Problems of Writing in English

【Abstract】Writing is one of the most important skills that learners of English have to master， but it is difficult for them to master this skill. They often make mistakes while writing. This article suggests the reasons for these mistakes that occur frequently in the essays or reports of the learners and the ways of avoiding them.

【Key words】Error； Misunderstanding； Grammatical confusion； Concord

【作者簡介】李廣琴，洛陽職業(yè)技術(shù)學(xué)院。

Learners of English usually find that writing is one of the most important skills they have to master. The majority of native speakers of English have to make an effort to write accurately and effectively even on those subjects which they know very well. The non-native learner， then is trying to do something that the ordinary native speaker often finds difficult himself.

It may prove helpful， therefore， if I outline the two main types of error the learner of English is likely to make，I will also try to suggest the reasons for these errors and ways of avoiding them.

Firstly ， and most seriously， there is the type of error which leads to misunderstanding. And such mistakes are numerous. And here I'll be able to cover the most important ones.

Perhaps the most frequent cause of such mistakes is the use of：

1.Translation

Unfortunately ， translation is a difficult art which cannot be performed by one word to one word matching process .Students ， however ， often work out a sentence in their own language and then try to translate it in this way. The result is that the reader can not understand what the student has written. The individual word or phrase may make sense， but the sentence as a whole makes nonsense.Therefore the student should always try to employ sentence patterns which ， he knows， are correct English. Usually these patterns will be the simple ones he learnt in the earlier stages of his first English course. As he extends his knowledge of grammar through formal learning， through wide reading and through his contact with native English speakers， he'll be able to use a large number of such sentence patterns. Eventually he should aim to cut out translation altogether. He should， in fact， try to think in English.This is rarely possible in the earlier stages， however.

But it' s not the grammar which suffers when translation is employed. The voca-bulary may suffer， too. The use of translation dictionaries， unless they are very good and used with extreme care ， may make errors more probable.Another factor that is at work here is as follows：

Very often those students who come from a non English speaking country mis- use English words which have a same form to those in their language. A French-man， for example， expects the French word “braver” to mean the same as the English word “braver”. Unfortunately it does not. You see， the word“braver”is a transitive verb in French， it means “offence”in its tongue；while in its English meaning， it is the comparative degree of the word brave， though it is spelt by the same letters.

2. Grammatical confusion

Another very important cause of such a mistake in written work is the tendency to confuse grammatical pat-terns which are similar in form but different in meaning. For example， “used to”and“be used to”， he may write“Men are used to believing in their superiority over women.”instead of“Men used to believing in their superiority over women.”These two patterns look similar but have completely different meanings. For， you see， these two patterns are often confused. The phrase “used to”expresses a past habitual action and only has the past form as：

He used to smoke 50 cigarettes a day.

It can never be used in a sentence denoting to the present nor the future. We can not say：

We used to get up tomorrow morning.

While “to be used to”can often be found in the present， past and future tenses . For instance：

Was Tom is used to the climate in Beijing.

Will be another difference between them is that the former has no variants； while the latter can have such variants as “to get used to”， “to become used to” etc.

3. Sentence length

A third cause is that the students may choose to write sentences which are too long and too complex in-stead of those simpler ones； which he can handle more easily . Many students seem to think that simplicity is suspect. It is， on the contrary， a quality which is much ad-mired in English. Most readers understand that a difficult subject can only be written up simply if the writer understands it very well. A student should， therefore ， organize all his points very carefully before he starts to write. He should do as much as possible before he writes . In this way he can concentrate on the construction of his sentence. A rough but useful rule that students should always bear in mind is that：

Never write a sentence more than three lines in length. The longer the sentence is， the greater， of course ，is the chance of the writer making mistakes and failing to connect with the meaning. The writer should also try to avoid sentences which have too many subordinate clauses.

4. Sentences incomplete

Conversely ， sometimes they may make sentences that are too short and incomplete . His sentences， for instance ，may lack a subject or a verb. For example：

（1）The students in class one are more than in class two. Here the subject “those” after“ than” is omitted.

（2）Where is Tom？ He at home.

And here the link verb “is” is omitted .

The second main type of error is the error ， although it may rarely lead to a mistake in meaning ， often irritates and sometimes may mislead the reader . The followings are often found in the writing by the careless writers：

1. The wrong selection of verb tenses frequently falls into this kind of error. The student who writes， “Before the Second World War， Einstein has written his great book. ”makes a mistake which does not interfere with the meaning. Often students make such grammatical mistakes. And if he can be careful he can correct them himself.

2. The errors in concord

The subject and the verb do not agree， for instance.

Eg： John with his mother are in Milan.

He may neglect that the prepositional phrase“with his mother” is only used adverbially as he writes.

3. Errors in word order

The adverb has been placed in the wrong position.

Eg： We often work hard and always are busy in-deed.

4. Errors in article usage

He knows “an umbrella” ，so he uses“an red umbrella”， sometimes he can hardly tell the difference between the phrases “out of the question”and“out of question” ， which are quite different in meaning， as we know.

5. Errors in the omission of a preposition

Let us take an infinitive used to modify a noun as an example. the relationship between the modified noun and the infinitive comes out the use of a verb and an object in logic. Then there is the problem on how to use an infinitive with the preposition properly.

Compare with the following two examples：

A. He has a book to read.

B. He has a pen to write.

In sentence A， the usage “to read a book”is right， for we can say to “read a book”， so the phrase “a book to read” is used. While we do not say “to write a pen”. So the preposition “with” must be added to the end of the sentence B to make it complete.

Mistakes like this are often found， and ignored by the learners of English if they are not careful enough. All these errors occur frequently in the work of the student studying English when he writes his essays or reports. When he writes he should prepare several drafts. Each draft should be checked for the above points. If a student finds that he makes one type of mistake more often than others ， he should double check for that particular error.