# Things that betray the non-native speaker



## robjh22

I hope this properly belongs in culture; I didn't know where else to put it!

What are some things that tell a Spanish speaker that a person is a native English speaker?

For example, I tend to use the word "demasiado" when talking to my Mexican friends, but I notice that they almost never use it themselves. I also say "pauta" for "guideline" and notice that they never use it themselves. Another one is "concernir," a good word in the dictionary that no native speaker actually uses in conversation. I am also sure that I put the accent in the wrong place in longer words like "farmacia."

I wonder what else I am saying that mark me as a foreigner!

It works the other way, too. My Spanish speaking friends also tend to pronounce the "i" in words like "mister" and "sister" as though it were a long "e," pronouncing it as "ee."

It seems an easy thing to correct, but I of course don't want to criticize their otherwise excellent Spanish.


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## TitTornade

robjh22 said:


> It works the other way, too. My Spanish speaking friends also tend to pronounce the "i" in words like "mister" and "sister" as though it were a long "e," pronouncing it as "ee."
> 
> It seems an easy thing to correct, but I of course don't want to criticize their otherwise excellent Spanish.


 
Hi !
 if Spanish is like French: 
In French, the letter "i" is most of the time pronounced like as "ee". The vowel "i" pronounced as in "mister" doesn't exist in French... So it is often pronounced "ee" by French people.
Thus, French people often mix the pronunciation of : "beach" and "bitch"...
I suppose it is not easy at all to correct...


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## robjh22

Well, it is but you have to be conscious of your mouth shape. If you spread your mouth wide, it comes out "beach," if you relax the mouth, it comes out "bitch."

Thanks for your input


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## Valeria Mesalina

robjh22 said:


> It works the other way, too. My Spanish speaking friends also tend to pronounce the "i" in words like "mister" and "sister" as though it were a long "e," pronouncing it as "ee."



There is no difference betewen short vowels and long vowels in Spanish: our ears are not trained to differentiate both sounds. And it is very difficult for a person who can´t hear any difference between "sheet" and "shit" to pronounce them differently. For us, it´s just the same vowel sound. 



> It seems an easy thing to correct, but I of course don't want to criticize their otherwise excellent Spanish.


Not that easy. Otherwise my friend wouldn´t tell everyone how much she liked her fifteen days on a sheep.


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## TitTornade

robjh22 said:


> Well, it is but you have to be conscious of your mouth shape. If you spread your mouth wide, it comes out "beach," if you relax the mouth, it comes out "bitch."
> 
> Thanks for your input


 
Yes you're right, but in general, I don't concentrate on the shape of my mouth when I speak...  
But if I'm asked to repeat what I said in a long sentence, I can repeat word by word and distinguish "bitch" and "beach"... 

I feel Valeria indicates that the problem is the same in French and in Spanish...

On the opposite, it is quite easy to recognize somebody that is not French when he pronounces "r", "u" ou nasal vowels in different way than ours... 

So let's be back to the topic... spanish-english


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## Agró

Apart from pronunciation, *false friends* usually betray non-native speakers, be they Spaniards or English people.

Actually (En realidad)/Actualmente (Now)
Sensible (Sensato)/Sensible (Sensitive)
Pretend (Fingir)/Pretender (Intend)
and lots more.

When I hear such instances I immediately think of English speakers.


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## Valeria Mesalina

Agró said:


> Apart frompronunciation, *false friends* usually betray non-native speakers, be they Spaniards or English people.
> 
> Actually (En realidad)/Actualmente (Now)
> Sensible (Sensato)/Sensible (Sensitive)
> Pretend (Fingir)/Pretender (Intend)
> and lots more.
> 
> When I hear such instances I immediately think of English speakers.



And don´t you forget the #€@#€#@!!!! prepositions...


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## Agró

Valeria Mesalina said:


> And don´t you forget the #€@#€#@!!!! prepositions...


And gerunds and infinitives incorrectly used after other verbs.


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## María A

For what I've heard, native English speakers often have trouble rolling the r for the /rr/ sound when pronouncing words like "perro" or "correr".
It always betrays them, specially if they are in Argentina. They seem to do it from the back of their throats, so it sounds like /gue/ or /wr/.


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## robjh22

> native English speakers often have trouble rolling the r for the /rr/ sound when pronouncing words like "perro" or "correr".



Wait ... we're supposed to roll double r's?


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## María A

robjh22 said:


> Wait ... we're supposed to roll double r's?



Slightly, but it depends on where you're at. Here in Buenos Aires the /rr/ is pretty accentuated, but in La Rioja (another Argentine province) people pronounce the /rr/ like /sh/ - so "perro" sounds _pesho_.


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## robjh22

Thanks, María, I was making a little ironic joke, but I do love that Argentine 
"pesho" sound!


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## danielfranco

I gotta tell you, though, robjh22, that being at Plano probably got you in contact with mostly Mexican people from the north of the country (norteños). So a lot of words that are in fact correct are not used by them. Ever.

When I moved to South Texas I had to learn a whole new set of Spanish terms, even though I was born in Mexico City!

I think another one of the things that distinguish those who are not native Spanish-speakers, especially if their first language is English, is the use of passive voice, or simple tenses when speaking. Usually native Spanish-speakers go for impersonal instead of passive voice, and for perfect or progressive tenses instead of simple ones.

D


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## Jacobtm

I often say things like "Creo/pienso que vamos a salir a las 9." (I believe/think we're going to leave at 9) when I want to express that I'm not sure. To Spanish speakers, that doubt doesn't seem to transfer, and they take my sentence to be a firm plan. Of course, working on Mexican time helps throw the uncertainty back into the mix, even if it's not linguistically recognized. 

I got a girl to giggle quite hard by saying "me gusta Mark" when what I meant was "me cae bien Mark." (the difference between like and like-like.)

Also, I just throw "ya" and "se" around like nobody's business. I've yet to find any sort of logical rule/rules for when they need to be included, so I just use them like chili and lime.

My response to "¿Cuándo sale el camión?" would be "Ya se salió". The bus leaving isn't reflexive in the question, but is in the response, and to me somehow I think that's correct...


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## Jacobtm

María A said:


> For what I've heard, native English speakers often have trouble rolling the r for the /rr/ sound when pronouncing words like "perro" or "correr".
> It always betrays them, specially if they are in Argentina. They seem to do it from the back of their throats, so it sounds like /gue/ or /wr/.



I have the opposite problem. I was so self-concious about not rolling r's that I just do it for every "r" I come across: Quierro verrte mañana perro hay de cumplir mi tarrea.

You appear to have done something simmilar by saying "specially if..." The word is especially, but since spanish speakers always seem to convert "s" to "es", many more self-concious ones actually end up improperly using "specially" in the place of "especially".


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## danielfranco

Unless María A actually meant "in a special manner"!

Well, I just thought about another thing. This is actually a problem for me when I do live interpretation. In English, depending how many explanations there are, and depending also how much "hedging" the speaker wants to do, phrases and clauses seem to be at the beginning of the sentence. Just like that last sentence. In Spanish it sounds rather strange to give explanations before the statement.

D


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## Bigote Blanco

Close attention to words used is the key.

If you hear:

I'm washing the television. or I'm watching the deeshes. (Houston, we've got a problem). Take note as this guy may not be a native English speaker.

As Jacob correctly noted on a post above. Native spanish speakers have a heck of a time with English words which start with "s" such as "estop". I believe I saw on WR a good explaination for the problems a while back. Spanish speakers most often say, "estop". I spent two years working on this especific issue with a fine young man from Mexico. I finally gave up. He did too. He "estopped" working and returned to Mexico. Now, after hearing it daily for two years, I say "estop"- it's easier to say!


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## rusita preciosa

I think the type of mistakes natives and non-natives make could be very different. I could never confuse *there* and *their*, *palate* and *palette*, write *difin**a**tely* for *definitely*, but I would make mistakes in articles (omitting one where it should not be omitted or confuse definite and indefinite...). And, like it was noted before, there is this eternal confusion in pronunciation and hearing of bowl/ball, bed/bad, steal/still, and infamous shit/sheet...  
 
For some time (before I saw it written) I thought that *Super Ball* was the final game of American football championship


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## mirx

rusita preciosa said:


> For some time (before I saw it written) I thought that *Super Ball* was the final game of American football championship


 
And it made all the sense in the world, after all, it is all about a ball.

The "r" is indeed a big problem, some don't roll it, some over pronounce it. They sound like they are putting on a German accent. Another thing is the tense conjugations, especially the use of subjunctives and correctly assigning genders to nouns. I suppose this can only be mastered with lots of time and practice.


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## miguel64086

Valeria Mesalina said:


> And don´t you forget the #€@#€#@!!!! prepositions...



The prepositions... yes sir.  The prepositions and phrasal verbs are a dead give away.

For people speaking Spanish as a foreign tongue, it would be the simpler tenses...  like a friend of mine who teaches Spanish to English speakers says,
"the subjunctive is the hearth of the Spanish language".

So if a person does not uses the subjunctive a lot, it ain't native.


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## coquis14

There is one typical mistake regarding "pronombres demostrativos" ,at least with native English speakers:

Este casa.
Esta lugar.
Esto perro.
Regards,


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## Vanda

Many, many details and I dare say half of them are the same for Romance languages, but I'll quote just one for Portuguese: the -ão pronunciation. Whenever you hear someone saying /Sao/ Paulo not /São = nasal pronounciation/  you know he is not native.


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## Ayazid

This topic is way too broad, since there are many factors which determine the character of typical mistakes which speakers of some language make when they speak another one, especially how close or similar is their native language to the other one in grammar, vocabulary and phonetics and a list of such mistakes could be endless, depending also on the proficiency of the concrete speaker.

In the case of Spanish, most Czech learners would find its phonetic system quite easy to reproduce, maybe with the exception of the single r/rr distinction, since a lot of Czechs would pronounce it in both cases as the short one, so "pero" instead of "perro", without realizing the importance of the correct pronunciation. But it would not be difficult to pronounce the double r for us, our r is alveolar too, it's just a certain laziness or something.

As for the grammar, some things would be quite familiar (gender of nouns, different conjugation endings for various persons, reflexive verbs etc.) and some rather troubling (not very similar vocabulary, various verbal tenses - in Czech there are only 3, articles - there are no articles in Czech and a lot of other differences). For example, a lot of people would use indicative or conditional instead of subjunctive, since there is none in Czech and wouldn't get the articles right or just wouldn't use them etc.


As for the typical mistakes of Spanish speakers in Czech.. well I have never heard any Spanish speaker talking in Czech, so hard to say, but I would say that they would find the case system quite difficult just as the system of verbal aspect and phonetics with all those consonant clusters and ř.


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## Alxmrphi

> This topic is *way too broad*, since there are many factors which determine the character of typical mistakes which speakers of some language make when they speak another one, especially how close or similar is their native language to the other one in grammar, vocabulary and phonetics and a list of such mistakes could be endless, depending also on the proficiency of the concrete speaker


 
No it's not!
You can't just say 'this is too broad'. I think this is a really interesting thread that allows native speakers from all over the world to give their views on what sound like 'give-aways' when people are trying to speak their language, or when they speak a different language.

I think adding bits of information for unrelated languages like that from page 1 is really good and I've enjoyed reading this, not everything has to be a strict mono-themed discussion. I even enjoyed reading your post, about how Spanish works with Czech and I am quite interesting... which brings me to my next point:



> in Czech there are only 3, articles - there are no articles in Czech and a lot of other differences


 
I don't think you meant to write 'Czech' twice?? I think the first one is meant to be 'Spanish', but I just wanted to check .

