10 English Grammar Rules to Check Before You Hit Send
Quick answer: Before you send anything in English, check ten things: verb agreement, tense, a/an/the, plurals, apostrophes, word order, prepositions, sentence length, capital letters, and the words that sound alike. Each check takes seconds and catches most of the mistakes that make writing look careless.↗ Share on X
Before you send an English email or message, check ten things: verb agreement, verb tense, a/an/the, plurals, apostrophes, word order, prepositions, sentence length, capital letters, and the small words people mix up. Each check takes a few seconds. Together they catch most of the mistakes that make good writing look careless.
Here is the checklist, with the wrong version and the right version side by side, so you see the fix and not only the rule.
1. Does the verb match the person?
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12 English Grammar Rules Learners Get Wrong the Most →One person *does*. Two people *do*. The trap is the letter s. In the present tense, *he*, *she* and *it* add an s to the verb. *I*, *you*, *we* and *they* do not.
- Wrong: He go to work at eight.
- Right: He goes to work at eight.
- Wrong: My parents lives in Lisbon.
- Right: My parents live in Lisbon.
Quick test: cover the rest of the sentence and say only the subject and the verb out loud. "He go" sounds wrong on its own.
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2. Is the tense the same all the way?
Pick past or present and stay there, unless the time really changes.
- Wrong: Yesterday I go to the office and finished the report.
- Right: Yesterday I went to the office and finished the report.
Words like *yesterday*, *last week* and *in 2019* force the past tense. When you see one, every verb about that moment goes to the past too.
3. A, an, or the?
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12 English Grammar Rules Beginners Should Learn First →Use a or an the first time you mention something. Use the when the reader already knows which one you mean.
- I bought a laptop. The laptop is very light.
Use an before a vowel *sound*, not a vowel letter: *an hour*, *a university*.
Leave the article out with plurals and with uncountable things in general statements. Say *Cars are expensive*, not *The cars are expensive*, unless you mean specific cars.
4. Is the plural right?
Most nouns add -s. Nouns ending in *-s, -x, -ch* or *-sh* add -es. Nouns ending in a consonant plus *y* change to -ies.
- box becomes boxes
- city becomes cities
- watch becomes watches
Some words never take an -s: *information*, *advice*, *furniture*, *equipment*, *money*, *news*. Say *some information*, never *informations*.
5. Does that apostrophe belong there?
An apostrophe has two jobs only: missing letters, and ownership.
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| it's | it is, or it has | It's raining. |
| its | belonging to it | The dog ate its food. |
| your | belonging to you | Your order shipped. |
| you're | you are | You're early. |
| their | belonging to them | Their office is closed. |
| there | a place | Put it over there. |
| they're | they are | They're waiting outside. |
Never use an apostrophe to make a plural. Three *cats*, not three *cat's*.
6. Is the word order subject, verb, object?
English is strict about this. The doer comes first, then the action, then the thing.
- Wrong: Yesterday bought I a phone.
- Right: Yesterday I bought a phone.
Adjectives go before the noun: *a red car*, not *a car red*.
Words like *always*, *often* and *never* go before the main verb, but after the verb *to be*: *She never arrives late.* and *She is never late.*
7. Which preposition goes with this word?
Prepositions rarely translate word for word from another language. Learn them stuck to the word, not on their own.
| Wrong | Right |
|---|---|
| depend of | depend on |
| married with | married to |
| arrive to the airport | arrive at the airport |
| good in math | good at math |
| interested of | interested in |
| listen the radio | listen to the radio |
| explain me the rule | explain the rule to me |
For time: at a clock time, on a day, in a month or a year. *At 7pm, on Monday, in March.*
8. Is the sentence too long?
If you read a sentence out loud and run out of breath, split it. Two clear sentences always beat one tangled one.
- Long: I wanted to send the file yesterday but the internet was down and then I had a meeting so I am sending it now and I hope it is not a problem.
- Better: I wanted to send the file yesterday, but the internet was down. I am sending it now. Sorry for the delay.
A comma cannot join two complete sentences by itself. Use a period, or add *and*, *but* or *so*.
9. Are the capital letters in place?
Capitalize the first word of a sentence, names of people and places, months and days, languages and nationalities, and the word I.
Do not capitalize seasons such as *summer*, job titles used in general such as *a manager*, or random words for emphasis.
- Wrong: i will call you on monday about the english course.
- Right: I will call you on Monday about the English course.
10. Did you check the look-alike words?
These slip past spell-check because both spellings are real words.
| Mix-up | Use it when |
|---|---|
| then / than | *then* is about time, *than* is a comparison |
| affect / effect | *affect* is the verb, *effect* is the noun |
| lose / loose | *lose* means not win, *loose* means not tight |
| advice / advise | *advice* is the thing, *advise* is the action |
| to / too | *too* means also, or more than enough |
Which mistakes do readers really notice?
Not all mistakes cost you the same. In a work message, the ones people register fastest are the ones that change the meaning or look rushed.
| Mistake | How it lands with the reader |
|---|---|
| your instead of you're | Rushed |
| a lowercase i | Careless |
| Mixed verb tenses | Hard to follow |
| A comma joining two sentences | Long and tiring to read |
| Wrong preposition | Clearly a second language, but still clear |
Look at that last row. A wrong preposition almost never stops someone understanding you. If you only have thirty seconds, spend them on the rows above it.
A 60-second check before you press send
Do these four passes, in this order. Each one hunts for something different, which is why it beats reading the whole message four times and hoping to notice something.
1. Read it out loud. Your ear catches missing words and wrong verbs that your eye skips over.
2. Read it backwards, sentence by sentence. Start with the last sentence. This breaks the meaning and leaves only the grammar in front of you.
3. Search for your own traps. Use the search function for *its*, *your* and *then*. Everyone has three or four words they always get wrong.
4. Read the first line and the last line twice. Those are the two lines everyone reads.
How do you make these stick?
Rules you read once disappear. Rules you use stay.
- Keep a mistake list. One note on your phone. Every time someone corrects you, write the wrong version and the right version next to each other. Ten entries is enough to show you your pattern.
- Copy one good sentence a day. Take a sentence from an email you thought was well written and write it out by hand. You absorb the word order without studying it.
- Reread your old messages once a week. Find two mistakes. Do not fix them, just notice them. Noticing is what carries over to the next message.
- Work on one rule per week. This week, only articles. Next week, only prepositions. Trying to fix ten at once fixes none of them.
Your next step
Open the last message you sent in English. Run the ten checks on it, in order, and count the corrections you find.
Whatever the number, write the top two on your phone. Those two are your list. Check only for those in your next five messages. When they stop showing up, take the next two and start again.
FAQ
Which grammar mistake should I fix first?
The one you make most often. Reread five messages you already sent and count what repeats. For most learners it is either the missing -s on he, she and it, or the articles a, an and the. Fixing your own repeat mistake changes more than learning a new rule.
Can I trust the spell-checker to catch these?
Only partly. A spell-checker catches misspelled words, but it does not catch your instead of you're, then instead of than, or a verb in the wrong tense, because all of those are real words spelled correctly. Those need the reading-out-loud pass.
How do I learn prepositions without memorizing lists?
Learn the preposition attached to the word it follows, as one block: depend on, interested in, good at, married to. Write the block, not the preposition alone. Lists of prepositions on their own are very hard to remember because they carry almost no meaning by themselves.