Articles (a, an, the) can be difficult.

A native Korean speaker and I have spent many hours pouring over her writing in a hunt for missing articles. What is an article? In the English language, we often put the word "the" or "a" or "an" in front of nouns (person, place, or thing). Then again, sometimes we don't put an "an" or "a" or "the" there at all. Knowing when not to use an article, when to use one, and which one to use when one is needed confuses many non-native English speakers. Here is my explanation. Use "the" if the noun is specific. Use "a" if the noun is part of a general group. Use "an" if the noun is part of a general group and begins with a vowel sound. Don't use an article at all if the noun is SO general that it isn't even part of a group.

I will go to college next year. (College is SO general that it isn't part of a group.)
I will go to a college in Florida. (College is part of a general group of colleges located in Florida.)
I will go to the college that my father attended. (College is the specific one that Dad went to.)

P.S. In my paragraph to explain articles, I used sixteen articles and three instances of nouns so general that they did not need an article at all. Clearly, it is understandable why articles are not clearly understandable by those who didn't grow up using them!

Spanish verbs verses English verbs

A native Spanish speaker brought a problem to me, and we were delighted to discover the answer. In Spanish, verbs that are plural tend to end in "s" whereas in English "s" comes at the end of many singular verbs. When asked to identify whether a subject like "dogs" took a singular or plural verb, the young man would correctly reply, "Plural, of course!" Then he would select the incorrect singular form of the verb like "runs" because in Spanish the "s" would make the verb plural. To help him get used to the difference between the two languages' verb patterns, we made a list of common English verbs that take "s" in the singular form. Here are some examples as singular/plural:

runs/run: The dog runs down the street. The dogs run down the street.

does/do: The dog does need a bath. The dogs do need baths.

is/are: The dog is large. The dogs are large.

has/have: The dog has fleas. The dogs have fleas.