Three of my common grammar mistakes (e-portfolio)

I was born in Myanmar (Burma). I have been using Myanmar language since I was born. Three main common grammar mistakes of mine are omission of determiner, subject-verb agreement and error in the use of plural and singular form.

In the Myanmar grammar, the name of specific places or location like park, canteen, school and sea need not be collocated with determiners, unless those places or locations have been specified earlier, or expressed deictically. Unlike the Myanmar language, the mentioning of those places or location in English language requires a determiner, in any cases. If the expressions are not expressed deictically, it will then be expressed either with a definite article, or an indefinite article. Thus, where this research is concerned, normally, I fail to insert the article “the” or “a” in front of those places. Example: The erroneous form writes as “He works as a senior lecture at ___ National University of Singapore. The Correct form should be stated as “He works as a senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore.”English grammar, however, requires determiners for those instruments such as computer, piano and internet. Most of my grammatical mistakes in are lack of definite or indefinite articles in front of the name of the specific places and instruments mentioned above.

English grammar requires the subject and verb to agree in number: both must be singular, or both must be plural. Problems occur in the present tense because one must add an –s or –es at the end of the verb when the subjects or the entity performing the action is a singular third person: he, she or it. Other forms, do not take inflection. Example: as a singular form I must write as “He/She likes ice cream”, and a plural form must stated as “They like ice cream”. In Myanmar grammar, there is no such thing as a subject-verb agreement rule that requires inflections based on the number of the subject.

Error in the use of plural and singular form is another major grammar mistake in most of my essays. The fact that verb ‘be’ has more distinct forms with respect to person, number, and tense than any other verb in English. The verb ‘be’ has three distinct present tense and two past tense forms. Example: Wrong form writes as “My mother hobbies is cooking and reading.” The correct form should be stated as “My mother’s hobbies are cooking and reading.” Sometimes, I tend to use the incorrect forms in place of correct ones.

One of my English teacher’s suggestions is that I can overcome the chances of occurrence of these errors by looking into development of learning materials such as the good grammar book (Oxford University Press).