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English can sometimes be weird. If you get something wrong, it is likely that the person you are talking to will still understand you and probably won’t correct you which can make it difficult to improve. Watch out for these 5 common mistakes in English that are made by non-native speakers.
1. The Double Negative
Some languages need several negative words in a sentence in order for it to make sense, but in English, not only is this wrong, but it can reverse the meaning.
As an example, I don’t know nothing is actually implying that you know something. Instead, you should say I don’t know anything.
Double negatives are things that some native speakers get wrong too!
2. Leaving out 'the'
It is very easy to leave out a “the” in several sentences, because the rules can seem very inconsistent. Take the following two phrases:
I study in UK
I study in Ireland
Only the second one is correct. As “UK” is short for United Kingdom, it needs a ‘the’ in front of it because there is only one United Kingdom.
Ireland on the other hand is a name and although there is only one Ireland, it behaves differently. It behaves in the same way as your name or a friend’s name, and you would not put a ‘the’ in front of your friend’s name if you were talking about them.
3. Agreeing with negatives
If a friend says “I don’t like fish and chips” and for some bizarre reason you also don’t like fish and chips, it might feel right to reply “me too”.
While someone would understand what you mean by this, it is not right. The correct response here is “me neither” or “neither do I”.
4. Focusing too much on the grammar
This is a mistake that a lot of people make regardless of the language they are trying to learn. If you want to learn English, do not focus too much on the grammar. Listening to and understanding spoken English is far more important. The more you become familiar with it, all of the above and more will simply start to stand out as wrong.
Speaking with the locals will definitely help with this, but if you want to get better at listening to English, then you might also want to try learning English with movies or even by playing video games. This can get you used to hearing it before going to learn English abroad.
5. Not enough confidence
Finally, this is a problem that is easy to talk about but hard to fix. You should never feel so scared of making one of these common mistakes that it stops you from talking or trying to talk in English.
Be a little fearless. After all, the most common mistake of all is not making enough common mistakes.
beside the invaluable comments from my colleagues, beware of the code-mixing and the code-switching problems.. i.e. when you feel stressed and skip the right words in the En lang. you replace it with the Ar. equivelant leaving the native listener puzzled because of the indecipherability of the sentence as a whole.. like when using the word يعني in the middle of an Enlish sentence or saying one word in Arabic in the middle of a bunch of English words. However, Listeners can always compensate and infer what is intended from a sentence if the main features of it are clear.. but for your self-esteem and self-respect you will be eager to utter meaningful sentences from A to Z.. I wont lie to you it won't be easy at the begining but if you can think of some techniques to drill your skills that would be great.. I really encourage the non native language speakers to talk to themselves on the mirror in order to see themselves speaking the language; this is one of breaking the ice techniques concerning the speaking skill.
Pretty much the same mistakes that anybody else makes!!
ONE BIG MISTAKE I've noticed that they try to learn English from a non-native speakers . thats one big mistake . I always encourage people to learn the language "what ever that language is" from a native speakers, to pick up their accents, and it will feel " Right " . I mean by right , rhythm , grammar, expressions, slang words, ...etc.
Another mistake they make, people concentrate on the grammar when learning any language, not just English. Don't take me wrong, I know grammar is important. but if your purpose from learning any language is to communicate with people. people do not care if your grammar is perfect or not if you express what you want to say well.
Grammar is for publications, TV ( even in TV they dont care ) , speeches maybe, you know what .. in my point of view English grammar's place is in the faculty of English literature only .
If you ask me why I am so against the way of how people learn English and how they focus on grammar ?? ,That is because I've seen first hand people who have high degrees in English literature suffers when they speak to native speaker because they are trying to construct sentences in their head and cross checking it with the grammar rules they've learned, and that results in a slow of speech and communication. believe me I've seen that first hand.
Be aware that if you practice the language by not focusing on the grammar, it will be a second nature eventually when you speak, write and even you will not notice that you are speaking grammatically correctly . because It will feel right even if you don't know why.
Now for example, I've now written this answer with no grammatical checking whatsoever, and I am sure there are mistakes, but the Question is Did you understand what I am trying to say ?!! if YES... I rest my case.... and If NOT .. the problem is not with the answer :p ;)
I would say the most common mistakes that non-native of "any language" speakers make are the following:
- Wasting too much time in being instructed instead of learning willingly and interacting with the language in all it's forms and fields.
- Continuing to try to enrich their vocabulary by translating from their own native language to their second. At some point they will have to translate newer and harder vocabulary using simpler words from the same language that they are learning.
- Not questioning their present sorrounding using their second language and not investing more in learning by researching and questioning.
BR
There are a lot of mistakes, but there are only a few running through my mind at the moment, which are:
-I HAVE xx years old.
You don't HAVE or OWN your age... It is a description of you. You don't say, I have "your name", instead you say I am "name". Or I have beautiful. Again it is all the same. I AM beautiful.
-Hope it helps.
Wait, what? What do you mean? What or who helped me? O_O
Yep, for a sentence to be completed you need to add a pronoun. "I hope it helps" is correct.
-Say me=Tell me. Yes "tell" and "say" are very similar if not the same especially in Arabic, but that does not mean it is the same in English. Tell me is correct, but say me is not.
-prepositions are very hard to use. Even though I consider myself middle-to-high in English, I still make them! People add them in places where they should not and vise-versa."I wait you" when it should be "I wait FOR you".
"Explain me" when they should say "explain TO me"."Ask TO me" where the correct way to write is "ask me".
"Look TO me" but the correct answer is, "look AT me".
There are a lot more and it is normal. The reason is that when we want to learn a new language, we usually compare it to our own and this is the big mistake we should avoid to improve our English or new language we are learning.
I wish you best of luck :3
Trying to imitate or speake in native accent !
using of the past tense, past continuos tense, past perfect tense and perfect tense
you always find the misusing of those tenses
trying to think in their own language and construct a sentence will speaking with a native speaker. Speak the language and think in it like a native does.
