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How do you perceive mistakes? | ||
Tags: Error | Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Donaldshimoda Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4092 days ago 47 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 8 10 August 2015 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi guys! I was wondering about how do you perceive mistakes in a foreign language...for
example if someone would say "YOU DOESN'T KNOW IT", how bad would that sound to you (non english native speakers)?? Would it be as bad as in your native language or not? I found myself not really bothering at all as long as I obviously understand what is being said, while of course a mistake in my native language (italian) would immediately "irritate" me. Second question: what is the most common mistake native speakers do in your language?? In Italy lots of people would say for example "GLI PARLO" referring to a woman instead of "LE PARLO" (GLI=to him LE=to her) let alone the use of conjuctive mood which is really struggling for many people. Example --------> PENSO CHE TU SIA INTELLIGENTE (right) vs PENSO CHE TU SEI INTELLIGENTE (wrong)...meaning "I think you're smart" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 8 11 August 2015 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Interestingly I seem to be a lot more aware of mistakes in foreign languages than in my native English. Basic gender and usage mistakes in French hurt my ears, and when Italians don't use the conjunctive properly I notice. Yet when I speak English with non-natives I'm very tolerant of their mistakes and I barely even notice unless they impede understanding. And native speakers of French and Italian tend to compliment learners very highly if their accent is good, even if they make mistakes in every sentence: seems as if the good accent "hides" the mistakes.
Maybe this is just because with my target languages I've done a lot of grammar study and I've developed an ear for detecting and correcting my own mistakes, which makes me more aware and critical of those of others too. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| solocricket Tetraglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3678 days ago 68 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Icelandic, Korean, Polish | Message 3 of 8 14 August 2015 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I hardly notice small mistakes in English (I actually find them charming and interesting,
especially if the person making the tiny mistake doesn't have an accent!), but something like "you doesn't know it" is pretty bad and grating in my opinion, not that I'd be rude about it. I'm not great at noticing small mistakes in French or Spanish, and I kind of have to search for them. However, I do immediately notice if an English speaker is using English sentence construction with French words pasted on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 4 of 8 15 August 2015 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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In a country like Canada we have a multi-ethnic society with people from many countries. It is understandable the first generation immigrants in the country would have foreign accents when speaking English. Depending on the country of origin, speaking English with some accents are easier to listen to than others.
I know someone who came from Hong Kong over 20 years ago with Cantonese as his first language. He works in a call center as a Customer Service Rep. talking on the phone in English all day. He does make grammatical mistakes occasionally like "he don't" instead of "he doesn't". It's rather odd to know he received an university Bachelor degree in Economics but has trouble writing proper English sentences. He once tried to write a letter to a government agency and got the word "witness" as a noun when the sentence required a verb. The 1 time I did find a mistake rather distracting while listening to an English radio program from Beijing with a man as a host from England and a Chinese lady as the co-host. The Chinese lady spoke English without a noticeable accent except that she made 1 grammatical error when she said something like "he was teach..." instead of "he was taught..." If you are going to be on radio, the listeners expect you not to make these common mistakes. Using the American way of saying something instead of the British way like "gas station" instead of "petrol station" would still be acceptable. Edited by shk00design on 16 August 2015 at 3:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3544 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 5 of 8 18 August 2015 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Saying "gas station" when you believe "petrol station" to be the local variety is not a 'mistake'. Both terms are understandable by any educated audience. Mistakes happen to us all. When speaking we often start a sentence without thinking about how we're going to end it, so it will run on, we'll use the wrong words, etc. When writing we often don't read every single letter of every word, so we misspell things, etc. It's not a "second language learner"-only thing. I've often heard it said by speakers of a specific language, something to the effect of "we don't make that mistake", referring to some specific grammatical item, pronunciation, word, etc. Wrong. Everybody makes every type of mistake. Edited by chaotic_thought on 18 August 2015 at 11:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 8 19 August 2015 at 2:52am | IP Logged | ||
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They bother me more in non-native languages because I've worked so hard to avoid them. (Finnish and especially English)
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tortuga Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3389 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 8 19 August 2015 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
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A mistake that I hear a lot here in the UK, which really bothers me is when native speakers don't conjugate
verbs properly. For example "you was...", "we does...". However, it doesn't bother me if a non-native speaker does these things, as I understand that learning a second language isn't easy, but for people who only speak one language to constantly make grammatical errors is very annoying to me haha. Edited by Tortuga on 24 August 2015 at 10:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ruan Diglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6183 days ago 95 posts - 101 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 8 of 8 24 August 2015 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
This happens a lot where I live in Brazil. During a civil war, southern Brazilians migrated to the north. They brought with them some new musical instruments, like the accordion, and a new pronoun: Tu. However, northern Brazilians did not assimilate the proper declensions for Tu ( like "Tu vais" "Tu pegastes" ). They just replace Você by Tu and use the declesions that are meant for Você ( as in "Tu vai" and "Tu pegou" ). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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