Errors In English Grammar by non-native speakers

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi! :slight_smile:
I would like to understand why non-native speakers of English make errors like the following. These errors are especially common amongst the Asians.
Hoping that someone can enlighten me! Thanks a million!

  1. One Speaks English here. (On a notice outside a shop)
  2. No one of them answered my letters.
  3. He has used up all that I gave him.
  4. After lunch we went to shopping
  5. I have finished the composition this morning.
  6. Please take your dinner with us.
  7. I didn’t ate it because I am not eating pork.
  8. We enjoyed so much at the beach.
  9. The driver damaged his arm and three passengers
    were destroyed. Only one was not wounded in the
    accident.
  10. She leaves in an apartment
2

Welcome to the site, HoneyBee :slight_smile: !

People are only human and make mistakes, natives and non-natives alike, everywhere.

What is it exactly you don’t understand about it?

Some errors are typical of natives, others are usually only made by foreign language students. Then, there are first language influenced mistakes, which are often interesting by their characteristic nature.

I’d say your examples are typical of EFL learners around the globe, not only of Asians.

PS: It’d be great if you could send corrections to the sentences. Do you feel up to it?

3

Hi,
It is enough to learn a little of anything except your native language,and all exemples or questions would be just answered.
Don’t you think about this as a miracle,that some people at all try to speak sometimes English.
Regards
Jan
I wonder, if you had understood what they wanted to say?

4

Hi guys, :slight_smile:
Thank you Conchita! It’s great to be a part of this site!
Yes Jan, i did understand what they meant.

Maybe I did not start on the right note.
I am Malaysian and learned English as a second language. I’m currently pursuing a Diploma in TESOL.
The following questions are apart of my class activity. I can identify the errors (although am not sure if the corrections are made are right), but am not clear on how to explain how the errors may have arisen. :oops: :cry:

  1. One Speaks English here. (On a notice outside a shop)
    We speak English here.

  2. No one of them answered my letters.
    None of them answered my letters.

  3. He has used up all what I gave him.
    He has used up all that I gave him.

  4. After lunch we went to shopping
    After lunch, we went shopping.

  5. I have finished the composition this morning.
    I finished the composition this morning.

  6. Please take your dinner with us.
    Please have dinner with us.

  7. I didn’t ate it because I am not eating pork.
    I didn’t eat because I don’t eat pork.

  8. We enjoyed so much at the beach.
    We really enjoyed the beach.

  9. The driver damaged his arm and three passengers were destroyed. Only one was not wounded in the accident.
    The driver injured his arm and three passengers were killed. Only one person was not injured in the accident.

  10. She leaves in an apartment
    She lives in an apartment.

5

That’s very good work, HoneyBee! Your corrections are right.

Now, as you know, there are often different ways of saying the same thing. The first sentence: ‘One Speaks English here’ is also correct, although very formal. Your suggestion is right, as would be ‘English (is) spoken (here)’ (the passive is often used in signs). In sentence number 9, both ‘wounded’ and ‘injured’ are correct: ‘Only one person was not injured/wounded in the accident’.

6

[color=blue]1. One Speaks English here. (On a notice outside a shop)
This one was made probably because the person’s native language has no passive voice. It could also be because the language has an impersonal pronoun that is used in such cases. There could be a cluster of other reasons, but in the US, the sign would most likely say, [color=red]English spoken here.

[color=blue]2. No one of them answered my letters.
“No one” is probably a direct translation from their own language. In some languages I know, they use their equivalent of “nobody” or “no one” in that situation. We say “[color=red]none of them”, as you pointed out.

[color=blue]3. He has used up all that I gave him.
Depending on the context, this sentence is not necessarily a mistake.

[color=blue]4. After lunch we went to shopping.
Chinese speakers make this mistake a lot. I think it’s because of interference from a structure in their own language. In Chinese, people can also be “at shopping”.

[color=blue]5. I have finished the composition this morning.
If it is still morning, this sentence is not necessarily a mistake. If it is past noon, it is a mistake. This most probably comes from a person who has no present perfect in their language, or speaks a language in which the present perfect has the same meaning as the simple past. German and Spanish speakers have this problem, for example.

[color=blue]6. Please take your dinner with us.
Some English speakers say they “take lunch” or “take dinner”. This may just be an overextension of this idiom.

[color=blue]7. I didn’t ate it because I am not eating pork.
Some foreign speakers don’t understand that the helping verb already carries the tense and that they don’t have to put the main verb into the past. In the second clause, it could be because the person thinks that the present continuous expresses imperfective aspect, while the simple present expresses perfective aspect. Many ESL students have this misconception. Speakers of Polish and other Slavic languages do this all the time.

[color=blue]8. We enjoyed so much at the beach.
The person’s own language probably has a word for “enjoy oneself” that does not take a direct object. Here we would say, “[color=red]We enjoyed ourselves so much at the beach!”

[color=blue]9. The driver damaged his arm and three passengers
were destroyed. Only one was not wounded in the
accident.
This person has problems with vocabulary. Very simple.

[color=blue]10. She leaves in an apartment
This is accent interference. The person hasn’t learned to produce (or even hear) the high front lax vowel, and so doesn’t make a distinction between “live” and “leave”.

7

Hi Jamie :smiley:

Thank you so much ! I’m a little less confuse about this.
Your explaination really helps.
Thanks again.

8

Hi there,

I came across your post.

Am working on the same Tesol assignment.

Can you assist me with some questions?

Many thanks.

9

Meng, you’re replying to an ancient thread. It may be better to post your questions in a new thread (or threads) on the forum, so that they are more visible. I’m sure someone will be able to help.