Common English mistakes
For now, we mainly work with engineers for whom English the second or third language. Here are common mistakes we see among them, including real-world examples.
I. Easy
These mistakes are usually made due to a lack of attention to detail rather than a lack of knowledge. These mistakes are usually easy to catch and learn to prevent.
- 1.Attention > Typos
- "Leetcode" -> "LeetCode"
- "Systems Design Primer" -> "System Design Primer"
- 2.Attention > Singular vs plural
- "3 LeetCode problem" -> "3 LeetCode problems"
- 3.Attention > Spelling
- "recomendations" -> "recommendations"
- 4.Attention > Extra spacing
- "Solve the Wild Card Matching problem" -> "Solve the Wild Card Matching problem"
II. Medium.
These mistakes usually point to a lack of knowledge of "medium complexity" rules in English.
- 1.Grammar > Missing words
- "Record a video and share on Telegram" -> "Record a video and share it on Telegram"
- 2.Grammar > Tenses
- "I founded one mistake" -> "I found one mistake"
- 3.Grammar > Word order
- "Read the Grokking the System Design 1 lecture" -> "Read 1 lecture of the Grokking the System Design" or "Read the Grokking the System Design (1 lecture)"
- 4.Punctuation > Ending of a bullet point
- Long phrases in bullet points don’t need a dot at the end, but if it’s a sentence without a bullet point use a dot.
- 5.Punctuation > General separation
- Some people write a list of phrases in their resume without using dashes or bullet points.
- 6.Punctuation > Casing instead of quotes in titles
- "Read 'Queue and BFS' chapter on LeetCode" -> "Read the Queue and BFS chapter on LeetCode"
II. Larger problems
These mistakes usually point to a lack of knowledge of complex rules in English.
- 1.Grammar > Articles
- "Solve problem Reverse Nodes in k-Group" -> "Solve the Reverse Nodes in the k-Group problem"
- "Conduct interviewing.io coding interview" -> "Conduct an interviewing.io coding interview" or "Conduct one interviewing.io coding interview"
- 2.Grammar > Prepositions
- "Read through 3 chapters via the CCI book" -> "Read through 3 chapters of the CCI book"
- 3.Casing > Capitalizing the first letter of bullet points
- 4.Casing > Job titles
- [Usage context: a job title in a resume] "software engineer" -> "Software Engineer"
- [Usage context: a job title in a resume] "Senior Software engineer" -> "Senior Software Engineer"
In general, we strongly encourage using the most modern spell-checker. As of 2022-06-20, we believe the best is Grammarly.
Last modified 7mo ago