May 17, 2018 at 08:307 typical mistakes in English that we make when communicating with foreigners
Remember the joke about Stirlitz, in which the Soviet intelligence did not betray anything, even a dragging parachute and a budenovka? About the same story happens regularly with our compatriots when communicating with native English speakers. American Daniel on the channel of the online school Skyeng told what phrases and errors betray foreigners to us, as well as how to avoid this.
Let us make a reservation right away - here we are not talking about the misuse of forms of verbs and not about flaws in pronunciation. Even those who are perfectly oriented in English times and pronounce all the sounds correctly often stumble on the same difficulties. We have put together a magnificent seven of the most common and common mistakes.
1. How is your mood?
Let's start with greetings. At a meeting in Russia, people often ask, "How is your mood?" Many literally translate this into English and ask How is your mood? This is a very typical mistake of Russian speakers.
Of course, an American or an Englishman will most likely understand what you meant, but in English this phrase sounds strange and unnatural. Better not to be smart and just say How are you? And if you want something more original, then here are a few more options:
How's it going?
How's everything with you?
What's up?
2. Normal - this is not normal
In Russia, the question "How are you?" Is usually answered - "Everything is fine, thanks." In general, the word "normal" in Russian is used very often - this is a neutral answer to the question "How are you?", "How was your day?", "How do you like the movie?" And thousands of others. “Normal” is neither good nor bad, and so, the middle in the middle, nothing special.
Therefore, in English, Russians often try to use the word normal in this meaning.
But in fact, in English, normal has a completely different meaning. Normal means standard, expected, not surprising. For example, It's normal to feel tired after a long flight . “It is normal (that is, expected, not surprising in such a situation) to feel tired after a long flight.”
There is another meaning of normal - mentally normal, sane.
Imagine that you are asking someone - “Well, how are you?”, And he will say “Thank you, I'm not crazy”, or you will tell him “How are you?”, And he will say “No wonder” to you.
If you want to say “normal,” say fine or okay , and everyone will understand you correctly.
3. I touch , I feel ...
Almost all Russian speakers make this mistake and say I feel myself - "I feel."
This is a tracing-paper from the Russian expression, but in English the word myself is completely superfluous here.
Moreover, this expression can be perceived as if the speaker is literally touching himself, and can be interpreted as something not quite decent. They speak English - I feel well, I feel tired, I feel sorry .
4. Native language
Often you can hear from the Russians the phrase native city , native language . Obviously, I mean "native language", "native city", but actually the British and Americans themselves do not say that. My native city is an understandable, but not entirely typical phrase for carriers. This is not a mistake, but the Americans will say - my hometown , and town in this word does not mean that we are talking about a small city, it can be a metropolis and a village, it doesn’t matter, it's just the place where you come from. Instead of my native language, it is much more natural to say my first language .
5. How! = How
Russian speakers often confuse the interrogative words What and How in sentences like “How will it be in English?”, “What do you think?”. How is commonly used to clarify how something happens. For example, How do I get to the train station? - "How (how) can I get to the station?".
Asking, How do you call it in English? , you are actually interested in how a person moves his tongue to pronounce the right word.
And if you really need to learn the English term, there is the word What - "What's it called in English?"
6. None Today morning
Russians often say Today morning when they want to say that something happened this morning. A native speaker will never put it that way. It is natural to say yesterday morning or tomorrow morning , but the phrase today morning among the Americans somehow did not take root. Usually they say this morning .
7. Location please excuse me
Often in Russian, the same word is used for different situations. Russian speakers are trying to transfer this experience to English and fall into disarray. For example, in Russia they say “sorry” or “sorry” when they want to attract attention or really apologize. In English, they use Excuse me to attract attention , and I'm sorry for an apology .
The same story with "please." In English, this is Please if you are asking for something, and You're welcome if you just want to politely respond to someone's thanks.
The example with the word "place" is also indicative. You can say in the cinema “This is my place”, complain, being cramped that “There is little space” and in general, wherever you are - indoors or outdoors - you can call it a “beautiful place”. And in English 3 different words are used for this.
A seat in a movie theater, bus or plane is seat . A place that is few or many is room : for example, There isn't enough room - "There is not enough space." A park, a forest glade, the foothills of the Alps and a restaurant on the corner are all the place .
For those who are too lazy to read everything
To quickly summarize:
- How are you feeling? - How are you? / How's it going? / How's everything with you? / What's up? / How you doing? but certainly not How is your mood?
- Normal is fine or okay , and normal is normal, expected, or adequate.
- I feel good / bad - I feel good / bad - without myself
- My hometown is my hometown, my first language is my native language. Forget about native .
- How do you say it in English? /What do you think? - What's it called in English? / What do you think? . How we use only to clarify how something is happening and get instructions.
- This morning - this morning , but you can say yesterday or tomorrow morning . But today morning they don’t speak. Such we are illogical.
- We attract attention or politely ask again if you did not hear - Excuse me , we apologize - I'm sorry . A place can be translated in 3 different words - seat (chair), room (space) or place (institution or location), depending on what is meant.
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