Correct the Mistakes
The four participants discussed it between
1. She recommended me that I take a few days
off from work.
2. I tried to explain him the problem, but he had
difficulty understanding me.
3. I don’t know why you didn’t go. If I were you,
I should have gone.
4. Kate claims that if she got an MBA after
finishing her bachelor’s degree, she might have
been considered for the position.
5. Kevin says he stopped to travel
internationally because of his family.
6. We regret informing you that your
application has been denied.
7. The interview was broadcasted live over the
internet.
8. I’m so glad that he spoke in my behalf
because I felt awful that I couldn’t make it to
the event.
9. At first I studied engineering in college, but I
ended getting a marketing degree.
10. It was a frustrating situation because we
were uncapable of helping.
11. When the check came, I tried to pay but
John told me to put away my wallet and
insisted that he paid for dinner.
12. They had managed a few crisises in the
past, so they were able to handle this situation
fairly well.
13. If you would’ve told me, I would have given
you my honest advice.
14.
themselves.
15. We thought we were going to expand this
year, but we actually have less people now
than we did two years ago.
16. She’s trying to concentrate herself on
finishing her degree.
17. Unfortunately, the species has gotten
extinct due to human activity.
18. I’m a little afraid to do this by my own.
19. He told me that he had never been in that
restaurant before.
20. Never before I had seen something quite
like that.
 
Answers and Explanations
1. She recommended me that I take a few days
off from work.
We need to use the subjunctive in this
example. An excellent explanation of the
English subjunctive can be found here. The
subjunctive form in this example is the infinitive
without “to” (go, eat, do, run, etc.).
Common expressions followed by the
subjunctive:
recommend that
insist that
demand that
request that
asked that
suggest that
Examples:
They demanded that we lower the price.
They demanded us that we lower the price.
They demanded that we lowered the price.
My boss requested that I use my vacation days
before the end of the year.
My boss requested me that I use my vacation
days before the end of the year.
My boss requested that I used my vacation
days before the end of the year.
For practice, try these subjunctive exercises.
 
2. I tried to explain him the problem the
problem to him, but he had difficulty
understanding me.
Some verbs can be followed by the indirect
object and then the direct object. For example,
we can say I gave John the book. John is the
indirect object and book is the direct object.
However, not all verbs follow this
pattern. Recommend, explain, and
describe are three common verbs that take the
following form:
recommend/explain/describe + what + to
whom
Examples:
We explained the situation to the client.
We explained the client the situation.
Could you describe the problem to our IT
manager?
Could you describe our IT manager the
problem?
3. I don’t know why you didn’t go. If I were you,
I should would have gone.
To talk about a hypothetical past, we can
use would/might/could + have + participle. We
do not use should to talk about a hypothetical
past. We use should to criticize past actions or
express regret.
 
4. Kate claims that if she got had gotten an
MBA after finishing her bachelor’s degree, she
might have been considered for the position.
To talk about a hypothetical past, we need to
use the past perfect in the if clause. For more
information on conditionals, see
this conditionals guide.
Examples:
What would you have said if you had been
there?
What would you have said if you were there?
 
5. Kevin says he stopped to
travel traveling internationally because of his
family.
We can use the verb stop with both the gerund
and the infinitive. When we use stop with the
gerund, it means that someone was doing
something and then stopped. When we
use stop with the infinitive, it means that
someone stopped an action in order to start
doing something else.
Examples:
Kevin stopped working at 6 p.m. last night.
Kevin stopped to work at 6 p.m. last night.
At 10 AM, Lucy and Fernando always stop to
take a coffee break.
At 10 AM, Lucy and Fernando always stop
taking a coffee break.
For more verbs that can be used with both the
infinitive and the gerund, see this page.
6. We regret informing to inform you that your
application has been denied.
Regret is normally used with the gerund.
However, to communicate bad news (usually in
writing) we use regret + infinitive. For more
verbs that can be used with both the infinitive
and the gerund, see this page.
 
