What kind of mistakes matter?

“I make too many mistakes when I speak.  How can I stop making so many mistakes?”

This is a common request from students, they often want me to help them eliminate all English mistakes they make.  Most typically, the mistakes they are talking about are grammar mistakes, and they generally involve tricky grammar issues like the articles - a, an, and the - or prepositions - on, at, or in, for example.

Some students obsess over these small mistakes, and think their English is terrible because of them. 

But, what I would like you to consider is:  are there any other more pressing mistakes you might be making? And, are mistakes like this even really that big of a deal?

First, let’s look at why these grammar points are so difficult!

What makes these grammar points so troublesome is the fact that there are a lot of moving parts.  There are a lot of rules, and even more confusing is that there are a lot of exceptions to these rules. For example, when we speak about a country, we usually just refer to the country without an article:

Germany have a great football team.

However, when we speak about a country that is actually a group of other individual parts, we use the definite article.

I’m visiting the United States next week. 

Prepositions are even more difficult because often there aren’t really any rules at all.  Quite often the rule is just simply that a particular preposition goes with a particular word. And even then, sometimes it depends what that word actually means. Take the word dream for instance. When we talk about a dream we had when we were sleeping, we would usually discuss what the dream was about:

Last night, I dreamt about winning the American Open.

But, when we use the word dream to talk about what our goals and aspirations are, we use of:

I have always dreamt of winning the American Open.

It can all be very confusing, can't it?

However, consider this. For you, in your daily life, or in your professional environment, is it absolutely necessary to get every word of your sentence perfect 100% of the time?  Would it really matter if you said “dreamt about” when you should have said “dreamt of”? Is this really going to create chaos in your life?

Please, don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying you should ignore the grammar mistakes you make, you should absolutely be trying to speak as accurately as possible. But, it is probably more urgent that you know how to communicate professionally, than it is to have perfect grammar. 

To illustrate my point, take this example.  Let’s say at work, you need to make some sort of request, you need to ask somebody to send an important email to a client.  You would like to speak politely and professionally. You don’t want anybody thinking you are rude and overly demanding! Look at the following examples, which one is better to use?

I want you to send that email to the client as soon as possible.

Would you mind sending that email at the client as soon as you can?

The first example seems perfect,  there are no grammar  mistakes here.  However, there are other mistakes to consider. It seems rude and impolite.  It seems more like an aggressive demand, rather than a polite request.  The mistake here is more about the social interaction with a colleague, and less about the accuracy of the sentence.

The second one has a grammar mistake - we send emails to clients, not at them - but it is a very professional and polite way of making a request. 

So, which one is actually the bigger mistake?

Personally, I would submit to you that you are better off aiming to communicate courteously and professionally, rather than aiming to speak with a perfect sense of grammar.  For two reasons:

Firstly, people will appreciate the polite language you use, and are unlikely to be bothered by a small mistake with prepositions. 

Secondly, professional and courteous English is something you can learn and put into action quite quickly.  Getting perfect grammar is a long, time-consuming process, and can certainly be worthwhile, but it is something you will need to work on over a long period.

If you are interested in how you can improve your professional communication, don’t be afraid to contact me!

Matt Slade