The Truth About Your Horrible, Terrible, Horrible Grammar Mistakes

Do you make grammar mistakes?

Of course you do.

And actually, it’s not such a big deal.

But there is another type of mistake which is very big deal.

There’s a clue in this picture.

It’s a not a big mistake.

But at the same time, it’ important.

Let me tell you where I saw it.

Around 9 this morning I decided I had to escape from my apartment.

You see, in the mornings before I see students, I work on my couch .

And I love it!

No distractions. No wasted time on the metro.

But sometimes, I feel if I spend one more minute in my small apartment I’ll go crazy!.

And that’s when I go to my favorite cafe in Prague -Café Nona on Narodni.

But this morning when I sat down at my usual table, I looked out the window and saw this:

It’s important because it’s a written mistake.

And there’s a difference between types of mistakes.

My students are very worried about the grammar mistakes they make when they’re speaking.

But they’re less worried about the mistakes they make in their writing.

And what does a typical native speaker think about mistakes?

1. We don’t care about your spoken mistakes.
2. But we do care about your written mistakes.

We don’t care about your spoken mistakes because:

1. Everyone makes mistakes, even native speakers.
2. We probably don’t speak a foreign language so we respect you for doing so much work to speak ours.

But we do care about written mistakes because:

1. You have more time to make it correct and if you don’t it shows laziness.

So that’s the truth about mistakes.

Don’t get so stressed out about your mistakes when you’re talking, because we don’t care, and neither should you.

But before you spend thousands and thousands on your five-word advertisement, take a  few minutes to find a native speaker and ask “Hey, is this correct?”

It should be “Traditional Quality Beer.”

In English, “original” means “unique.”

For example, imagine if the beer tasted like pineapple and each glass was on fire and looked like a volcano – that’s unique!

“Traditional” means it’s old; the recipe is the same as it was 100 years ago.

And I don’t know about you, but this weekend I’m looking forward to sometraditional Czech beer.

Cheers!