Five English Mistakes That Give Away Your Level (and How to Fix Them)

By B1 your English works. People understand you, you get by, you're fluent enough to stop thinking about grammar. Which is exactly why a handful of small errors fossilise here and follow learners for years. None of them break communication. All of them quietly mark your level. Here are the five worth fixing.

There's a stage in English where the errors change character. At the start, mistakes are big and obvious and they block meaning. Later, once you're comfortable, the mistakes shrink - a wrong little word here, a tense that's almost right there - and because they don't block anything, nobody corrects them and you never notice. They set like concrete. These five are the most common, and each one is fixable in about five minutes of understanding plus a bit of review.

The five at a glance

If you skim one thing, skim this. Each row is the mistake, the version learners actually say, the version to say instead, and the rule in a line. The detail on each is below.

1. Either vs neither (and the double negative trap)

Both point to two things, and the difference is the negative. "Either" goes with a positive or a question - you can pick one of two: "You can have either the soup or the salad." "Neither" already contains the negative and means not one and not the other: "Neither answer is correct."

The classic B1 error is stacking a second negative on top of "neither." "I don't like neither of them" is a double negative; because "neither" is already negative, you say "I like neither of them" or, more naturally, "I don't like either of them." Pick one negative, not two.

For agreeing with a negative statement, "me neither" is the natural reply: "I don't drink coffee." "Me neither." Agreeing with a positive one, you'd say "me too." And watch the pairing - either goes with or, neither goes with nor.

2. So vs such

These two both intensify - they turn up the volume - and the choice comes down to what comes next, not what you mean. "So" goes in front of an adjective or adverb on its own: "The film was so long." "It went so slowly." "Such" goes in front of a noun, usually with an adjective attached: "It was such a long film."

The tell is the noun. If there's a noun in the phrase, you almost certainly want such: such a long film, such good weather, such nice people. If it's just the quality with no noun, you want so: so long, so good, so nice. "It was so a long film" and "the weather was such good" both feel wrong to a native ear for exactly this reason.

One extra piece: with an uncountable or plural noun, drop the article. "Such good weather" (not "such a good weather"), "such nice people" (not "such a nice people").

3. Used to, be used to, get used to

Three phrases, one spelling, completely different jobs - this is one of the most reliable B1-to-B2 stumbles.

"Used to" plus the base verb is about a past habit that isn't true anymore: "I used to smoke" means I did once and I don't now. There's no present version; for a present habit you just use the present simple. "Be used to" plus a noun or an -ing form means to be accustomed to something, comfortable with it: "I'm used to the cold" / "I'm used to working late." And "get used to" is the process of becoming accustomed: "It took a month, but I got used to the noise."

The trap is the verb form after the second two. Because "used to" (past habit) is followed by a base verb, learners copy that pattern and say "I'm used to work late." But "be used to" and "get used to" are followed by -ing: "I'm used to working late." If you can slot in a noun there ("I'm used to the work"), the -ing form is right ("I'm used to working").

4. Make vs do

This one isn't grammar, it's collocation, and there's no rule that will save you - only patterns. Roughly, you make when you create or produce a result (make a decision, make a mistake, make dinner, make money, make an effort) and you do when you perform an activity or a task (do your homework, do the dishes, do business, do exercise, do your best). Roughly. There are enough exceptions that the honest answer is: learn the pairs. The companion post on collocations with 'make' works through the high-frequency ones so they stop being a coin flip.

5. Present perfect vs past simple

The one that never fully goes away, especially if your first language doesn't split these tenses the way English does. Past simple is for finished time - a moment that's over: "I saw her yesterday," "I lived in Prague in 2019." Present perfect links the past to now - either the time isn't finished, or the result still matters: "I've seen that film" (at some point, still relevant), "I've lived here for three years" (and I still do).

The signal words help. Finished-time markers (yesterday, last week, in 2019, two days ago) force past simple. Unfinished or vague-time markers (ever, never, already, yet, so far, for, since) pull present perfect. "Did you ever go to Japan?" is the common error; because "ever" reaches up to now, it wants "Have you ever been to Japan?"

How to make a fix actually stick

Understanding a rule and using it correctly under pressure are two different skills, and only the second one counts. Reading this once will not change your speech; you'll nod along and then say "I used to work late" tomorrow anyway. What changes speech is catching yourself, a lot, over time.

So turn each of these into something you review, not something you read. Save your own wrong sentence next to the corrected one, and revisit it on a spaced schedule until the right version is the one that comes out automatically. That's what MindDory does with the mistakes and words you capture - it brings them back right before you'd slip, on web, iOS and Android. Pair this with the chunks approach to vocabulary and most of these errors quietly disappear.