One of the grammar mistakes I often made is about subject verb agreement. Although subject verb agreement is one of the most basic knowledge in Enligsh, sometimes I tend to make mistake when using it, especially when writing in rush. I think this is because I'm not a native English speaker who is able to use them very naturally. Subject verb agreement is important because it is the rule to build up a correct sentence.
The basic of subject verb agreement is the use of correct verb with singular nouns and plural nouns. I am sure everyone has no doubt about that. However, sometimes it becomes a little bit tricky, for example the sentence I just mentioned. "Everyone" seems to be many people, but we have to use singular verbs with it. It will be the same case for pronouns such as anyone, everyone, someone, no one, nobody, etc. This should be quite common but care must still be taken. What if we have two subject in a sentences? For example, "Jane and Jo are very friendly." "And" and "as well as" has the same meaning, but the use of verb is different. It should be "Jane, as well as Jo, is very friendly". It is because the word "as well as" does not compound the subjects.
Another point to take note in subject verb agreement is the use of either and neither. They are singluar and require singular verbs even though they seem to be referring to plural nouns. When nor or or is used, determine the type of verb by the closer subject. Whether the subject comes before or after the verb doesn't matter. A quick example: "Neither Jane nor her friends are leaving" and "Neither the people nor Jane is leaving". Though, it is more usual to use the first one instead of the latter.
Besides the above points, some of the words indicate plural and also singular, depending on the sentences. For example, "Some of the people are still angry", "A large percentage of the population is starving","Four times four divided by two is eight", etc.
Subject-verb agreement is not difficult, what we need is to be more careful with it. Reduce mistakes in subject-verb agreement is the basic step to achieve a good writing.
