# most common mistakes made by foreigners



## linguist786

I was just wondering:

When foreigners learn your language, what kind of mistakes do they most commonly get? 

It's quite a hard question since you have to think, but i think it'd be a good idea to have this thread so everyone can learn from it.

As for Gujarati, i've never met or heard anybody actually _learning_ Gujarati as a foreign language, so i can't really comment.

As for English, i think one mistake i often see is when people say (something like) "She spoke me today" or "She wrote me today" (instead of "she spoke/wrote *to* me today") Look at this post for example (first line)​ 
I think in German (since i learn it) it'd have to be word order. Do German people here agree? Word order after "weil" or "dass" always causes a little bit of a problem.​ 
Anyway, what about your language?​


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## Pivra

My mistakes in English are......

I "PLAY" MSN not "USE" MSN

I get IN the car not ON the car

It happens IN Monday not ON Monday

Get Out the car not Get OFF the car


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## Brioche

linguist786 said:
			
		

> I was just wondering:
> 
> When foreigners learn your language, what kind of mistakes do they most commonly get?
> 
> It's quite a hard question since you have to think, but i think it'd be a good idea to have this thread so everyone can learn from it.
> 
> As for Gujarati, i've never met or heard anybody actually _learning_ Gujarati as a foreign language, so i can't really comment.
> 
> As for English, i think one mistake i often see is when people say (something like) "She spoke me today" or "She wrote me today" (instead of "she spoke/wrote *to* me today") Look at this post for example (first line)​
> Anyway, what about your language?​


 
 "She wrote me" is normal American English.


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## Etcetera

Oh I agree, the German word order is something awful! I've never been able to understand why the verd should be in the end of a sentence!

As for Russian, I've got a number of friends who're learning Russian, and the commonest mistake is the agreement and use of tenses. Learners of Russian are often deceived with the myth of free word order in Russian. It's true to an extent, the word order is rather free, but in many cases changing the position of a noun or a verb may change the meaning of the whole sentence. 
Are we talking of orthography and punctuation as well? Then, almost all the learner of Russian whom I know, make some mistakes with spelling. Here's one more myth about the Russian language: words are actually pronounced not wholly according their spelling, and there's also a number of regional varieties of pronunciation. Well, many native speakers of Russian experience the same problems with spelling, so some mistakes wouldn't mark the learner as a foreigner. Same thing with punctuation - the Russian rules of it are just too complex.


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## Krümelmonster

Yes, the verb at the end of a sentence is really special about German language and a common mistake.
Germans learning English often confuse "to get" and "to become", because "come" is in Germany "kommen" and "bekommen" means "to get" (or "to receive")


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## Tatzingo

Pivra said:
			
		

> My mistakes in English are......
> 
> I "PLAY" MSN not "USE" MSN
> 
> I get IN the car not ON the car
> 
> It happens IN Monday not ON Monday
> 
> Get Out the carnot Get OFF the car


Hi,

A minor correction if i may. It looked a bit muddled. ;-)

Incidentally, mistake #2 and #4 could be correct but they give a different meaning. 
eg. Get on the car = Sit on the bonnet/Roof
The corresponding command would be "Get off the car" = Get off the bonnet/roof.

Tatz.

Ps. Colloquially, "Get off the car" could also mean "Don't touch my car!"


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## Tatzingo

Hi,

Regards mistakes that non-natives often make in English.

*Spanish
*Vowels - (I'm no linguist, so are they open/closed or short/long??!)
The following words often sound similar when they are said by by a Spaniard who is able to make the vowel distinction. I even have friends who actively avoid the use of these words altogether!

Sheet/Shit
Peach/Pitch
Beach/Bitch

*French*
This i have heard many many times but only from people with very little knowledge of English. I think it's cute! 
Paul; Thanks so much for coming today!
Pierre; OF nothing!


*As a foreigner in Italy*
I suppose for me, a common mistake is the pronunciation of double consonants in Italian. For example, i make little distinction between;
Sono - Sonno
pene - penne
I'm not too sure how that sounds to a Native Italian's ear... really bad!! Is it obvious?

Also, when i first studied Italian back in the early days, is the use of the English R in all my sentences. I just couldn't roll/trill at all. I'm better now but i remember one time when i had to address a Professor at University and i couldn't pronounce his name... He was Signore Carzo. I almost called him something very rude! (With an English "R", this would be [cart-so])

Tatz.


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## Etcetera

Tatzingo said:
			
		

> *As a foreigner in Italy*
> I suppose for me, a common mistake is the pronunciation of double consonants in Italian. For example, i make little distinction between;
> Sono - Sonno
> pene - penne
> I'm not too sure how that sounds to a Native Italian's ear... really bad!! Is it obvious?


 
Those Italian double consonants were difficult for me, too. In general, I've found recently that English has influenced me so much that when I start to learn some other foreign language, I somehow try to read words in this language according to English rules of pronunciation. It sounded really funny when I tried to read a Finnish text for the first time.


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## Whodunit

Tatzingo said:
			
		

> The corresponding command would be "Get off the car" = Get off the bonnet/roof.


 
Shouldn't it be "get out *of* the car"?

*French*:
I often forget the object pronoun because I'm used to the German and English way where they put their object:

Je te l'ai donné. (I gave it to you./Ich habe es dir gegeben)

The rest is relatively logical. Most foreigners do not understand when they have to put an accent (especially the circumflex), but I'm quite comfortable with them.

*English*:
word order! Should it be:

I write to you only.
I write to only you.
I write only to you.
I only write to you.
Only I write to you.

I think that #1, #4, and #5 are correct, but #5 has another connotation. Natives may correct me.

A common mistake in English is the pronunciation. It is:
'alter
alte'ration
al'ternate

So, how can we know which is correct?


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## Tatzingo

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Shouldn't it be "get out *of* the car"?



Hi,

It depends. Read my post #6. (Second sentence/example and also paragraph beginning "Incidentally...")

Tatz.


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## Tatzingo

Whodunit said:
			
		

> *English*:
> word order! Should it be:
> 
> I write to you only. = Sounds odd. = to you and nobody else
> I write to only you. = Wrong.
> I write only to you. =  and to nobody else
> I only write to you. =  the only thing i do (to you)is write,i don't phone you!
> Only I write to you. =  I am the ONLY person willing to correspond with you by post/email.
> 
> I think that #1, #4, and #5 are correct, but #5 has another connotation. Native may correct me.



That's my opinion.

Tatz.


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## linguist786

Whodunit said:
			
		

> *English*:
> word order! Should it be:
> 
> I think a lot of it depends on which word you emphasise
> 
> I write to you _*only*_. means "I write to you only, and nobody else."
> I write to only you. This sounds a bit clumsy and stilted - nobody would say this.
> I write _*only*_ to you. means the same as #1
> I only write to you. This can be interpreted in two different ways, depending on where you're emphasis is. If you say it like "I only _*write*_ to you" (emphasis on "write") then it would mean that you just write to that person, and nothing else (like phone). But if you say it like "I only write to _*you*_" then it would mean the same as #1
> Only I write to you. (If emphasis is on "I") - I am the _only_ person that writes to you and nobody else does. You could, however, say something like: "Only i write to you, and you don't even reply" (emphasis on "write") which is something slightly different.


That's my opinion.


