English Proofreading: 10 Tricks for Error-Free Texts

The Most Common Punctuation Errors

English punctuation follows different rules than German. Three areas in particular regularly cause problems:

1. The Comma Splice: In German, you can join two main clauses with a comma. In English, that's an error! Instead of 'I like coffee, she prefers tea', you must write: 'I like coffee; she prefers tea' or 'I like coffee, and she prefers tea.'

2. Apostrophes: German English learners often put an apostrophe in plural forms ('apple's' instead of 'apples'). In English, the apostrophe only shows possession (John's car) or contractions (it's = it is) – never the plural!

3. Semicolon vs. Colon: The semicolon connects two independent sentences that are thematically related. The colon introduces an explanation, list, or specification.

Subject-Verb Agreement: Hidden Traps

The rule sounds simple: the verb must agree in number and person with the subject. But in practice, there are tricky constructions that mislead even advanced learners.

Trap 1 – Intervening words: 'The list of items is ready.' (not 'are', because the subject is 'list', not 'items')

Trap 2 – Collective nouns: 'The team is working hard.' (American English treats groups as a unit)

Trap 3 – Everyone/Everybody: 'Everyone has finished.' (Even though it refers to many people, 'everyone' is grammatically singular)

Trap 4 – Neither...nor/Either...or: 'Neither the manager nor the employees were informed.' (The verb agrees with the nearer subject)

Articles (a/an/the) – The #1 Error for Germans

Correct use of English articles is the biggest challenge for German native speakers when proofreading. German has three articles (der, die, das), but the rules don't transfer directly.

The key rules for your proofreading:

• No article before plural nouns in general meaning: 'Dogs are loyal.' (not: 'The dogs are loyal' – unless you mean specific dogs)
• No article before uncountable nouns in general: 'Information is power.' (not: 'The information is power')
• 'The' for something specific/known: 'Please read the email I sent.'
• 'A/an' for first mention or one of many: 'I need a new laptop.'

Danger of Confusion: The Trickiest Word Pairs

Some English words look almost identical or sound the same but have completely different meanings. When proofreading, these confused pairs are particularly dangerous because spell checkers don't catch them – each word is correctly spelled on its own.

Here are the pairs that cause German English learners the most problems:

• their / there / they're – possession / place / they are
• its / it's – possession / it is
• affect / effect – to influence (verb) / result (noun)
• than / then – comparison / time sequence
• your / you're – possession / you are
• loose / lose – not tight / to misplace

Digital Proofreading Tools: Strengths and Limitations

Spell and grammar checkers are useful tools, but they have clear limitations. If you rely on them blindly, you'll miss important errors.

What spell checkers do well:

• Detecting obvious typos (teh → the)
• Missing capitalisation at the start of sentences
• Doubled words (the the → the)

What spell checkers CANNOT reliably do:

• Distinguish homophones (their/there/they're)
• Detect missing or incorrect articles
• Identify stylistic problems and unnatural phrasing
• Catch context-dependent grammar errors

The best strategy: Use digital tools as a first level of checking, then rely on your own proofreading techniques.