The difference between 'on time' and 'in time':

'On time' means being punctual, e.g. 'I arrived at the meeting on time' (if the meeting is at 17h then you pretty much arrived at that time). 'In time' means any time before the start time of an action, e.g. 'she got to the train station in time for her train to Milan' (she could have arrived 1 min, 5 mins, 15 mins etc before the scheduled departure of the train). This error is not confined to our Spanish English as a second language students. Students whose first language is not Spanish will have this issue. 

Confusion with 2 syllable comparatives ending in 'y'

So a common error often committed by native English speakers is with the double syllable comparative ending in 'y'. Remember, double syllable adjectives ending with 'y' should be treated as a short adjective. Hence we say 'funnier', 'happier', 'luckier' and NOT 'more funny' etc as natives often do. Remember to add the extra 'i' also before 'er' and take off the 'y'. Have a great day. 

Confusion with ‘to practice’ and other verbs for different sports

This is a very problematic word for students in our skype English classes as they all too often translate this literally wrongly when we are talking about sport. So ‘practicar deportes’ would not be translated by ‘I practice sport’ but we would say ‘I do or play sport’. Similarly, ‘practico tenis’ would not be translated with ‘practice’ but in this case we’d say ‘I play tennis’.

We use ‘to practice’ in sport or other activities to mean to go over a routine or to repeat something. For example, we would practice penalties in readiness for a penalty shoot-out. The noun ‘practice’ would be an ‘entrenamiento’. It can also be called ‘training’ in English. For example, we’d go to ‘hockey training’ as well as ‘tennis practice’. If we want to perfect routines by repeating them then we’d use ‘practice’. For example, we would say ‘we need to practice corners’.

With regard to the verb we use with different sports, the structure depends on the type of sport indicated. For team games with a ball, we employ the verb ‘play’. For instance, we’d say ‘she plays rugby, golf, baseball…’. If the sport is also a verb like ‘skiing’ or ‘sailing’ or ‘cycling’ then we have several options. First, we can say simply ‘I run’ or ‘she skies’. Second, it is possible to say ‘she goes skiing’ or ‘he went cycling’. For sports which are not verbs and do not have a ball in use then we would use the verb ‘to do’. For example we would say ‘I do karate’ or ‘I do archery’. As there are so many different sports there can be exceptions to these rules.