5 exercises on grammar errors frequently made by non-native English speakers in IT contexts — uncountable nouns, wrong prepositions, and incorrect verb patterns.
Grammar patterns behind these errors
"research / information / feedback / advice" — uncountable, no plural, no article
"suggest" — followed by -ing or that-clause, NOT infinitive
"according to" — for sources/third parties, NOT for your own views
"provide" — collocates with nouns directly: "provide information", not "provide informations"
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A non-native speaker writes: "I have made a research about microservice patterns." What is the error and what is the correct version?
"Make research" — the uncountable noun trap:
The rules:
"Research" (when meaning investigation/study) is uncountable in standard English — no article, no plural: "I did research" (not "a research" or "researches")
The standard verb collocation is do research or conduct research — not "make research"
Correct forms:
"I did research on microservice patterns."
"I conducted research into distributed systems."
"I carried out a study on microservice patterns."
Note: "A research" with an article does occur in formal academic writing in some specific contexts ("a piece of research", "a study"), but "make a research" is always an error.
Other uncountable nouns that trip up developers:
"advice" (not "an advice") → give advice
"feedback" (not "a feedback") → provide feedback
"information" (not "informations") → share information
"work" (usually uncountable) → do some work, not "make a work"
2 / 5
In a Slack message, a developer writes: "Can we discuss about the deployment strategy in the next sync?" What is wrong and how do you fix it?
"Discuss about" — the extra preposition error:
"Discuss" is a transitive verb — it takes a direct object directly, without needing a preposition. This is different from "talk" (which uses "about") or "speak" (which uses "about" or "on").
Correct:
"Can we discuss the deployment strategy?"
"We discussed the timeline in the meeting."
"I need to discuss something with you."
Common confusion: Many languages have a preposition here (Spanish: "hablar sobre", French: "parler de"), and "talk about" is also correct in English — but "discuss about" is always wrong.
Similar verbs that do NOT need "about":
"discuss" ✓ → "discuss the issue" (NOT "discuss about the issue")
"mention" ✓ → "mention the deadline" (NOT "mention about the deadline")
"consider" ✓ → "consider the options" (NOT "consider about the options")
Correct alternatives:
"Can we talk about the deployment strategy?" ✓
"Can we discuss the deployment strategy?" ✓
"Can we go over the deployment strategy?" ✓
3 / 5
A senior engineer replies in a team meeting: "I suggest to run a canary deployment first." What is the grammatical error?
"Suggest to do" — the infinitive trap:
This is one of the most common grammar errors by non-native English speakers — using "suggest + to-infinitive" by analogy with other verbs like "want to," "decide to," "plan to."
"Suggest" does NOT take a to-infinitive. It takes:
A gerund (-ing): "I suggest reviewing the logs first."
A that-clause: "I suggest that we review the logs first."
A noun: "I suggest a canary deployment."
More examples:
✗ "I suggest to use Docker." → ✓ "I suggest using Docker."
✗ "They suggested to add more tests." → ✓ "They suggested adding more tests."
Compare with verbs that DO take infinitives:
"I recommend running tests first." (also: recommend that + clause)
"I want to merge tonight."
"I plan to refactor this."
4 / 5
A developer writes in a design review comment: "According to me, the current architecture will not scale." What is the problem with "according to me"?
"According to me" — the attribution error:
"According to" is used to cite a source외 — a document, a person other than yourself, a standard, a report. It means "as stated by" or "as reported by."
How "according to" is correctly used:
"According to the RFC specification, headers must be case-insensitive."
"According to the CTO, we need to scale to 10M users."
"According to Google Lighthouse, the page scores 62."
You cannot be a source for your own opinion — "according to me" is saying "as stated by me," which is redundant and incorrect.
Correct alternatives for personal opinions:
"In my opinion, the current architecture will not scale." — formal
"I think the current architecture won't scale." — neutral
"I believe this approach will have scaling issues." — slightly more formal
"From my perspective, this won't scale." — professional
"In my view, we should consider a different approach." — formal
5 / 5
A developer describes a function: "This function provides informations about the current user session." How many errors are in this sentence?
"Informations" — the uncountable noun rule:
"Information" is an uncountable (mass) noun in English — it has no plural form. You cannot say "informations," "an information," or "two informations."
How to talk about multiple items of information:
"information" (unspecified amount) → "this provides information about…"
"a piece of information" (one item) → "I have a useful piece of information"
"pieces of information" (multiple items) → "here are three pieces of information"
"details" (countable, often used instead) → "the function returns session details"
The verb "provide" is correct here: "provide information about" is a standard formal collocation. Note the preposition: "provide information about" or "provide information on" — both are fine. "Provide information of" is generally incorrect.
Other commonly incorrectly pluralised uncountable nouns in tech writing:
✗ "feedbacks" → ✓ "feedback" or "pieces of feedback"
✗ "knowledges" → ✓ "knowledge"
✗ "advices" → ✓ "advice" or "pieces of advice"
✗ "equipments" → ✓ "equipment"
✗ "softwares" → ✓ "software" or "software applications"