7. The interview was broadcasted live over the
internet.
Broadcast is an irregular verbs. It
doesn’t change in the simple past and
participle form, just like the verbs let, bet, set,
put, cut, and shut.
 
8. I’m so glad that he spoke in on my behalf
because I felt awful that I couldn’t make it to
the event.
This is a collocation with on that students
typically have difficulty with. We say speak on
someone’s behalf. For practice, try this in vs.
on collocations exercise.
9. At first I studied engineering in college, but I
ended up getting a marketing degree.
We use end up instead of end to talk about
something that eventually happened after other
things happened first.
Examples:
We couldn’t decide on where to go for dinner,
so we ended up eating at home.
We couldn’t decide on where to go for dinner,
so we ended eating at home.  Examples:
 
10. It was a frustrating situation because we
were unincapable of helping.
Overusing the prefix “un” is a common mistake.
See this page for a more complete explanation
of how to correctly use negative prefixes.
11. When the check came, I tried to pay but
John told me to put away my wallet and
insisted that he paid pay for dinner.
See explanation to number 1.
 
12. They had managed a few crisises crises in
the past, so they were able to handle this
situation fairly well.
Many words that end in “is” have an irregular
plural form that ends with “es.” The plural form
rhymes with the word “cheese.”
Examples:
crisis – crises
diagnosis – diagnoses
hypothesis – hypotheses
analysis – analyses
For more irregular plurals, see this page.
 
13. If you would’ve had told me, I would have
given you my honest advice.
To talk about a hypothetical past, the if clauses
takes the past perfect. We
use would/might/could + have + participle in
the result clause.
What would you have done if you had been
there?
What would you have done if you would have
been there?
If I had known the weather was going to be so
bad, I might have chosen a different day for the
party.
If I would have known the weather was going
to be so bad, I might have chosen a different
day for the party.
Note that we could also use the inverted form
of the third conditional here (Had you told me, I
would have given you my honest advice).
 
14. The four participants discussed
it between among themselves.
We need to use among here because we are
talking about more than two things that are not
distinct items. For a good explanation on when
to use between and when to use among,
see this page.
Note that amongst would also be correct, but it
is not as commonly used as among.
15. We thought we were going to expand this
year, but we actually have less fewer people
now than we did two years ago.
Although using less before count nouns (cars, people,
resources, etc.) is becoming more acceptable, the rule is
that we use fewer before count nouns and less before
non-count nouns (time, patience, determination, etc.).
Examples:
We have fewer candidates for this position
than we expected.
We have less candidates for this position than
we expected.
Carl has less stress now that he has started
working out after work.
Carl has fewer stress now that he has started
working out after work.
16. She’s trying to concentrate herself on finishing
her degree.
We don’t use reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself,
himself, etc.) after the verb concentrate.
Examples:
We need to concentrate on the task at hand.
We need to concentrate ourselves on the task
at hand.
 
17. Unfortunately, the species
has gotten become/gone extinct due to human
activity.
We can often use get to communicate that
something has changed or transformed (get
angry, get depressed, get scared, get excited, etc.).
However, we can’t always use get (get famous, ,  get
available, for example). See this page to learn about
using turn, become, get, and goto talk about changes
and transformations.
 
18. I’m a little afraid to do this by on my own (or by
myself).
We have the expressions by myself and on my own. By
my own does not exist.
 
19. He told me that he had never
been in to that restaurant before.
We say been to, not been in to communicate
places that we have visited (countries, cities, towns,
restaurants, stores, etc.). Note that If we are talking
about a specific room, we would use in.
Examples:
Have you been to Italy?
Have you been in Italy?
I can’t believe you’ve lived in Paris for 10 years
but haven’t been to the Louvre.
I can’t believe you’ve lived in Paris for 10 years
but haven’t been in the Louvre.
I’ve been to his house, but I’ve never been in
the basement. (specific room = in)
I’ve been to his house, but I”ve never been to
the basement.
20. Never before I had had I seen something
quite like that.
We use subject-verb inversion when we start a
sentence with a negative adverb (never,
hardly, seldom, etc.). For more examples of
when to use subject-verb inversion, see this
page.