#1 Odd Man Out

🆕 Here’s your chance to check whether you’ve learned your lessons from our favourite #mistakes – find the odd man out, that is the one item that doesn’t fit in.

▶️ Pay attention to your pronunciation when reading the following sentence:

She looked into the mirror, changed her dress again, called her fiancé and waited for him impatiently.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Our favourite mistakes #147: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• confidence
• distance
• development
• government
• helpless
• speechless

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ Words ending in -ence/-ance, -ment and -less are pronounced with schwa (ə), just like the last letter in борми.
• kɒnfɪdəns
• dɪstəns
• dɪveləpmənt
• gʌvənmənt
• helpləs
• spi:ʧləs

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

▶️ Afandi English is over 3 years old now and there’s a ton of stuff you’ve missed. Here are some hashtags for posts about language learning:

#correct
Check if you can spot some common mistakes.

#grammar
Brush up your grammar.

#ielts
Get the DOs and DON’Ts of preparing for IELTS.

#learn2learn
Take advice on how to learn a foreign language.

#mistakes
The biggest collection of Uzbek learners’ typical mistakes in English – at your fingertips.

#oddmanout
See if you can find the mistake.

#pronunciation
Fix your pronunciation problems, one at a time.

#self_study
Sit down and help yourself. Interesting videos plus script plus activities.

#tongue_twisters
Work on your pronunciation and fluency in one go.

#uni_vocab
Understand university-related vocabulary.

#vocabulary
Learn about lexical problems and pick the right words next time.

#world_englishes
Realise that English is a world language and prepare for the worst. Or the best?

#writing
Say goodbye to your most common and unnecessary writing mistakes.

Odd Man Out #2

▶️ Check your pronunciation and look for the vowel they all have in common, except one!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Odd Man Out #3

▶️ There are some spelling mistakes that are really popular among students. Look at the words below and find the one that is spelled correctly!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #writing

Correct me if you can #21

▶️ Find the mistake in the following sentence:

All teachers should give feedbacks to their students.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #correct

Our favourite mistakes #148: Writing

▶️ Please translate the following sentence:

Toshkent aholisi 3,1 million, Andijonniki 500.000.

❌ Perhaps you think it is:
The population of Tashkent is 3,1 million, that of Andijan 500.000.

✅ Well, it should be:
The population of Tashkent is 3.1 million, that of Andijan 500,000.

❓What’s wrong here?
❗️ Just as you say “three point one” – what you write is a dot, NOT a comma. Conversely, large numbers are separated by commas in English, NOT by dots.

💡More examples:
I scored ❌ 7,5 ✅ 7.5 in IELTS.
I paid ❌ 100.000 ✅ 100,000 soum for this.
It took me ❌ 1,5 ✅ 1.5 hours to get home.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #writing

Odd Man Out #4

▶️ Pay attention to your pronunciation today, more specifically to the number of syllables you pronounce.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Our favourite mistakes #149: Writing

▶️ Look at this piece of wannabe academic writing:

There is given an example in the article.

❓What’s wrong here?
❗️You can add “given” but do it after the object, i.e. There is an example given in the article.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #writing

Correct me if you can #22

▶️ Find the mistake in the following sentence:

Let’s go to a café, I’m starving.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #correct

Our favourite mistakes #150: Writing

▶️ Look at these sentences:

1️⃣ It should be noted that, this is very important.
2️⃣ The reason is that, people have different opinions.
3️⃣ It is a very big problem so that, we must solve it.

❓What’s wrong?
❗️There’s no reason why you should use a comma here. Please don’t.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #writing

Odd Man Out #5

▶️ Pay attention to the vowels.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Our favourite mistakes #151: Grammar

▶️ Please translate the following sentence:
Xudoga shukur!

❌ Perhaps you think it is:
Thanks God!

✅ Well, it should be:
Thank God!

❓Why?

It sounds like you’re talking to God. 😇

❗️ Thanks has two uses: a) to thank somebody directly in a conversation or b) to give a reason for some good result, e.g. My English is getting better every day thanks to Afandi English.

❗️ To thank sb/sth is a transitive verb and thank here is a third-person imperative, similar to the Uzbek -sin suffix in bersin or qilsin.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #grammar

Correct me if you can #23

▶️ Find the mistake in the following sentence:

I haven’t time for such stupid things like Instagram.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #correct

Our favourite mistakes #152: Punctuation

▶️ Look at these sentences:

1) Life-the gift of God.
2) She’s a middle–aged lady.
3) It’s a long -term plan.

❓What’s wrong?
❗️1) Should be a dash, not a hyphen. Dashes are like commas but stronger, for extra emphasis.
2) Should be a hyphen, not a dash. Hyphens turn two or more words into one.
3) Wrong space before the hyphen. Hyphens don't have spaces around them, dashes do.

Remember:
Hyphen = short, no spaces
Dash = long, with spaces

More about spacing in a previous post.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #punctuation #writing

Odd Man Out #6

▶️ Pay attention to the vowel sound [aɪ].

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Correct me if you can #24

▶️ Find the mistake in the following sentence:

You’re a good chef, your plov tastes normal!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #correct

Our favourite mistakes #153: Vocabulary & Grammar

▶️ Please translate the following:
Hamma odamlar ham tabiat haqida qayg’urishmaydi. Shuning uchun, ifloslanish bor.

❌ Perhaps you think it is:
All of people don’t care about the environment. In this case, there is pollution.

✅ Well, it should be:
Nobody cares about the environment. That’s why there is pollution.

❓Why❓

❗️All is affirmative and doesn’t go with negation (don’t).

❗️After all of there must be a determiner, like all of the cake or all of these students or all of my money.

❗️In this case means if that is so (agar shunday bo’lsa).

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #vocabulary #grammar

Odd Man Out #7

▶️ Uzbekistan’s education system is haunted (=visited by ghosts) by some “false friends” – foreign words that look easy to translate but actually mean different things. Find the true friend among the words below!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #vocabulary

Our favourite mistakes #154: Vocabulary

▶️ Please translate the following:
O’qishimni tugata olmadim, ba’zi sabablarga ko’ra.

❌ Perhaps you think it is:
I couldn’t finish my study because of some reasons.

✅ Well, it should be:
I couldn’t finish my studies.

❓Why?

❗️Studies is a plural noun. The singular noun study is a) a research project or b) a room in your house where you work or study.

❗️Because of / For some reasons is Uzlish and has no good translation. It sounds like you want to keep your reasons secret.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #vocabulary