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## Brazilian dude

In Portuguese I'd have to say verbs is what distinguishes foreigners the most (especially things such as imperfect vs. perfect and subjunctive vs. indicative) and the pronunciation of ão, which comes out as -om from the mouths of many foreigners. But I have to say that I'm impressed at how fast people I have worked with have to come to grips with Portuguese. I've had Canadian, German, American, and Lebanese students and after a few months they speak perfect Portuguese with close to no accent at al.  Either that or I'm a very good teacher.  

Brazilian dude


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## betulina

In Catalan, the most common mistake is the use of "weak" pronouns (_hi_, _en_) either if the student is an English or a Spanish speaker (the ones I know). If they are English they have some troubles with tenses agreement, too, specially with past tense and present perfect.


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## Bienvenidos

I think that the most common mistake in any language is translating literally. Granted, most phrases translate easily from language to language, but sometimes when I see phrases like these translated into English literally, I start to laugh. 

*Bien*


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## Etcetera

Bienvenidos said:
			
		

> I think that the most common mistake in any language is translating literally. Granted, most phrases translate easily from language to language, but sometimes when I see phrases like these translated into English literally, I start to laugh.


 
I agree wholeheartedly! These phrases sound really funny.
You know, Bien, our Finnish teacher at the University loves giving us sentences to translate into Finnish. And, as she's actually a Russian/Finnish bilingual, she often tries to make those sentences easier for translation by using some Finnish constructions in the Russian text. It sounds sometimes very odd, and sometimes extremely amusing. 
I think translating literally may be useful at early stage of learning a language. And a lot of texts in children's textbooks seem to be written in order to make it possible to translate them literally without any serious damage to the text's meaning.


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## badgrammar

Selam Etc.

So what are the most common faults foreigners make when they try to speak Turkish? I am curious .  I'm sure I've made them all!


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## macta123

For learners of Malayalam = Zh (-ur-) sound is very difficult
as well as the different L sounds and R sounds.


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## viereaty_blienmest

*Vietnamese grammar is so easy ^_^ we are not like English, Vietnamese is the same with Chinese but so difficult about the letter and Circumflex Mark:*
*Somewords we use "d" and somewords we use "gi", somewords we use " ả " and somewords we use " ã ", you need to remember that because it doesn't make sense and no rule ^_^ ( like the French and English T_T ) *
*The foreigner's so easy to have that mistake ^_^*


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## vince

Mandarin and Cantonese speakers who say he instead of she when talking about women

French speakers who always use the present perfect ("I have eaten") and never the simple past ("I ate")

many languages like French and Spanish who can't distinguish "long and short" vowels, as someone above mentioned.

many people whose languages don't distinguish between to make and to do, say things like today I am making my homework.

chinese people who don't conjugate verbs ("He talk to me" could be either "He talks to me" or "He talked to me", "He would talk to me", or "He will talk to me") and don't add "s" for plurals ("the dog" could be dog or dogs)


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## andrew0991

Yeah and for many foreigners that try to learn Chinese have major difficulties pronouncing the words especially in Cantonese-probably because of it's flatness. But I have also noticed the same vice versa with many non-oriental languages!


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## Dminor

People are having the same troubles as with German, concerning word order: it's pretty much the same in Dutch.

Furthermore, they experience huge troubles trying to pronounce it correctly: especially g/ch [x] and ui [Vy] seem to be hard.


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## madmorty

The most common mistake I notice with French and Spanish speakers is the old:

'I want *that you do* this,' instead of 'I want *you to do* this.'  I wonder if they don't get taught this at school, because I've heard it so many times.

Another one is saying things like 'the foot of my sister' instead of 'my sister's foot'.  

You can spot speakers of the romance languages a mile off with mistakes like these.  But you always know what they mean, and the mistakes sound quite cute really.


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## Tape2Tape

If your speaking about Spanish speakers of English this is #1 in the Billboard Hot 100 of Mistakes, and it is...

*PEOPLE IS!!*

Despite Depeche Mode being a fairly popular band in this country, the message of their 1980's hit _People ARE People_ never quite got through.

I repeat..
La gente es..  
but
People ARE...

Other tricky ones are
* another/other/the other/the other
* when to use articles and when not to
* not to vs don't
* the present perfect
* something/anything/nothing
* auxiliaries in questions
* present simple with future meaning (_when I'm 64_ etc)
* frightened/ frightening etc
* yet/already/ still
* pronouncing z and s
* vowel sounds (often due to mis-teaching by Spanish teachers of English in state schools .. an _ei-pple_ indeed)

.. I think I'll leave it there but these are the worst!

As for the other way round English speakers have great problems with

* ser and estar
* use of tú or Usted

and quite a few other things. A lot of Spanish people note that English speakers have trouble with thr "RR" in "perro" etc but I find the single R harder unless I want to sound like a total _guiri_...


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## Tape2Tape

Oh and "for to"! 
I can't stand *for to*!!

I heard it in a song once and I nearly died!!

And the pronunciation of *mountain* exactly as it's written - mahountein - arrrggghhh!! Spanish TV presenters are the worst culprits, along with the illiterate journos who constantly print the words *bussines* and *ligth *and spell the name of Tim Burton's favourite actor as *Jhonny Deep. *Google the words Johnny Deep or Jhonny Deep and you will find that ALL of the references are in Spanish (or nearly all). Film magazines, respectable newspapers spell the man's name as *Deep*!! On the cover sometimes!

Excuse me, I'm going to have to lie down...


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## Etcetera

madmorty said:
			
		

> The most common mistake I notice with French and Spanish speakers is the old:
> 
> 'I want *that you do* this,' instead of 'I want *you to do* this.' I wonder if they don't get taught this at school, because I've heard it so many times.


 
Oh, I can recognise in the sentence 'I want that you do this' the same pattern as is used in Russian! It sounds like a real word-by-word translation!
This mistake is rather common among learners of English in Russia, too. But our school teachers used to remind us very often that we shouldn't try to use our own native language's patterns when speaking English.


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## optimistique

A common mistake by certain learners of Dutch is mixing the verbs "*verstaan*" & "*begrijpen*" up. 

They both mean "_to understand"/"comprendre_", but both different aspects of the meaning (Germans use "verstehen" for both, though they have "begreifen" which can only mean "begrijpen").

So in Dutch it happens that you (want to) say: *Ik versta je wel, maar ik begrijp je niet* (which translates litterally as: _I do understand you, but I don't understand you_), when you have heard the words someone said to you and you know which words they are (= 'verstaan'), but you don't understand what the person is trying to say with them, you don't get the meaning (but if you did, you would '_begrijpen_').

I have heard many times someone say for example: "Aha, ik *versta* het" , when someone explained something to that person. Of course it should be: "aha, ik *begrijp* het". 


Same thing with "*betekenen*" en "*bedoelen*" (same story: both 'to mean' in English, but for a Dutch person VERY different meanings). This one however is not problematic for Germans ("bezeichnen" & "meinen").

_"Wat bedoelt dit woord?" (What does this word mean? --> what does it want to say?) _Such a cute mistake


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## vince

When English people learn Romance languages, they like to say "I wash my hands" instead of "I wash my hands to myself"

so you hear "Lavo mis manos" / "Je laves mes mains" instead of the correct "Me lavo las manos" / "Je me lave les mains"

They also can't get savoir/saber and connaitre/conocer right.

They also leave out "que" when it means "that" whenever they feel like it.


