Rank by damage, not by embarrassment
The descriptors care about whether an error causes a misunderstanding. So study the errors that change your meaning or delete information — not the ones that merely sound non-native.
The endings: -s and -ed
Two things in Korean conspire here. Korean verbs do not agree with their subject (they inflect for honorifics, not for person), and the plural marker 들 is optional — so plurals genuinely feel optional. Then Korean phonotactics finish the job: Korean does not permit final consonant clusters, and 받침 rules neutralise final consonants, so /kt/ in walked and /ks/ in works are physically hard.
The result is that the endings vanish from your speech, and then from your writing, because you cannot hear yourself dropping them.
- She work at a bank. → She works at a bank.
- Yesterday I walk home. → Yesterday I walked home.
- Many student come. → Many students come.
- I have visit there before. → I have visited there before.
Practise them aloud, inside full sentences, at speed. Reading them silently changes nothing — this is a physical habit, not a knowledge problem.
Relative clauses — the word order is backwards
This one is specifically Korean, and it is worth real attention because relative clauses are exactly the complex grammar the higher bands reward.
Korean has no relative pronouns, and the modifying clause comes before the noun: 내가 어제 만난 사람 = [I yesterday met] person. English does the opposite — the clause comes after the noun, and it needs who, which or that to attach it.
| Korean pattern in English | English |
|---|---|
| I yesterday met person is my teacher. | The person who I met yesterday is my teacher. |
| I like the tall man. (fine) but I like the man who is working in the bank tall. | I like the tall man who works in the bank. |
| The book I read it was interesting. | The book (that) I read was interesting. — no it; the relative pronoun replaces it. |
That last row is worth noting. Because Korean has no relative pronoun, learners keep the object pronoun as well — the book that I read it. In English the relative pronoun is the object, so the it is a duplicate and must go.
Drill this deliberately. A candidate who can produce relative clauses reliably has a cheap, repeatable source of complex sentences, and that is a large part of the grammar criterion.
The missing subject, and the doubled one
Korean drops the subject freely when context supplies it. English almost never permits this.
- Is very difficult. → It is very difficult.
- Think the government should act. → I think the government should act.
And the topic marker 은/는 produces the mirror error — a topic announced, then a subject as well:
- My hometown, it has a beautiful river. → My hometown has a beautiful river.
- About the environment, I think it is important. → The environment matters because…
Konglish: words that are not English words
These are used confidently in Korean and are simply not English, or mean something else entirely. Under exam pressure they surface, and they read as vocabulary errors.
| Konglish | What you mean | What to say |
|---|---|---|
| 핸드폰 (hand phone) | a mobile phone | mobile phone / cell phone |
| 미팅 (meeting) | a group blind date | a meeting in English is a business meeting |
| 서비스 (service) | free of charge | It's free / on the house |
| 아이 쇼핑 (eye shopping) | browsing without buying | window shopping |
| 헬스 (health) | the gym | the gym / working out |
| 스킨십 (skinship) | physical affection | Not an English word. Say physical affection / being tactile. |
| 원샷 (one shot) | drink it all at once | down it in one / bottoms up |
| 파이팅! (fighting!) | good luck / you can do it | Good luck! / You've got this! — fighting means an actual fight |
| SNS | social media | social media (SNS is not used in English) |
| 포켓볼 | pool (the game) | pool |
Smaller errors worth fixing
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| Almost people think… | Most people think… (거의 ≠ almost as a quantifier) |
| I have a promise today. | I have plans today. / I'm meeting someone. |
| I will go to home. | I will go home. (no preposition) |
| informations, advices, homeworks | information, advice, homework — uncountable |
| He is my same age. | He is the same age as me. |
| I am boring. | I am bored. (boring describes the thing, not you) |
| Do you know where is the station? | Do you know where the station is? (no inversion in an embedded question) |
| I very like it. | I really like it. / I like it a lot. |
The embedded-question one is worth a second look, because it is very common and it sounds broken in a way the others do not. In a direct question you invert (Where is the station?); once it is inside another sentence, you do not (Do you know where the station is?).
Articles — last, on purpose
Korean has no articles, so a and the will take years to feel natural. That is expected, and it is not what is capping your band.
Learn one distinction now, because it changes what you are actually claiming: general statements take no article (Children need exercise); specific ones take the (The children in my class need exercise). The rest arrives with exposure.
Spend the time on the -ed endings and on relative clauses instead. Both are worth more, and both are fixable in weeks rather than years.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common English mistake Korean speakers make?
Dropping the -s and -ed endings. Korean verbs do not agree with their subject — they inflect for honorifics instead — the plural marker is optional, and Korean phonotactics do not allow final consonant clusters, so the endings are physically hard to say and vanish from speech, then from writing. It is the most expensive error available, because it costs you on grammar and pronunciation at the same time.
Why do Korean speakers get English relative clauses wrong?
Because Korean puts the modifying clause before the noun and has no relative pronouns at all, while English puts it after the noun and requires 'who', 'which' or 'that'. A common by-product is keeping the object pronoun too — 'the book that I read it' — because in Korean nothing has replaced it. In English the relative pronoun is the object, so the extra 'it' must go.
Which Konglish words are not real English?
Several that are used confidently in Korean: 'hand phone' (say mobile phone), 'meeting' for a blind date (in English it is a business meeting), 'service' meaning free of charge, 'eye shopping' (say window shopping), 'health' for the gym, 'skinship' (not an English word), 'one shot', and 'fighting!' as encouragement — in English 'fighting' means an actual fight.
Should Korean learners study articles first?
No. Korean has no articles, so they will take years to acquire, and that is normal rather than a failing — but a missing article rarely obscures meaning, while a dropped -ed deletes the past tense. Learn one distinction now (general statements take no article; specific ones take 'the') and spend the study time on your endings and your relative clauses instead.
Why is 'Do you know where is the station?' wrong?
Because English only inverts the verb in a direct question. 'Where is the station?' is correct on its own, but once the question is embedded inside another sentence the word order goes back to normal: 'Do you know where the station is?' This error is very common and it sounds broken in a way that most learner mistakes do not.