Living abroadCommon English Mistakes Kazakh and Russian Speakers Make in IELTS
Because Kazakh and Russian have no articles, a different tense system and different preposition rules, the same handful of errors shows up again and again, which also makes them the fastest to fix.
Articles: a, an, the
Kazakh and Russian have no equivalent of "a" or "the," so leaving them out feels natural but reads as a clear error in English. "I am good person" should be "I am a good person." The fix isn't memorising abstract rules first; it's drilling the highest-frequency nouns until the article becomes automatic.
Present perfect vs past simple
"I visited 13 countries" and "I have visited 13 countries" sound similar in translation but say different things in English: the second implies you're still travelling and the count might grow. Since Kazakh and Russian don't mark this distinction the way English does, it has to be learned as a pattern, not translated word for word.
The "Big 5" uncountable nouns
Advice, information, knowledge, feedback and equipment are never plural and never take "a" in English, even though their direct translations often behave like ordinary countable nouns. "I have some advices" is a very common, very fixable slip.
Preposition transfer
"Discussed about," "influence on something," "phoned to him," "at the weekend" versus "on the weekend" are all places where a preposition gets carried over from the L1 pattern instead of the English one. These are memorised in chunks, not derived from a rule, which is exactly why targeted drilling works faster than general reading.
Why this matters for your band score
Band 7 Grammatical Range and Accuracy specifically rewards "a variety of complex structures" used with "mostly error-free" sentences. These aren't complex structures, they're small, fixable, high-frequency slips and clearing them out is often the fastest points available before you touch anything more advanced.
Frequently asked questions
Will these mistakes actually lower my band score?
Yes, frequent basic errors cap your Grammatical Range and Accuracy score regardless of how sophisticated your vocabulary is elsewhere.
Is there a fast way to fix article mistakes?
Drilling the same errors from your own writing, rather than generic grammar exercises, tends to fix them faster since the mistakes are personal and repetitive.
Are these mistakes specific to Kazakh speakers or Russian speakers too?
Both, since neither language has articles or the same tense and preposition system as English, which is why the same error list applies to speakers of either.