More Common Errors that Spanish Speakers Make in English

We're back again this week to talk about some typical errors that Spanish speakers make when using English. Remember that great old sitcom from the 90's with Joey, Monica, Rachel, Ross, Chandler, and Phoebe? Friends was a great show but do you know what is not great? False Friends in English!

Between English and Spanish there are many similar looking words that mean the same thing. We call these cognates or friends. Words like computadora and computer are easy for speakers of English or Spanish to recognize and understand. There are thousands of cognates between the two languages and that makes learning vocabulary much easier. However, there are many false cognates out there that can lead to some embarrassing situations. 

For example, the word "embarrased"  and the word "embarazada" look similar but have very different meanings. 

The world "embarazada" does not mean "embarrassed". It means "pregnant" so you can see what a confusion these two words could cause. Here are some other false friends to look out for!

Watch this video to have a clearer idea about this complicated issue when learning English.

Let's test your skills! Here you can play a fun matching game with false cognates. Enjoy.

False Cognates Matching Game

Well that's it for this week. See you here next week for another English Grammar blog post. Have a great weekend!

Common Errors that Spanish Speakers Make in English!

Hello everyone,

This week we will take a look at some common errors that Spanish speakers make when speaking in English. Have you ever heard some one say, "your house" instead of "his house" or "he" instead of "she"? Those pronouns can be tricky. Have you ever thought that a new word you saw in English meant the same thing as a similar looking word in Spanish only to be mistaken? Well, we're going to talk about that too!

Mixing the Genders

"I went to his house... I mean, her house."

In Spanish the word "su" is used to show possesion independently of the gender of the owner. When Spanish speakers make the change to English, it is hard for them to differentiate between "his" and "her".

In Spanish you can also use "su" when talking about animals. In English we also use gender specific forms to refer to our pets. We only use the pronoun "it" or the possesive "its" if we do not know the sex of the animal.

Dropping the Subject

In Spanish verbs have conjugations that indicate the subject. By just hearing the conjugated verb, a Spanish speaker knows who the subject is and it is common to drop the subject since it is not necessary. This is not the case in English. When Spanish speakers use English, they sometimes drop the subject and the listener cannot tell who the subject is. In English you ALWAYS need the subject even in cases where there is nobody or nothing doing the action like in the case of weather.

False Friends

Next week we're going to talk about the false friends!

See you then!