Native Mistakes

by David

Here’s a transcription of a worksheet from a Mexican grade school. Let’s see if you know some of these mistakes that native speakers make.

¿Cómo se dice?
Mejoremos un poco

La comunicación oral es una herramienta que usamos la mayor parte del tiempo, nos ayuda a expresar sentimientos, deseos, necesidades, elogios, también nos sirve para causar algo negativo en otro, pero sin duda el hablar nos ayuda a quedar bien o mal frente a los demás. Aquí van algunas correcciones que te ayudarán a corregir lo que pronuncias mal.

Correcto — Incorrecto
dijiste — dijistes
viste — vistes
a veces — en veces
hoy — a hoy
nadie — nadien
sin embargo — pero sin embargo
cerca de — cercas de
debes ir, debes hacer — debes de ir, hacer
Ana e Iván — Ana y Iván
leones u osos de peluche — leones o osos de peluche
dar una disculpa — pedir una disculpa
haya dicho — haiga dicho
irresponsable — inrresponsable
espérame tantito — perame tantito
mira ven — ira ven
catsup — capsu
préstamelo — empréstamelo
diferencia — diferiencia

So if you want to sound like a native speaker, make some of these mistakes :) Actually only kids make these mistakes– por lo general adults don’t.

6 Comments  leave one »


01.May.2007 - 12:36 am

great list.

 
#1
01.May.2007 - 11:22 am

To me it’s interesting that non-native speakers don’t often make these mistakes, but native speakers, especially children do. That’s not true for all these mistakes though. Changing the o to u and the y to e in the correct situations is often hard for non-native learners.

 
#2
01.May.2007 - 11:26 am

I think it’s rather common. Most natives don’t think about their own language like students do. So they are prone to simple mistakes and no one native catches or corrects them because they don’t think about them either.

Natives speak intuitively and students of the foreign language have dissected the languages grammar and catch those small mistakes.

 
#3
02.May.2007 - 8:17 pm

Neat list.

dar una disculpa — pedir una disculpa

I’m curious about this one — what’s the intended meaning here? Is the point that “Yo le pedí una disculpa” and “Yo le di una disculpa” mean the same thing? My first guess was that that the former would mean “I asked for his forgiveness” and the latter “I forgave him.” Am I mistaken?

Me encanta su sitio web :)

 
#4
04.May.2007 - 5:06 pm

With the ‘disculpas’ I think the point is that the meaning is different, but many people use ‘pedir una disculpa’ as if it were the same as both ‘ask for an apology’ and ‘offer/give an apology’.

Me alegra que le guste mi sitio web :)

 
#5
15.May.2007 - 2:23 pm

I would say “perame tantito” is okay to say spoken. It’s just so common among native speakers. I wouldn’t write it that way however.

 
#6

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