@ Topic: When I was doing my TEFL a few months ago and giving lessons to foreign speakers probably the biggest thing that hit me that I didn't expect was Word Order of Statement / Questions and how often they got mixed up.

I think that is a massive red flag that pops up when listening to people, some of the students had picked up a lot of colloquial slang and in passing conversation for 5-10 seconds they could have passed for a native speaker (with regard to accent / colloquial expressions) but of course any more than a few seconds or a tricky aspect of grammar would have given them away. Things like "Why it can go there?" or "I can go to the toilet?".

Orignally I had pegged this as a Romance language thing, trying to apply logic and realise that the way of forming questions is the same syntactical structure just with a raised intonation (often accompanied with raised eyebrows ) so I just thought it was a lack of understanding and it was a mistake triggered by their L1 (Romance languages), but it soon became clear that there were many people making this mistake (i.e. from Poland / Slovakia / Lithuania) which (I don't really know for sure) have a different worder for forming questions.


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## TitTornade

Alxmrphi said:


> I think that is a massive red flag that pops up when listening to people, some of the students had picked up a lot of colloquial slang and in passing conversation for 5-10 seconds they could have passed for a native speaker (with regard to accent / colloquial expressions) but of course any more than a few seconds or a tricky aspect of grammar would have given them away. Things like "Why it can go there?" or "I can go to the toilet?".
> 
> Orignally I had pegged this as a Romance language thing, trying to apply logic and realise that the way of forming questions is the same syntactical structure just with a raised intonation (often accompanied with raised eyebrows ) so I just thought it was a lack of understanding and it was a mistake triggered by their L1 (Romance languages), but it soon became clear that there were many people making this mistake (i.e. from Poland / Slovakia / Lithuania) which (I don't really know for sure) have a different worder for forming questions.


 
Hi,
French "regular" word order for asking question is _subject-verb inversion_... But it is often a formal way of speaking (or the way to write it)...
The oral way for asking question is different :
_He sleeps = il dort_
_Does he sleep ? =_
_- Dort-il ? _(formal way : inversion)
_- Est-ce qu'il dort ? _(less formal way : _est-ce que_ = "do", "does"...)
_- Il dort ?_ (colloquial way : only intonation, and eyebrows movement )
-_ Il dort, non ?_ (other colloquial way...)...

So (French) people that say "I can go to the toilets?" may speak in a colloquial way


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## Alxmrphi

I never thought about French really (not knowing much about it) but I know about Italian and a bit of Spanish so I sort of assumed it was the same for all Romance languages, a common trait in the language family.

Apologies for my ignorance! (Thanks for pointing it out!)


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## VivaReggaeton88

As a response to the /rr/ sound, in Costa Rica this sound is very rare to hear; the /r/ and /rr/ are pronounced the same as the /r/ in English. I think not using the subjunctive and using the wrong prepositions are mostly what make English speakers sound like non-natives in Spanish.


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## MOMO2

Jacobtm said:


> I often say things like "Creo/pienso que vamos a salir a las 9." (I believe/think we're going to leave at 9) when I want to express that I'm not sure. To Spanish speakers, that doubt doesn't seem to transfer, and they take my sentence to be a firm plan. Of course, working on Mexican time helps throw the uncertainty back into the mix, even if it's not linguistically recognized.
> 
> I got a girl to giggle quite hard by saying "me gusta Mark" when what I meant was "me cae bien Mark." (the difference between like and like-like.) What on earth are you saying! I am sure I said "Me gusta" instead of "Me cae bien" about many a person in Barcelona, Spain and nobody ever stared at me like our funny "".
> 
> Also, I just throw "ya" and "se" around like nobody's business. I've yet to find any sort of logical rule/rules for when they need to be included, so I just use them like chili and lime.
> 
> My response to "¿Cuándo sale el camión?" would be "Ya se salió".  The bus leaving isn't reflexive in the question, but is in the response, and to me somehow I think that's correct...


 
In my opinion "Ya se salió" is odd if referred to a lorry. (Or do you mean "bus" for "camión"?)


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## Jacobtm

MOMO2, The girl was 18, so perhaps in Barcelona people understood that you just meant "me cae bien". Or perhaps they assumed that you were gay, and didn't find anything weird about it.

In Mexico, camión, autobús, and bús are all used for "bus", though "camión" can also mean "lorry".


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## ThomasK

I think you could try to generalize by referring to linguistic branches, such as : 
- *phonetics*: has been made clear here
- *lexicography* : idiomatic expressions (I notice that I can never imitate Germans because I tend to translate too literally from Dutch); language registers _(is that the right word to refer to 'colloquial' vs. 'formal', etc. ? )_
- *syntax*: e.g., the place of certain words may point out that you are not good 
- *pragmatics*: there are different 'habits' as for the use of for example 'please' (in our Dutch-speaking context we generally say something when giving/ handing over something (often 'alstublieft', lit. 'please'), but in an English-speaking context you don't, or only 'here you are'.

Those are things that are hard to learn ! But professional linguists could add more branches, like *morphology, *but I think grammar is often fairly easy to learn, except for certain things that are 'conditioned' by some kind of worldview, like tenses, which comes close to pragmatics, I believe.


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## Chtipays

I think it also depends on the Spanish that you are speaking. 
I am Mexican, but my Spanish is kind of neutral, because I have lived in the north, center and south of México and because I have friends from several Spanish speaking countries. Still, I got a Spanish train ticket seller laughing at me because I said: _viaje redondo _and not _ida y vuelta_ I got Southamericans laughing at my Spanish, because I said _platicar_ instead of _conversar_ or _charlar_. And I got a comment of a Spanish person telling me to go to Spain more often to learn to speak Spanish. 
So it also depends on who is listening.


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## ThomasK

Good point: at stake is what standard language is, or 'standard' simply. Afro American English can be called deviant, but you can also consider it simply a variant! Yet, I think that we can easily distinguish between native speakers and others: we can 'feel' it, but sometimes have a hard time explaining it !


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## Sepia

coquis14 said:


> There is one typical mistake regarding "pronombres demostrativos" ,at least with native English speakers:
> 
> Este casa.
> Esta lugar.
> Esto perro.
> Regards,




However, I've read translations by "native speakers" who had the demonstrative pronouns wrong too - not only according to me.


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## coquis14

What do you mean by "translations"? , something like this?:
This Place has been nominated. ... *--->* Esta lugar ha sido designado...
Sorry ,but it is hard to believe that kind of mistake, even an illiterate person knows that.

Regards,


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## gurseal

Some speakers of English as a foreign language use the simple present where a native, at least in US, will use the future:
*I get it for you now* instead of *I'll get it for you now*.
*Here. I do it* instead of *Here. I'll do it.*


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## ordira

Many Americans and Canadians I know say "como esto" instead of "así" for "like this" and don't forget the "oh, mi Dios" for "oh, my God!"


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## Jacobtm

I've heard a bunch of my friends who're learning Spanish say "como así"...


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## miguel89

Jacobtm said:


> I've heard a bunch of my friends who're learning Spanish say "como así"...



That doesn't sound foreign...


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## Jacobtm

miguel89 said:


> That doesn't sound foreign...


Well then that just betrayed my lack of knowledge, I just thought así didn't need a como in front of it ever. Guess not...


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## mirx

Jacobtm said:


> Well then that just betrayed my lack of knowledge, I just thought así didn't need a como in front of it ever. Guess not...


 
It doesn't. I am not sure if "ever" but certainly not when you mean like this, or in this way. In some countries people use the expression "¿cómo así?" as an equivalent of "what was that?". Most us would simply say "¿cómo? or ¿qué?".


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## Mate

We were talking --post #36-- about "like this" (así). In this case, to translate it as _como así_ is certainly wrong and you can tell that that person is not a native Spanish speaker.


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## gurseal

Adjectives are tricky for nonnatives. If when cleaning a countertop you use a powdered cleaner, such as Comet or Ajax, and fail to rinse the cleaned surface well, the countertop will be covered in a *powdery* film. If the cleaning product is grainier, the resulting film may be *gritty*. An English-speaking nonnative (who happened to be Chinese) mistakenly used the term *sandy* to describe a residue that, for me, was powdery.


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## elirlandes

ThomasK said:


> I think you could try to generalize by referring to linguistic branches, such as :
> - *phonetics*: has been made clear here
> - *lexicography* : idiomatic expressions (I notice that I can never imitate Germans because I tend to translate too literally from Dutch); language registers _(is that the right word to refer to 'colloquial' vs. 'formal', etc. ? )_
> - *syntax*: e.g., the place of certain words may point out that you are not good
> - *pragmatics*: there are different 'habits' as for the use of for example 'please' (in our Dutch-speaking context we generally say something when giving/ handing over something (often 'alstublieft', lit. 'please'), but in an English-speaking context you don't, or only 'here you are'.
> 
> Those are things that are hard to learn ! But professional linguists could add more branches, like *morphology, *but I think grammar is often fairly easy to learn, except for certain things that are 'conditioned' by some kind of worldview, like tenses, which comes close to pragmatics, I believe.


Even if you can get all of these linguistic things right, then you have to get over the cultural stuff... The two things that I always notice are:
1) lack of knowledge of children's programmes from their age group... a 50 year old guy in London who does not know "Bill and Ben the flowerpot men" (from the 1960's) was not brought up in the UK...
2) lack of knowledge of music and music groups from their youth... someone in their late 30's who doesn't know "la unión" or "duncan dhu" was not brought up in Spain...


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## mirx

elirlandes said:


> Even if you can get all of these linguistic things right, then you have to get over the cultural stuff... The two things that I always notice are:
> 1) lack of knowledge of children's programmes from their age group... a 50 year old guy in London who does not know "Bill and Ben the flowerpot men" (from the 1960's) was not brought up in the UK...
> 2) lack of knowledge of music and music groups from their youth... someone in their late 30's who doesn't know "la unión" or "duncan dhu" was not brought up in Spain...


 
These things are relative, El Irlandés. Although they may be related to the speaking abilities of a person, they do not dictate or determine his "passing off as a native". Not even do they say whether someone is a local or not.

People brought up in X country are just as Native to Y language as people from country Z, who may have a complete different cultural setting  but share the same language (E.g Cuba and Chile). Even people from the same country may not have been exposed to those things you quoted. 

For example, I have been looked at with awe for not knowing some famous cartoons of my country. The reason? Simple, I never liked cartoons. Same goes for music, TV programs, sports and other "cultural" stuff. Or the other case of Duncan Dhú, I have no idea who they are and I would never recognize one of their songs. Yet, Spanish is my mother tongue. These kind of indicators can serve, to an extent, to pinpoint whether someone is from around or not; but they are certainly not tests to know if someone is native to X language.


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## ThomasK

I think we have to distinguish between command of language and knowledge of culture indeed. The latter might come close to pragmatics (due to the 'thin line' between concepts and words), but I think indeed that culture will allow one to distinguish between learned, modern, postmodern and other native speakers, but I would focus on the linguistic aspects of 'native speaker'-dom/ ship...


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## mirx

ThomasK said:


> I think we have to distinguish between command of language and knowledge of culture indeed. The latter might come close to pragmatics (due to the 'thin line' between concepts and words), but I think indeed that culture will allow one to distinguish between learned, modern, postmodern and other native speakers, but I would focus on the linguistic aspects of 'native speaker'-dom/ ship...


