Well, I've just updated the Second Edition in a big way, and this is the final edit: you'll now find it exclusively on Amazon: http://www.abetterpage.com/ESL/ESLbook.htm https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IW7QHA0 -- You don't need a Kindle Reader for this book -- all eBooks on Amazon can be viewed on any device: PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Samsung, Android, etc.! Just download the appropriate app here for free: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html…

79) “Photograph” and “Photographer” – Mistaking German for English: A fotograf in German and other languages, including Slovak, is a photographer in English, the person who creates photos with a camera. A photograph is the image created:

“The photographer took my photograph.”

“The photographer took my photo.”

(And note that a photograph is taken, not made – see point #49.)

(Also note that while photograph has its accent in the first syllable, photographer has it accent on the second syllable – see point #13.)

82) Mistaking German for English: “Factory” and “Fabric” – In German, a place of manufacture is a Fabrik, and the Slovak word, fabrika, is derived from this -- other Slavic languages have similar derivations.
The correct word in English is factory. “Fabric” in English means cloth or textiles.
“This textile factory produces many kinds of fabrics.”

Phrasal verbs using the verb, “catch”:

Many phasal verbs using “catch” have an obvious meaning, but not all:

catch fire:  to become extremely popular or well-known (more intensive than catch on below)

“News of the baby panda bear’s birth has really caught fire among the public.”

 *

catch hell:  to receive someone’s anger and its consequences

“You’re going to catch hell  from your wife if she finds out what you did!”

*

catch on:  to become popular

“This new line of clothing is really catching on!”

*

catch on:  to realize, understand

“We'd better leave before they catch on to what we're doing.”

“I'm starting to catch on to how this software works.”

*

catch up:  to reach the level of a competitor or an unrealized goal

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on if we want to win the Anderson account.”

*

catch up with:  to get the latest information

“I’d like to catch up with you on the Anderson account.”

*

catch up with:  earlier actions will return with negative results

“All his drinking and smoking is going to catch up with him someday.”

*

And one idiom:

catch someone with their pants down:  usually formed in the past tense: to surprise in an embarrassing way

“Samsung believes its latest smart phone has caught Apple with its pants down.”

6) Multi-syllable words which have an “r” should not necessarily be assumed to be pronounced phonetically. For example, the word, “tired”. Native English speakers pronounce this word as, “ti-erd”. But non-native speakers often mistakenly pronounce the word phonetically: “ti-red”.
Another example is “iron”, which is correctly pronounced “i-ern”. Non-native speakers invariably pronounce this word phonetically: “i-ron”. (A good example of this is how the Swedish rock group, The Cardigans, covered the Black Sabbath song, “Iron Man”: the female singer begins the song with, “Oh, I-ron Man!” and this mispronunciation of “iron” repeats throughout the song. It’s a great cover song, but the pronunciation of “iron” here sounds very odd and funny to native English speakers!)

Phrasal verbs using the verb, “call”:

 Many phasal verbs using “call” have an obvious meaning, but not all:

Call for: to demand or require

 “You got the job? Well, that calls for a drink!”

*

Call in: to order aid or assistence

“After Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard was called in to restore order and assist civilians.”

*

Call off: to cancel

 “When we saw the weather report, we decided to call off our trip.”

*

Call upon: to be asked or required for assistence

“William was often called upon to help his elderly parents.”

*

And two idioms:

Call it in: to do something in a lazy or half-hearted manner (as in not to appear in person for something important but instead make a phone call)

“John’s report is useless – clearly, he just called it in.”

*

Call someone on something: to accuse or question someone on their motives

“When I realized Jerry was lying, I called him on it.”

(And similarly, to call someone on the carpet):

“When I realized Jerry was lying, I called him on the carpet about it.”

(from my e-book, "Speak and Write Like a Native: 110 Things You Need to Know About English")

61) “Look Over” and “Overlook” – ESL students often say overlook when they mean to say look over.  These have opposite meanings: look over means to review or examine something, and overlook means to fail to see something or to choose not to see something:

“Can you look over these sales figures?”

“Let me look over the report before our meeting.”

“How could you have overlooked such an important deadline?”

“It was a costly mistake, Adam, but I'll overlook it this one time.”

A mnemonic:  

The first word in look over is look: You are looking, seeing, examining closely.

Overlook begins with over: You are far above, unable to see details.

The popular American song from the 1920s, “I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover” played upon these words and may help you to remember the difference:

I'm looking over a four-leaf clover

That I overlooked before

One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain

Third is the roses that grow in the lane

No need explaining, the one remaining

Is somebody I adore

I'm looking over a four-leaf clover

That I overlooked before

Phrasal verbs using the verb, “bring”:

 Many phasal verbs using “bring” have an obvious meaning, but not all:

 bring about:  to cause to happen

 “A better plan could bring about real change.”

*

bring around:  to influence someone’s opinion

“We were able to bring them around to our view.”

*

bring off:  to accomplish something difficult

“James brought off the move without a hitch”

(“Without a hitch”: without any problems)

*

bring up:  to mention or introduce a topic

“Do we really have to bring this up again?”

