Autor-prof.Grama Irina Cătălina, Colegiul Tehnic Petru Poni Roman
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.
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu