For example, English speakers commonly mix up your/you’re or there/their/they’re. I’m curious about similar mistakes in other languages.
I really hate when native English speakers use could of or would of. It makes no sense and sounds completely wrong, yet some people claim it’s just a minor mistake.
“Lay down” when they mean “lie down.” Also “could care less.”
That English natives have so much trouble distinguishing effect from affect keeps surprising me.
As for Dutch, the dt-issue is presented as if it is this hugely complicated set of rules. While in reality it is dead simple. Third person in the present time is ALWAYS conjugated as stem+t for regular verbs, except in ONE case: when the stem already ends in t. Dt isn’t special, it’s just the rule applied to all stems.
I think the main issue with that one is that they’ve become homophones in a lot of regional accents, a secondary part of it is that they are semi-related concepts, and the third part of it is that there are also technically noun and verb versions of each.
X affects Y, X has an effect on Y.
The affected happiness effect effected a positive affect.
My school taught this whole convoluted system that was meant to help students with multiple tenses, but I just learned to apply the “ik loop” mnemonic which is so effortless (to native speakers at least.)
Sometimes I have to think once or twice about soft ketchup/'t Kofschip for the past participle, but that’s about it.
I think the main errors happen with “voltooide deelwoorden” (past participle). Then you need mnemonic devices like “'t kofschip” to know whether it’s t or d (or determine it using what you would say in the past time of the verb). It doesn’t help that e.g., “gebeurt” and “gebeurd” both are correct depending on the tense used.
Also the fact that the t drops when the verb is inversed in the 2nd person singular present tense, and not e.g., past tense (“Je wordt” but “Word je”) is a weird rule.
It’s not thát complicated and if you pay attention, you should be able to get it all right. That’s why I think such mistakes are more a sign of carelessness and not of stupidity.
The second person during a question is still no special rule for dt. It’s still very regular. For all regular verbs it’s just stem (without the +t).
Examples:
Praten -> stem = praat -> praat jij? Worden -> stem = word -> word jij? Surfen -> stem = surf -> surf jij?
No irregularity for stems ending in d.
It’s an easy rule, yes. It’s also an easy one to overlook if you’re not paying attention.
“Word je blij?”, but also “wordt je moeder blij?”.
It’s not like people don’t understand the rule. No native Dutch speaker would say “Loopt jij?”
Third person in the present time is ALWAYS conjugated as stem+t for regular verbs
It gets more complicated in the second person though, with the inversion exception.
But again, there is no special exception for dt. Again it’s the regular rule applied: second person conjugation in questions is just the stem for regular verbs.
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could of (could’ve)
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try and (try to)
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if I was… (if I were)
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effect/affect
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less / fewer
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not adapting adjectives, like “this fits real good” (really well)
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In Korean we have these conjugated forms. They both sound the same:
- 나아
[](from 낫다) be/become better - 낳아
[](from 낳다) give birth (to a baby)
So when given A as an example:
(A) 감기에 걸렸어요. I got a cold.
(B) 빨리 나으세요! Hope you get better soon!
© 빨리 낳으세요! Hope you give birth soon!For some reason Koreans across all ages write C instead of B by mistake. It became a national joke at this point and some do it ironically on purpose. I used to teach Korean. Imagine my face every time.
There are more but I’m on my phone. Will do more later.
the laguage is evolving, don’t stop it grow
laguage
- 나아
Loose and lose. I just don’t get it. I can understand when the words sound the same, like with the yours and the theirs but Loose and Lose don’t sound the same. Like reading loose out loud in those sentences just sounds stupid.
I think it’s because English isn’t super consistent with the spelling of vowel sounds. Consider also “choose” (rhymes with “lose”) and “chose” (which doesn’t rhyme with either).
I guess really the vowel sound in loose/lose is basically the same; the difference is whether or not the “s” makes a “s” sound or a “z” sound… It is admittely odd that the presence or absence of an extra “o” would affect the sound of an adjacent constant (especially when we have a perfectly good “z” character available).
Which reminds me of my pet peeve: when people use “breath” or “cloth” instead of “breathe” or “clothe”.
There’s no phonetic reason, the double oo and single o make the exact same sound in most dialects and there’s no reason the s should sound like a z in lose.
I’m a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese from Taiwan. Some people often mix up 在 (zài) and 再 (zài) in writing. It’s a bit hard to explain their definitions since they are merely function words (words that have little lexical meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence), so I’m just gonna copy and paste their definitions from an online dictionary:
在: to exist; to be alive / (of sb or sth) to be (located) at / (used before a verb to indicate an action in progress)
再: again; once more; re- / second; another / then (after sth, and not until then) / no matter how … (followed by an adjective or verb, and then (usually) 也 (yě) or 都 (dōu) for emphasis)As you probably have noticed, their meanings don’t overlap at all. The only reason some people mix them up is because they are homophones.
Another typo some… let’s just say, less educated, people often make is 因該 (yīn’gāi). The correct word is 應該 (yīnggāi), meaning should; must. 因該 is never correct. You can think of 因該 as the Chinese version of the much dreaded “should of.” The reason is that the distinction of -in and -ing is slowly fading away in Taiwan (it is still very much thriving in other Chinese-speaking societies), and some people just type too sloppily to care.
By the way, I should mention that 在, 再, and 應該 are very basic words, probably one of the first 500 words a non-native speaker learns.
Ah, classical mistakes when they write instead of typing. At least when they type they can suggestions from the IME, hinting they might be making a mistake.
Those ‘similar’ words you mentioned all have different tone or vowel in Cantonese. Not at all close to each other. I bet they sound slightly different too in Banlamgu, if you happen to speak that.
I don’t speak Bân-lâm-gú unfortunately. I just looked up those words, and they do sound slightly different!
- 在: tsāi
- 再: tsài
- 應該: ing-kai
- 因: in
(For Chinese learners reading this, please note that the tone markers in the romanization of Bân-lâm-gú (Southern Min, a group of languages including Hokkien, Taiwanese, etc.) is different from those used in Pinyin for Mandarin.)
I also looked up how these words are pronounced in Cantonese. They sure are really different! Mandarin really does have a lot more pairs of homophones and near-homophones compared to other dialects.
On a semi-related note, I think it’s really sad that the majority of Chinese dialects are slowly being replaced by Mandarin.
On a semi-related note, I think it’s really sad that the majority of Chinese dialects are slowly being replaced by Mandarin.
It really is. If not too disruptive, I always make a speaker clarify “which Chinese language” as I guess the propaganda + ignorance has worked leading many to believe there is just one language of China. …And it’s not just English treating it this way either.
some people just type too sloppily to care
Ah, so America either borrowed or lent that bad habit.
It’s a human universal, I think. Some people just value looking smart less than the slight effort to do better.
ITT: English speakers complaining about English speakers
In German people tend to increase “only” (das einzige). As in, they say something is the “onliest” (das einzigste). It’s usually a good indicator of someone’s education.
In many regions it is common to do comparisons with “as” (wie). As in “My dog is bigger as yours” instead of “My dog is bigger than yours”. The most infuriating thing about this is that most people doing that mistake don’t even acknowledge that it is one. At least people who say “onliest” can be convinced that it is wrong.
Technically not an error but still annoying is to append an apostrophe and an s to a name to indicate the genitive. Like in “Anna’s food is good”. In German that should be written as “Annas Essen ist gut”. But due to many people making the same mistake (I guess also because we’re used to it from English sentences) it has been allowed to use an apostrophe. So in that case I’m just a grumpy old guy.
I opened the thread to see if someone already posted this. Glad I’m not the onliest german to be annoyed by this.
In Dutch, the only (one) is “de enige”. People often use “de enigste”, which actually means the cutest. Enig -> enigste.
“Ik ben als enigste over” “Ja, schattig ben je zeker”
"“Ich bin der Einzigste, der noch übrig ist” “Ja, du bist wirklich süß”
“I’m the only one left.” “Yeah, cute you sure are”
In Dutch it’s also common to use als (as) instead of dan (than). Technically it’s wrong though.
This gets really confusing if you’re from Limburg. In Limburgish, “daan” (the cognate to Dutch “dan”) only exists as the time indicator. With comparisons the correct Limburgish is to use “es” for differences (e.g. “Jan is groeter es Maria”, “John is bigger than Mary”), and “wie” for equivalents (e.g “Jan is eve aajd wie Maria”, “John is as old as Mary”). Now “es” is cognate to Dutch “als”, but using it in Dutch as in Limburgish is wrong. So yeah this gets confusing.
In many regions it is common to do comparisons with “as” (wie). As in “My dog is bigger as yours” instead of “My dog is bigger than yours”.
I’m (re-)learning Yiddish at the moment, and “as (wie)” is a common construction; it’s interesting to see which words and sentence formats are common (between German and Yiddish), and which aren’t. I wonder if that’s where this usage comes from.
Nice, very interesting find.
Also, I’ve never been called a Grammar Nazi more elegantly.
Oh god before i read your comment i thought i have nothing to add. Then i realised that i know people who say things like: als wie. Mein hund ist grösser als wie deiner.
Technically not an error but still annoying is to append an apostrophe and an s to a name to indicate the genitive.
Even technically I’d consider it an error - the genitive/“possessive” apostrophe in English highlights that you’re dealing with a clitic, attached to the end of the noun phrase; e.g. the dog**'s** food` → the dog and the cat**'s** food. In German however it doesn’t behave like a clitic, it’s a plain declension; e.g. das Futter des Hundes → das Futter des Hundes und der Katze - you’re switching words, not moving them.
I wonder if that’s because most people nowadays use von+Dative instead.
Not a native speaker, so I could be wrong about this:
I’ve seen a construction using proper nouns (eg. Annas Haus) where an “s” indicates possession, but no apostrophe. This doesn’t seem to apply to non-proper nouns (das Haus der Frau) and is different from normal genitive construction that adds an “s” to masc/neut noun genders (das Haus des Mannes)
I’m Italian and I can’t stand people using “piuttosto che” (which means “rather than”) with the meaning of “or”.
Correct:
Piuttosto che fare un errore, stai zitto.
Rather than making a mistake, keep quiet.
Wrong:
Posso mangiare dell’insalata piuttosto che dei pomodori.
I can eat a salad [“rather than” with the meaning of “or”] tomatoes.
In Portuguese, verbs have a ton of variations. They are written in a different way if you’re talking about yourself, or the listener, or a third party, then additional differences for the plural of those variations. Plus several other things.
And people often write very poorly, using i instead of e is pretty common. Skipping question marks too. Sometimes you’ll get a text from someone saying just “consegui” (meaning “I’ve managed to do it”) when the person actually wanted to say “consegue?” (“can you do it?”)
Lithuanian here.
What mostly grinds my gears is Lithuanians taking an English word and adding a Lithuanian ending, and often even a wrong one:
breakupinosi instead of išsiskyrė, faitinosi instead of mušėsi , etc.
Some other gripes include optimaliausias i.e. most optimal. Optimal is already the best, what is the point of saying bestest?
Adding pointless phrases like ta prasme i.e. in that meaning is also common but seen as a major style error.
In Spanish, we have these words:
hay (there is) ahí (over there) ay (ouch)
And it’s infuriating when people can’t pick the right one in writing.
Confusing between
hay‐ayis at least understandable (forgetting the letter). Confusing betweenhay-ahíis what makes my blood boil.haber / a ver
Portuguese also shows something similar, but the words being confused are different:
há(there is) vs.a(the) vs.à(to the).The one that @flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz mentioned is practically identical though -
haver(there be, have) vs. a ver (to see).
Portuguese as first language here. Improper use of commas drives me fucking mental, and is very common.
I think this is common to most languages: English speakers lecturing native speakers about how they’re grammatically incorrect based on some rule printed in an entry-level language textbook.
I once saw a white dude confidently assert to a Japanese person that 全然 could not be used in the positive and only in the negative. Dude wouldn’t even back down after the Japanese speaker got out their phone and showed him a famous 12th century (or something) poem that used 全然 in the affirmative. That’s like trying to correct someone’s grammar and then getting shut down by Shakespeare.
Couple days ago…just no. Couple OF days ago.
