MOST COMMUN MISTAKES BY ENGLISH SPEAKERS

MISTAKE is dedicated to the most common errors found among English language learners of Spanish-speaking background. This section is mainly aimed at helping students to avoid making these common mistakes, and may also help English teachers who are working -or planning to work- with Spanish-speaking students.

OMISSION OF SUBJECT
This is a very common (and understandable) mistake because, unlike Spanish, a subject is always necessary in English. Students often say: Is important to do this, whereas they should say, It is important to do this. The word it may not refer to anything in particular, but it is absolutely necessary to make the sentence above gramatically correct.

OMISSION OF ARTICLES
Spanish speakers often delete articles, He is teacher; I haven't dog; Does she have car? This occurs because they don’t use them in Spanish.

PRONOUNS
Spanish speakers usually have trouble distinguishing personal pronouns (he, him), Did not know who was him instead of I did not know who he was.

ADJECTIVES
Spanish-speaking students may know a lot of adjectives, but the main problem is where to place them in the sentence. In Spanish adjectives are generally placed after the noun (OM Basic is a course very useful), but in English it is exactly the opposite (OM Basic is a very useful course).

DOUBLE NEGATIVES
Use of double negatives is another typical error, I didn't even have no problems. In Spanish it is grammatically correct to say: No tuve ningún problema.

VERBS
There is a tendency to use present tense only: ... she come back ; ... the first time I see her.

WORD ORDER
Spanish-speaking students usually use inappropriate word order: He in kitchen has lunch, instead of He has his lunch in the kitchen; or Bobby is a black beautiful dog, instead of Bobby is a beautiful black dog.

OTHER/OTHERS
They often get confused with these two words and they usually say, I have others books, the correct form being I have other books. The mistake is also understandable as adjectives can take plural forms in Spanish, unlike English.

THIS/THESE
Although this is singular, whereas these is plural, Spanish speakers tend to pronounce this and these the same. Therefore they frequently use only this in writing. They don't seem to realize that there is also a plural form. Although the difference may look very obvious, it is still a recurrent problem. Examples: I think all this problems are related to poverty, instead of I think all these problems are related to poverty.