between foreign language and their mother-tongue. Especially Indonesian students who learn writing in English, they get many problems in
composing English because many differences in structure in both English and Indonesian. Although so many problems that make the students do
errors in writing but the writer only takes the common errors in grammar such as singular plural, word form, word choice, verb tense, add a word,
omit a word, word order, spelling, punctuation, article and meaning not clear.
1. Singular and Plural
Talking about singular and plural that means one and more than one. Both English and Indonesian have it. However, the way
they use them is not the same. Usually English add ses in the last of the word to show a plural or some word involve into irregular
plural like knife – knives, child - children. Meanwhile Indonesian has different pattern to show plural such as by repeating the same
word or by adding the word ‘para’. Example :
E : All the students bring those boxes.
I : Para pelajar membawa kotak-kotak itu.
The difference above make the students get the difficulty in writing to have a very exact meaning without doing any errors. But
the fact, the students have a great enough problem in determining singular and plural.
2. Article
The occurrence of the article varies depending upon the type of noun. The definite and indefinite article is customary to
recognize a zero article.
39
The two article are the and a. Each of articles undergoes a change before a word beginning a vowel-the
changes in pronunciation, a changes in both pronunciation and spelling.
40
Indonesian does not know the article. And the students think that they do not need to use article in writing an English
composition. Eg. “I have big house’ it should be “I have a big house”.
3. Addition Word
Sometimes the students miss several words when they are writing a composition. That is why the writer should add some
words to make the students’ composition complete when he is analyzing each students’ writing. For example, “Anton very
happy” it should be “Anton is very happy”. It is caused by their lack of grammar knowledge. This error can be seen as a form of
simplification. The simplification is sometimes called “redundancy reduction” because it eliminates many items, which are redundant
to conveying the intended message. Redundancy reduction makes
39
Hubburb, op. cit. p.134
40
Marcella Frank, Modern English a Practical Reference Guide, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, 1972 ,p. 125
production easier but makes comprehension difficult or even impossible.
4. Word choice
