What's the difference between find, found, and founded? To differentiate between these three, we need to first know the two different verbs, find and found:

Find

Find usually means to look for or to perceive something. Examples:

     The pirates find the treasure on the island.

     Kim finds the homework questions very challenging.

The past tense of find is found:

     The pirates found the treasure on the island.

     Kim found the homework questions very challenging.

​Found

Found is the past tense of find, but it also is a present-tense, meaning to establish or create (usually referring to a company or organization). The past tense of this verb is founded. Example:

     Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975.

     Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994.

What is the difference between lay, laid, and lied? Many people, including native speakers of English, tend to incorrectly use these words.

To begin with, you need to know that lie and lay are two separate base forms.

"Lie"

The word lie has two meanings:

     1) To say something untruthful
     2) To rest in a horizontal position on a surface (e.g. lie on a bed)

​For the first definition, the past tense form would be lied:

      Jeremy lied to the police about his involvement in the killing. 

For the second definition, the past tense form would be lay:

     Jeremy lay on the ground motionless after the baseball struck his head.

Note that lie is an intransitive verb, meaning that it cannot follow with a direct object pronoun. Therefore, it is improper to say the following:

    Leo lied the books on the table. (The direct object in this example would be the books.)

"Lay"

Lay means to place an object in a horizontal position on a surface. The correct past tense form is laid:

     Leo laid the books on the table.

Unlike lie, lay is a transitive verb, so it can follow with a direct object. That being said, the example above is perfectly grammatical.

Pronouns are any words in the English language that can take the place of nouns. While they may be simple and straightforward to use, many students (including native English speakers) tend to use the incorrect pronoun in both writing and speaking:

     Each person must pay $25 before they could enter.

     Craig has several pens. It is black.

In the first example, each person is third-person singular, so the correct pronoun should be he or she:

     Each person must pay $25 before he or she could enter.

In the second example, several pens is third-person plural, so the correct pronoun should be they:

     Craig has several pens. They are black.

A comparative is a syntactic construction that serves the purpose of comparison. Here are some examples:

     George is taller than Michael. (Compares George and Michael)

     This new sponge is more absorbent than the old one. (Compares the new sponge to the old one)

Note that for comparatives where the suffix -er is added to an adjective, there is grammatically incorrect to add more in front, as is the case in the first example. The reason it is because a word like taller by itself already means more tall, which makes it unnecessary to put more in front. As such, the following example would be grammatically incorrect:

     Jenny is more older than Annie.

The way we correct this would be to simply take out the more in the sentence:

     Jenny is older than Annie.

What is the difference between the past perfect and the simple past? Have a look at the examples below:

The simple past looks like this:

     I finished my homework.

     A tree fell down.

The past perfect for the sentences above would look like this:

     I had finished my homework.

     A tree had fallen down.

The past perfect is essentially the verb had followed by the past participle, which in the examples above, are finished and fallen respectively.

When indicating a past action, we use the simple past tense, but when we try to show that an event happened before another event happened, we use the past perfect tense. In other words, the first event is the one in the past perfect tense:

     Jared had saved his work before his computer crashed.

​     Lisa had completed a degree in psychology before she went to law school.

Prepositions in the English language are used for expressing relations in time or space. Common ones include in, of, on, under, above, below, and many more. Here are specific prepositions that we use for indicating relations in time:

To indicate times of day, we use at:

     I leave for school at 8 a.m. everyday.

For days of the week, the proper preposition is on:

     I will be going to my friend's birthday party on Saturday.

When mentioning a year, it is in:

      The Second World War ended in 1945. 

If a specific date is used, the proper preposition is on:

     On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor.

When referring to a period of time, use during:

     The Industrial Revolution happened during the mid to late 19th century.

     During the Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration created many new types of welfare.

Pluralization applies to all nouns that are countable. In most (although not all) cases, the suffix -s (or -es in some cases) appears at the end to signal pluralization. Although seemingly very self-explanatory, pluralization in actuality does tend to be neglected more commonly than we think:

     Several students forgot their book today.

     When it is hot, we need to drink plenty of water to keep our body hydrated.

In the first example, unless the students all use the same physical copy of a particular book, then it should be books. Similarly, in the second example, every person has a different body, so we should pluralize body:

     Several students forgot their books today.

     When it is hot, we need to drink plenty of water to keep our bodies hydrated.

Pronouns refer to those words that can take the place of nouns. The following are subject pronouns, which as the name suggests, are used to indicate subjects of sentences:

     I (First-person singular)
     You (Second-person singular)
     He/she/it (Third-person singular)
     We (First-person plural)
     You (Second-person plural)
     They (Third-person plural)

Each of the above also has an object-pronoun equivalent:

     Me (First-person singular)
     You (Second-person singular)
     Him/her/it (Third-person singular)
     Us (First-person plural)
     You (Second-person plural)
     Them (Third-person plural)

Although this may be very self-explanatory, many students do misuse object pronouns as subject pronouns or vice versa, as in this example below:

     Johnny and me are finished our homework.

Me is a subject pronoun, yet it is incorrectly used as the subject here. The proper way to write this sentence is:

     Johnny and I are finished our homework.

What is the difference between "who" and "whom"? The answer is more straightforward than you think: "Who" refers to a subject while "whom" refers to an object. An easy trick you can use is, "he" or "she" replaces "who" while "him" or "her" replaces "whom":

     Who put this on my desk? (He/she put this on my desk.)

     Whom do I give this to? (I give this to him/her.)

This same rule applies for "whoever" and "whomever":

     Whoever wins the competition gets $1000. (He/she wins the competition and gets $1000.)

     I will give this to whomever needs it. (I will give this to him/her.)

In spoken English, many people do tend to misuse "who" for "whom", but in written English, it is important to remember the distinction between the two:

     Who do I contact if I have any questions? (incorrect)

     Whom do I contact if I have any questions? (correct)

Now that you have a clearer idea how to use "who" and "whom", see if you can figure out the meaning this joke:

     A: Knock, knock!

     B: Who's there?

     A: To.

     B: To who?

     A: To whom.

Whenever using quotations, here are the rules that apply.

Whenever the speaker of a quotation is identified before a quotation, there must be a comma before the quoted statement:

     After receiving his acceptance letter, Jimmy exclaimed, "It's official! I'm entering the army!" 

Also notice that it's is capitalized because it is the beginning word of the quotation.

If the speaker is identified after the quotation, the quotation needs to have a comma before the closing quotation marks:

     "I don't understand this problem," said Karen.

Notice that said, the first word following the quotation, is not capitalized.

However, if the quoted statement ends in a question or exclamation mark, then no comma is needed:

     "Did anybody see my phone lying around?" asked Ivan.

     "You did it! That was a well-deserved win!" said Mike to Jenny.

Again, the first word after the quoted statement is not in capitals (of course, unless it is a proper noun).