Autor-prof.Grama Irina
Cătălina,Școala Gimnazială ,comuna Gâdinți,2019
In my career as a
teacher of English I gathered some errors in my observation notebook and some
of these draw my attention because they were really frequent in my English
classes
The typical errors below are concisely presented as a listing of recurrent
incorrect grammatical structures followed by the correct ones in appropriate
sentences/contexts. The errors will be underlined and the correct
words/structures will appear in bold.
v As
simple as it may seem, telling one’s age in English is often paralleled with
Romanian, that is, many students tend to use the verb to have instead of to be:*
I have
16 years. The correct sentence is: I
am 16 years old.
Mention must be made
here of noun pre – determiners of the following type: a 16 year-old boy, a 31day
month. What is to be noticed is the fact that, although we have plural
meaning (un băiat de 16 ani, o lună
de 31 de zile), the nouns within the
pre – determiner are in the singular form.
v Students
often say: *How does she look?, which theoretically is not completely
deprived of logic as they actually know the respective English words, but
are not aware of the different pattern
of thinking specific to this language. The correct version is therefore: What
does she look like? She is tall, slim and fair-haired.
(
v The
question *How do you do? is most often understood and translated as Ce mai faci? because students mistake it
for How
are you? or even What are you doing? (Ce faci acum?).
In fact, it is nothing else but a genuinely English polite formula of greeting
someone when you meet him/her for the first time (încântat de cunoştinţă),
and the reply is identical but with a descending intonation.
v The
same type of error occurs when expressing necessity or agreement. Most students
know the modal verb need and the verb
to agree, yet they add a
pre-determining have, respectively to be, because of the Romanian
linguistic instinct of saying a avea
nevoie/a fi de acord in two
words: *They have need to buy a new car.; *I am
not agree to your leaving the country.. The correct transfer would be: They need
a new car.; I agree/ do not agree with your leaving the country.
v Double
negation: *Nobody knows nothing.;
*Neither
he or she does not speak French.;
*I do not like nothing. In
English there is no such thing as double
negation, but students often make this error because in our language it is
possible to use both the negative form of the verb and negative pronouns within
the same sentence: Nimeni nu ştie nimic.; Nici el nici ea nu vorbesc engleza.; Nu
îmi place nimic. English operates
differently in this case: either the verb is used in the affirmative and only
one negative pronoun remains the same, or all the negative pronouns are
replaced by their affirmative equivalents (where possible) and the verb stays
in the negative: Nobody knows anything; Neither he nor she speaks French.;
I do not like anything.; I
like nothing.
Defective nouns: *an information /* many informations,* an advice / *many advices, *a news /*many news, *a luggage / *many luggages, *a homework / *many homeworks.
All these nouns are defective of
plural, which is why they are to be used only in the singular; nevertheless, on
no account will they take the indefinite article (a, an). To refer to a unit of
them we shall use quantifiers: a piece of information / advice / furniture / news / luggage (Rom. o informaţie / un sfat / un
corp de mobilă / o ştire) or an
item of information / advice / furniture / news / luggage (which is the same thing).
Examples:
a)
I have just heard a very important piece of information
/ news about teacher’s strike.
(Rom. Tocmai am auzit o informaţie /
veste foarte importantă despre greva profesorilor.)
b)
Give me a piece of advice regarding the choice of optional
classes, please. (Rom. Dă-mi un sfat în legatură cu
alegerea materiilor opţionale, te rog.)
For plural meaning, there are three
situations:
1)
the use of the noun without quantifiers;
No
news is good news.
(Rom. Nici o veste înseamnă veşti bune.)
This luggage is too heavy; I am afraid I cannot carry it. (Rom. Aceste bagaje sunt prea grele; mă tem că nu le pot căra.)
2)
the use of the adjective much as
pre-determiner – and the agreement with the verb is made in the singular;
The
police have got much information about last night’s theft.
(Rom. Poliţia are multe informaţii despre furtul de aseară.)
Do
we have to do so much homework today?
(Rom. Chiar trebuie să facem atât de multe teme astăzi?)
3)
the use of the adjective many as
pre-determiner, followed by the above-mentioned quantifiers and by the nouns –
and the verb will be in the plural in this case:
The
police have got many pieces of information about last
night’s theft. (see the translation for example a.)
A similar case is that
of the noun money which has only
singular form in English, but many students make the agreement of the verb to
follow in the plural because of the parallel with Romanian where the situation
is exactly the opposite:
Where
is the money? It is in my pocket.
