Common Errors in English — Mistakes Bangladeshi Students Make

Most English errors made by Bengali-speaking students come from carrying a Bengali structure into English rather than from not knowing a rule. Bengali has no articles, places the verb last, and uses one form where English separates two, so the predictable mistakes are missing articles, wrong prepositions, wrong word order in questions, and confusion between similar pairs.

Where it is set: SSC & HSC English — Grammar

Most errors come from Bengali structure, not from ignorance

The mistakes Bengali-speaking students make in English are highly predictable, because they are not random. They come from carrying a Bengali structure into an English sentence — and Bengali differs from English in a small number of specific ways.

Bengali has no articles, puts the verb at the end, uses postpositions rather than prepositions, and marks questions with intonation rather than with word order. Almost every recurring error in this list traces back to one of those four differences, which is why recognising the pattern fixes many errors at once.

• ✗ He is going to school by walk. ✓ He is going to school on foot. — a Bengali expression translated directly
• ✗ I am agree with you. ✓ I agree with you. — agree is a verb in English, not an adjective

Articles: the largest single source of errors

Since Bengali has no articles, students either omit them or insert them where English wants none. Both directions are penalised, and the second is the more common at exam level because students overcorrect.

• ✗ Water is the source of the life. ✓ Water is the source of life.
• ✗ He came by the bus. ✓ He came by bus.

Prepositions and fixed combinations

Because Bengali postpositions do not map onto English prepositions one for one, these errors persist even in otherwise fluent writing. The remedy is to learn the combination, never to translate it.

• ✗ They discussed about the problem for an hour. ✓ They discussed the problem for an hour.
• ✗ We reached at Dhaka at noon. ✓ We reached Dhaka at noon.

Word order, questions and double structures

English fixes meaning by word order far more than Bengali does, so a Bengali word order transferred into English often produces a sentence that is not merely awkward but wrong.

• 🚨 An embedded question keeps statement order: I know where he lives, not where does he live.
• 🚨 No double negative: I did not see anybody, not I did not see nobody.
• 🚨 No double comparative: better, not more better.
• 🚨 No double conjunction: Though he is poor, he is honest — not Though … but he is honest.
• 🚨 No double subject: My brother he is a doctor → My brother is a doctor.
• The adverb of frequency goes before the main verb but after be: He always comes late. / He is always late.

• ✗ Although he was ill, but he came. ✓ Although he was ill, he came.
• ✗ Tell me where do you live. ✓ Tell me where you live.

Words that are confused with each other

Pairs that cost marks every year

• ✗ He gave me a good advise. ✓ He gave me good advice. — advice is the noun and is uncountable
• ✗ There were a few students, so the class was cancelled. ✓ There were few students, so the class was cancelled. — few means almost none

Practice

Work through these before you check the answers — the reasoning matters more than the answer.

1. Correct: “He is honest man.”
2. Correct: “They discussed about the matter.”
3. Correct: “I prefer tea than coffee.”
4. Correct: “Although he was tired, but he continued.”
5. Correct: “Tell me where do you live.”
6. Correct: “He gave me a valuable advise.”
7. Correct: “The dog wagged it’s tail.”
8. Correct: “He is going to office by walk.”

Answers

1. He is an honest man.
2. They discussed the matter.
3. I prefer tea to coffee.
4. Although he was tired, he continued.
5. Tell me where you live.
6. He gave me valuable advice.
7. The dog wagged its tail.
8. He is going to the office on foot.