra frame, so the tempting slip is a topic-echo: the topic is named first and then referred to again by a pronoun.
dropped subject 1
I felt modern city
I felt it was a modern city
English rarely drops a subject, and a reported impression needs its own clause: I felt [it was] a modern city.
WhyKorean drops anything the listener can recover from context, including subjects and objects, so under speaking speed the English subject can go missing.
gradability 1
very fantastic
fantastic (or really fantastic)
Fantastic is already an extreme adjective, so it does not take very. Use really or absolutely, or nothing at all.
Relative clauses 1
there are many countries helps south Korea
there were many countries that helped South Korea
A relative clause needs its pronoun (that), a plural subject needs a plural verb, and a past event keeps the past tense throughout.
WhyKorean verbs do not mark person or number, so agreement is English-side work; and Korean relative clauses carry no relative pronoun at all, so the that has to be supplied.
verb patterns 1
I prefer to living in different countries
I prefer to live (or living) in different countries
Prefer takes either to + base verb (prefer to live) or the -ing form (prefer living) – but never to + -ing.
word class 1
I don't specific him
I can't place him (or: I'm not sure exactly who he is)
Specific is an adjective, not a verb – it cannot take an object. To say you cannot quite identify someone, English uses place: I can't place him.
These are the Korean corrections only. The full archive holds every language side by side, filterable by grammar point and level: the marking archive. Other languages: Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Turkish.
A rule earns its place by being produced correctly and unprompted, not by being explained once.
The three sounds of -ed
The English -ed ending has three pronunciations: /t/ after a voiceless sound, /d/ after a voiced sound, and a full extra syllable /ɪd/ only after a t or d.
CautionKorean does not end syllables in these clusters, so the temptation is to give every -ed its own beat. Let the ending land lightly – it is a full syllable only in the /ɪd/ set.
The AT / ON / IN time rule
AT takes clock times and night; ON takes days and dates; IN takes months, years and longer stretches, plus parts of the day.
CautionThe weekend goes with AT in British English (at the weekend), which cuts across the days rule – learn it as a fixed phrase.
The switch-at-two rule
An English noun stays singular after ONE or A/AN, and takes the plural -s from two upwards. The -s arrives at exactly two – never at one.
CautionThe rule does not reach the stubborn nouns: irregular plurals (sheep, children, people) and mass nouns (stuff, broccoli, rice, homework, information) keep their own shape however many there are.
The Number Rule
English demands number in two places at once: quantifier → plural noun → plural verb. Korean leaves number off both the noun and the verb, so it has to be marked twice, deliberately, every time.
CautionIrregular plurals stay irregular – children (never childrens), men, women, people. And country names are singular: the country has an election, not have.
Every noun needs an article decision
Because Korean has no a / an / the, the English article either goes missing or, once 'add the' has been learned, over-appears. Make a fresh decision for every noun rather than a habit.
CautionThe over-correction trap is real: having learned to add the, learners start attaching it to bare place names as well. Place names take no article.
The preposition is glued to the verb
Korean marks place and role with a particle on the noun (-e 'to/at', -eseo 'from/at'), so one Korean form does the work English splits across to / at / in / on / for. Store each English verb with its preposition, as a single unit.
CautionSome verbs take no preposition, and adding one is just as wrong as omitting one: never in here, never to abroad.
Re-mark the tense every time
Korean sets the time once – a past suffix on the final verb, or a time word – and lets the rest of the sentence stay neutral. English re-marks tense on every finite verb in the sentence.
CautionDo not use have been + V3 for things you did yourself – I have been studied English is a passive, and says something quite different.
Participle = 3rd form – made, taken, written, chosen; never maked, choosed.
be agrees with the subject: one → is/was; many → are/were. The rooms are cleaned.
by + doer – only if it matters. Written by a student; otherwise leave the doer out.
LEAVE a country – no preposition. GO OUT OF is for a small space: out of the room, out of the house.