 
Please excuse my ignorance but, what is a modern and a postmodern native speaker? And yes, cultural accumen does not equal linguistic abilities. Two different things.


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## ThomasK

Those are just two of the immense number of categories of people, all having their own cultural background...


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## Chaska Ñawi

Yes, but what _are _they?


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## ThomasK

Well,  there are Canadians, French Canadians, Belgians, French workers, Flemish people, Walloons, Flemish intellectuals, ... ;-) and all of those have different cultural backgrounds, and more or less extended 'vocabularies' and a different degree of command of their language, as far as grammar is concerned. But  they will all be native speakers of one or other language !

You see ?


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## Chaska Ñawi

Not really ... how do the terms modern and post-modern apply to this?


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## ThomasK

Well, some Flemish people have a postmodern view of the world, others have a traditional view of the world, but they are native speakers of Dutch. You see ?

JUst by the way: very small details betray something - but this list is endless : 
 - the rounding of the o, the clarity of the difference between /v/ and /w/, lenis/ asper pronunciation of vowels
 - the use of ellipses (German tend to drop more subject pronouns than we do)
 - absence of expressions, etc.


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## mirx

ThomasK said:


> Well, some Flemish people have a postmodern view of the world, others have a traditional view of the world, but they are native speakers of Dutch. You see ?


 
Yes...we do. I think I also heard somewhere that some people in Belgium are men, that some are women, and some are actually children. I am just not sure what these categories are called, though.


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## Alxmrphi

> Well, some Flemish people have a postmodern view of the world, others have a traditional view of the world, but they are native speakers of Dutch. You see ?


 
Ok, but what aspect (linguistically) do you think needs to be separated between these two categories? I'm afraid I don't see how it affects the topic we're talking about.

As mirx said before, culture of a native speaker and linguistic ability are unrelated (I agree with this) I am forever not understanding common idioms in my language, that everyone else seems to know (I think I missed those lessons at school) i.e. expressions like 'for my sins', and other idiomatic usages, this is probably what it's like for people who never learned these expressions, non-natives from a different culture, but I also have trouble sometimes with them, it is a culture thing, but in no way shape or form affects my linguistic ability to portray myself as a native speaker of English.

So I'm not sure what point is being made with modern/postmodern and this culture aspect in this thread.


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## ThomasK

I try to summarize the discussion/ exchange. Eilirlandes referred to cultural knowledge, and some of us pointed out that that is mainly cultural not linguistic (though I specified that to some extent there is a link between culture and pragmatics). I then tried to explain that different social/cultural groups have different commands of grammar and knowledge of their culture. 

I thought of 'registers', Mirx, but in fact those are types of one language fitted for different contexts (bureaucrats use another 'register' than workers, teachers vs. pupils, older people vs. youngsters). So, maybe registers might be a correct word, but culture is not part of a register, it is however an aspect of the background of each social group using particular registers. Am I making myself clear?


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## Alxmrphi

I think I see your point a bit better.
I think to make a better point ThomasK, would be with examples, so I can better understand the type of thing you mean (like for Dutch speakers maybe?)

I think with a few solid examples it'd be easier to understand.
My general view is all this culture / register discussion does not betray the native speaker, I think if you had to assess if someone was a native, then a lack of this knowledge would be useful, but a lack of it doesn't betray anyone, because many people might not have come into contact with these different cultural / social items.

The things that betray the native speaker are things which natives would not say / do. If someone handed you something and you said "Please", then that would betray a native speaker, I don't see if any cultural thing would do really.

I think we've switched from, "things that betray" to "things that a native speaker would be expected to know", so that's where I got confused because we had different views on the question in reference.
In summary, (IMHO) the last few posts aren't dealing with things that betray the native speaker, therefore the topic, hence why I said I didn't see the relevance, they deal with a similar / linked topic of what native speakers are expected to know, and a lack of it points to the probability of a non-native, which isn't always the case.

I'm still interested to better understand what you mean about modern/post modern Thomas, could you give us some examples of what you mean?


----------



## mirx

ThomasK said:


> Am I making myself clear?


 
I do get it now, and as vague and random my last post might seem, it actually adds to your views. Men and women do use different lingo, and there are also big  differences between generations. My granma defiitely uses a different set of vocabulary to the one I use.


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## ThomasK

I quite agree with you, Al(e)x, your distinction is the one I was trying to make. 

Registers in Dutch: 
- an intellectual might say *'participeren'*, in stead of our Dutch equivalent 'deelnemen' (take part), becaus 'p' sounds 'more expensive' ; yet, both are native speakers
- a substantive style (*de verschijning van [the appearance of] fenomenen als piercings wijzen op* [point towards]..) can very often be replace by simple sentences (steeds meer jongeren hebben piercings; dat toont dat .. ^[the longer the more youngsters have piercings, that shows) - register but at sentence level now
I am not so sure traditional and postmodern speakers have their own registers, but certainly *their own words*, codes, etc. (barmhartigheid for example [_benevolence, mercy_] is a word postmodernists would not use, I guess: too traditional, too Christian, etc.). But both are native speakers. 

Capisci ?


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## sakvaka

I think the *Finnish *list is mostly similar to the other languages.

*Phonology*. 
a) Being unable to tell long and short sounds apart. _Katu_ is different from _kaatu_ and _tapan _from _tapaan_ & _tappan_.
b) Aspirating consonants. It sounds funny when German or English people try to pronounce our language: _Khun khäveli khesäilala..._
c) Straightening up diphtongs (sometimes this is possible, sometimes not)._ Hoono soomi_ (bad Finnish) has already become a concept among us -- it should be pronounced _huono suomi_.
d) Strange way of stressing words.
e) Being unable to pronounce wovels well. However, _ä_ is slowly disappearing and _ö_ becoming more like the shewa even in the natives' speech. But let's pronounce them well, as long as we can!
f) Using melody and intonation. Finnish is supposed to sound monotonous; however, some Finnish dialects DO have melody.

*Words* *& phrases*.
a) Using wrong verbs and verb forms.
b) Messing up transitive and intransitive verbs. _Minä maistun ruokaa_. I taste (intr.) the food. However, a very popular Christmas song breaks this rule: _Kuiske kuuluu: "Miltä ruoka maistaa"?_ Correct form: _maistuu_ I've never understood why. 
c) Idioms.
d) Omitting declinations and conjugations.

*Style*.
a) wrong style: too formal or informal word choices.

____
But, don't let me interrupt your ongoing conversation ;D


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## ThomasK

interesting list. BTW: the last one refers to registers ! 

_But I don't agree with 'mostlt similar to other languages': it is way more difficult! And you know, what could be typical too, is mixing us v/w. Just teasing..._


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## Garbuz

There are so-called non-verbal means of communication. They sometimes tell more about a person than his grammar, vocabulary, etc. I don't know why but I can always tell whether a person is a native speaker or not even if their English is flawless. You just wait a little and there will be something about them that at a certain moment makes them incongruent, so to say.


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## sakvaka

ThomasK said:


> interesting list. BTW: the last one refers to registers !
> 
> _But I don't agree with 'mostlt similar to other languages': it is way more difficult! And you know, what could be typical too, is mixing us v/w. Just teasing..._


_
Oh no, I did it again! _

I meant that we can apply the same three-level categories to all languages. Of course, phonology and words aren't the same in Finnish and eg. Spanish, but that's just a minor point.


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## ThomasK

Don't worry!!! But by the way: if you split up words (part of morphology, or of lexicon) and phrases (part of syntax) we arrive at about the same categories (in my other message).


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## miss sparkles

A teacher once pointed out to me, and I've noticed since then, that since English is some kind of a mix of German-based  and Latin-based, and because the German-based English words tend to be a lower register (less formal, I mean), Spanish-speakers when speaking English may use a higher register than a native English speaker would.

For example,

make (lower register) --> prepare (higher register) <-- preparar
wonderful --> marvelous <-- maravilloso
end --> terminate <-- terminar

So if a Spanish speaker said "I prepared a marvelous cake," because it sounded similar to what he would've said in Spanish, his use of a different register would betray the fact that he's not a native English speaker. 

By the way, I guess I don't mean "higher" or "lower" registers, necessarily, but just different.


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## miguel64086

Wow... I have never thought that my formal and "highbrow" manner of speaking was a dead give away of my non-native speaker status.

That is very interesting...  And all that time I thought it was because of my horrendous accent.


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## Alxmrphi

Hi miss_sparkles,

You're correct!
Italians do the same, generally because of the historical reasons for the Romance lexicon to enter English, it was to do with being more formal / upper-class (i.e. French being the language of the king and the courts) and Latin being the language everyone spoke across Europe, science and general formality was conducted in French / Latin for the most part, resulting in this language entering English.

For this reason, I know so many 'fancy' words in English, through their relatively normal Italian counterpart, so it works the reverse for me. These following examples are all my personal opinon.

"Greedy" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "avarous" (_avaro_ in Italian)
"Start" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "initiate" (_iniziare_ in Italian)
"Red-hot" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "ardent" (ardente in Italian)
"Understand" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "comprehend" (_comprendere_ in Italian)
"Get" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "obtain" (_ottenere_ in Italian)
"Tiredness" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "fatigue" (_fatica _in Italian)
"Let (someone do..)" (normal level English) -> more formal word in English "consent (to)" (_consentire _in Italian)

Etc etc, so it has certainly introduced me to many words that I might have read / heard but have been unsure of the meaning, but generally what you are saying, I believe is true!
As someone who has spent time with Italians speaking English, they translate quite literally and I'm often quite impressed that they know a few words that are quite formal in English, but then I remember these are just their _normal_ words, and it's not like showing off, but they know this word exists in English and using it puts across a more highbrow nuance (in my opinion) so it can be quite misleading, and to the person that knows about it _certainly something to betray them as a non-native speaker_!

[In this post I have purposely made no statement about levels of formality of the Italian words in relation to the normal English ones, only that there is a formal counterpart to the formal word in English]


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## clevermizo

miss sparkles said:


> A teacher once pointed out to me, and I've noticed since then, that since English is some kind of a mix of German-based  and Latin-based, and because the German-based English words tend to be a lower register (less formal, I mean), Spanish-speakers when speaking English may use a higher register than a native English speaker would.
> 
> For example,
> 
> make (lower register) --> prepare (higher register) <-- preparar
> wonderful --> marvelous <-- maravilloso
> end --> terminate <-- terminar
> 
> So if a Spanish speaker said "I prepared a marvelous cake," because it sounded similar to what he would've said in Spanish, his use of a different register would betray the fact that he's not a native English speaker.
> 
> By the way, I guess I don't mean "higher" or "lower" registers, necessarily, but just different.



I always thought this phenomenon would be limited to Romance speakers, since prepare and marvelous are more accessible.

I apologize if this is elsewhere in this thread (which I haven't read entirely yet), but I also find this "higher register bias" among non-native speakers from a variety of speaking backgrounds.

For example, the graduate student in our lab is Tamil-speaking and I have never heard him say the word "make" - exclusively, "prepare." (Some other interesting phenomena unrelated to register are he uses the verb "keep" to mean "put/place" ("I have kept a book on the desk for you" etc.) in addition to "keep" and I have never heard him utter the word "put." I assume this has to do with the semantics of Tamil?)

He also has a bias towards using the "have"-compound (so-called "perfect") tenses instead of the simple past tense.

But in general he uses more high register Romance vocabulary where simpler Germanic vocabulary would be more common. I wonder if it has to do with how English is taught in his region of India? He doesn't speak a Romance language so there's no reason that the Romance vocabulary should be a priori easier for him to remember.


