Present, past and future tenses are often confused with one another. Even native English speakers sometimes trip up when it comes to tenses. For example, a person may say to his friend, "I drank five cans of soda this week," when it should begin "I have drunk" because the person is referring to a result of an action that began in the past and is still continuing in the present. In fact, the person can still drink a can or two during the same week.
A preposition is used to link a noun or phrase and is used to specify a place, direction or time. Prepositions can be confusing for non-native English speakers when trying to decide which preposition to use. For instance, when speaking of traveling, a person may say, "On June, I will go to America," while the correct preposition should be "In June" because it is referring to a point in time.
There are three articles in the English language: "a," "an" and "the." These are used to show that a noun will follow. When speaking about a nonspecific singular noun, use the indefinite articles "a" and "an." When speaking about specific singular or plural nouns, use the definite article "the." A common mistake for those new to learning English is to use the wrong article or to completely omit it. For example, "I have a apple" or "I am going to movie theater" as opposed to the correct forms "I have an apple" and "I am going to the movie theater."
In English, both in the past tense and past participle instances, regular verbs end in "ed, while irregular verbs are harder to learn as they often change forms and, thus, must be memorized. For instance, it is not "We eated at the restaurant." It should be "We ate."
Some English language learners tend to repeat the subject of a sentence again in pronoun form. For example, "My dog he is very gentle" is incorrect. You should simply say, "My dog is very gentle." There is no need to repeat the subject again in the same sentence.