Dear Native speakers, which English grammar rule do you find tricky or often see other native speakers misuse?

People can not figure out the difference between lie and lay.

“Would of” has to be up there.

The classics are misuse of *there*, *their*, and *they’re*, and *your* versus *you’re.* My personal pet peeve is misuse of *whose* and *who’s.*

This question can be read several ways: spelling mistakes, slips of the tongue, colloquialisms, regional/dialectal difference, misuse of technical terms, and more. So let me just say that "I wish you are here" doesn't sound to me like something any native speaker I know would ever say. Although a kinda slurred contraction of you were ("I wish you'ere here") could sound like that. I did notice (because I was just teaching a lesson on it) that members of my family used the past tense instead of past perfect tense in the third conditional twice last week.

Living with English for 20 something years now, a student of law, and I still have no idea how the fuck to use commas, semi-colons, and colons. I have like an intuitive sense, but I don't know the rules. Pay attention in class kids.

Huh. I rarely see native speakers mess that up. Interesting! I personally mess up “less” and “fewer”. I’ve also struggled with proper use and ordering of “me” and “I”, and when to use “which” as opposed to “that.” I also see native speakers struggling with subject-verb agreement in long-winded sentences. I recently saw a native speaker who struggled to use possessive pronouns, and would refer to people’s body parts as “the X” as opposed to “his X.” They may have been bilingual though, which would explain that. In general, people struggle with “than” vs “then” as well. For me, grammar rules that come easily while writing don’t always come out in my speech. But for a lot of people, things that come naturally in their speech don’t come naturally in their writing. So what I see in writing is often different from what I see in speech.

Usually, people will always say "Bob and me" or "Bob and I" no matter which is appropriate. They don't know how to tell which to use, so they just always say it the same way.

Im a native speaker and I still stumble with it's and its, only when writing ofc

Unless they literally misspeak, i.e. say something they had not intended, or have their speech faculties in some way impaired or something, native speakers cannot make grammatical *mistakes*. The grammar of the language is determined by the native speakers. There is no valid higher authority to appeal to that could declare the speech of a native speaker to be “wrong”, and one should not try to do this. Formal/professional/academic etc. writing are a different matter for various reasons, but in speech, if I as a native speaker say something the way I meant to, and my meaning is understood by the person I am talking to, it is literally impossible for me to have made a mistake.

Native speakers often use “would of” instead of “would have”, and it makes me want to swing fists. 

Who and whom 100%. Most English speakers just use who for both

The pandemic also highlighted that many people conflate breath and breathe.

Are you sure this was a native speaker? "Wish you were here" is very much a standard stock phrase (not to mention the title of one of the best rock albums of all time) - it would be HIGHLY unusual for a native speaker to say "wish you are here".

I keep seeing people use "may have" in place of "might have", where it should be "If A had happened, then B might have happened" (when we know neither A nor B actually happened).

Punctuation. I find it tricky. Particularly where to put punctuation when there are quotation marks. Example: Why did Alex say I was a “mean and hurtful guy?” I can’t stand that the question mark is inside the quotation marks when Alex was not asking a question in that quote. Shouldn’t it be… Why did Alex say I was a “mean and hurtful guy”? There are probably other examples I’m forgetting. Back in high school and college, I would sometimes be marked off for stuff like this, where I was semi-consciously inventing my own grammatical rules that made much more sense to me.

Biggest one for me is the past tense of run. I regularly hear people at work say "that report was ran" instead of "was run". It happened so often I had to look it up to make sure I wasn't the one saying it wrong all these years. I see it with similar verbs too, but this is the most common. Also, like others have said, that is an extremely unlikely mistake for a native speaker. As a one time mistake sure, especially in writing where it would be an easy typo, but not repeatedly. It doesn't sound like a mistake a native Spanish speaker would make either, which would be the most likely for someone in Texas. I say this as someone talking to you on the Internet, but be cautious of people you meet online.

My personal pet peeve is people not understanding that “biased” is a different word than “bias”. If you have a bias, you are biased. People will say “I’m bias” and I always want to reply with “Hi, Bias, I’m Dad!”

Imma start a list… also don’t know when to put a space between every day or use one word, everyday. It’s not quite an everyday occurrence.

I have a friend who says “I done” and “I seen” (instead of I have done / I did, I have seen / I saw). It drives me absolutely insane. “I seen a movie on the weekend.” 😭 agghh.

Grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. Different dialects have different grammar. None are "wrong". For example, the African American English in my region uses the habitual be tense (ex. "He be eating" -- a tense which is no longer used in most English dialects. This is not simply a "wrong" conjugation of the present continuous, it is a tense that expresses a habit.

I've never heard an American say "wish you are here." That's a new one for me.

There can be regional differences but I don’t think I have ever heard it like that I wish you were here.. I wish you could be here .. sounds more legit

Many people seem to switch scratch / itch, and loan / borrow.  Eg "Can you borrow me some money"

"If I would have + PP ... , then I would have + PP" It should be "If I had + PP, then I would have + PP"

Less vs fewer is a very common one to mess up, even for native speakers. I try to correct myself in speech when I do it, in the hope that it will stick, but so far it hasn't!

Effect(ed) vs. affect(ed). I always have to look it up and I see native speakers misuse it all the time in professional communication at my job.

People who use bias (a noun) as an adjective, eg 'He was bias' instead of 'He was biased/he showed bias towards...'

They're not a native speaker.

Personally, I don’t understand how English language learners ever learn the present perfect. Native English speakers just know what sounds right and when, but I don’t think it’s an easy concept to grasp beyond expressing how long someone has been at a place (and continues to be there). Such as the nuances between: • I forgot your name *vs* I’ve forgotten your name • I had all I could stand *vs* I’ve had all I can stand • Did you vote already? *vs* Have you voted already? • I went to Alabama with a banjo on my knee *vs* I’ve gone to Alabama with a banjo on my knee • When I was in Paris *vs* When I’ve been in Paris The differences are small but can be important in what you want to express. Also, the many uses of *would*: • I would go (if it weren’t raining). • I would walk on the beach every night. • I would say you should leave him now. • I would like a cheeseburger please. • I would rather have a pizza. • Wouldn’t you like to know? • You wouldn’t like to know. • I thought I would find you here. • You wouldn’t leave me, would you?

I struggle with the appropriate use of punctuation marks, especially with stuff like clauses. There's so many different ways to offset a clause and I have no idea when I'm misusing one. Certainly doesn't help that everyone is convinced that the em dash is the watermark for AI these days.

Subjunctive tense is frequently misused in colloquial language. Your example was exactly that, but "I wish you were here" is a very common phrase. Most people would use the correct grammar there, since it is essentially a memorized phrase. Many people misuse subjunctive tense, particularly in hypothetical or wishful situations. Example: (Correct) -- "If I *were* a millionaire, I'd buy a mansion." (Incorrect, but common) -- "If I *was* a millionaire, I'd buy a mansion." Bonus, related to spelling: Further and farther have similar, but different, meanings. -- Farther = longer in physical or measurable distance. Example: "I live farther from the grocery store than you do." -- Further = relates to the conceptual or imaginary "distance" that can't easily be measured. Example: "That could not be further from the truth."

As a child of immigrants born in the UK, I don't know if this counts but I made a mistake on my English exams where I said that "the breeze passes" was personification of the breeze. No, it wasn't. Bonus: I once had a tense argument with my classmate over whether this phrase in an English text we were doing was a metaphor or not. Unfortunately I forgot the phrase lol.

The subjunctive mood in English is kind of esoteric, and people "forget" to use it all the time. They'll say stuff like "if it wasn't for X" when technically they should be using the subjunctive "were," not "was."

I see a concerning number of native speakers who don't know how to use apostrophes properly.

The gay fanfiction problem: "Zack and Jimmy walk to the local cafe. He then tells him he needs to go use the bathroom" Who went and used the bathroom? (yes this is deadass called the gay fanficiton problem)

Show us the other text messages. Maybe he made some other mistakes!

Some English speakers in Canada will sometimes use seen instead of saw, or just omit the have in perfect constructions. For example "I seen you at the mall yesterday" or " oh I seen this movie before". It's something I thought was an east coast dialect thing, but I've heard small town Ontarians do it too.

If you count spelling as part of grammar, then it’s spelling. Spelling is the worst. You never really master it.

Is it possible he uses speech-to-text? I only ask because I've tried saying these errors out loud in a fake Texas-y accent and I can sort of see how an AI interface could interpret them the way they are typed out. This would explain the consistency of the error in text, as well as why you didn't hear a considerable difference when speaking to them.