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## ThomasK

The tense issue: I would not call it a bias. I notice myself that German for example uses more perfects where we in Dutch and English use simple past. It is a peculiarity but not a bias. 

The register issue may be a matter of bias indeed. One cause might however be that foreigners tend to use dictionaries, and thus are misguided by that non-distinct (if that is the right word) list (frequent verbs are listed alongside very uncommon words). But the result seems to be a register conflict indeed.


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## clevermizo

ThomasK said:


> The tense issue: I would not call it a bias. I notice myself that German for example uses more perfects where we in Dutch and English use simple past. It is a peculiarity but not a bias.



Well I meant to conjecture that it was a bias in the way he was taught English. The Tamil language doesn't have a verbal construction like the Germanic or Romance perfect constructions, so there's no reason to think he has an influence there from his native language. 



> The register issue may be a matter of bias indeed. One cause might however be that foreigners tend to use dictionaries, and thus are misguided by that non-distinct (if that is the right word) list (frequent verbs are listed alongside very uncommon words). But the result seems to be a register conflict indeed.



I am actually quite curious now about English instruction in India, because I've noticed similar phenomena like I've stated in my previous post from speakers of a variety of languages (Dravidian or Indic), which are otherwise unrelated. Anyway, I'd probably start a new thread to explore that.


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## ThomasK

As for the perfect : are we speaking about the same concept here of 'bias' ? Influence from some other kind of language or from other time concepts is not a bias to me, rather a value judgment - and I cannot imagine any regarding perfect. Do you have one in mind ?


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## miss sparkles

I think we´re all referring to bias in the sense of tendency toward, not value judgment.

Anyway, I´ve noticed some tense tendencies too, like the perfect tense tendency Clevermizo mentioned. I hear native Spanish speakers use the simple present tense in English more often than native English speakers would. For example, they´d say "You come pick me up at my house?" instead of using the present progressive "Are you coming to pick me up at my house?" That makes a lot of sense to me since the present simple tense is used in Spanish in a lot more situations than in English. Also, I imagine it´s easier to form the present simple.

Similarly, I bet my overuse of the present progressive and even the "ir a" tense in Spanish betrays me as a non-native speaker.


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## clevermizo

miss sparkles said:


> I think we´re all referring to bias in the sense of tendency toward, not value judgment.



Yes, that's exactly what I meant. When I say he has a bias towards the perfect compound tenses over the simple tenses, I mean he subconsciously chooses the perfect compound tenses, despite the fact that he understands me when I use the simple tenses, so he is aware of their existence.



miss sparkles said:


> For example, they´d say "You come pick me up at my house?" instead of using the present progressive "Are you coming to pick me up at my house?" That makes a lot of sense to me since the present simple tense is used in Spanish in a lot more situations than in English. Also, I imagine it´s easier to form the present simple.
> 
> Similarly, I bet my overuse of the present progressive and even the "ir a" tense in Spanish betrays me as a non-native speaker.



Actually in this case there's an even more specific reason for the error. Verbs of motion and translocation in Spanish are rarely used in the _estar+participio_ progressive construction, unless the emphasis is on the in-progress nature of the action. However, in English with these same verbs (go, come, etc) we mostly use the progressive construction _be+-ing_ unless we mean something habitual.


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## ElFrikiChino

Wow! Very interesting discussion.

In my opinion two of the most difficult things to learn (and therefore that can spot non-natives) are the right use of prepositions, and the register.
I'm always editing a text like hundreds of times before I send it, especially if it's something formal, because for a foreigner is really difficult to know if a word is low-register, normal or high-register.

As regards English-Spanish, besides the obvious accent (some of my British professors have lived in Italy for more than 30 years, and they still have a very strong accent, and the same goes for the Spanish, and us Italians), probably a non-native speaking Spanish would not guess a single *por/para*. I had a very hard time learning the use of those prepositions, and I believe I still make mistakes. I actually understood the usage only spending a semester in Spain. Back in Italy our professors would explain it again and again, but I never really got it. But then, hearing Spanish people using it, I understood it.

And of course you can spot Italians because of our gestures. No matter what language we're speaking, we'll always have our hands moving around our body


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## Alxmrphi

> And of course you can spot Italians because of our gestures. No matter what language we're speaking, we'll always have our hands moving around our body


I noticed in Australia I was chatting to an Italian girl (in Italian) and my hands were moving everywhere, I don't do that with English and I stopped mid conversation and said something like "_Non capisco il motivo ma non riesco a tenere firme le mani quando parlo in italiano..._", I don't know about any other learners but I think it must be the language that makes people do it! 
(un pensiero: penso che stessimo parlando delle mosche, le mosche da incubo ....... allora forse c'era buon motivo per i gesti )


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## miss sparkles

VivaReggaeton88 said:


> I think not using the subjunctive and using the wrong prepositions are mostly what make English speakers sound like non-natives in Spanish.


 

True! I am better now at using the subjunctive correctly and choosing the right prepositions, but I know I used to mess that up a lot! I think another major mistake English speakers make in Spanish is with direct and indirect objects--their place in a sentence, mixing the two up, and leaving them out altogether (or just using a mí and not both a mí and me). I'm sure it makes us sound very non-native.


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## miss sparkles

gurseal said:


> Some speakers of English as a foreign language use the simple present where a native, at least in US, will use the future:
> *I get it for you now* instead of *I'll get it for you now*.
> *Here. I do it* instead of *Here. I'll do it.*


 
I've noticed that too, although as a side note, sometimes this isn't a future tense but rather "will" in the sense of "I am willing to."


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## Montesacro

Alxmrphi said:


> I noticed in Australia I was chatting to an Italian girl (in Italian) and my hands were moving everywhere, I don't do that with English and I stopped mid conversation and said something like "_Non capisco il motivo ma non riesco a tenere f*e*rme le mani quando parlo in italiano..._", I don't know about any other learners but I think it must be the language that makes people do it!
> (un pensiero: penso che stessimo parlando delle mosche, le mosche da incubo ....... allora forse c'era buon motivo per i gesti )



Lots of native English speakers would say "non posso tenere ferme le mie mani" (I can't keep my hands still).

P.S.: Alex, che sono le "mosche da incubo"?


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## Alxmrphi

Montesacro said:


> P.S.: Alex, che sono le "mosche da incubo"?



If you ever go to Ayers Rock you will find out  (sufficient to say you need a fly-net)



> Lots of native English speakers would say "non posso tenere ferme le mie mani" (I can't keep my hands still).


But what I said was correct, right?  (except for the firme/ferme svista, of course)
But I see your point, the typical English way of speaking instantly gives away the fact they're not native by using possessives for parts of the body (which Italian doesn't do) and the _riuscere / potere_ distinction that doesn't exist really in English.


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## Montesacro

Alxmrphi said:


> If you ever go to Ayers Rock you will find out  (sufficient to say you need a fly-net)
> 
> Ohh, I see
> 
> But what I said was correct, right?  (except for the firme/ferme svista, of course) yes, it was
> But I see your point, the typical English way of speaking instantly gives away the fact they're not native by using possessives for parts of the body (which Italian doesn't do) and the _riusc*i*re / potere_ distinction that doesn't exist really in English.



Another tiny _svista_, Alex 

It also works the other way round: when speaking English Italians  often don't use possessives for parts of the body..


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## Vanda

> In my opinion two of the most difficult things to learn (and therefore that can spot non-natives) are the right use of prepositions, and the register.



You are right. I had a native American teacher to whom I had complained that I always had some errors on prepositions in my tests, 'What could I do?' She answered me, 'Never mind, we natives are never sure about that to'. Then I realized that the same is true for us natives, we don't use the right prepositions all the time - most of us - in our own language too, because 'regência' is one of the hardest part of grammar for us.


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## Fer BA

clevermizo said:


> Actually in this case there's an even more specific reason for the error. Verbs of motion and translocation in Spanish are rarely used in the _estar+participio_ progressive construction, unless the emphasis is on the in-progress nature of the action. However, in English with these same verbs (go, come, etc) we mostly use the progressive construction _be+-ing_ unless we mean something habitual.


 
You lost me here Clever...._estar + participio _progressive construction, please!! give me some examples...on the other hand I think that the "You come to pick me up..." it's a literal translation de "Vienes a buscarme.."..another thing that betrays the non-native.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Intonation betrays non natives when speaking another language.
Every language, every accent of any language is peculiar and difficult to avoid.
Most Spaniards sound as Spaniards when speaking English, French....
Most Germans sound as Germans when speaking Spanish and so on.
Most Italians sound as Italians etc. etc.

The most simple isolated word can sound different when spoken by a non native even if its pronunciation is perfect if you do not get the right intonation for every occasion.
I have seen many non native say "Hola" with perfect sound by sound pronunciation but with a wrong intonation.
Many English speakers say "Hola" as if they said "Hello" when they address to somebody they don't know in a different way Spaniards would do it.


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## catlady60

rusita preciosa said:


> For some time (before I saw it written) I thought that *Super Ball* was the final game of American football championship


To tell you the truth, the *Super Bowl* got its name from the *Super Ball, *a high-bouncing ball made of solid rubber, which was invented in the 1960's in the States.


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## elirlandes

I have just noticed that my youngsters (who in every other way pass as native in both English and Spanish) say "puedo tener...?" as in "puedo tener un vaso de agua?" instead of "me das un vaso de agua?".

Obviously, this is a direct translation from English "Can I have a glass of water?".


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## mirx

elirlandes said:


> I have just noticed that my youngsters (who in every other way pass as native in both English and Spanish) say "puedo tener...?" as in "puedo tener un vaso de agua?" instead of "me das un vaso de agua?".
> 
> Obviously, this is a direct translation from English "Can I have a glass of water?".


 
This situation is typical on first generation Hispanics and long-time Hispanic immigrants in the States. Sure they pass as natives in both languages but it is these types of phrasing that throw their listeners off track.


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## Outsider

clevermizo said:


> He also has a bias towards using the "have"-compound (so-called "perfect") tenses instead of the simple past tense.


I've noticed this in many non-native speakers of English. I probably still do it myself.

I think the reason is that many languages do not have a present perfect tense distinct from the past tense. It's one of the characteristic features of the English language (though not exclusive of it). Most of us have to make an effort to learn this distinction, so there is a tendency to hypercorrect, and use the present perfect in place of the simple past when in doubt.


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## teatom

well, there is a big dicussion if "Queen's English" should be the rule or should local dialects and even mistakes be empowered. If you go to some regions in the UK or in Germany (espl Switzerland or Austria) you wouldn't understand a word. Even in neighboring countries in South America you can find a range of different expressions: "panela" in Colombia is concentrated sugar cane juice, in Venezuela it is cheap blue soap for the laundry and in Brasil it is saucepan. "Blond" can be mono, rubio or catire. 
With Mexican Spanish you have chosen a specially hard one. It is very different from the rest. 
I have been living in many countries so I talk a mix of Castillano, Canario and Colombian. What is more, some people dont have high education land only understan their dialect: yesterday I said: "Alquiler" but the man only knew the word "Arriendo". 
I wrote a book how to better teach English to Spanishspeakers with the longest wordlist of false cognates or false brothers. Whoever is interesed in it drop me a line. 
Other examples for r and rr are: ahora y ahorra, enterarse y enterrar, paro y perro, caro y carro....


