Its/It's and They're/There

They drive me nuts! Also double is: "The point is, is that she..."
Reticent for reluctant...

College freshmen usually take a course in English. This helps to eliminate confusion.

The hardest thing when you learn English, if you don't live in an English speaking country is, IMO, phrasal verbs.
For me, the main trouble has been mastering the use of prepositions (in, at, on).

For English speakers, the main problem with Spanish is mostly gender. Since English nouns are genderless, they don't know if the wall is "la pared", "el pared" or even "lo pared".

An odd thing is problems with languages that are close to yours. It happened to me with Italian. After a few weeks or months you think you know the language, but you're constantly making little mistakes few people care to correct, since they understood you anyway.

And don't forget "principal" and "principle." c.i.

Spot on. English prepositions are a nightmare. Phrasal verbs complicate things because prepositions then take on nuanced meanings:

e.g. off=away in phrasal verbs like "run off" "drive off".....

The gender in other languages is hell for English speakers because of conceptual differences. Inanimate objects do not have gender for an English speaker.

So it's hard to understand (then later to remember) why my head, my butt and my underwear are female nouns.

I have always appreciated the German convention on gender. If it's plural, it is feminine. When in doubt, make it plural.

Lie/lay and affect/effect are a constant defeat.

The hardest languages for me have been Hebrew and Arabic. Latin, French and German were a piece of cake relative to H and A.