"Discuss About"? Preposition Mistakes ESL Writers Repeat

If you’ve ever second-guessed whether to write “interested in” or “interested on,” you’re not alone. Preposition mistakes in English are among the most persistent errors for non-native speakers — not because learners aren’t careful, but because prepositions follow patterns that native speakers absorbed unconsciously and almost never explain. You can have a strong vocabulary, conjugate every verb correctly, and still write “discuss about the problem” or “arrive to the airport” without realizing anything sounds off. The frustrating part is that native speakers often can’t tell you why one preposition is right — they just know it feels right. If you want to learn from your grammar patterns more systematically, preposition habits are one of the best places to start.

”Discuss About” and Other Verb Preposition Mistakes in English

Some errors happen because the verb already contains the meaning of “about” — adding a preposition doubles up on something already there.

Think of verbs like discuss, explain, mention, and emphasize. Each one already points toward an object. You don’t need another word to bridge the gap.

What you might write	What to write instead
Let’s discuss about the results.	Let’s discuss the results.
She explained about the process.	She explained the process.
He mentioned about the deadline.	He mentioned the deadline.
The report emphasizes about sustainability.	The report emphasizes sustainability.
We need to approach to the problem differently.	We need to approach the problem differently.

The underlying pattern: these are all transitive verbs — they take a direct object without a middleman. When you discuss something, the verb is already doing the work of directing your attention toward the topic. The “about” is baked in. Adding it out loud creates a redundancy that native speakers notice immediately, even if they can’t explain why.

A useful shortcut: if you can replace the verb with “talk about,” you may need a preposition. If you can replace it with “say” or “cover,” you don’t. Discuss works like cover, not like talk about.

Wrong Prepositions With Common Verbs and Adjectives

These are trickier because the preposition isn’t redundant — it’s just the wrong one. Often there’s a logic to the correct choice, but learners default to the one that mirrors their native language instead.

Arrive at vs. arrive in

❌	✅
I arrived to the airport.	I arrived at the airport.
She arrived to Paris.	She arrived in Paris.

The distinction matters: use at for specific locations and in for cities, countries, or large geographic areas. Think of it this way — at places a pin on a map at a single point; in suggests you’ve entered a larger enclosed or defined space.

Other common verb and adjective traps:

❌	✅
It depends of the weather.	It depends on the weather.
I’m not interested on the offer.	I’m not interested in the offer.
She’s really good in math.	She’s really good at math.
He’s married with a doctor.	He’s married to a doctor.
English is different of Spanish.	English is different from Spanish.
The package consists in three items.	The package consists of three items.
They entered into the room.	They entered the room.

One nuance worth noting: enter into is perfectly correct English — but only for agreements or processes, not physical spaces. “They entered into a contract” is standard. “They entered into the room” is not. The idiom has a specific domain, and using it elsewhere sounds unnatural.

If you also find yourself unsure about articles like a, an, and the, those belong to a related but separate challenge — check out article mistakes (a, an, the) for a breakdown of how that system works.

Why Are “At,” “On,” and “In” So Confusing for Time and Place?

These three small words create a disproportionate number of preposition mistakes in English, and the confusion is completely understandable. They cover both time and place, and their boundaries can feel arbitrary from the outside.

For time, think in terms of specificity:

• At — a precise moment in time: at noon, at midnight, at 3 p.m.
• On — a specific day or date: on Monday, on July 4th, on my birthday
• In — a longer or larger period: in July, in 2024, in the morning, in the 20th century

A mental image that helps: at is a point on a timeline you’re tapping with your finger. On is one page of a calendar. In is the whole month or year surrounding you.

For place, the same logic of scale applies:

• At — a specific point or location: at the station, at the door, at the top of the building
• On — a surface or a linear route: on the street, on the table, on the second floor
• In — an enclosed or defined space: in the city, in the room, in the building

Common mistakes with these three:

❌	✅
I’ll meet you in the airport.	I’ll meet you at the airport.
He lives on New York.	He lives in New York.
The meeting is in Monday.	The meeting is on Monday.
I’ll call you on midnight.	I’ll call you at midnight.
She works at a big company in downtown.	She works at a big company in downtown. ✅ (both correct here)

A quick test: Is it a city or country? Use in. Is it a specific named place? Use at. Is it a surface, floor, or street? Use on.