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## Heredianista

Valeria Mesalina said:


> There is no difference betewen short vowels and long vowels in Spanish: our ears are not trained to differentiate both sounds. And it is very difficult for a person who can´t hear any difference between "sheet" and "shit" to pronounce them differently. For us, it´s just the same vowel sound.
> 
> Not that easy. Otherwise my friend wouldn´t tell everyone how much she liked her fifteen days on a sheep.



Oh, Valeria,

You've made me laugh out loud!!!

Oh, I *love* it! Thank you so for sharing that!!! It's _hilarious._ Especially the way you put it. 

You made my day. 

Cheers,
Genève


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## Heredianista

*~English~*

Dear Alxmrphi, 

You've given us a great example: "I am quite interesting..." when you meant, "I am quite interested"!

~  ~  ~ 

*~Spanish~*

As a native English speaker, when I'm out of practice with speaking Spanish, I get quite confused about verb constructions like "echar de menos [a alguien]" and "extrañar."

I'll say, "Me echas de menos" or "Me extrañas" when I mean to say "I miss you."

It's a good thing I don't say "Te gusto" when I mean to say "I like you"! 

I did, however, one day, on a *beach* in Spain, when I was _thirteen,_ say to a group of young men, "¡Estoy muy caliente!" 

It's the kind of thing where you know _right away_ that you've said something _totally_ wrong. 

That same summer, I also answered someone's question [Why aren't you dancing?] with with "Porque estoy embarazada" – again sensing  immediately that I'd _not_ said what I _meant. _

*~Italian (as spoken by a Spanish-speaker)~*

I've done so many things like that. When I first moved to Rome from Madrid, I knew very little Italian. Often I could insert Spanish words when I didn't know the Italian ones, and be understood. But that didn't always work. 

I got one young woman in hysterics when I used the word "deprimida" instead of "depressa." She thought it was hilarious for some reason. 

Then there was the time when I was in the University of Rome, and a gentleman approached me and asked me where the History Department was. I said, "Non lo so; lo sento." 

I meant, "No lo sé; lo siento." But what I'd actually said was, "I don't know; I hear it..." 

I realized _immediately_ what I had said, but I had no idea how to correct myself. I was just paralyzed. So I stood there looking into his eyes, as his face registered the fact that I was clearly a crazy person. Nuts. Someone who "hears" places...

~Genève



Alxmrphi said:


> No it's not!
> You can't just say 'this is too broad'. I think this is a really interesting thread that allows native speakers from all over the world to give their views on what sound like 'give-aways' when people are trying to speak their language, or when they speak a different language.
> 
> I think adding bits of information for unrelated languages like that from page 1 is really good and I've enjoyed reading this, not everything has to be a strict mono-themed discussion. I even enjoyed reading your post, about how Spanish works with Czech and I am quite interesting... which brings me to my next point:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think you meant to write 'Czech' twice?? I think the first one is meant to be 'Spanish', but I just wanted to check .
> 
> @ Topic: When I was doing my TEFL a few months ago and giving lessons to foreign speakers probably the biggest thing that hit me that I didn't expect was Word Order of Statement / Questions and how often they got mixed up.
> 
> I think that is a massive red flag that pops up when listening to people, some of the students had picked up a lot of colloquial slang and in passing conversation for 5-10 seconds they could have passed for a native speaker (with regard to accent / colloquial expressions) but of course any more than a few seconds or a tricky aspect of grammar would have given them away. Things like "Why it can go there?" or "I can go to the toilet?".
> 
> Orignally I had pegged this as a Romance language thing, trying to apply logic and realise that the way of forming questions is the same syntactical structure just with a raised intonation (often accompanied with raised eyebrows ) so I just thought it was a lack of understanding and it was a mistake triggered by their L1 (Romance languages), but it soon became clear that there were many people making this mistake (i.e. from Poland / Slovakia / Lithuania) which (I don't really know for sure) have a different worder for forming questions.


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## Alxmrphi

> You've given us a great example: "I am quite  interesting..." when you meant, "I am quite interested"!


Haha and I am a native English speaker! 
Funny example about siento/sento  "_I'm sorry, I don't where it is.... but I can hear it_"


----------



## Heredianista

miss sparkles said:


> A teacher once pointed out to me, and I've noticed since then, that since English is some kind of a mix of German-based  and Latin-based, and because the German-based English words tend to be a lower register (less formal, I mean), Spanish-speakers when speaking English may use a higher register than a native English speaker would.
> 
> For example,
> 
> make (lower register) --> prepare (higher register) <-- preparar
> wonderful --> marvelous <-- maravilloso
> end --> terminate <-- terminar
> 
> So if a Spanish speaker said "I prepared a marvelous cake," because it sounded similar to what he would've said in Spanish, his use of a different register would betray the fact that he's not a native English speaker.
> 
> By the way, I guess I don't mean "higher" or "lower" registers, necessarily, but just different.



This is very interesting. I can see that I will be thinking about this for a while. Thank you for this contribution. 

I think there's definitely validity in this observation. 

For an extreme example, a Venezuelan friend of mine who was getting her Ph.D. here in the US (probably in anthropology) once related a story to me about a paper she had submitted. 

She had used the word "fructiferous," and her professor had responded that there is no such word in English. 

In fact (as she pointed out to me), there is: fructiferous

Yet, her Ph.D. professor did not know that. I presume that fructífero is more commonly employed (at least among intellectuals) in Spanish.

My second thought, however, is that in British English, 'higher register' words are far more commonly employed (not everywhere, perhaps, but on average) than they are in the US. So I wonder what the implications of that might be for Spanish-speakers using BrE as opposed to AmE. 

Here are some references:

List of Germanic and  Latinate equivalents in English

List of  Latin words with English derivatives

List  of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English

I welcome other's perceptions on this subject. 

Cheers,
Genève


----------



## Heredianista

clevermizo said:


> I always thought this phenomenon would be limited to Romance speakers, since prepare and marvelous are more accessible.
> 
> I apologize if this is elsewhere in this thread (which I haven't read entirely yet), but I also find this "higher register bias" among non-native speakers from a variety of speaking backgrounds.
> 
> For example, the graduate student in our lab is Tamil-speaking and I have never heard him say the word "make" - exclusively, "prepare." (Some other interesting phenomena unrelated to register are he uses the verb "keep" to mean "put/place" ("I have kept a book on the desk for you" etc.) in addition to "keep" and I have never heard him utter the word "put." I assume this has to do with the semantics of Tamil?)
> 
> He also has a bias towards using the "have"-compound (so-called "perfect") tenses instead of the simple past tense.
> 
> But in general he uses more high register Romance vocabulary where simpler Germanic vocabulary would be more common. I wonder if it has to do with how English is taught in his region of India? He doesn't speak a Romance language so there's no reason that the Romance vocabulary should be a priori easier for him to remember.



See, this relates to my curiosity about BrE vs. AmE, in relation to this issue of latinate derivations being more 'formal" words in English and less often used in AmE – but I imagine that they are far more commonly employed in BrE. 

Your Tamil-speaking graduate student is reflecting the fact that English in India was introduced by the British and _maintained_ by British educational institutions for such a long time, that people in India essentially speak a version of English very close to BrE (and very far from AmE).


----------



## Heredianista

Alxmrphi said:


> I noticed in Australia I was chatting to an Italian girl (in Italian) and my hands were moving everywhere, I don't do that with English and I stopped mid conversation and said something like "_Non capisco il motivo ma non riesco a tenere firme le mani quando parlo in italiano..._", I don't know about any other learners but I think it must be the language that makes people do it!
> (un pensiero: penso che stessimo parlando delle mosche, le mosche da incubo ....... allora forse c'era buon motivo per i gesti )



That reminds me of a recent experience. I live in Austin, and became friends with a Peruvian journalist and Ph.D. student here. We started out speaking English, and so that's the language we spoke with each other. 

One day at a café, I was lamenting that the latina part of me was languishing in nostalgia for Latin American company and culture. So he said, "Well, I can't take you to Latin America, but at least I can speak to you in Spanish." So from then on, we began speaking only Spanish. 

A couple of hours later, we were taking a walk through a quiet, lovely neighborhood, just chatting, and he turned to me suddenly, and said, "¿Sabes qué? Me da mucho gusto hablar contigo en español... *Me caes mejor en español.*" 

¡Imagínate!

Pero el próximo pensamiento que tuve fue, "¡Creo que me caigo mejor en español también!"


----------



## Alxmrphi

Heredianista said:


> A couple of hours later, we were taking a walk through a quiet, lovely neighborhood, just chatting, and he turned to me suddenly, and said, "¿Sabes qué? Me da mucho gusto hablar contigo en español... *Me caes mejor en español.*"
> 
> ¡Imagínate!
> 
> Pero el próximo pensamiento que tuve fue, "¡Creo que me caigo mejor en español también!"



I was following you until you switched to Spanish! 
I don't understand what happened?


----------



## Heredianista

Alxmrphi said:


> I was following you until you switched to Spanish!
> I don't understand what happened?



_Ooops; _I'm so sorry!

Re: 



> Originally Posted by *Heredianista*
> 
> 
> A couple of hours later, we were taking a walk through a quiet,  lovely neighborhood, just chatting, and he turned to me suddenly, and  said, "¿Sabes qué? Me da mucho gusto hablar contigo en español... *Me caes mejor en español.*"
> 
> ¡Imagínate!
> 
> Pero el próximo pensamiento que tuve fue, "¡Creo que me caigo mejor en  español también!"



He turned to me, out of the blue, and said, "You know... I'm so glad we switched to speaking Spanish. *I like you better in Spanish.*" 

[Shock!]

Of course, he realized immediately how that sounded, and rushed to say, "I mean — I don't mean I_ didn't _like you in _English..._ I just meant..." — and so on: stumbling over his words, in awkwardness, trying to back-track. 

But then I realized, with another shock, that... I _agreed _with him:* I *like myself better in Spanish, too!

[Whoah!]

It was wild, to suddenly realize I had actually become a different _kind_ of person, just by switching to speaking Spanish. Someone with more sense of humor, more playful, lighter, less serious, less inhibited, calmer... _happier,_ I'd even say. 

It was peculiar to think of myself as "_*being* in English_" as opposed to "_*being* in Spanish_."


----------



## Aidanriley

Some things that I always see either here on WR or in that..real life, _thing_, that sound completely unnatural (mostly from native Spanish speakers, although I want to emphasize that they aren't annoying things at all, but rather endearing, and they give you character ): 

*1.* Starting posts with _Hi_ _Dear Friend_, _Dear Friends_, _Hello Friends_, or some variant (I see this a _*lot*_ in students from an Asian background for some reason)
*2. *Putting "greetings" at the bottom of a post.
*3.* Saying which is the difference between.. and how do you call...
4. Saying the same *that* instead of the same *as*
*5.* Saying "what means 'x word'?" instead of "what does 'x word' mean?
*6.* (in the English Only forum especially) Being overly kind, like "do you think it could be possible that you may be so kind as to please be so nice and generous and sweet and lovely as to tell me what this word means?" (Really, you can just say "_what's this word mean_?" and we won't mind at all , unless there's no context, in which case: )
*7.* Using the wrong prepositions:
*a.* To dream about sth, _not_ to dream with sth (soñar con algo)
*b. *To think about/of sth, not to think in sth (pensar en algo)
*c.* To be mad about/over sth, not for sth (estar enfadado por algo)
*d.* The infamous vowel in the word b*i*tch versus the one in b*ea*ch (¿alguien ha visto el grupo en Facebook que se llama "cuando digo playa en inglés, nunca sé si estoy diciendo playa o puta"? ) 
*8.* Simple present instead of present continous: _I go eat now, I leave now, I try to translate this phrase_, etc.
*9.* Translating así to "like that" too often, e.g. ¡No me llames así! = Don't call me *that*,_not_ don't call me *like that*.
*10.* Mixing up *too much* and *too*: _I'm too much sad._
*11.* Inflexing sentence structure at weird places:
(e.g. Why are you doing that? 
I want to know why *are you doing* that. 
I want to know why *you are doing* that. )


----------



## charlottesometimes

Well I have something to say here, because I've found this thread very funny and interesting.
First, tell me, Aidanriley, concerning this: *6.* (in the English Only forum especially) Being overly kind, like "do you think it could be possible that you may be so kind as to please be so nice and generous and sweet and lovely as to tell me what this word means?", I guess you are referring to those student with an Asian background as well, aren't you?  I had the great luck of living in Japan for one year and they have a word to thank and another word to thank being polite  Hilarious!!!

