English Course 101 from non-native Speaker

Post » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:50 pm

I'm actually curious, but I was wondering what kinds of mistakes are common in other languages spoken with Forum members. I never see any rants for this kinda stuff for other languages, and I hear from multiple resources that English has a frustrating amount of places to make mistakes. I'm seeing a lot of Ks in place of Q-Us in Spanish lately but I'm thinking it'll be a matter of time before people actually believe it's kiero instead of quiero.

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Donald Richards
 
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Post » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:12 pm

Well i am glad at least that people here arent talking like Uncle Dolan and Gooby.

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Cody Banks
 
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Post » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:06 pm

Basically the same as in english : to the confusions between your/you're, it's/its, we get the corresponding mistakes between likewise sounding "est/et/ai", "?a/sa", "mon/m'ont"... etc. There doesn't seem to be an association between the meaning and the orthograph : more a meaning/sound kind of thing. Besides that, what you noted : koi written instead of "quoi" - a tendancy for simplification.

What puzzles me more is the tendancy not to distinguish between words : like, I see written "yungman" as one word. While perhaps the kid will have written "young" or "man" separatedly in another context, the idea that "yungman" is actually two words, two ideas, doesn't seem to spark.

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Robert Jr
 
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Post » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:56 pm

Clarity and precision in making your point are important. Indulging in OCD about contractions not so much.
Lately, on several forums I see posts with "loose" for "lose" and vice-versa. It's easy enough to understand what is actually meant, still .... I guess it's like the common mistakes of the compliment-complement variety, of no consequence on a forum, but highly irritating in serious published work.

Orwell's essay, Politics and the English Language, remains a good benchmark.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

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Andres Lechuga
 
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