10 Common Challenges Spanish Speakers Have When Learning English

While English is – supposedly – an easy language to learn (maybe), every native speaker of another language has his or her issues. Today we’re looking at the common mistakes that native Spanish speakers make when trying to learn English.

English learners, take a look – you might discover a mistake you didn’t even know you were making. ESOL teachers, bring this list with you to class. And everybody else, read over these mistakes and be a little understanding when your English-learning friend doesn’t get it quite right on the first try.

1. False Friends (i.e. cognates) —Librero (bookcase) and libreria (bookstore) are often confused with the English library (which in Spanish is, confusingly, biblioteca.) Aprobar (to pass, as in an exam) is often confused with approve, and familiar (having to do with one’s family) is often confused with the English familiar (something known.) There are plenty of funny Spanish learning equivalents, too: Embarazada does not mean embarrassed. But if you say you’re embarazada then you might actually become embarrassed, because you just said you’re pregnant!) So cut a learner some slack the next time they tell you they work as a “scientifico.” The word cientifico means “scientific” and “scientist” in Spanish.

2. Omission of the Subject –   The subject is always necessary in English
                                                  is good. It's good

3. Gender Confusion –  His/ Her in Spanish 'Su(s)'

4. Order of Adjectives and Nouns – In Spanish, an adjective often comes after the noun, while in English  it comes berore.  He had a dog brown.. He has a brown dog

5. Literal Translations –  “I am agree” instead of “I agree”

6. This/These – Native Spanish speakers often pronounce these two words the same so, in writing, tend to stick with “this,”

7. Make/Do

8. Pronunciation –  Some tend to want to add an “e” to the beginning of words that start with s, making for words like “espaces” or “eschools.” Others forget or over-pronounce the “ed” of regular verbs.

9. Shortened Contractions – Shortened contractions present another common pronunciation challenge. Native Spanish speakers will often forget to finish a contraction, resulting in “don” for “don’t” or “won” for “won’t.”

10. Spelling – In Spanish, words are spelled exactly how they sound. They don’t have any of this “silent letter” nonsense found in English, nor do they have words that sound exactly the same but can be spelled three different ways ( buy/bye/by).

Adapted from http://blog.rev.com/