And, Heredianista, if that makes you feel better (or maybe gets you more and more confused, hehe): I'm from the North West of Spain, and in my hometown we use the word "sentir" as "oir" quite often. It's not uncommon to hear my grandma in the morning saying: "¿tienes catarro? porque te SENTÍ toser esta noche." And if you ever try to learn French you'll go mental: it means "to smell." Isn't it amusing to share these experiences?

FInally I would like to point that I was meeting a friend from the States last days, he was on holidays in Madrid and he tried to speak Spanish every now and then. And believe me: one of the most typical mistakes is calling people "amigo". We laughed at the idea that the Spaniards say this when we are making fun of native English speakers trying to speak Spanish.


----------



## Aidanriley

charlottesometimes said:


> Well I have something to say here, because I've found this thread very funny and interesting.
> First, tell me, *Aidanriley, concerning this*: *6.* (in the English Only forum especially) Being overly kind, like "do you think it could be possible that you may be so kind as to please be so nice and generous and sweet and lovely as to tell me what this word means?", *I guess you are referring to those student with an Asian background as well, aren't you?*  I had the great luck of living in Japan for one year and they have a word to thank and another word to thank being polite  Hilarious!!!


 
Yes  it _is _funny, but being so polite is definitely appreciated, and sometimes I even feel _too _appreciated when all my answer consisted of was "Yes, that's correct" or something similar, and then they reply with, like, a letter of gratitude, making me feel like I should have done so much more to help .


----------



## SaritaSarang

Agró said:


> Apart from pronunciation, *false friends* usually betray non-native speakers, be they Spaniards or English people.
> 
> Actually (En realidad)/Actualmente (Now)
> Sensible (Sensato)/Sensible (Sensitive)
> Pretend (Fingir)/Pretender (Intend)
> and lots more.
> 
> When I hear such instances I immediately think of English speakers.


 
What is a *false friend*? Are you referring to a *false cognate*?

cognates: words that sound alike in both languages and mean the same thing
false cognates: words that sounds alike in both languages but mean different things

do you call them friends and false friends?


----------



## Vanda

SaritaSarang said:


> What is a *false friend*? Are you referring to a *false cognate*?
> 
> cognates: words that sound alike in both languages and mean the same thing
> false cognates: words that sounds alike in both languages but mean different things
> 
> do you call them friends and false friends?



Sarita this is not the right place for that discussion, but, yes, false cognates= false friends, the way foreigners students of English are taught. There is a small difference between the terms, but anyway, this is how we non natives are taught .


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## Montesacro

SaritaSarang said:


> What is a *false friend*? Are you referring to a *false cognate*?
> 
> cognates: words that sound alike in both languages and mean the same thing  this is not the right definition of cognate
> false cognates: words that sounds alike in both languages but mean different things  once again wrong, completely wrong



Sorry, I couldn't help it.
Cognate words share the same etymology, not necessarily the same meaning.
A suggestion: get yourself a dictionary


----------



## SaritaSarang

Montesacro said:


> Sorry, I couldn't help it.
> Cognate words share the same etymology, not necessarily the same meaning.
> A suggestion: get yourself a dictionary




Farmacia, and Pharmacy are cognates, words that sounds the same in both languages and have the same meaning. That is what a cognate is as I have always been taught in school. I don't need to look it up in a dictionary if it's what everyone one of my spanish teachers have taught me from the 6th grade to my senior year of college.  

Here are some more cognates that share the same meanings in both languages. 

Artist, Artista
List, Lista
Family, Familia

etc.....

I never said "the following is the definition of the word cognate as published in the dictionary." I wrote what I learned a cognate to be in school.
And also, putting a winky face next to a comment like "get a dictionary" doesn't take away from the uncalled sarcasm of it.


----------



## Montesacro

SaritaSarang said:


> Farmacia, and Pharmacy are cognates, words that sounds the same in both languages and have the same meaning. That is what a cognate is as I have always been taught in school.



Persian _bad_ ( بد ) and English _bad_ sound the same and have the same meaning. 
Are they cognates? No, they aren't.

German _zwei_ and Spanish _dos_ have the same meaning but they don't look/sound very much alike. 
Are they cognates? Yes, they are.

English _embarassed_ and Spanish _embarazada_ don't have the same meaning but they look very much alike. 
Are they cognates? Yes, they are.

I'd like to add another winky face but...


----------



## elirlandes

I have just been reminded in another post of the use of the word "take" in English, instead of "get".

"I am going to take my dictionary." for example, which really should read "I am going to get my dictionary".


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## Spharadi

When speaking Spanish, speakers of British English should be careful not to drop the r's.  If you want to say "cargar" (to load) don't drop the first *r* otherwise what comes out is a big putting one's foot in one's mouth, I mean it's embarrasing. 
To confuse *diary* with *dairy* can also lead to odd situations, and if as the Japanese, you  don't differentiate between  r's and the l's, this too can result in weird situations.  There's that slip by the Japanese Minister: "Mr. Bush I wish you good elections", but pronounced as an *r*.


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## Alxmrphi

> If you want to say "cargar" (to load) don't drop the first *r* otherwise what comes out is a big putting one's foot in one's mouth, I mean it's embarrasing.



Haha I didn't get it at first, then it all just clicked 



> When speaking Spanish, speakers of British English should be careful not to drop the r's.


The same goes for Italian, never drop your *r*'s when going into a _macellaio_ (butchers) and asking for _carne_ (meat), unless it's _cane_ (dog) you're looking for!


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## Heredianista

charlottesometimes said:


> ...
> 
> And, Heredianista, if that makes you feel better (or maybe gets you more and more confused, hehe): I'm from the North West of Spain, and in my hometown we use the word "sentir" as "oir" quite often. It's not uncommon to hear my grandma in the morning saying: "¿tienes catarro? porque te SENTÍ toser esta noche." And if you ever try to learn French you'll go mental: it means "to smell." Isn't it amusing to share these experiences?
> 
> ...



WoW!

That does have my head spinning. 

Thank you so much for sharing that!


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## Spharadi

May be someone else has already pointed to this issue, but what absolutely betrays the non-native speaker of Spanish, even though his/her accent might be flawless, is to confuse *ser* and *estar *(in English *to be*). 
El está abogado (he is a lawyer) instead of the correct *él es* abogado.


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## teatom

Hi friends. As I have been an English teacher in Spañish speaking countries for 20 years, I have compiled what I deem the longest list of false congnate between English and Spanish. Whoever wants to have a look, here it is:



*treacherous siblings, **FALSE CONGNATES*
*HETEROSEMÁNTICOS**, falsos hermanos*

*SpEnish / English Engish / SpEnish*
*NO MAS = that’s all, nothing else NO MORE = YA NO*
_carrera _= studies, training, MAJOR, degree / _career_ = vida professional
asistir = attend assist = help, ayudar
asistencia = attendance assistance = Socorro, ayuda
clase = lesson class = alumnado
ACTUAL = PRESENT, CURRENT ACTUAL = VERDADERO
ACTUALMENTE = CURRENTLY ACTUALLY = REALMENTE
realizar = condúct, carry out, undertake realize = darse cuenta, notice
comodidad = comfort (“kAmfit”) commodity= materia prima
casualidad = coincidence casualties = muertos y heridos
NO… EN ABSOLUTO = not at all ABSOLUTELY = efectivamente
firma = signature (“s_I_gnitchr”), sign (“s_AI_n”) firm = empresa (& firme)
prevenir = warn prevent = evitar (avoid)
*servicios públicos = **(public)** utilities public service = admin. pública*
mayor = major, main mayor (“meor”) = alcalde
la mayoría = the most of lord mayor = alcalde mayor
estado mayor = headquarters local mayor = alcalde menor
*compromiso = commitment *(a promised task)
*=* *compromise *(a settlement between two positions)
particular = private particular = remilgado, fussy
carpeta = file, folder carpet = alfombra, tapete, (rug)
resumir = summarize, abridge *resume (risyúm*) = reiniciar !!! 
say in a nutshell *resumé (resümEI)* = hoja de vida, CV
eventual = possible, eventual = resultante, finalmente
embarazada = pregnant embarrassed = apenado, avergonzado
revisar = review (cf. p. 34!!!) revise = corregir 
disponer de = have at one’s *dispose of = desechar*, (_→disposal_)
_→disposition_
para siempre = FOR GOOD for ever = ¡ viva ! ¡Arriba !


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## teatom

Sorry, It was to long here is the second part:

 *SpEnish / English** English / SpEnish*
*NO  = NOT                               NO = NINGUNA/O/S***
físico = physicist                        physician = medico
inseguro = self-conscious          self-assure = seguro de sí
sensible = sensitive                    sensible = racional, sensato, lógico
idioma = language                     idom = giro idiomático
inscripción = enrollment (fee)   inscription = dedicatória
comprensivo = understanding   comprehensive = completo, detallado
crítica = criticism                       critic = un(a) crítico/a (de arte)
argumento = point, idea            argument = pelea, to argue = pelear, discutir
simpático = pleasant, nice         sympathetic = conmiserado
*(el )único *(antepuesto)=* the only      uníque = extraño, especial *(cf.p.55)
positivo = upbeat, optimist        positive = segurísimo, convencido
fábrica = factory                        fabric = tela, textiles
costumbre = tradition, habit      customs = aduana
soportar = put up´with,              support = respaldar, back                 
 tolerate, bear, can stand
demostración = proof                demonstration = manifestación
demostrar = to prove                 demonstrate = manifestarse
bravo = angry, furious               brave  valiente
dimitir = resign, quit,                 dismiss = despedir de un trabajo
 step down/aside           (synonyms: lay off, make redundant
                                                    retrench, (give the) sack, fire 
ignorar = not know, be unaware     ignore = hacer la vista gorda
asumir = take on / over               assume = suponer, conjeturar
constipado = congested, stuffy (nose)   constipated = estreñido  
avisar = give notice, notify         advise = aconsejar
*2x seguridad:** safety* = for health, *security* = against crime     
figura = shape, form                   figure = *cifra*
acertar = get it right                      assert = aseverar


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## Ibermanolo

Many Spanish speaking people would ask "are you boring?" when we want to ask "are you bored?"


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## mirx

Thanks for the list teatom. It's pretty similar to the one I used back in the day, I just want to point out that some of those aparent false cognates do indeed have the same meaning in some Spanish-speaking countries.


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## danielfranco

Hey, teatom, thanks for the list. At work we have a book called something like "False cognates," in which they go into a lot of detail as to how they are false cognates and sometimes how they stopped meaning the same to both languages because of usage. Like "embarrassed," for example.

