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Annoying mistakes in your native language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Mafouz Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5140 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Japanese, French | Message 121 of 151 02 May 2010 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I hate two things that are expressly forbidden in Spanish but some people -and many journalists- do:
- Beguin a phrase with an infinitive: "Decir que....", "señalar..." This is a bad habit used only in public formal speaking, and is simply horrible. - Use of gerund in the title of a document "Construyendo una sociedad más justa". This is simply an English construction to be avoided. It sounds bad. An there is continuous bad use of prepositions, also by cult speakers and all the time in TV 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Mafouz Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5140 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Japanese, French | Message 122 of 151 02 May 2010 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It is correct, accepted as a dialectal variation. Others are NOT correct, like the use we make in Madrid and other parts of Spain of "La" to refer to a direct object. Example: "La gusta que la peguen"*** is totally incorrect, although maybe funny "Le gusta que la peguen", correct, although sounds strange "Le gusta que le pequen", correct, prefered by a cult speaker both in Spain and Latin America? Not sure Other example: "Yo la como" (la sopa) corect, direct object "Yo le como" (la cabeza a mi hermana -I try to convince her of something and manipulate her). As this "le" is refering to an indirect object, it is correct. Uhmm, never sure or the rule. Somebody has reference material at hand to consult? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5150 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 123 of 151 04 May 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You got that right. In Dutch compounds are linked together as well (except in some special cases) but under the influence of English, people have started to separate them. This is known as "De Engelse ziekte"/"The English disease" and is sometimes amusing but often annoying. What's annoying about it is that the spelling changes the meaning of what you're trying to say. For example: Langeafstandsloper is a long-distance runner. Lange afstandsloper is a tall distance-runner. Stoplicht is a stop light. Stop licht is either a grammatically incorrect version of a stopped light (??) or the exclamation "Stop! Light!" without the correct punctuation. Sluispersoneel is sluice staff as in the people who work at a sluice. Sluis personeel is sluicy staff. I'm not sure what a person is when they're sluicy but it doesn't sound very positive. Despite these examples which I find quite funny, I'm usually annoyed when I come across one of these mistakes. Especially because I've always loved this facet of the Dutch language since it allows for mind-boggling words like langetermijnsplanning, ontoerekeningsvatbaarheid, vuilnisgwagenchauffeursphobie and my personal favourite koekjesfabriekdeegleveranciersopleidingsaanmeldingsformulier. You won't find many of them in the dictionary but as far as I know they're grammatically correct. Edited by ReneeMona on 25 June 2010 at 7:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6287 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 124 of 151 04 May 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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One that's been bugging the heck out of me lately is using "lead" as the past tense of "lead" (presumably by analogy with "read", or influenced by the metal "lead"). The past tense of "lead" is spelled "led".
I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but I'll comment on this anyway:
I've never heard of such a rule, and I've read quite a lot about pitfalls to avoid in Spanish. Perhaps the issue is the specific phrases in question, not merely the use of the infinitive at the beginning. For instance, my Puerto Rican neighbor said "Comer es bueno" -- surely that's not a stylistic blunder?
I don't know, I think it has a nuance that cannot succinctly be expressed any other way. "Construyendo una sociedad" isn't really saying the same thing as "Construir una sociedad" or any other phrasing I can think of. It's also important to note here that the Spanish-speaking world is very diverse, and as a foreign learner of Spanish, I find it very common that what sounds perfectly normal to one speaker will sound very strange to another, and vice versa.
I think instead of "cult" you meant "cultured" or "educated"; the English word "cult" generally refers to a crazed religious group.
Indeed, you hate it so much that your fingers refused to type the "wrong" spelling. ;) I presume you meant to type the second one as "definitely". EDIT: I see now that in fact, as discussed earlier in the thread, the forum software filters "definately" into "definitely". Worse, you get no warning that this has happened. This is bad. How can you discuss misspellings on a forum that "corrects" the misspellings? Never put a computer in charge of what should be determined by human judgment. - Kef Edited by furrykef on 04 May 2010 at 5:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Mafouz Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5140 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Japanese, French | Message 125 of 151 04 May 2010 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I see your point, furryket. Both are matters of style, wich are not usually teached to second learners . But there are reasons to avoid them. The use of infinitives is not inccorrect when you don't have an alternative and want to speak of the action itself. In "comer es bueno" your are refering to "la acción de comer", and there is not other word for this. But in "decir que el asunto es muy importante"* the speaker is using the infinitive in a function for wich it is not built: as a substitute of "Hay que decir" or "Es necesario decir". I will find references for this and will send them to you in private (to avoid bothering the others).
Yes, indeed it is a stylistic blunder, but your Puerto Rican neighbour uses it as correctly as Cervantes himself ;). He is signalling the name of the action. In the other use it is substituting another expression with other meaning. I think this incorrection is typically from the Spanish of Spain, and not very common. But I jump from my chair when somebody uses it. I think the problem with gerund is another question. In this case, the use is a direct import from English. The general idea in Spanish is to avoid the use of gerund on most occasions, as it is supossed to be confuse, ugly and to some extent replaceable by other expresions. It is nowadays of normal and correct use in everyday expressions: "-¿Qué estás haciendo?; -Estoy comiendo". This is not a law, is a style pattern. But in the use I am signaling it is not correct, as it is supossed to mean "Hacia la construcción de un mundo mejor", for example. The solution "Hacia la construcción..."is not stylistically good, but it is not incorrect. The problem here is the use of a syntactic constuction borrowed from other language. An yes, this is more common in the Spanish from some countries (as the mexican ¿"Qué tanto...?" for "¿Cuánto...?", direct traslation from "How much...?"), but it is nowadays incorrect according to the educated standard on these same countries. BUT standards can change. PD: Thanks for the correction. This same day I used the word correctly in another posts: learnt. Edited by Mafouz on 04 May 2010 at 9:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| michamotor Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5255 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: German*, Czech, French, English Studies: Hungarian | Message 126 of 151 04 May 2010 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
guilty, and normally I don´t care But I think it sounds horrible, if people use the accusativ instead of the dativ in formal speech "Das Wort das über DIE Woche steht..." (instead of: ...DER Woche steht) "Ich gratuliere SIE zum Geburtstag" (instead of: ..IHNEN zum Geburtstag as our pastor often (or always) said. And I hate the overuse of English or French loanwords. "Meine präferierte Lieblingsmusik" ("präferiert" und "Lieblings-" mean the same and the latter is much better) "parlieren" (from "parler" instead of: "sich unterhalten") Edited by michamotor on 04 May 2010 at 10:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Euphorion Hexaglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5155 days ago 106 posts - 147 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Czech, EnglishC2, GermanC1, SpanishC2, French | Message 127 of 151 07 May 2010 at 9:24am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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for example when the Czechs say víc důležitější (literally "more importanter") instead of důležitější or víc důležitý, that is when they put the adjective/adverb into comparative twice
or when they dont use the possessive pronoun svůj which has no equivalent in English. When the object of the sentence belongs to the subject, you must use it. I have my car. Mám své auto. not Mám moje auto. You have your car. Máš své auto. not Máš tvoje auto. He has his car. Má své auto. not Má jeho auto - but that can mean he has a car of someone else, the object doesnt belong to the subject of the sentence Edited by Euphorion on 07 May 2010 at 9:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| j0nas Triglot Groupie Norway Joined 5357 days ago 46 posts - 70 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German | Message 128 of 151 07 May 2010 at 10:59am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Norwegian:
People using 'de' in stead of 'dem'. 'Jeg så de.' (I saw they) and not 'Jeg så dem,' (I saw them). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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