diff --git a/src/encoding/json/bench_test.go b/src/encoding/json/bench_test.go
index 29dbc26d41..709e048a53 100644
--- a/src/encoding/json/bench_test.go
+++ b/src/encoding/json/bench_test.go
@@ -187,3 +187,14 @@ func BenchmarkUnmarshalInt64(b *testing.B) {
 		}
 	}
 }
+
+func BenchmarkIssue10335(b *testing.B) {
+	b.ReportAllocs()
+	var s struct{}
+	j := []byte(`{"a":{ }}`)
+	for n := 0; n < b.N; n++ {
+		if err := Unmarshal(j, &s); err != nil {
+			b.Fatal(err)
+		}
+	}
+}
diff --git a/src/encoding/json/scanner.go b/src/encoding/json/scanner.go
index a4609c8950..38d0b0802b 100644
--- a/src/encoding/json/scanner.go
+++ b/src/encoding/json/scanner.go
@@ -38,8 +38,15 @@ func nextValue(data []byte, scan *scanner) (value, rest []byte, err error) {
 	scan.reset()
 	for i, c := range data {
 		v := scan.step(scan, int(c))
-		if v >= scanEnd {
+		if v >= scanEndObject {
 			switch v {
+			// probe the scanner with a space to determine whether we will
+			// get scanEnd on the next character. Otherwise, if the next character
+			// is not a space, scanEndTop allocates a needless error.
+			case scanEndObject, scanEndArray:
+				if scan.step(scan, ' ') == scanEnd {
+					return data[:i+1], data[i+1:], nil
+				}
 			case scanError:
 				return nil, nil, scan.err
 			case scanEnd: