Most language games reward you for getting things right. Error Hunt rewards you for knowing when something is wrong — which is a harder skill and a more honest test of whether grammar has actually stuck.
How Error Hunt Works
The mechanic is two steps:
Step 1 — Tap the mistake. A sentence appears in your target language. One word is incorrect. Tap it.
Step 2 — Type the correction. A text input appears. Type what the word should be.
That's it. No multiple choice to fall back on. No process of elimination. You have to know what's wrong, and you have to know what's right.
A Concrete Example
Take this Spanish sentence:
Ayer, nosotros vamos al mercado y compramos frutas frescas.
The error is vamos — present tense where the past is needed. The correction: fuimos (first-person plural preterite of ir).
You don't get credit for tapping vamos unless you also produce fuimos. Identifying the problem without knowing the solution is worth nothing. That's a feature, not a limitation.
Why It's Harder Than It Looks
Producing correct language and detecting incorrect language are different cognitive skills.
When you conjugate a verb, you're using procedural knowledge — following a rule you've learned. When you spot an error, you're using something closer to tacit competence — an intuition that something sounds wrong without necessarily being able to articulate why.
Native speakers do this constantly. They don't parse grammar consciously; they just notice when something jars.
Error Hunt builds exactly that intuition, but in your second language. After enough repetitions, the wrong form starts to feel wrong — not because you're running a conscious rule check, but because the pattern has been internalised deeply enough to generate a mismatch signal automatically.
That's the shift from textbook grammar to functional grammar.
What Kinds of Errors Appear
The errors in Error Hunt are drawn from actual learner error patterns — the mistakes that real people at each CEFR level typically make. They're not random.
At B1, common errors include:
- Wrong verb tense (preterite vs imperfect in Spanish, passé composé vs imparfait in French, Perfekt vs Präteritum in German)
- Subject-verb agreement violations
- Incorrect grammatical gender on articles and adjectives
- Wrong reflexive pronoun
- Misused prepositions (I'm interested in vs interested about)
At B2+, the errors get subtler:
- False cognates used incorrectly (Spanish embarazada instead of avergonzada)
- Wrong subjunctive trigger (using indicative after a doubt/emotion verb)
- Register violations (formal vocabulary in casual conversation, or vice versa)
- Incorrect aspect in Slavic-influenced structures
- Arabic case ending errors in formal contexts
The progression means that Error Hunt stays challenging as your level rises. It's not the same five error types repeated forever — the error pool expands and becomes more nuanced as your CEFR level advances.
The Proofreading Transfer Effect
There's a practical reason to take Error Hunt seriously: the skill transfers directly to writing.
When you write in a second language, the most valuable editing skill you have is noticing your own errors before submission. That requires the same process Error Hunt drills: reading a sentence you've produced, detecting the violation, identifying the correct form.
Learners who regularly play Error Hunt report that they start catching their own written mistakes faster. The same pattern-matching circuit that fires in the game fires when reviewing a WhatsApp message or a work email.
This is why Error Hunt is a premium challenge type in the adaptive engine — it's not just a test of what you know. It's building a skill that makes everything else you do in the language better.
How to Get Better at It
Don't guess the word, guess the category first. Before tapping, ask yourself: what type of error is this likely to be? Verb form? Gender agreement? Preposition? Narrowing the category helps you identify the specific word more accurately.
Read the whole sentence before tapping. The error is always in context. Sometimes a word looks wrong in isolation but makes sense in the sentence — and sometimes the reverse. Read to the end before you commit.
Pay attention to the correction, not just the identification. Getting the right word is worth nothing if your correction is wrong. For verb errors, make sure you produce the right person, number, and tense — not just the right verb.
Review the explanation after each challenge. TutorLingua shows you why the answer was wrong and what the correct form is, with a brief grammar note. That 10-second review is where most of the learning happens. Don't skip it.
Available in All 11 Languages
Error Hunt runs across all 11 TutorLingua languages. Each language has error types calibrated to its specific grammatical challenges:
- French: gender agreement, tense selection, liaison errors
- German: case endings, separable verb position, adjective declension
- Japanese: particle choice, politeness register, verb form endings
- Arabic: root-pattern verb forms, case vowels, dual/plural agreement
- Korean: honorific register, particle selection, verb ending formality
If you're at B1 or above in any of TutorLingua's 11 languages, Error Hunt is unlocked and waiting.
Related Articles:
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about this topic
A sentence appears in your target language with exactly one deliberate mistake. The error could be a wrong verb conjugation, incorrect grammatical gender, misplaced word order, wrong preposition, or an inappropriate vocabulary choice. You tap the word you believe is wrong, then type the correction. The game confirms whether you identified the right word and whether your correction was accurate.
Errors span the full grammar and vocabulary range relevant to your CEFR level. At B1 you'll see: wrong verb tense, subject-verb disagreement, incorrect article gender, wrong reflexive pronoun, misused prepositions, and vocabulary register mismatches. At B2+ you'll encounter subtler errors: false cognates used incorrectly, wrong subjunctive trigger, inappropriate aspect (perfective vs imperfective), and register violations.
Detecting an error requires knowing the correct rule well enough to recognise a violation. At A1–A2, most learners are still building foundational patterns — asking them to spot errors in structures they haven't absorbed yet would just be guessing. B1 is the point where enough grammar is internalised that error detection becomes a meaningful skill test rather than a luck exercise.