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## french4beth

As a former English as a Second Language Instructor, I would say that aside from idiomatic expressions (which are typically difficult to learn in any language), students had lots of problems with 
-prepositions (i.e. which ones to use) example: hurry up (they would look upwards), come on (onto what object?)
-expressions using "get + word" and "make + word" and "do" (or the use of the word 'do' in general)


> get ready, get up in the morning (get out of bed), get angry
> make your bed (wasn't it already constructed?), make dinner, make reservations (make a phone call & the host/hostess makes reservations)
> do the dishes (clean/wash the dishes), do a good job, do your hair, (primp/preen/curl/comb), do the lawn (cut the grass)


In French and other foreign languages, for me, gender of nouns is difficult, as is the subjunctive verb case (when to use).


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## 地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori

Yes wether a noun is masculin or feminin is very hard to learn in french.

Anyway, in french people tend to make the mistake of saying.
"Il est venu à ma maison." because they don't know that you don't say, "à la maison de ****", but you say, "chez ****"
People also have a hard time with COD's, compliment d'objet direct(I don't know what this is in english) People also have a hard time learning the verbs who's passé composé use the verb "être" instead of "avoir".

Subjonctive(a verb form) is the hardest to learn from my experiences, just because it's alot of exceptions!


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## Etcetera

地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori said:
			
		

> Yes wether a noun is masculin or feminin is very hard to learn in french.


That's also a hard thing to learn for foreigners who're studying Russian, especially for the English and Italian, however strange it may seem. I had once a nice discussion with two Italian students of Russian, and we noticed that there're nouns which are feminine in Italian but masculine in Russian and vice versa. For example, the Italian noun _casa_ 'house' is feminine, and it's translated into Russian as дом [dom], which is masculine...


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## 地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori

I think house is feminin in most Latin-derived languages, if they use feminin and masculin.


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## Etcetera

In Spanish it is so, to my knowledge, and the same we have in Piedmontese. The Latin _domus _is also feminine...


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## maybe4ever

Whodunit said:
			
		

> *English*:
> word order! Should it be:
> 
> I write to you only.
> I write to only you.
> I write only to you.
> I only write to you.
> Only I write to you.


 
I write to you only.   This means I write to you, and you only.
I write*","* to only you. This can mean to same thing, I'd put a comma after write.
I write only to you.   This kind of sounds funny. But I dont think it's wrong. I might would put a comma after only.
I only write to you.   This is the best choice and the one I would use.
Only I write to you.  You would only see this written instead of spoken though.


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## ceann-feachd

In Scottish Gaelic, there is a rule that nouns following verbal nouns (gerunds) be in the genetive case.

Tha mi a' faicinn an cù. wrong

Tha mi a' faicinn *a' choin*. (I see the dog)

Also, there is another rule that only the last noun in a genitive structure can have a definite article.

Others often forget that there are no direct words for "yes" and "no" in Gaelic.


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## Pivra

Mis errores en español son:

todavía vs. ya
Spanglishness
por vs para  .... sí...todavía T_T'


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## robbie_SWE

The most common mistake made by foreigners when they speak Swedish is the usage of articles. In Swedish we have *uttrum *and *neutrum*. 

En hund = a dog
En blomma = a flower
Ett tåg = a train
Ett hus =a house 

There are no rules when it comes to en/ett, it all depends on what sounds better. Saying "ett hund" or "en hus" makes my skin crawl  

Besides mistakes with the articles, foreigners have trouble with pronounciation. In Swedish (which isn't a phonetic language) we have letter combinations that result in a specific sound. The [sh]-sound, like in the English word "sheep", can be created by combining many different letters. It all depends on the vowls. Ex: 

sj- = sjukhus (hospital)
tj- = tjäna (to earn)
sk- = skilja (to part)
ch- = chans (chance)
sch- = schack (chess)

There are many more combinations, but these are the most common. Making the language even more difficult, the dialects are very different depending on where you live. I live in Skåne and the [sh]-sound is totally different down here!  

Swedish is overall a very hard language to learn! 

Compare these two dialects with eachother. The first one is from Stockholm, where "real Swedish" is spoken. The second is a typical dialect from Skåne!  
http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Ljud/Svealand/Sodermanland/Sorunda/soa_ym_1i.wav
http://swedia.ling.umu.se/Gotaland/Skane/Bara/om.html


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## dahut

Hello

Some common mistakes made by Castillian learners:
Ser/Estar (those verbs are mixed and messed and shifted). It's not the same "to be polite" than "to be well-educated".
Subjunctive, for some people _it_ doesn't exist at all, and we use it every day 
Prepositions
The [c] sound (sorry, I wrote [r] previously)

Mistakes we, Castillian native speakers, do (when learning other languages):
Pronuntiation (due to the _lack_ of phonems in Castillian/Spanish: e.g. 5 vowels! Try to tell a British English speaker to deal with just 5 sounds !)


			
				Tatzingo said:
			
		

> Sheet/Shit
> Peach/Pitch
> Beach/Bitch


Tatzingo, this would help you to understand why 

looong complecated sentences
Prepositions
And many more  but I won't tell them because I don't want to ruin my day 



			
				madmorty said:
			
		

> 'I want *that you do* this,' instead of 'I want *you to do* this.' I wonder if they don't get taught this at school, because I've heard it so many times.


 Yes, we are taught _that_ at school  _I'm afraid that we are in front of a literal translation from Castillian into English_ 


			
				optimistique said:
			
		

> *Ik versta je wel, maar ik begrijp je niet* (which translates litterally as: _I do understand you, but I don't understand you_)


 First, I don't speak Dutch (I wish I could!). Secondly, I guessed what you meant and I would like to say that we have a _saying_ "*Te entiendo pero no te comprendo*" (It's mainly sarcastic) and it's the same translation that you gave for the Dutch sentence.

Bye


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## TarisWerewolf

地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori said:
			
		

> People also have a hard time learning the verbs who's passé composé use the verb "être" instead of "avoir".



One trick I learned for that in my french classes in elementary school was the name MRS VANDER TAMP (a totally fictitious name, but it worked like so: *M*onter-*R*ester-*S*ortir  *V*enir-*A*ller-*N*aître-*D*escendre-*E*ntrer-*R*etourner  *T*omber-*A*rriver-*M*ourir-*P*artir ) I always thought it was kinda creative and it totally worked for me.



> Subjonctive(a verb form) is the hardest to learn from my experiences, just because it's alot of exceptions!



The subjunctive is hard for most English speakers to get their heads around in any language (be it French, German, Italian, Spanish or whatever). It's mostly 'cause the English subjunctive has pretty much died out and been replaced with the indicative. There are only a few phrases left that use the subjunctive ("if I were rich ..."), and even they're starting to lose ground to the indicative tenses.


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## panjabigator

I'd say with Hindi, the biggest problem is pronounciation!!!!  People prenounce the aspirates and non aspirates the same!  The retroflex letters all become R for learners as well.  There are also some conjugation and gender issues.  

I make a whole bunch of Spanish errors...dont even get me started!


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## Knuð

The most common mistake made by foreigners is the confusion when it comes to the genders of the nouns. In Norwegian we have three (!) genders of the nouns: male, female and neuter.

Example:

1. (male) *en gutt* - *gutten* | flere *gutter* - alle *guttene*
2. (female) *ei jente* - *jenta* | flere *jenter* - alle *jentene*
3. (neuter) *et hus* - *huset* | flere *hus* - alle *husene*

1. *a boy* - *the boy* | several *boys* - all *the boys*
2. *a girl* - *the girl* | several *girls* - all *the girls*
3. *a house* - *the house* | several *houses* - all *the houses*

The bolded words are the important words, the others are just added to make the context clearer. The underlined words and endings show the system in Norwegian. Instead of having an article to express the definite form of the noun, we instead add something to the end of the noun. You can clearly see this in the singular forms of the male and neuter genders. The article is just placed at the end of the noun.

These genders mustn't be mixed up. Otherwise it would sound stupid. You are allowed to mix the male and female to a certain point (without sounding stupid, I mean), but never mix the neuter with the other two. For instance it would be like saying "el mujer" and "la hombre" in Spanish or like saying "la fils" and "le fille" in French, only that it would sound even dumber when mixing them in Norwegian. I won't compare it to English, as the system in English is different.

So here is the real problem of it all: In Norwegian, the nouns don't follow any rules, pattern or system. This means that you have to learn the gender of every single noun (!). And as you add either -en, -a or -et to the very noun itself, it sounds really stupid when you add the wrong ending.

Another problem (not only for foreigners, but also for native Norwegians... even the adults) is the splitting of words. In Norwegian we add words together instead of splitting them up. Here is a quite random example:

IQ is an abbreviation for "intelligence quotient". In Norwegian, the abbreviation is the same, but the word would be "intelligenskvotient". Many Norwegians would rather write "intelligens kvotient", which is wrong. By doing so you could get a totally different meaning. Example:

Ananasringer (Pineapple rings)
Ananas ringer (Pineapple calls)

I'm sure robbie SWE will be able to explain this further, as it is the same in Swedish. (robbie, why don't you explain the difference between "sett på en skygglapp" and "sett på en skygg lapp", if that is the correct spelling)

I'll add some more mistakes when I have time.


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## julivert

Now that I´ve stopped laughing myself silly with Tape 2 tape´s selection of mistakes Spanish speakers make, can I just add my pet hate of adding an "e" on words beginning with an s - makes you sound like Manuel of Fawlty Towers. Oh yes, and pronouncing cupboard "cup-boa -hard". 
The Johnny Depp comment hit home, I translated a film article not long ago and the published edition had his name changed! 
Spanish natives find it hard to pronounce a word that hasn´t got a few vowels in it separating the consonants. Take the word "crisps", some will say  "creeps" and others "escrip". 
My personal difficulties with Spanish - the subjunctive, proper use of the past tenses, ser/estar and el/la /los/las  articles.


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## andrew0991

ahahahah I agree with Julivert, I can't seem to keep myself on track with the use of past tenses.

Well I think the use of ser/estar is easy after you get used to using them correctly - I used to use the acronym "H.E.L.P" (h=health e=emotions l=locations p=present progressive) to keep myself on track with ser/estar.


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## panjabigator

DISHES, dar, ir, ser, hacer, estar, saber
this is some mnemonic I used in high school to remember irregular subjunctive verbs (I think...I dont use it anymore). It just came to mind.

I think a common mistake that spanish learners make is with the "v."  It is suppose to pronounced like a "b" although I still here it as a "v" from many.


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## Joelline

In the forums, the most common mistake non-native English speakers make is in asking questions:  

They often write "what means adjective"?  when they should say "what does adjective mean?"

In French, the errors I make most often occur when I'm using the subjunctive.


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## Etcetera

Joelline said:
			
		

> In the forums, the most common mistake non-native English speakers make is in asking questions:
> 
> They often write "what means adjective"? when they should say "what does adjective mean?"


Do they really?.. Ah so, now I can understand why our teachers used to pay so much attention to the art of asking questions. . I somehow managed to catch it at once, and it was so boring when the teacher entered the classroom and said, 'And now, once more about the Wh- questions...'


----------



## Honour

i have noticed that most of turkish learning or speaking foreigners find vowel harmony rather difficult. In turkish, a suffix can either start with the letters a/ı/o/u (i dunno how to say it, their sounds are bass) or start with the letters e/i/ö/ü (high freq. equivalents of the previous ones) according to last vowel of the word they wll be added.
For instance;
"de" suffix means "at"
okul:school: 
okul+de> okuld*a*: at (the) school 
however
ev: home
evde: at home


----------



## dahut

Knuð said:
			
		

> Another problem (not only for foreigners, but also for native Norwegians... even the adults) is the splitting of words


And what about mixing up "og" (meaning "and") and "aa" (meaning "to". Sorry, I can't write the proper "a + º " with this keyboard) I've seen that more in native speakers than in foreigners 



			
				Knuð said:
			
		

> These genders mustn't be mixed up [...] only that it would sound even dumber when mixing them in Norwegian.


 Well, *that *explains quite a few things


----------



## Knuð

dahut said:
			
		

> And what about mixing up "og" (meaning "and") and "aa" (meaning "to". Sorry, I can't write the proper "a + º " with this keyboard) I've seen that more in native speakers than in foreigners


Yes, this is a common mistake among native speakers. I don't know about foreigners. The reason why they are mixed up is because they sound exactly the same when pronounced, and they are very common words. They are very common words in English as well, but in English they are not pronounced similarly. Here are some examples of the correct way of using the words:

Jeg har ikke noe *å* gjøre. - I don't have anything *to* do.
Vil du bli med ut *og* leke? - Do you want to come out *and* play?

"Å gjøre" in Norwegian corresponds to "to do" in English. "Å leke" in Norwegan corresponds to "to play" in English. "Og leke" in my example above would sound just like "å leke", so it may be confusing to certain people.


----------



## optimistique

dahut said:
			
		

> First, I don't speak Dutch (I wish I could!). Secondly, I guessed what you meant and I would like to say that we have a _saying_ "*Te entiendo pero no te comprendo*" (It's mainly sarcastic) and it's the same translation that you gave for the Dutch sentence.



I have crossed my mind about this, but "_entiendo_" means '_I hear', _doesn't it_? _In Dutch you can even add another layer in this way: *"Ik hoor je wel, maar ik versta je niet, dus hoe moet ik je dan begrijpen?"*

(= "I hear you, but I don't understand you, so how should I understand you?)

But you're right, in Dutch "_ik hoor je_" (te entiendo) and "ik versta je" (also "te entiendo" in this case) can be used through each other very often, because it's very rare that you would want to distinguish between just hearing someone and hearing what that person said. But still you are able to do so in Dutch if you would want to.


Also, the most common mistake is of course "gender". I guess it will always be the biggest problem in most languages that have it.
Dutch has three gender, but actively only "two" (a lot of words are both male and female, and both these gender have the same article). The problem lies in the distinction between "non-neuter" (_mannelijk/vrouwelijk_) and "neuter" (_onzijdig_), just like in Norwegian and Swedish.


----------



## Joelline

Etcetera,

You obviously had a good teacher--or rather your teacher obviously had an exceptional student!  Take a look at the first posts in the English only forum.  It's quite amazing how many learners have trouble with asking questions even though the rest of their post is quite good.


----------



## dahut

optimistique said:
			
		

> I have crossed my mind about this, but "_entiendo_" means '_I hear', _doesn't it_? _In Dutch you can even add another layer in this way: *"Ik hoor je wel, maar ik versta je niet, dus hoe moet ik je dan begrijpen?"*
> 
> (= "I hear you, but I don't understand you, so how should I understand you?)
> 
> But you're right, in Dutch "_ik hoor je_" (te entiendo) and "ik versta je" (also "te entiendo" in this case) can be used through each other very often, because it's very rare that you would want to distinguish between just hearing someone and hearing what that person said. But still you are able to do so in Dutch if you would want to.


comprender = to understand
comprendo = I understand
entender = to understand
entiendo = I understand
escuchar = to listen
escucho = I listen
oír = to hear
oigo = I hear


Although, as you pointed out, "entender" could have the idea of "escuchar" in a certain context, it's not the usual.
E.g. You're telling me an important event that just happened to you and I say: Te entiendo. Meaning, more or less, that I follow your story by listening to you or because I'm listening to you I can understand what you tell me. This is complex to explain!  And because I cannot explain myself better, you could tell me: Te entiendo, pero no te comprendo


----------



## dahut

Knuð said:
			
		

> The reason why they are mixed up is because they sound exactly the same when pronounced, and they are very common words.


I know they sound exactly the same, but they aren't used exactly the same way.
*og* is a conjuction and "*å*" marks the infinitive form (I changed keyboards )
It's like an Englishman mixing up "to" and "two" when writing them.
I've just eaten to apples.
I'm going two NY tomorrow.
_It's the first example that crossed my mind, so you probably could come with something better_.


----------



## Knuð

dahut said:
			
		

> I know they sound exactly the same, but they aren't used exactly the same way.
> *og* is a conjuction and "*å*" marks the infinitive form (I changed keyboards )


That's right. And the English words "to", "two" and "too" are good comparisons - they sound the same, are common words, yet the meaning is not the same.


----------



## Etcetera

Joelline said:
			
		

> Etcetera,
> 
> You obviously had a good teacher--or rather your teacher obviously had an exceptional student! Take a look at the first posts in the English only forum. It's quite amazing how many learners have trouble with asking questions even though the rest of their post is quite good.


Thank you, Joelline. 
I've looked through several posts. You're right! 
BTW, when I was taking my entrance exam in English, one of the tasks was to write four of five (I don't remember exactly) questions to a certain text. This task didn't seem hard to me then, but now I can see the point of it.


----------



## optimistique

dahut said:
			
		

> comprender = to understand
> comprendo = I understand
> entender = to understand
> entiendo = I understand
> escuchar = to listen
> escucho = I listen
> oír = to hear
> oigo = I hear
> 
> 
> Although, as you pointed out, "entender" could have the idea of "escuchar" in a certain context, it's not the usual.
> E.g. You're telling me an important event that just happened to you and I say: Te entiendo. Meaning, more or less, that I follow your story by listening to you or because I'm listening to you I can understand what you tell me. This is complex to explain!  And because I cannot explain myself better, you could tell me: Te entiendo, pero no te comprendo



O, that's interesting! So then probably you make the same distinction as in Dutch. Is this something a lot of foreigners make mistakes with in Spanish too, then?

(PS: I was fooled by the French "entendre", which means 'to hear'. I unfortunately don't know that much Spanish)


----------



## linguist786

I have to say another mistake I see often in English is people saying "Can you explain me this?" (should be: can you explain this to me?)


----------



## avalon2004

I've noticed that a Russian person I know always gets mixed up with the letters "w" and "v", pronouncing village as 'willage' and 'verbs' as 'werbs'. I also noticed that she often omits the determiners 'the' and 'a'; for example she says "shall we have [ ] break now?"


----------



## cyanista

avalon2004 said:
			
		

> I've noticed that a Russian person I know always gets mixed up with the letters "w" and "v", pronouncing village as 'willage' and 'verbs' as 'werbs'.


Really? I don't know anyone who'd have problems with that. I know that Russians often confuse short and long vowels and hate the "th". 



> I also noticed that she often omits the determiners 'the' and 'a'; for example she says "shall we have [ ] break now?"



Guilty as charged.  Russian doesn't have articles at all (and does remarkably well without them!) so most of us Russian speakers overlook them on a daily basis, some scornfully so.


----------



## karada

avalon2004 said:
			
		

> I've noticed that a Russian person I know always gets mixed up with the letters "w" and "v", pronouncing village as 'willage' and 'verbs' as 'werbs'. I also noticed that she often omits the determiners 'the' and 'a'; for example she says "shall we have [ ] break now?"


I knew a German who spoke excellent English but said "willage" for "village" and "wolleyball" for "volleyball."


----------



## ukuca

In turkish I guess the main problem is the accordation of the vowel sounds as mentioned by Turk. Also Turkish learners generally misuse (or don't use) the euphonic letters (ş, s, n, y). For exemple:
ş: altı*ş*ar                  altı = six, -ar: a suffix    (means two apiece)
s: Çocuğun oda*s*ı       oda = room,  -ı: possession suffix for him/her/it    (means the room of child)
y: Kaynak su*y*u        su = water     -u possession suffix for him/her/it  (means spring water)
n: Oda*n*ın kapısı    oda= room        -ın possession suffix for him/her/it    (means the door of the room)


----------



## Taya

This discussion topic is really interesting. I am thinking about surveying literature concerning this issue. Anyone can recommend me papers, journal articles, or books? Thanks a lot


----------



## karuna

The most common mistakes of Russians who learn Latvian are: 1) not pronouncing long vowels and diftongs (_pīle _as _pile, bietes _as_ bites_), 2) misusing noun cases – these things are similar in both languages but not excatly, 3) not using the definite ending of adjectives when necessary (_šis skaist*ai*s dārzs_).


----------



## NikaRasmussenWelling

Taya said:
			
		

> This discussion topic is really interesting. I am thinking about surveying literature concerning this issue. Anyone can recommend me papers, journal articles, or books? Thanks a lot



Hi,

In addition, if you have internet access, perform a Google search for a particular book you wish to look up.  If you do not know the title, another option is to enter in the search field, mistakes foreigners commonly make ,<in your chosen language to research>, or mistakes foreigners should avoid <in your chosed language to research>.

I hope this helps.

--Nika


----------



## skatoulitsa

For greek, I think most people have trouble with conjugations. And I'm not talking only about verb conjugations. In greek everything is conjugated, nouns, adjectives... everything...
And since this doesn't happen in many languages, people often trouble with it. Here is an example:

ο άνεμος       ---> the wind (as a subject) : e.g the wind is blowing
του ανέμου    ---> of the wind : e.g. the strength of the wind
τον άνεμο     --->  the wind (as an object) : e.g. I felt the wind
ω άνεμε        ---> wind : e.g. oh wind please blow...

Equavalently, in plural form:
οι άνεμοι
των ανέμων
τους ανέμους
ω άνεμοι


----------



## Taya

Many thanks, Nika.


----------



## maree

Well, as I guess is the same for all languages. The mistakes made when learning a foreign language depends on your mother tongue.

English people tend to cut the word _som _(meaning something like _that_)

Eng: It is hard to see what development (THAT) takes place in the series 
Nor: Det er vanskelig å se hvilken utvikling (SOM) tar sted i serien 

They also divide the words too much. While in Norway we write _skoleklokke_ (School bell) English people would write _skole klokke_. This becomes confusing because in Norwegian we don't have the word "the", instead we make the word spesific by adding _-en_. 

-En skoleklokke/Skoleklokken

If the word is separated it becomes _skole klokken_ and that makes "skole" sound like an adjective.

The gender of the nouns is also a problem. My mother's lived in Norway for thirty years now, and she still mixes them up.


----------



## sound shift

When speaking English:

*Spanish* speakers have trouble with "impure "S"" ("I am going to eschool"), with word-final "M" ("I will speak to hin") and with the -ing ending, which they often render as -in ("she was playin the piano").

*Dutch and German *speakers seem to find it difficult to pronounce a word-final voiced consonant and sometimes write the word as they "hear" it - hence the signs advertising "Life Music". They also pronounce "bat" as "bet".

*French *speakers have trouble with diphthongs and long vowels. Stressing the correct syllable is difficult for them, particularly in words like "development" and "photographer".

*Swedish *speakers have trouble with voiced "S": "reason" becomes "reasson".


----------



## arugunu

badgrammar said:
			
		

> Selam Etc.
> 
> So what are the most common faults foreigners make when they try to speak Turkish? I am curious .  I'm sure I've made them all!




I think you should firstly ask if we see turkish speaking foreigners : )))
And my answer would be "Only one time, and he's an english teacher here and living here for 12 years. He's really good at it. I haven't noticed any mistakes he made."
What are the mistakes you think you usually make?


----------



## badgrammar

arugunu said:
			
		

> I think you should firstly ask if we see turkish speaking foreigners : )))
> And my answer would be "Only one time, and he's an english teacher here and living here for 12 years. He's really good at it. I haven't noticed any mistakes he made."
> What are the mistakes you think you usually make?



The real question is "what are the mistakes I usually don't make"?  It is a very difficult language and I have absolutely no command of it.  I just know a lot of vocabulary and have a vague idea of the basic conjugations and some everyday phrases. Asla iyi Türkçe konuşmayacağım .


----------



## Rogo

Not so much a mistake as a common difficulty: Norwegian, especially around Oslo, has a very special tone or "melody". Foreigners often give up and just use the melody of their native language. Or, if they do catch on, they do it correctly but sometimes exaggerate it (urdu speakers). This is seldom a problem, because usually the tone does not carry much meaning.

In a few cases, the melody is important, as in bønner(beans)/bønder(farmers) which are pronounced the same, apart from the tone.

In this case, "bønner" is pronounced with a tone that starts out high, falls, and then turns upward again, all on the first syllable, so that the second syllable ends up pretty much where the first one started out. "Bønder", on the other hand, is just low on the first and high on the second syllable.


----------



## sound shift

Here are some of the mistakes made by Turks when writing or speaking English.

1.) Dotting of capital "I".
2.) Omission of articles ("in Seljuk era", etc.)
3.) Insertion of extra vowels in speech ("biridge" instead of "bridge").
4.) Use of "too much" when "very much" is appropriate: "I like basketball too much".
5.) Pronouncing "not" as Southern English "nut".
6.) The invention of oxytones on the French model: "She is archeolog".


----------



## Tensai

Westerners who learn Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) speaks Chinese like speaking English, like singing a song, but since Chinese is a tonal language, if you pronounce in wrong tone, it can totally change the meaning of the word or sentence.


----------



## idania

ist really funny to hear this commun mistake.

personal I think that the accent of spanish people (in english) is diferent that latinoamerican people(in  general). for example we (nicaraguan) used to "eat" the last letter in a sentence(in spanish) and this mistake is also in english or oder lenguage.

Mistake made by forgeigners in spanish:

articulos una uno o un. el, la

diference between ser y estar "yo tengo 13 años"
                                           yo estoy en managua

in spanish we used diferent verbs, but that is also funny when some(latino or spanish) said I have 14

I agree with someone ( i dont remember his-her name) that spanish(portuges and italian too) is particulary easy to learn. but i don't kwon the reason.


----------



## unefemme1

Tatzingo said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Regards mistakes that non-natives often make in English.
> 
> *Spanish*
> Vowels - (I'm no linguist, so are they open/closed or short/long??!)
> The following words often sound similar when they are said by by a Spaniard who is able to make the vowel distinction. I even have friends who actively avoid the use of these words altogether!
> 
> Sheet/Shit
> Peach/Pitch
> Beach/Bitch
> 
> *French*
> This i have heard many many times but only from people with very little knowledge of English. I think it's cute!
> Paul; Thanks so much for coming today!
> Pierre; OF nothing!
> 
> 
> *As a foreigner in Italy*
> I suppose for me, a common mistake is the pronunciation of double consonants in Italian. For example, i make little distinction between;
> Sono - Sonno
> pene - penne
> I'm not too sure how that sounds to a Native Italian's ear... really bad!! Is it obvious?
> 
> Also, when i first studied Italian back in the early days, is the use of the English R in all my sentences. I just couldn't roll/trill at all. I'm better now but i remember one time when i had to address a Professor at University and i couldn't pronounce his name... He was Signore Carzo. I almost called him something very rude! (With an English "R", this would be [cart-so])
> 
> Tatz.


 
Yes, for the French speakers, it does sound cute to us English natives  I think for me, (I'm learning French) the hard part is conjugating certain verbs into the different tenses. Also the use of c'/ce/cette/il in sentences. I know it can all mean this/that/it so I often confuse the different uses of each. Also the arrangement of words and the agreements...I struggled alot when I first learnt French! But otherwise, I think I've got the pronunciation part down pat!


----------



## unefemme1

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Shouldn't it be "get out *of* the car"?
> 
> *French*:
> I often forget the object pronoun because I'm used to the German and English way where they put their object:
> 
> Je te l'ai donné. (I gave it to you./Ich habe es dir gegeben)
> 
> The rest is relatively logical. Most foreigners do not understand when they have to put an accent (especially the circumflex), but I'm quite comfortable with them.
> 
> *English*:
> word order! Should it be:
> 
> I write to you only.
> I write to only you.
> I write only to you.
> I only write to you.
> Only I write to you.
> 
> I think that #1, #4, and #5 are correct, but #5 has another connotation. Natives may correct me.
> 
> A common mistake in English is the pronunciation. It is:
> 'alter
> alte'ration
> al'ternate
> 
> So, how can we know which is correct?


 
I don't know anyone who uses the structure of #2. The rest all mean the same thing, except for # 5. Sentence #5 means only that person, the "I", will write to the person that is "you". Otherwise apart from #2, the sentences are all fine. The most common sentences are #3, 4 and 5.

And yes, it should be get out OF the car, instead of just get out the car. However both are gramatically correct but just mean different things. _Get out the car _can also mean to take the car out, eg get the car out of the garage. I'm not sure if it's ok to just say _get out the car _but in French I'm sure 'of' is used.


----------



## unefemme1

vince said:
			
		

> Mandarin and Cantonese speakers who say he instead of she when talking about women
> 
> French speakers who always use the present perfect ("I have eaten") and never the simple past ("I ate")
> 
> many languages like French and Spanish who can't distinguish "long and short" vowels, as someone above mentioned.
> 
> many people whose languages don't distinguish between to make and to do, say things like today I am making my homework.
> 
> chinese people who don't conjugate verbs ("He talk to me" could be either "He talks to me" or "He talked to me", "He would talk to me", or "He will talk to me") and don't add "s" for plurals ("the dog" could be dog or dogs)



For Mandarin/cantonese speakers, I'm pretty sure they mean "she" when they refer to women. It just sounds the same, but in writing its different  Also to say "they", they use the same word, but add an extra word after it. Just to make things difficult lol.

For French, speakers wouldn't use the simple perfect/simple past because it is reserved for writing, eg newspapers, magazines, etc. When speaking they use the normal perfect tense. 

I think Chinese people say things like, "he talk to me" because they have translated it straight from Chinese. In Chinese there is no such thing  as an 's' per se, so when they say "dogs" they just use the word "dog" in the singular form.


----------



## harr1s32

I speak American English natively and have studied Spanish for seven years now, just taking and passing the AP Spanish language test with a four; the most common mistakes I hear/see from non-native english speakers are as follows:

Incorrect: I use to...
Correct: I used to...
This is very hard to learn in english, especially orally because we slur the two together so quickly.  It's also hard because I know at least in Spanish they don't use helping verbs to change tense (other than haber), they use a derivation of the infinite form in this case to make the imperfect tense.

Incorrect: Ex. - Something is not meaning... etc
Correct: Something means... etc
Not ALWAYS incorrect, and I notice this with english speakers learning spanish as well, an excessive use of the present progressive tense, it's confusing and there's no standardized rule I know (other than present progressive for _immediate_ present), it only comes with experience.

The final mistake I see/hear from everyone involves pluralizing nouns which is really not fair because we have so many exceptions in english; the most common would be:

Incorrect: the childrens (not possesive)
Correct: children

But hey, I'm sure we sound pretty silly learning other languages too!


----------



## Niloufar_k221

I think the most commen mistake people make when learning persian is 1.the pronunciation of words since you've got /kh/ and /jh/ and some vowels that are new to them. and 2.is that persian is not spoken the way it's written.
Like in english most of the time you write formally like for example I want to rather than I wanna.and alot of people specially the british I should think don't talk as casual and informal.
In persain spoken language is for all in an informal way and that's one of the major problems learners encounter


----------



## vince

French people also don't know how to distinguish in/to/at, since French people use a different system than English and curiously enough, Spanish.

So you see them saying "Welcome in France!" or "I arrived to the train station"



			
				unefemme1 said:
			
		

> For Mandarin/cantonese speakers, I'm pretty sure they mean "she" when they refer to women. It just sounds the same, but in writing its different  Also to say "they", they use the same word, but add an extra word after it. Just to make things difficult lol.



No actually they mix up both she with he and he with she. I guess when they write they have more time to think.

But curiously they don't mix up it with he and she, even though it is also pronounced "keoi" (Cantonese). Maybe because it is used less often?


----------



## arugunu

vince said:
			
		

> French people also don't know how to distinguish in/to/at, since French people use a different system than English and curiously enough, Spanish.
> 
> So you see them saying "Welcome in France!" or "I arrived to the train station"


.

You know, Turkish people make the same preposition mistakes when they're writing or speaking, and they (we) continue making them until we get used to using them. 

Because in turkish we say : I've arrived to the airport.
                                      Please, don't be mad to me!
                                      There's a great documentary in BBC tonight.
                                      Why are you interested with this job?

There are plenty more examples for that, but since i'm used to using these prepositions i could only think of these four sentences.


----------



## vince

That reminds me

Many times, Spanish speakers say "in" when they really mean "on"

"The book is in the table"

because in Spanish, "en" can mean both "on" or "in".

I don't really get this though, since if "en" can be replaced with "dentro de" then it's "in". If it can be replaced by "sobre" then it's "on".

They also like to say "doubt"  when they really mean " question" (duda)


----------



## sound shift

A mistake made all over the world is to reproduce in writing the sound of the English "heard" in the head.

E.g. 1.) A Spanish speaker reads "I should have called you". Because the sound of an English "d" is not found in word-final position in Spanish, the Spanish speaker may well "hear" the sentence as "I should have call you". Later, when the Spanish speaker needs to write the sentence, he/she writes "I should have call you".

E.g. 2.) German does not admit a voiced "s" (as in "rise") in word-final position, so when the German speaker sees the English "lose" (voiced "s") he/she may well "hear" an unvoiced "s". "Loose" has an unvoiced "s", so the German speaker may write "loose" when he/she means "lose".

Etc.


----------



## BlueWolf

Tatzingo said:


> *As a foreigner in Italy*
> I suppose for me, a common mistake is the pronunciation of double consonants in Italian. For example, i make little distinction between;
> Sono - Sonno
> pene - penne
> I'm not too sure how that sounds to a Native Italian's ear... really bad!! Is it obvious?


I have the opposite problem.  At school no one told me double consonants are pronunced as single in English, so now I'm used to think they are pronunced as double.
Well actually all English spelling is so confused that I'm never sure about how pronuncing a word correctly.

Surely the most common mistake in Italian is wronging genders and numbers.


----------



## DrWatson

To my mind the most common mistakes made by Finnish people writing English are the articles. There are no definite or indefinite articles in Finnish, so it takes some practice. 

The correct spelling of words is also sometimes a problem since Finnish is a phonetical language i.e. the words are written as they are pronounced (there are a few exceptions, of course).


----------



## Etcetera

DrWatson said:


> To my mind the most common mistakes made by Finnish people writing English are the articles. There are no definite or indefinite articles in Finnish, so it takes some practice.
> 
> The correct spelling of words is also sometimes a problem since Finnish is a phonetical language i.e. the words are written as they are pronounced (there are a few exceptions, of course).


Interestingly, the thing is exactly the same with Russian students of English.
Articles are difficult for us, as we have no articles in Russian, and no rule can describe all the cases where articles should be used. 
As for the spelling... You know, many Russians have problems with the correct spelling even when they're writing in their native language. Don't the Finnish have the same problem with their spelling? To me, Finnish spelling seems really difficult - the words are so long!..


----------



## optimistique

sound shift said:


> A mistake made all over the world is to reproduce in writing the sound of the English "heard" in the head.
> 
> E.g. 2.) German does not admit a *voiced "s"* (as in "rise") in word-final position, so when the German speaker sees the English "lose" (voiced "s") he/she may well "hear" an unvoiced "s". "Loose" has an unvoiced "s", so the German speaker may write "loose" when he/she means "lose".
> 
> Etc.



Funny. In Dutch there does not exist such a thing as a _voiced 's_', because a voiced s, is a 'z'.
It's not that we don't hear the voiced consonants in word-final position. It's just that in Dutch a consonant is never voiced in word-final, so we're merely applying the Dutch phonological rules when pronouncing English (same reason why we don't aspirate). On top of that, in Dutch you have people who pronounce the 'è' as /e/ in 'bed', or as /ae/ in 'bad' like me. 
Again, we hear the difference, but I just don't know how to pronounce the /e/ as in 'bed' properly. 
Likewise, (Dutch) people from outside of my province think I pronounce the 'è' as /a/ while for me they pronounce it as /I/.


----------



## DrWatson

Etcetera said:


> Interestingly, the thing is exactly the same with Russian students of English.
> Articles are difficult for us, as we have no articles in Russian, and no rule can describe all the cases where articles should be used.
> As for the spelling... You know, many Russians have problems with the correct spelling even when they're writing in their native language. Don't the Finnish have the same problem with their spelling? To me, Finnish spelling seems really difficult - the words are so long!..



