About this ebook
The first book took the mistakes of the first five years of English — articles, tenses, plurals, word order. These are the ones that survive them.
They are the mistakes of somebody who is already fluent. The sentences are clear, the vocabulary is good, and something in the machinery is still one degree off: a small word after a phrasal verb, a to after a modal that does not want one, a would on the wrong side of an if.
Not one of these two hundred appears in the first book. That is checked entry by entry against all two hundred of the originals.
Every entry gives you five things: the mistake as somebody really says it; the correction directly underneath; why it happens and which first language produces it; the rule in one line; and two more correct sentences plus the same error wearing different clothes.
Ten parts of twenty.
Phrasal verbs and the word that comes after. Fill in, turn it on, pick you up, get off, look after, run out of, carry out, set up, take it up with. The small word is what gives you away, and the small word can simply be learnt.
Can, could, should, must and may. Why must not and do not have to are not opposites. Why you cannot put two modals together. How to make a modal past.
If, unless, and things that did not happen. Why would never goes after if. Why the past tense means this is imaginary rather than this was yesterday. Wishes, unless, in case, and the politest sentence in business English.
Reporting what somebody said. Tell and say. Ask and speak to. Suggested, recommended, insisted, denied, refused. And what happens to a question when you repeat it.
The passive, and sentences with no doer. The verbs that have no passive at all, the two halves that both have to be right, and when to put the person back in.
Joining two ideas. Although and but. Despite and in spite of. However, therefore, nevertheless, whereas, besides, on the contrary.
Comparing things. More taller, most cheapest, as same as, twice more expensive, too and very, and the twenty small words that go around a comparison.
The words that come in pairs. Make a mistake but do damage. Take a photo but make an impression. Tell a lie but say a word.
Some, any, every and all. Why few friends and a few friends are opposites. Every, each, both, neither, none, another, plenty of, half an hour.
On the telephone, in meetings and in small talk. What do you call this. Ahmed speaking. Could you say that again. Put you through. And how to answer how was your weekend?
At the back: the twenty to fix first; a full list of which verbs take to and which take -ing, with the six that change meaning; every entry grouped by first language, so you can read your own first; ten more things people are corrected on that were never mistakes at all; all two hundred rules on four pages; and every mistake listed alphabetically by the sentence you said.
No variety of English is treated as an error anywhere in this book. Where a phrase is standard in Indian, Nigerian, South African, Irish, Australian or American English, the entry says so, and the alternative is offered only as the form that travels furthest.
200 mistakes · 800 correct sentences · 200 one-line rules
