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Common English Mistakes | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5257 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 49 of 61 12 August 2012 at 5:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think there is an odd tendency of people to believe that the way they were taught a language is the "correct" way, and all changes from that point on are somehow deviating from the standard. However, these people never stop to consider how different their dialect is from the speech of their grandparents. Also, people are typically hyper-critical of errors in language that bother them, while not being aware of the errors in their own language usage. For instance, in spoken American language, even self-proclaimed grammarians typically say "there's" instead of "there are". "There's a great deal grammatical mistakes made by the uneducated masses." << Should be there are.
Maybe it is just because I am a Linguistics major, but I think that describing how grammar changes over time is more important than trying to force an artificial dialect on people. And if anyone disagrees with me: do you still say sneaked, as was appropriate 100 years ago, or do you say snuck, as nearly everyone, in the U.S. at least, does? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5229 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 50 of 61 15 August 2012 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I disagree. Trying to force an artificial dialect on people, prizing some dialects over others, complaining about others' usage, that's a natural human trait, as natural as language change. It's interesting and worth studying. And it seems as worth doing as any other linguistic goal. Moreover, I don't think everyone thinks the way they were taught is correct. Many people are ashamed of their dialect if it varies significantly from a prestige dialect, and avoid it if possible. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| etranger Pentaglot Newbie Australia Joined 4481 days ago 5 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Danish, Irish | Message 51 of 61 22 August 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Here are some common errors in English by native Chinese speakers:
- 'I have ever seen that movie' Using 'ever' as a perfect--tense marker in an affirmative statement. This is because they mark past time in Chinese this way, with a single character '过‘。 - 'So you don't live in Beijing? 'Yes, I don't.' Using 'yes' to confirm a negative. This is a carry-over from Chinese where they negate with an affirmative statement. - 'I am come from China', Confusion caused by the two ways of expressing this 'I come from/I'm from'. - 'Thank you' 'No thank you'. Direct translation of Chinese answer to a thank you, '不谢’, literally 'No thank you (needed)'. - 'My boss lets me work overtime' instead of 'makes/forces/requires'. The Chinese for 'to let sb. do sthg.' and 'to make sb. do sthg.' is the same word, '让‘。 - 'I am very boring' when they mean 'I am very bored'. There is no '-ed/-ing' distimnction in Chinese! They differentiate by saying 'This is boring' and 'I feel bored'. - 'I am China people' when they mean 'I am Chinese'. It's really easy to state a nationality in Chinese, just add '人’ (person) to the end of the country. - 'The kitchen is in the chicken' What they mean is 'The chicken is in the kitchen'. I am at a loss to explain this one, no clues in Chinese, and yet this mistake is EXTREMELY common, even amongst very fluent English-speaking Chinese people. There must have been a misprint in some old textbook that got entrenched in everyone's mind! Edited by etranger on 22 August 2012 at 4:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 52 of 61 22 August 2012 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One of the Chinese ways to state location is roughly:
"kitchen-IN has chicken" Probably something like that interefering with the English... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tropi Diglot Groupie Austria Joined 5432 days ago 67 posts - 87 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 53 of 61 23 August 2012 at 3:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Really? How would this construction look like? 厨房在有鸡肉? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 54 of 61 23 August 2012 at 8:42am | IP Logged | |||||
廚房裏（里）有雞（鸡） 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 55 of 61 23 August 2012 at 10:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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A common mistake in Indian English:
''India is beautiful than Somalia.'' instead of ''India is more beautiful than Somalia''. Many Indians forget to use MORE in comparatives, they simple use adjective+than instead (which, as an Indian friend of mine told me, is influence of Indian languages). More examples (google search site: in): Welcome to the state which is beautiful than beauty itself. She is treated rude and harsh just because she is beautiful than Jyothi. Life has changed completely and it is beautiful than ever. Mainstream politics is dangerous than secession, Second leg of the trek is difficult than the first as the path gets steeper. It is expensive than other Versace perfumes. Swiss Air ( a subsidiary of Lufthansa airways) has direct connection from Delhi and Mumbai (to Zurich) but it is expensive than Emirates. :) Edited by Medulin on 23 August 2012 at 10:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5084 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian | Message 56 of 61 24 August 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, in Hindi "se" means than. So:
मेरी हिंदी मेरी पंजाबी अच्छी से है । Meri hindi meri panjabi acchi se hai. My Hindi my Punjabi good than is. (no "more" or "better") My Hindi is better than my Punjabi. Although actually with the word "accha" there is a comparative form ("behter"), this doesn't exist for other adjectives AFAIK. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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