(Rom. Unde sunt banii? Sunt în buzunarul
meu.)
English proverbs:
Money
is the evil eye.
(Rom. Banii sunt ochiul
dracului.)
Money
makes the world go round.
(Rom. Banii fac lumea să se învârtă/
să se mişte.)
Money
is a good servant, but a bad master.
(Rom. Banii sunt un servitor bun, dar
un stăpân rău.)
v Causative
have / get:
a)
Henry II put his knights to kill Thomas o’Becket, Archbishop of
This is a typical case
of error generated by the overlapping of Romanian patterns on English ones (the
so – called word – by – word translation).
There is a special structure in English for making sentences in which the
grammatical subject is not the one who achieves the action of the verb (to kill, here) but causes it. The noun
preceded by the preposition by (Rom. complementul de agent) is, therefore,
the logical subject of the sentence. Pattern: Grammatical subject – have / get
– direct object – past participle of the notional verb – logical subject: a.
Henry II had Thomas o’Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury, killed by his
knights.
b)
I am
having my house repainted. (Rom. Casa mea este zugravită din
nou.) Here the logical subject is omitted because it is
not important for the meaning of the sentence; the emphasis is laid on the
action undergone by the direct object. This structure is in fact a more complex
form of passive voice in English.
Causative have
can be replaced by get with the same usage and meaning, but the latter implies a
negative idea, basically: The new boss got me sacked after only two months’
work in that company. (Rom. Noul şef
a cerut / a dispus să fiu concediat după doar două luni de muncă în acea
companie.)
v Passivals:
This book reads easily.; These
trousers iron easily. (Rom.
Această carte se citeşte uşor / este
uşor de călcat.; Aceşti pantaloni se calcă / sunt uşor de călcat.), not *This
book is easily read.; *These trousers
are easily ironed.
Although the latter two
sentences are grammatically correct – the passive voice – they are semantically
incomplete, that is, the reader expects to see the logical subject here (by whom?), whereas the former sentences
are more general, more neutral.
v The
comparison of adjectives/ adverbs when there are only two terms to compare in
the sentence: *Which of the two girls is
the tallest? (Rom. Care dintre cele două fete este cea mai
înaltă / mai înaltă?); *My mother
has always been the most communicative
of my parents. (Rom. Mama a fost
întotdeauna cea mai comunicativă dintre părinţii mei.) – The use of the
superlative here is not correct because this degree applies if there are at
least three terms to compare in the respective sentence. Consequently, it will
be replaced in our examples by the comparative preceded by the particle the: Which of the two girls is the
taller?; My mother has always been the more
communicative of my parents.
v The
sequence of tenses in the past:
a)
*When he got home, he saw that someone broke into the house.
(Rom. Când a ajuns acasă, el şi-a dat
seama că cineva i-a spart casa / îi spărsese casa.);
b)*She promised that she will help me if she will have
the time to. (Rom. Ea a promis că o să mă ajute dacă o să aibă
timp.);
c)*The teacher asked the new students what is
his name. (Rom. Profesorul
l-a intrebat pe noul elev care este numele lui.)
All these sentences are
clear examples of overlapping grammatical patterns from the native language on
apparently similar ones in English. In the sentences above we deal with the
sequence of tenses in the past (sentence a) and with indirect / reported speech
(sentences b,c). Thus, in the first sentence, the use of the same verbal tense
for all the verbs – the simple past tense corresponding to the perfect compus in Romanian - means that
the respective actions are simultaneous, which is not correct; actually, the
breaking into the house was prior to his coming home and seeing everything, so
the use of the past perfect tense in the simple aspect is compulsory
(especially because there are not such time adverbs in the sentence as after or before that imply a sensible time interval between two actions so
that the past perfect tense should no longer be necessary):
a)’When he got home he saw that someone had broken
into the house.
In the other two
examples, both reporting verbs are in the simple past, which requires the use
of a past tense, too, in the subordinate clauses (future-in-the-past instead of
future simple in the direct object clause, and simple past instead of
future-in-the-past in the conditional
clause, in the second sentence, respectively simple past tense instead of the
simple present and the placing of the second subject (his name) before the predicate in the third sentence, as this is
the English topic for affirmative sentences:
b)’
She promised (that) she would help me if she had the
time to.
c)’
The teacher asked the new student what his name
was.
Yet, if the subordinate
clause refers to a general truth (i.e. a fact that is not connected with a
certain moment of time), we must use Present tense, irrespective of the tense
of the verb in the main clause: The teacher of Geography told us that the Earth moves
round the Sun.