But it is true, that the very extensive set of false cognates might betray the non-native speaker…

D


----------



## miss sparkles

Aidanriley said:


> *1.* Starting posts with _Hi_ _Dear Friend_, _Dear Friends_, _Hello Friends_, or some variant (I see this a _*lot*_ in students from an Asian background for some reason)
> *6.* (in the English Only forum especially) Being overly kind, like "do you think it could be possible that you may be so kind as to please be so nice and generous and sweet and lovely as to tell me what this word means?" (Really, you can just say "_what's this word mean_?" and we won't mind at all , unless there's no context, in which case: )



Very observant! I´ll add to the list:

12. Ending with "kisses" or "a hug!" (not said in America, but I guess maybe in other English-speaking areas)


----------



## miss sparkles

Spharadi said:


> When speaking Spanish, speakers of British English should be careful not to drop the r's. If you want to say "cargar" (to load) don't drop the first *r* otherwise what comes out is a big putting one's foot in one's mouth, I mean it's embarrasing.



My friends and I sometimes imitate a British accent in Spanish, which is exceedingly funny to us for some reason.


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## Minnie121728

For me with the accent it is enough...since i used to work in a touristic area for years, i learned to know the country of a person, just hearing at his accent, even by the clothes they use or by they physically, and things like that, then when they talk i recognized the accent and knew where they were from...


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## Istriano

As for English, most foreigners don't find the usual, day-to-day phrasal verbs useful, so they end up using higher register Latinate or French words instead:
_postpone _instead of_ put off _or
_surrender _instead of _give in_
_ascend _instead of_ go/get up_
_descend _instead of _go/get down_
and so on...

In the American English, French_ autumn, aubergine_ are more formal than old English _fall _or _eggplant_.


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## uchi.m

My problem with English (amongst many others ) is the usage of *his* and *her*. In Portuguese, the corresponding pronoun changes according to the grammatical gender of whatever word comes afterwards, whereas in English the pronoun changes according to the gender of the person at stake.


----------



## uchi.m

Spharadi said:


> There's that slip by the Japanese Minister: "Mr. Bush I wish you good elections", but pronounced as an *r*.


I've heard of one of a gaffe from another Japanese Prime Minister. He was told to ask President Obama *how* he was. Mr. Yoshiro Mori, in an abrupt attempt to converse with President Obama, asked instead: "*Who* are you?", to what he promptly answered "I'm Michelle's husband, ha-ha-ha". Mr. Yoshiro Mori, thinking that he had asked the right question, replied "me too, ha-ha-ha" (as he was feeling good himself). Then there was a long silence in the room...


----------



## horsewishr

I've noticed that Spanish-speakers often omit the words _do_ and _it_, which are indispensable in English.


----------



## PABLO DE SOTO

I used to answer "Yes, I like" when someone asked me something as "Do you like my new shirt?".

Now I know that I liked IT.


----------



## miss sparkles

uchi.m said:


> I've heard of one of a gaffe from another Japanese Prime Minister. He was told to ask President Obama *how* he was. Mr. Yoshiro Mori, in an abrupt attempt to converse with President Obama, asked instead: "*Who* are you?", to what he promptly answered "I'm Michelle's husband, ha-ha-ha". Mr. Yoshiro Mori, thinking that he had asked the right question, replied "me too, ha-ha-ha" (as he was feeling good himself). Then there was a long silence in the room...


  oh my!!


----------



## JCA-

horsewishr said:


> I've noticed that Spanish-speakers often omit the words _do_ and _it_, which are indispensable in English.



yes we do!


----------



## hapax

Hi all, 

Very common Spanish error when speaking english to use the false friend "constipation" when they're trying to say they've caught a cold ("constipado"). Actually happened to a frend of mine that went to a Pharmacy in UK and said that she had a constipation. Didn't get the cold sorted out haha!

But also happens between Spanish speakers. For example in Argentina the verb "coger" has a sexual meaning whereas in Spain "coger" in only "take or grab" so it's very funny when a spaniard tells an argentinan that he has "cogido el autobús"


----------



## horsewishr

hapax said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Very common Spanish error when speaking english to use the false friend "constipation" when they're trying to say they've caught a cold ("constipado"). Actually happened to a frend of mine that went to a Pharmacy in UK and said that she had a constipation. Didn't get the cold sorted out haha!



Actually, many Latin Americans only use "constipado" to refer to _el estreñimiento_.  I'm a nurse.  The other day I was talking to two interpreters (one from Colombia and the other from the Dominican Republic).  Neither one believed me when I told them that Spaniards say _estoy constipado_ to mean "I have a cold."  I had to show them a thread here in WordReference.  And they were still incredulous.


----------



## Istriano

I thought Spaniards say: _estoy resfriado._


----------



## horsewishr

Istriano said:


> I thought Spaniards say: _estoy resfriado._


http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=constipado


----------



## JCA-

Hello
I'm from Colombia and here there are some differences between regions: in Bogotá is common to hear: "estoy constipado"; in Medellín instead: "resfriado"; I don't see it as mistakes, but as regional differences


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## Istriano

Well, in Spain _estoy resfriado _is much more used than_ estoy constipado_ for _I have a cold.
Estoy constipado _is used when they want to stress their nose is stuffy, but _resfriado_ is the official (medical) word.


----------



## JCA-

Istriano said:


> Well, in Spain _estoy resfriado _is much more used than_ estoy constipado_ for _I have a cold.
> Estoy constipado _is used when they want to stress their nose is stuffy, but _resfriado_ is the official (medical) word.


I did not know the difference. In any case, I also prefer using the word "resfriado"


----------



## boozer

I have not read the whole thread as it is so long, so I suppose this has already been said more than once. Anyway, I believe the first thing that betrays anyone as a non-native speaker of any language is the pronunciation/foreign accent. I understand, of course, that it is damn difficult to achieve a level of proficiency, fluency and pronunciation in a foreign language that make you indistinguishable. However, most learners of foreign languages (all languages and all learners) do not even try to speak properly. Much more importance is attached to vocabulary and grammar than to pronunciation because it is thought that once you know enough vocabulary and grammar you will be understood with or without the accent.

Well, I believe this to be a slipshod attitude towards the acquisition of a foreign language. I mean - if you're doing it anyway, try to do it properly.  

I have heard many foreigners speak my language and have often been totally unable to hear one familiar word - they can be so inarticulate. On the other hand, I was once in a situation where I did not believe a guy was an Italian born in Italy until he showed me his Italian passport. "C'mon, Italian my ass, you were probably naturalised a few years ago and now you've become less Bulgarian than I am!" And then, quite amused, he shows me his passport  - totally Italian, born there, came to Bulgaria 8 years ago. And then he spoke to me Italian - marvellous Italian as far as I could tell  Now, this is what I call perfect command of a foreign language!!! I was totally impressed! (This said, I have never heard an Italian speak English like this, but then I have not met so many Italians, I suppose  )

Oh, my! Got carried away. My point is - pay more attention to the way you speak! If you have learnt a foreign language - make it count! 

Cheers, friends


----------



## KirkandRafer

When somebody mixes accents up you realize straight away she or he is not a native speaker. It works both ways —it happened to me back when I was in England and it happens now to my Canadian lecturer at university. Kind of weird listening to someone who has American pronuntiation and says "lift", as well as someone who has Spanish accent and greets saying "¿Bueno?" when answering the phone.


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## miss sparkles

KirkandRafer said:


> When somebody mixes accents up you realize straight away she or he is not a native speaker. It works both ways —it happened to me back when I was in England and it happens now to my Canadian lecturer at university. Kind of weird listening to someone who has American pronuntiation and says "lift", as well as someone who has Spanish accent and greets saying "¿Bueno?" when answering the phone.



I know what you mean! Kind of related, sometimes I forget that Europeans often learn British English, and hearing a Spaniard say "lift" catches me off guard.


----------



## KirkandRafer

I mentioned the mixed accents thing because nobody seems to be talking about it and it is a strange phenomenom. People learn British English at school and American English through songs, series and films. Odd hodgepodge. 



miss sparkles said:


> I know what you mean! Kind of related, sometimes I forget that Europeans often learn British English, and hearing a Spaniard say "lift" catches me off guard.


Just out of curiosity, what variety of English is taught in Italy, Germany, France? I have always guessed that British English, but I have never checked it out. And what about Asia? I take for granted that American English is taught in Latin America.


----------



## boozer

miss sparkles said:


> ...sometimes I forget that Europeans often learn British English...


Well, invariably in my country. Although they are allowed to freely adopt AE spelling and accent at a later stage if they so "elect"


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## Istriano

I don't think British English is popular in Europe...Even most British pop artists sing in with an American accent (except for Sophie Ellis Bextor who uses her Middlesex accent).
In countries with a direct access to Hollywood movies and sitcoms on TV in their original form (undubbed) [Portugal, Flanders, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Balkans], people tend to prefer the American accent, even tho' the textbooks used are those published by the Oxford University Press. So, most young Norwegians speak English with an American accent (and not with the Norwegian accent), which is different than the situation in Germany where young people speak English with a German accent (but they swear they speak it with a British accent  ).

It's funny that even those who find the British English ''better, more beautiful, sexier...'' have trouble understanding an average British person (that's because only 3% of the British use the RP - the pronunciation defended by foreign professors of English).   So, learning British English has no advantage when it comes to understanding broad British accents.  That's because the real accents are always hidden from the learner of (British) English. Therefore, many people feel frustrated when they go to London and they don't understand a word. 

In Brazil, at least, the movies in movie theaters are not dubbed. In Italy, they are.


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## KirkandRafer

Istriano said:


> In Brazil, at least, the movies in movie theaters are not dubbed. In Italy, they are.


In Spain they are too. And I think they also are in France and Germany.  With regard to Spain, it is a remnant of old censorship and a big problem for those who like to see films in OV since there are few movie theaters which offer that service.


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## boozer

Istriano said:


> In countries with a direct access to Hollywood movies and sitcoms on TV in their original form (undubbed) [Portugal, Flanders, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Balkans], people tend to prefer the American accent,.....


Since I live in the very centre of the Balkans, I can say that English here is usually spoken with a very strong local accent and incorrectly. Much of the time I'm horrified listening to my fellow country men, as well as other Balkan folk, and I usually politely decline to communicate with them in English.  Few people around here ever reach a level of command of the English language allowing them to be choosy and picky about their accent. The vast majority of those who do, however, speak British RP, beyond any doubt...


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## Istriano

But Romanian singers like Inna or Alexandra Stan seem to speak it nicely.


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## boozer

Istriano said:


> But Romanian singers like Inna or Alexandra Stan seem to speak it nicely.


Have not heard either of them but it is possible. Of course, singing English and speaking English are two different things. But I'm not arguing with you on this one - I simply have never heard those girls.


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## uchi.m

boozer said:


> But I'm not arguing with you on this one - I simply have never heard those girls.


Planet Earth calling boozer... are you sure you live on this planet?


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## KirkandRafer

uchi.m said:


> Planet Earth calling boozer... are you sure you live on this planet?


I don't even know either of them. Is it that strange?


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## boozer

uchi.m said:


> Planet Earth calling boozer... are you sure you live on this planet?


I could ask such a question to someone who has not heard of, say, Depeche Mode or Pink Floyd. And they might be just as unperturbed as I am now saying that I have never heard of those two girls and I am doing fine nonetheless.


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## Schmizzkazz

A voiceless s instead of a voiced s  often betrays non-native speakers from Germany in England.


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## Explorer41

Hello!



