Check your use of subject complements (adjectives or description words that follow a verb). Given your language background, you are prone to mistakes like, "I feel boring" when you mean "I feel bored."
Take the time to check for mistakes like this. If I circle a word on one of your papers, there's a good chance that you've used the wrong word form. I'll try to keep notes and include some popular word form mistakes.
On a related note (related to misused words), note that some concepts use "to be" verbs instead of "to have verbs." One concept that confuses ESL students is "fear." Fear takes a "to be" verb. "He is afraid." We don't say, "He has fear." We can use "to have" for specific fears, but we need to use "a".
"He has a fear of heights."
You'll occasionally make a mistake--I've heard this in speech--in which you say something like, "He doesn't afraid." You want to say, "He isn't afraid" or "He doesn't have fear of [anything or anybody]."
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2 comments:
How about if we say "he doesn't fear...." ? Would that work??
"He doesn't fear anything" would work. Often the structure will mention a specific fear: "He doesn't fear retribution."
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