The question may be difficult for native speakers to answer, because none of us ever learn our default first language in an academic setting. As a result, we all say things in certain ways and we follow certain conventions by instinct, or intuitively. We are very rarely conscious of the fact that we are following any grammar rules at all. A child learns their first or native language at the same time that they are learning how to think, to imagine, to perceive, etc. As a result, a person's first language is an essential part of reality to a native speaker. It is the most realistic and natural way that they know of to describe the world and their thoughts. It is very difficult for a native speaker to think of their first language as having a certain structure and being based on a set of rules, because that was not how they learned it. They mastered it without knowing anything about it in a formal sense. They were already quite fluent in it before they ever set foot inside a school or opened a grammar book. So even when the native speaker becomes aware that they speak a particular language, and that their language has evolved a set of rules, they usually have much difficulty in trying to explain those rules and principles in a coherent way to a non-native.

My pet peeve is people using the spelling lead when it should be led. I see it all the time.

English grammar and usage evolve really quickly, and many expressions I was taught were absolutely wrong are now well accepted - In fact many of them have been around for many years. “wish you were here” is a popular idiom so anything else sounds odd, but there are plenty of times when we don’t use the subjunctive when it is technically correct.

Less/fewer. Which is complex the most common mistake is when it’s like hard to figure out when an object is countable or not. There’s a sort of “gray area” between plural but countable and plural but uncountable. Like where you draw the line is sometimes semantically fuzzy so people mess that up the most. What is generally wrong is “Less plans” but that is not as common as it used to be. Still if you said “less plans” I wouldn’t correct you since I’d probably understand you, I’d just cringe a little.

I hear native speakers sometimes using "I" as an object pronoun, as in, "Last weekend, Mike hung out with Jim and I." They overcorrect the common misuse of "me" as a subject pronoun by then using "I" as an object pronoun.

I know my personal grammar is kinda conservative, so it always jumps out at me when I hear "If I *was* X..." (instead of *were*) when talking about hypothetical or counterfactual statements. Though, I know that's not entirely fair, as the subjunctive mood is so grammatically limited in English. Also, in evaluative statements (idk what else to call them rn), when other verbs would techincally be subjunctive, they take their bare forms. But it makes no practical difference if you use the simple present tense in the same sentence - "It's crucial (that) he *arrive* within the hour." vs "It's crucial (that) he *arrives* within the hour." From a linguist's perspective, once a "rule" starts to be regularly broken/ignored within a population, it's indicative of its obsolescence (at least in everyday speech) for that population.

When I was young the word “several” confused me because it has nothing to do with “seven”. And also how you can say a “pool” of water and a “pool” of money and also “pool together ideas”. I suppose growing up and realising how versatile the limited vocabulary can be is fascinating and how we just invent slang more or less constantly.

The usage of "less" Vs "fewer". Grrrrrrgh

people say textbook english vs real english, not sure whether it is the case

For a while I struggled with the difference between affect and effect but I’ve got that one figured out now. I notice other people struggle with that one, too.

He's not a native speaker. There's just no way. "I wish you/we/they were..." is an extremely common set phrase even for children. It would be like someone singing "Happy birthday *for* you." Not just wrong but *weird*.

The worst and most commonly made mistake in my opinion is using "less" where "fewer" should be used. It makes me cringe whenever native speakers make this error, but at the same time I fully understand because it took me until middle school to understand the distinction. P.S. shout out to Weird Al for addressing this issue specifically in Word Crimes.

US English speakers are losing the subjunctive as in your example, distinction between simple past and past participles (Honey I Shrank/Shrunk the Kids), *less* has largely replaced *fewer*, and *lay* has largely replaced *lie* as the intransitive verb for going into a horizontal resting position. Also who vs. whom is basically long dead.

Native speakers in Canada don't use "whom". Native speakers will also use "I" when they should have used "me".

Not grammar, but spelling: I see so many people say defiantly when they mean definitely 🤦 two very different words Also a lot of people say 'I could care less' when they definitely mean 'I couldn't care less', which yeah, mean pretty different things

“Wish you are here?” Really? That doesn’t sound like a mistake any native speaker would make. I’ve certainly never heard that.

You have a misconception about how this all works. For one, grammar isn’t really taught to any high level in primarily English speaking countries unless you are studying English as a language in college. Grammar in English is intuitive to a native speaker because it’s the language they’re surrounded with. We don’t memorize rules for hardly anything, we intuit them. I’m sure that rules exist for a number of things but for native speakers something just “sounds right” or “sounds wrong” Secondly, there is also the fact that languages evolve. Words come in and out of use. If one person does something weird, it’s “wrong” if a bunch of people do something weird, then it becomes a dialect to that group, if most people use the “wrong” thing then it’s no longer wrong.