Heredianista said:


> *~Italian (as spoken by a Spanish-speaker)~*
> 
> I've done so many things like that. When I first moved to Rome from Madrid, I knew very little Italian. Often I could insert Spanish words when I didn't know the Italian ones, and be understood. But that didn't always work.
> 
> I got one young woman in hysterics when I used the word "deprimida" instead of "depressa." She thought it was hilarious for some reason.
> 
> Then there was the time when I was in the University of Rome, and a gentleman approached me and asked me where the History Department was. I said, "Non lo so; lo sento."
> 
> I meant, "No lo sé; lo siento." But what I'd actually said was, "I don't know; I hear it..."
> 
> I realized _immediately_ what I had said, but I had no idea how to correct myself. I was just paralyzed. So I stood there looking into his eyes, as his face registered the fact that I was clearly a crazy person. Nuts. Someone who "hears" places...


"places"? I always thought "lo sento" would mean that you hear the words said, or listen to them... Or maybe that you understand the words, "feel" them, so to say. So I thought the translation would be like "Where's 'name of the building?'" - "I don't know; I understand your words" or "I don't know; I listen to you", which sounds of course crazy or rude, but is another thing - another kind of craziness..      

But no one native Italian-speaker corrected you, so probably you're right... though your interpretation seems to me just strange... Of course, my Italian is not good, so I might have misunderstood it myself.


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## Heredianista

Explorer41 said:


> Hello!
> 
> 
> "places"? I always thought "lo sento" would mean that you hear the words said, or listen to them... Or maybe that you understand the words, "feel" them, so to say. So I thought the translation would be like "Where's 'name of the building?'" - "I don't know; I understand your words" or "I don't know; I listen to you", which sounds of course crazy or rude, but is another thing - another kind of craziness..
> 
> But no one native Italian-speaker corrected you, so probably you're right... though your interpretation seems to me just strange... Of course, my Italian is not good, so I might have misunderstood it myself.



Well, I'd just used "lo" to refer to "where the History Dept. is", so I don't think it would follow that, in the same sentence, "lo" would refer to him. If I were referring to his question, I'd have to have used the feminine, and if I were referring to his words it would be plural.


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## Explorer41

OK, understood. Maybe at that occasion it was so... 
It's just that in Pirandello's "Il fu Mattia Pascal" there are phrases like "questo lo so" or "l'uomo non lo sapeva" (in his "premesse", unfortunately I don't know at the moment the right English word), where "lo" was addressed to whole unnamed ideas (like "la Terra gira intorno al Sole").


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## inter1908

Dutch spoken by a Pole

 - people from my country usually have AWFUL pronunciation, what's (for me) is the most annoying thing is hearing "nk" where "ng" is needed, for example wank [ʋɑŋk] instead of wang [ʋɑŋ], or pronouncing "h" guturally ("Ik geb gem wel gezien" instead of "Ik heb hem wel gezien"), or the contrary ("Ik heb hem wel hezien"), the latter is somehow better, because a lot Belgian dialects partially do it as well (for g and ch, "h" is then deleted - Ik eb em wel hezien)
- failing to distinguish een, het, de, dit, deze, dat, die, overusing the last four where het/de would be appropriate (the same as with English the/these/those)
- overusing the past simple
- completely ignoring the past perfect
- bad word order (that applies to everyone, maybe excluding the speakers of German)
- not using pronominal adverbs ("Over wat praat je?", "Wat praat je over?" in place of the correct "Waarover praat je?", "Waar praat je over?")
  - failing to correctly use separable compound verbs ("Ik aanneem de telefoon" in place of the correct "Ik neem de telefoon aan"), and when it's learnt, they often fail to use it correctly in subclauses, where the word should be joint ("...dat ik de telefoon aanneem")
 - wrong stressing, if it comes to both sentences and verbs ("aannémen" instead of the correct "áánnemen", separable verbs are always stressed on their prefixes, the contrary is true for the unseparable compound verbs, there are several ones, like voorkomen which, depending on the meaning, can be both separable and unseparable)

Polish spoken by anyone who's not a native
  - Everything. You have to work very hard to fake a native speaker. When you're a speaker of a closely related language, say Slovak or Ukrainian, you have to master the pronunciation (no Slavic language has nasalized vowels apart from Polish), not to mention mastering the differences between your language and Polish. When you're a speaker of a not-at-all related to Polish language then... good luck. And a lot of time. After, say 5-10 years of a very hard work you may eventually succeed. Search for "Dawid Snopek", he's been learning Polish for 4-5 years already, I can understand 99% of what he says (about 90% is said correctly), but I would never mistake him for a native. His pronunciation is too strange and his grammar is way too bad for him to be considered a native speaker.


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## NewtonCircus

robjh22 said:


> For example, I tend to use the word "demasiado" when talking to my Mexican friends, but I notice that they almost never use it themselves. I also say "pauta" for "guideline" and notice that they never use it themselves.


This reminds me about an incident that happened a while ago shortly after distributing a document. When I compiled the document I unconsciously used the word _idem_ in the context of “the same” or “ditto” throughout the entire text. Much to my astonishment I received several emails the very next day with the question what _idem_ actually meant. After checking the document again, MS Word did not mark the word as an error, and even more astonishing, even suggested synonyms.

_Idem_ is a common word in Dutch, so assuming that the rest of this document would have been flawless, I guess that the use of this word would have had revealed that English is not my native language?

Cheers Herman


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## Jabir

English people speak Portuguese as if they had a very hot potato in their mouth. And also, they cannot pronounce pronounce the correct "r" sound.


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## Flaminius

English speakers cannot produce long vowels in Japanese.  For example, a lot of them say ou, a diphthong, for ō.

[To complicate things a bit, <ou> happens to be the transcription for ō in a very erratic transcription system, whose existence is merely tolerated because the government say it's the official alphabetisation of the Japanese language.  The government themselves seem not to be happy with it, as a lot of ministries use a lot more sensible transcription system.]


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## arielipi

Since in hebrew we only have 5 vowels a e o i u
It is very hard to learn how to pronounce the ee ea and all those small diffrences.
Even though I do hear the differences, when I speak its less certain
What is the exact diff between ee i ea and all the rest anyway?


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## JCA-

arielipi said:


> Since in hebrew we only have 5 vowels a e o i u
> It is very hard to learn how to pronounce the ee ea and all those small diffrences.



And what about French?. And, by the way, i read you want to learn french. So do I. And am I doing it, and one of the most difficult things is that, what you say for English, but in French is even more difficult, because it is said, they have almost 14 vowels. For example the "e". My French teacher says, we in spanish, we have two "e's", although we ourself we don't know. We believe, we have five vowels, the same as you say you have in hebrew, a e i o u. But, my teacher says, we don't say at the same way the e in perro (dog) as in querer (to want). The first is more open than the second. And maybe, he is right, but we are not conscious about it. Maybe is it the same for you?. Anyway, you have to be careful with this in french. It was for me (and it is still) one of the most difficult things by learning or speaking french. It is more difficult than in english.


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## arielipi

luckily, i am talented with languages and with the muscles producing sounds...i learn accents pretty fast, and i had almost perfect american accent when i was at my best.
well, we too have the shallow and more pitched and normal sounds, but its more of a different tone than a real vowel


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## JCA-

arielipi said:


> luckily, i am talented with languages and with the muscles producing sounds...i learn accents pretty fast, and i had almost perfect american accent when i was at my best.



Well, I'm glad about it and hope you start to learn french soon. Then we can share experiences and questions about it. It is a difficult but beautiful language, but sometimes I think languages are like women: The most beautiful are the hardest. And the more difficult, is much more pleasant to approach them.


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## arielipi

i will start learning it[if not learning by my own or anything] once i take a course at my university...next year perhaps


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## vince

I've noticed that foreign language classes don't talk about "modal particles" and "discourse particles" in a language enough. So non-native speakers just don't use them, or use them incorrectly.

These words only appear in spoken language, not the written language, so even if a foreign language student is awesome at reading/writing comprehension, they may never see them until they speak to a native speaker other than their instructor.

I'm talking about words like "doch" and "einmal" in German, or the use of "enfin" and "quoi" in French. It also comes down to using the right filler word, English speakers will say "umm", while French speakers will say "euh", no matter what language they're actually speaking. Younger English speakers learning foreign languages will often use the equivalent word of "like" a lot. "Il etait comme, 'Je n'aime pas ca!'" (He was like, I don't like that!) A native French speaker would never say that!


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## Outsider

Schmizzkazz said:


> A voiceless s instead of a voiced s  often betrays non-native speakers from Germany in England.


I notice the opposite more often in German speakers: voicing an "s" when it should be voiceless. Also devoicing stops at the end of words, in English.


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## Sepia

In a lot of countries it is probably like in Denmark where it is a common that teachers claim that only BE is acceptable in the school system. This, however, is not true. The laws regulating the curriculum says nothing about BE or any other *E. A lot of people tend to AE, though, because that is what you mainly hear in the media. 

But there is also a certain amount of snobism what BE is concerned and something which is supposed to be "standard English" or "Oxford English" - and if you are maschistic enough to want to hear what that sounds like, then go on youtube and look for clips with former prime minister Fogh-Rasmussen.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Swedish schools usually teach BE/RP, but if students prefer to speak AE, they are free to do so, as long as they're consistent. I don't think it is possible to sound snobbish if you have a foreign accent, you just sound more or less ridiculous!  I've heard far worse variants of English from Swedes than the 'Denglish' Mr Fogh Rasmussen produces! (Search YT for "Hans Rosling Ted talks", if you can bear with the horrid Swenglish accent he's pretty good at making his points and with neat graphics, too)

Getting back to non-native giveaways, I'd say that the r's and the diphthongs are always the first thing that identifies a native English speaker trying to speak Swedish (or any other foreign language). The native Spanish speaker will be revealed the first time they say Estokolm, and they frequently mess up the pronunciation of v and b. Syllable stress is a problem for most non-natives, I think.

Other pitfalls for any non-native speaker of Swedish are the word order, which is often reversed, although English speakers should have an advantage over Spanish speakers on that point. Using the perfect tense instead of simple past is more common from non-Germanic speakers, English speakers seem to cope better. Gender declination of Swedish nouns and adjectives is another feature that is difficult for non-native speakers except perhaps for other Nordic language speakers.

I haven't mentioned German or Dutch speakers simply because I don't know those languages well enough.

Swedes speaking English tend to overuse the w, if in doubt they'll throw in a w instead of a v, which is odd since the letter exists in Swedish but normally pronounced v except for in whisky and a few other English loan words. Like the Germans, Swedes often fail to use voiced s, replacing it with a voiceless s. Verb-noun agreement and using the definite article in the right places are also common pitfalls for Swedes. Also, Swedes often forget to say please, as the Swedish language doesn't have an exact equivalent. 

Swedes speaking Spanish will have a little trouble if taught to lisp where Castilians do, or pronounce the j in jota correctly. I am told our S sound sounds wrong, too, though I'm not sure how. Mixing up ser and estar are classics, as is failure to use the subjunctive in the right context. Again, por favor is too easily forgotten about.

/Wilma


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## Sepia

I have heard worse Englisch than that of Mr Foth Rasmussen. Sure I have. But the point is, some teachers actually claim it should sound like that and would award you top points for that. 

........

What Germans often don't get right - apart from using prepositions - is that they mix up adverbs and adjectives. Some don't even understand what you mean when you tell them. In German you can't tell if a word is an adjective or an adverb if there is no context.


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