Phrasal Verb Preposition Traps

Phrasal verbs — verbs paired with a preposition or particle — are some of the most idiomatic structures in English. Swap the preposition and you can end up with a completely different meaning, or no meaning at all.

Wait

• Wait for = to hold until something arrives: I’m waiting for the bus.
• Wait on = to serve someone at a table: She waits on tables at the diner.

Unless you’re literally working as a server in a restaurant, “wait on” someone is not what you mean.

Agree

This one catches even advanced speakers because agree takes three different prepositions depending on what you’re agreeing about:

Sentence	Meaning
I agree with you.	I share your opinion or view.
I agree to the terms.	I accept or consent to something specific.
We agreed on a solution.	We reached a shared conclusion together.

The logic underneath: with links people who see things the same way. To links you to a document or proposal you’re accepting. On anchors everyone to a particular point or decision.

Look

Phrase	Meaning
look for	search for something missing
look at	direct your eyes toward something
look after	take care of someone or something

“I’m looking for my keys” (searching). “Look at that view” (directing attention). “She looks after her younger siblings” (caregiving). Swapping any of these shifts the meaning entirely — they aren’t interchangeable the way they might seem.

A free AI grammar checker can catch these phrasal verb preposition errors in context, which is especially useful when you’re drafting quickly and the wrong choice slips through before you notice it.

Why Prepositions Don’t Translate From Your Native Language

Here’s the honest truth about preposition mistakes in English: there is often no deeper logic to uncover. Prepositions are one of the most language-specific features of any language, and they don’t map cleanly across languages. What makes perfect sense in Spanish, French, or Mandarin won’t always correspond to the English equivalent — even when the sentences feel structurally similar.

This is why memorizing a list of rules isn’t enough. You need repeated exposure to patterns in context, enough times that the right combination starts to feel natural rather than calculated.

A few common examples of native-language transfer:

Spanish speakers sometimes write I am agree because the Spanish equivalent (estoy de acuerdo) uses a form of “to be” along with a preposition. In English, agree stands on its own as a verb: I agree. No “to be,” no extra preposition.

French speakers sometimes write make a photo instead of take a photo, influenced by the French faire une photo. The verb-preposition pairing shifts completely between languages, and what sounds natural in one becomes an error in another.

For many non-native speakers, on the phone can feel counterintuitive. If you’re speaking at something — or in it — the English choice of on doesn’t follow an obvious spatial logic. Yet English consistently uses on for media and communication channels: on the phone, on the radio, on television, on the internet. The preposition has been extended idiomatically to mean “connected via a medium,” and that’s just the convention.

This is exactly the kind of mistake that gets repeated silently for years. Native speakers rarely correct it in conversation because they understand what you mean — so no one ever explains the pattern. That’s where a tool like NotchTutor helps: it tracks which preposition patterns you personally get wrong most often, surfacing your specific recurring errors rather than making you memorize every possible combination.

If you want to understand why these errors persist even after years of study, why you keep repeating the same grammar mistakes goes deeper into how habit formation works and why awareness is the first step to changing it.

The Most Practical Way to Reduce Preposition Mistakes in English

Don’t try to memorize a separate preposition rule for every verb and adjective — the list is endless and the exceptions multiply. Instead, work on pattern recognition.

Pick three or four errors from this post that you recognize in your own writing. Write them down somewhere visible. Then actively look for them when you edit, rather than proofreading for everything at once. That focused attention does more than a grammar chart ever will, because you’re training your eye to notice the specific gaps in your own usage — not someone else’s average.

Prepositions are ultimately learned through exposure. The more English you read and hear, the more these combinations settle into place — not as rules you’re applying, but as familiar pairings your brain starts to expect.