Non-native English writers rarely struggle with vocabulary. The real friction is in the small, high-frequency patterns that quietly signal "translated." Below are ten fixes that move writing from correct-but-foreign to natural, in rough order of how often they trip people up. ## 1. Articles before uncountable nouns "I need an information" and "give me a feedback" are the classic tells. Information, feedback, advice, research, and equipment are uncountable in English. Drop the article, or quantify it: "a piece of information," "some feedback." ## 2. Present perfect vs. simple past "I finished the report yesterday" — not "I have finished the report yesterday." Once a specific past time is named (yesterday, last week, in 2019), English switches to the simple past. Reserve the present perfect for unspecified time: "I have finished the report" (just now, timing unstated). ## 3. Prepositions of stance "Depend of," "consist in," "responsible of," "interested for" — these calques from Romance and Slavic languages are extremely common. The English defaults: depend ON, consist OF, responsible FOR, interested IN. There is no rule; these are memorized pairings. ## 4. Comma splices from translated rhythm Many languages join two independent clauses with a comma. English does not: "The API was down, we retried the request" needs a period, a semicolon, or a conjunction. This single fix removes a huge share of the "off" feeling in translated prose. ## 5. Adjective order English has a fixed, mostly unconscious adjective order: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material. "A big old wooden table," never "a wooden old big table." Native speakers can't state the rule but hear the violation instantly. ## 6. False friends Actually means "in fact," not "currently" (that's *currently*). Eventually means "in the end," not "possibly" (that's *maybe*). Sensible means "reasonable," not "sensitive." These carry meaning silently in the wrong direction. ## 7. Gerund vs. infinitive after verbs "I enjoy to read" should be "I enjoy reading." Enjoy, avoid, finish, suggest, and consider take the -ing form. Want, decide, hope, and plan take the infinitive. Mismatches here are one of the fastest tells of a non-native writer. ## 8. Overusing the passive Some academic traditions prize the passive voice heavily. In English, especially professional and product writing, the active voice reads as more confident: "We shipped the fix" beats "The fix was shipped." Use passive only when the actor is genuinely unknown or irrelevant. ## 9. Double subjects and resumptive pronouns "My manager, he approved the request" — the pronoun is redundant in English. Drop it: "My manager approved the request." ## 10. Since vs. for "I have worked here since three years" should be "for three years." *Since* marks a starting point (since 2021, since Monday); *for* marks a duration (for three years, for two hours). ## Fixing these at the point of writing The pattern across all ten: they are invisible to the writer because each is correct in the source language. Reading your own draft aloud catches rhythm errors (2, 4, 9) but rarely catches the preposition and article slips, because your ear was trained on the wrong pairing. A browser-based writing assistant that rewrites in place — like [BeLikeNative](https://belikenative.com) — closes that gap by flagging exactly these non-native patterns as you type, rather than after you've submitted. The goal isn't to sound like a textbook; it's to remove the small friction points that make a reader work harder than they should. None of these fixes require a larger vocabulary. They require noticing the handful of structural habits that carry over from your first language — and then overwriting them until the English pattern becomes the automatic one.