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Learning from learners mistakes. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Logie100 Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 5252 days ago 35 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 5 23 June 2011 at 5:16am | IP Logged |
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What do you guys think about learning from the mistakes foreigners make while speaking English,in order to speak your target language better?
here is an example: You are talking to your Spanish speaking friend and he says "I have twenty four years". He has obviously translated directly from Spanish: "tengo veinticuatro años". do you think by picking up on common errors that people who speak your target languages would be useful? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5243 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 2 of 5 23 June 2011 at 9:08am | IP Logged |
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Firstly, I think it's much faster and safer to learn by reading directly in a book:
"To tell your age in Spanish, say: Tengo 24 años." Takes just 2 seconds. Secondly, I believe you will be able to make sense of & thus make use of such mistakes only if you already know the construction in Spanish. If your Spanish friend says, "When I was young I was going to the sea", and you haven't learned el imperfecto yet, it may not be obvious to you that s/he was translating from el imperfecto. You may even incorrectly deduce that in Spanish, one says "*Cuando era joven, fui yendo al mar". I'll say, I wouldn't deliberately learn Spanish this way, but if I happen to encounter such errors, then analysing them is better than ignoring them. Edited by smallwhite on 23 June 2011 at 9:09am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 5 23 June 2011 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
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Sometimes the errors do reveal patterns, but as smallwhite says, it can be deceptive.
I've corrected more than my fair share of English only to hear "ahh! Just like in Spanish!" So while some errors are language interference, many are just the result of overgeneralising: trying to employ the structures they've been taught in every circumstance, even ones they've not been explicitly taught. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5353 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 4 of 5 23 June 2011 at 5:38pm | IP Logged |
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I would think it much better to learn from the common mistakes fellow speakers of your
native language make in speaking your target language. For some languages you can get books for language learners which deal with the most common mistakes that speakers with a certain native language make in speaking a foreign language due to literally translating their native language into the target language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 5 of 5 23 June 2011 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
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When I was learning Hindi, I realized that if I could speak in English with an Indian accent, I could speak in Hindi with an Indian accent, and that actually improved my accent. I'm sure that would apply with other languages: if you know what a German sounds like in English, that would help with understanding what German is supposed to sound like. I'm not suggesting you should practice the foreign accent in English; that time would be better spent practicing the correct accent in the foreign language. But if you happen to notice how people from your target language pronounce things in your language, that should give you some pointers as to the correct accent in their language.
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