Well, of course we make spelling errors but in general Finnish is easy to write because in most cases the pronounciation indicates exactly how the word's written. And since the stress is (nearly) always on the first syllable (in e.g. Russian it changes, right?), we have one less things to worry about. In a few exceptions e.g. a consonant sounds doubled but is actually written with one. For example, *nestekaasu *(liquified petroleum gas) is pronounced /nestek:aasu/.

And about the length of the words, surprisingly many Finnish people do have problems with compound words. The rule of thumb is that the parts forming the compound word are written together. Still, some Finns separate the parts. Maybe even we think that words can be too long so we part them?


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## sound shift

optimistique said:


> Funny. In Dutch there does not exist such a thing as a _voiced 's_', because a voiced s, is a 'z'.
> It's not that we don't hear the voiced consonants in word-final position. It's just that in Dutch a consonant is never voiced in word-final, so we're merely applying the Dutch phonological rules when pronouncing English (same reason why we don't aspirate). On top of that, in Dutch you have people who pronounce the 'è' as /e/ in 'bed', or as /ae/ in 'bad' like me.
> Again, we hear the difference, but I just don't know how to pronounce the /e/ as in 'bed' properly.
> Likewise, (Dutch) people from outside of my province think I pronounce the 'è' as /a/ while for me they pronounce it as /I/.


I'm sure you can hear an English voiced consonant in word-final position when it is spoken, but how do you perceive it when it is written?
Several times I have seen signs advertising "Life Music" or "Life Muziek" (instead of Live Music/Muziek) in the Netherlands. I have a bilingual Dutch-English cookery book that talks of a "mount" of potatoes (instead of "mound"). How are these mistakes to be explained, other than by presuming that at the moment of writing the writer "hears" unvoiced consonants where voiced consonants are required?
The same thing happens in English: around here, the prefix "non-" and the word "none" are pronounced the same, so one occasionally sees "He was a none-contributor" in writing.


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## optimistique

sound shift said:


> I'm sure you can hear an English voiced consonant in word-final position when it is spoken, but how do you perceive it when it is written?
> Several times I have seen signs advertising "Life Music" or "Life Muziek" (instead of Live Music/Muziek) in the Netherlands. I have a bilingual Dutch-English cookery book that talks of a "mount" of potatoes (instead of "mound"). How are these mistakes to be explained, other than by presuming that at the moment of writing the writer "hears" unvoiced consonants where voiced consonants are required?
> The same thing happens in English: around here, the prefix "non-" and the word "none" are pronounced the same, so one occasionally sees "He was a none-contributor" in writing.



I think it's for the same reason as why one writes '_where'_ instead of '_we're_', because it sounds the same. 
Now when an Englishman pronounces '_live'_ and _'life'_, it does sound different. But when the Dutch man who's having '_live music_' in his café/pub (?) pronounces it, it does sound the same. These mistakes happen because of wrong reproduction. The spelling is based upon our own pronunciation, not yours, unfortunately.

Speaking of which, of course English speakers make the opposite mistake when speaking Dutch. They sound overpronouncing, because of the voicing of consonants where it shouldn't be done. And the 'r' is always a problem. Most English speakers forget to take the potato out of their mouth, when speaking Dutch (although it does sound exactly like posh Dutch, so some people are quite charmed by the accent).


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## Etcetera

DrWatson said:


> Well, of course we make spelling errors but in general Finnish is easy to write because in most cases the pronounciation indicates exactly how the word's written. And since the stress is (nearly) always on the first syllable (in e.g. Russian it changes, right?), we have one less things to worry about. In a few exceptions e.g. a consonant sounds doubled but is actually written with one. For example, *nestekaasu *(liquified petroleum gas) is pronounced /nestek:aasu/.


The trouble with Russian is that in most its regional varieties, including the Moscow one (and the Moscow pronunciation is considered rather often to be the standard - not all people agree with that, though ), the actual pronunciation may differ from the spelling. Not very much, but considerably. I used to study at two schools, in St. Petersburg and Moscow region, and I noticed that my classmates in the second school did far more mistakes with the spelling. 
The stress in Russian does change, you're right.  And that's a big problem for many people!



> And about the length of the words, surprisingly many Finnish people do have problems with compound words. The rule of thumb is that the parts forming the compound word are written together. Still, some Finns separate the parts. Maybe even we think that words can be too long so we part them?


 Yes, I sometimes do this mistake! 
One more mistake I make quite often is missing the dots above some vowels (e.g., ä).


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## DrWatson

Etcetera said:


> One more mistake I make quite often is missing the dots above some vowels (e.g., ä).



Yes, I suppose forgetting the umlauts may be a common mistake among foreigners. Especially if their own language doesn't have them. But I think Russian has one letter with umlaut, Ë, pronounced [o] or [jo], right?

Forgetting umlauts in Finnish can lead to some weird sentences. E.g. *passi*  "passport" vs. *pässi* "a ram". 
Another one: *kohina* "rumble, buzz" vs. *köhinä* "dry cough, rasp"


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## Etcetera

DrWatson said:


> Yes, I suppose forgetting the umlauts may be a common mistake among foreigners. Especially if their own language doesn't have them. But I think Russian has one letter with umlaut, Ë, pronounced [o] or [jo], right?


Right you are! But the thing is that in written speech most people and almost all mass media prefer to use Е instead of Ё. I don't know exactly the reason for that (since Ё is pronounced as Ё nonetheless). But I myself do prefer Е to Ё. For me, it just helps to save time. 



> Forgetting umlauts in Finnish can lead to some weird sentences. E.g. *passi*  "passport" vs. *pässi* "a ram".
> Another one: *kohina* "rumble, buzz" vs. *köhinä* "dry cough, rasp"


Yes, I remember our Finnish teacher telling us mind to use the unlauts, because they can change the word's meaning radically. And I was just surprised by how many words which differ only by umlauts are there in Finnish!


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## sound shift

optimistique said:


> I think it's for the same reason as why one writes '_where'_ instead of '_we're_', because it sounds the same.
> Now when an Englishman pronounces '_live'_ and _'life'_, it does sound different. But when the Dutch man who's having '_live music_' in his café/pub (?) pronounces it, it does sound the same. These mistakes happen because of wrong reproduction. The spelling is based upon our own pronunciation, not yours, unfortunately.
> 
> Speaking of which, of course English speakers make the opposite mistake when speaking Dutch. They sound overpronouncing, because of the voicing of consonants where it shouldn't be done. And the 'r' is always a problem. Most English speakers forget to take the potato out of their mouth, when speaking Dutch (although it does sound exactly like posh Dutch, so some people are quite charmed by the accent).



Wrong reproduction (your description) or putting spoken sounds in writing (mine): they are the same thing, so we agree.

Wat ardappelen betreft: im mijn mond zit er géén, hoor!  Anyway, isn't the 'R' in posh Dutch a 'huig-R' (like the French 'R')? That type of 'R' doesn't exist in English.

Dag


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## Encolpius

1. Slavic languages in general
I think most non-native speakers will make some mistakes when using perfect/imperfect forms of verbs
2. Any language with nouns having gender
I think most non-native speakers will make mistakes using gender.
3. As for my native language non-native speakers makes mistakes when using transitive/intransive conjugation of verbs. (I never of course )
In all cases I thought of advanced speakers, not beginners of course.


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