STUFF has no plural: too much stuff, lots of stuff – never 'stuffs'.
Question says WILL → answer WILL. What will you have done? → I will have ...
Present goal → so that I CAN. Past goal → so that I COULD.
English re-hangs its modifiers after the noun: the book that I read; people from other countries.
must = sure. can't = impossible. might / may / could = maybe. Past guess = modal + have + V3.
Inversion: auxiliary first. Never have I..., not Never I have.
One hour. Two hours. The -s arrives at two.
Sheep, stuff, broccoli – the stubborn nouns never take -s.
PLAY a match. DO homework. MAKE a plan. Hada splits in three.
Front it for feeling: Broccoli I will never eat. Front a negative, flip the verb: Never will I.
get along with · wait for · comfortable in · talk to someone · here (no in). The preposition is part of the verb.
3 years ago OR for 3 years – never both.
PPC = have/has BEEN + V-ing. Not 'have been played' – that is the passive.
Short adj + -ER. Long adj + MORE. Never both – not 'more smaller', not 'more bigger'.
BE before an adjective. The city IS influential; the population IS small.
Who really does it? If it doesn't matter, use the passive – BE + V3.
Backshift after a past report: I imagined it was old, not I imagined it is old.
A report that only lists faults teaches you nothing about what to keep.
Never have I seen anything like it
CreditedAfter a fronted negative, English puts the auxiliary before the subject – never have I, not never I have. This is the exact opposite of Korean word order, so producing it steadily under speaking speed is the whole difficulty of the structure.
What I need is more time
CreditedA what-cleft spotlights an idea by building a whole extra frame around it. Korean does the same job with a single particle, so constructing the English frame correctly shows real control rather than transfer.
She might have forgotten
CreditedPast deduction in English is modal + have + past participle. Korean marks 'probably / it seems / surely' with sentence-final endings instead, so mapping those endings onto the right English modal is a genuine system-switch.
it's hot in here
CreditedExactly right, and noted in the learner's favour on a sheet of eleven corrections: natural British small talk, with in here correct in this idiom even though in was wrongly added to here elsewhere in the same session.
This is the marking talking to itself. It is here because it is the honest evidence that the rest of the page came from somewhere.
No errors logged anywhere in the session. The passive was produced across past and present, every form correctly built: be + past participle, with the participle in the third form and the be verb agreeing with its subject.
The grade is ABSORBED but marked PROVISIONAL, and the report says why: it is judged on the absence of error rather than on a positive production that could be pointed to. A clean sheet is not the same evidence as a demonstrated repair, so the verdict is written as absence-inferred and scheduled for re-confirmation in free talk the following session.
The passive and the reason and time clauses were used cleanly for the whole session. Only two errors were logged in total, and neither was today's grammar: one word-choice slip and one time preposition.
This is the third consecutive clean passive session, so the absence-inferred verdict is no longer standing on a single sheet – a repeated absence across sessions is treated as converging evidence, and the homework is written to stretch the structure rather than re-teach it. It stays provisional because the grade still rests on nothing going wrong rather than on a difficulty visibly overcome.
Relative clauses (defining and non-defining), result clauses and contrast clauses produced with no errors. The purpose clause was built correctly – the frame 'so that I ... speak' is exactly right – but filled with the wrong modal: 'so that I could speak' for a goal that holds now.
The session is not averaged into a single middling grade. Three of the four clause types were error-free and are graded absorbed; the fourth is graded PARTIALLY ABSORBED on its own terms, because the structure was assembled correctly and only the modal choice failed. Grading the frame and the filling separately keeps the record honest – a correctly built purpose clause is not cancelled by a modal error inside it.
Knowing the pattern your first language produces is most of the work. Knowing which of them you are still making takes someone reading your writing.
Every lesson comes with a written report: the marking line by line, the criteria, and one priority for next time. A worked example shows exactly what comes back. Lessons are £20 for fifty minutes, one to one, in proper British English; the first step is a discounted trial lesson.