The English language, rich and exotic as it is, is also prone to many mistakes in its usage.

For those using English as a second language, the challenge to avoid mistakes is that much more difficult.

For people born to the English language, many mistakes are still common.

1. 20 years old and 20-year-old.

Peter is 20 years old (three separate words – a full sentence)
Peter is a 20-year-old maths superstar.
20-year-old is used as an adjective and must be hyphenated.

2. rein and reign

Monarchies have reigns, but horses have reins.
We need to rein in the toddlers because it is about to rain.
The queen’s reign was extended because all her sons died.

3.quite and quiet – watch where the ‘e’ goes

It is quite easy to use spell check.
When it is quiet I can concentrate better.

4. angle and angel

Angels may descend in your time of extreme need.
Angles are right or wrong, strong or weak, in the sense of writing an article or how they form in a triangle.

5.weak and week

After not eating for two days Jane felt weak.
On Sunday it well be a week since I started a stringent keto diet.

That’s all for today. If you work on just these five mistakes, your English written language will radically improve.