I write this article as someone who is on both sides of this equation. I am a native English speaker but I am also fervent in refining my French skills. I publish this article from a place of **giving rather than judgment**. I want someone to write for French what I am about to write here. I know that I constantly make mistakes in French but because we don't want to be rude and I'm understood well enough without it, nobody corrects me. In case anyone else feels the same way I do about French with their English, I wanted to give the gift of a native's perspective and share just a few English mistakes I commonly hear even the most proficient non-native English speakers make. ![[english.png]] # Using the past tense with questions starting with "Did" > Did you heard? > Did you already ate? > Did you knew? All of these are incorrect and I have nothing but sympathy for why anyone would make this mistake. In other languages, a simple past tense construction will apply the past tense to the verb at the heart of the statement. The correct versions: > Did you **hear**? > Did you already **eat**? > Did you **know**? What is so confusing about this is when using "to do," it absorbs the past-tense treatment. Yet when we use "to have," it doesn't. These are correct: > Have you heard? > Have you already eaten? > Have you known? There is something else to say about how we use a different past tense word (e.g. eaten instead of ate) but I'll leave that for someone else to explain. The point is that we do change the verb. But similar to how in "I wanted to go," the word "to go" is left in the infinitive because "to want" is already conjugated in the past tense, "to do" is conjugated, but "to hear," "to eat," and "to know" are not. # How/Why/etc + Question > How to find this email you sent? > Why this doesn't work? > When you are going? > Who this belongs to? I'm not sure if any of these are correct, but a native speaker would never say this. To a native, it sounds like statements with a question on the end because "you are going" and "this doesn't work" are never questions unless they are buffered by another clause like, "Can you tell me why this doesn't work?" It's better to use the verb followed by the subject: > How **do I** find this email you sent? > Why **doesn't this** work? > When **are you** going? > Who **does this** belong to? There is that strange usage of "to do" we love in English creeping up again. I would never start a question with "how to (verb)," always "how do (subject) (verb)..." That being said, I would always start a *statement* with how to, especially if it's like a title for an idea. > How to build a birdhouse > By Adam Grant Again a sympathetic note here, this is so different from any other language I've been exposed to where asking the equivalent of "how" plus the infinitive verb (e.g. "to find") is totally formulaic in any context. Why do we do this in English? I don't know. Note that you should say "Who does this belong to?" but it's also correct to say "Who wants to go?" because "this" is the subject in the first sentence but "who" is the subject in the second one.