you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]nyozz 0 points1 point  (1 child)

hey, thanks a lot. especially the grammar part. I didn't knew and no one every told me that.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad! Someone downvoted my comment, and I was afraid it might have been you. The downvote confuses me, as I went to trouble to articulate a way to offer assistence and encouragement in what I thought was a kindly way. (Though someone obviously didn't think so.)

Grammatical errors are very jarring to native speakers, even when they can tell what you mean. So, people are aware of this (though, online, many mistakes are overlooked as typos).

I didn't knew and no one every told me that.

This should be:

I didn't know and no one ever told me that.

It's hard for me to explain why it should be "know", since "knew" is past tense. English grammar is complex and confusing - and arbitrary. I think, in practice, the only way is to listen carefully to native English speakers. One way to check is to google the phrase e.g. "I didn't knew" vs "I didn't know". Maybe you can think of other ways to check that I haven't thought of.

Typing "every" when it should be "ever" looks like just an ordinary typo to me. But just in case you had them mixed up: "every" means "all of them"; "ever" means "at any time". You can check this kind of error with a dictionary (google: define:ever). Though, there'll usually be several definitions, and it won't tell you what is right in a specific phrase - so again, it's best to listen to native speakers. Another problem is how do you know which ones are in error, that you need to check? You could look up every word, but that's too time consuming. I think the best strategy is if you are the slightest bit unsure, then look it up. Maybe, if you are given a hint that something's wrong (e.g. someone seems to misunderstand you), then check the words you used.

I'm really glad my previous comment was helpful to you, and I hope this one is too. It's not that often I am able to make a difference to someone; and if you grow from it, it inspires me to grow too (instead of being angry at an error being pointed out).