*

bring up:  to raise and nurture children or animals

“Susan was brought up without a father.”

I've recently published an eBook that shows you how to correct a lot of the mistakes you've most likely been making: "Speak and Write Like a Native: 110 Things You Need to Know About English" ( http://www.abetterpage.com/ESL/ESLbook.html ). It's available for $2.99 USD and equivalent currencies at the Apple iBookstore, Amazon Kindle Books, and many other online retailers as well. If you're a student of English as a Second Language, you really should get this eBook: it contains most of the things your English teachers never taught you!

(from my e-book, "Speak and Write Like a Native: 110 Things You Need to Know About English")
7) Pronunciation of “-ed” endings:   The past simple tense and past participle of all regular verbs end in -ed.  ESL students very often pronounce this ending as a separate syllable, but in many cases this –ed ending is not pronounced as a separate syllable.
 
The rule here is:
Verbs ending in “t” or “d” ( “want”,  “treat”,  “sound”,  “end”,  “add”, etc.)  gain a syllable when put into the past tense:
“want-ed”,  “treat-ed”,  “sound-ed”,  “end-ed”,  “add-ed”
Verbs ending in any other consonant ( “play”,  “allow”,  “beg”,  “laugh”,
“watch”,  “hope”,  etc.) do not gain a syllable when put into the past tense:
“played”,  “allowed”,  “begged”,  “laughed”,  “watched”,  “hoped”

And note that this second group of verbs has two possible end-sounds: “-d” and “-t”.   
e.g. “played”,  “allowed”, and  “begged” have a “-d” end-sound:  
“playd”,  “allowd”,  “beggd”
but “laughed”,  “watched”, and “hoped” have a “-t” end-sound:  
“laft”,  “watcht”,  “hopt”

64) “Shade” and “Shadow” – This is a distinction that is important in English but is confused by most ESL students:

Shade is a volume of space, and a shadow is a two-dimensional projection on a surface:  You can stand in shade, but only on a shadow.  In other words, shade can surround you like a tent, but a shadow cannot – it is flat, like a stain.

“There is little shade here at noon.”

“This big oak tree provides lots of shade in the summer.”

“I could see his shadow on the wall.”

“The dog sat in my shadow.” 

(And note that even though the dog is literally sitting on the shadow, the preposition “in” is used – this is yet another example of how English prepositions don't always work according to logic!)

23) “Miss”, “Mrs.”, and “Ms.” – The focus here is on “Ms.”, which many ESL mistakenly students believe is an abbreviation for “Miss”, the title for an unmarried woman – it's not. Popularized by the feminist movement in the 1970s, “Ms.” is a title that does not indicate whether or not the woman is married – if men can have such a title (“Mr.”), why not women too? Today, all three titles –  “Miss” (unmarried woman), “Mrs.” (married woman) and “Ms.” (undisclosed) – are used in everyday English speech and writing.

2) The noun form of “pronounce” is spelled and pronounced, “pronunciation,” not “pronounciation.”

Even the best ESL speakers make this mistake, as do many native speakers of English – but this distinction is important to know if you’re speaking with well-educated native speakers of English.

60) “Hard” and “Hardly” – Words with “-ly” endings usually are adverbs – “quickly”, “heavily”, “quietly”, “softly”, etc. – but not all adverbs end in “-ly”, and this is where “hard” and “hardly” can be confused and actually end up giving the opposite meaning of what was intended. 

Hard can be either an adjective or and adverb, while hardly is always only an adverb, and as adverbs, hard means “forcefully” and hardly means “barely,” “almost not at all”:

Wrong: “The man was arrested for hardly beating his dog.”

Right: “The man was arrested for beating his dog very hard.”

The first sentence means the man barely beat his dog, almost not at all.  The second sentence means he beat the dog very hard, with great force.

There is a dumb old workplace joke in English that goes:

“Are you working hard, or hardly working?”

In other words, “are you doing a lot of work (working hard), or are you doing almost no work at all (hardly working)?”

55) “Learn” and “Teach” – It’s important to make this distinction:

Learning is what the student does, and teaching is what the teacher does. “Can you learn me English?” is a question asked only by a person who desperately needs to be taught more English!

So remember this:
It's the teacher who teaches and the student who learns.

Earlier posts:

42) Gender for cities, etc. – always “it”, sometimes “she”, but never “he”!

It sounds very odd to a native English speaker when you refer to a city or a country or a bridge, etc., as “he”.  English grammar of course doesn't apply gender rules according to noun endings, but in English, cities and countries and bridges and so forth are always referred to as “it” – and sometimes, “she”, but never as “he”!

“Look at the Golden Gate Bridge – isn't she a beauty?”

“Paris – it’s the most beautiful city in the world.”

49) “Make” and “Take” – In a few instances where ESL students would say make, the verb in English is take.  The most common instance is when talking about photographing someone or something:

Wrong:  “Can I make a photo of you?”

Right:     “Can I take a photo of you?”

Right:     “Can I take your picture?”

This confusion also often happens when talking about taking an exam:

Wrong:  “Tomorrow I have to make a math exam.”

Right:    “Tomorrow I have to take a math exam.”