27 Feb

Spotting a Foreigner

The folk I work with have disturbingly good English and it leaves me feeling quite inadequate. Nevertheless, I’ve picked up on some common mistakes that I hear occasionally:

  • Pronunciation of launched.
  • Referring to a bowl of cereals, and not just cereal. Fruit, and not fruits.
  • Pronunciation of tired (tīrd).
  • Using American pronunciations, especially data.
  • Misuse of lend, lent and borrow.
  • Mispronunciation of silent letters, such as in salmon (săm’ən) and iron (ī’ərn).
  • The Irish say appreciate and genuinely in a funny way and are bananas about using the word avail.
  • Saying 2 billions and not just 2 billion.
16 Comments
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▪ Tags: Random  ▪ Published: 27th February '08


16 Archived Wordpress Comments

27 Feb

Magda

Thank God, You can spot English man without any doubt :)

27 Feb

Keith

Thanks Maggie. Joao and I were just saying yesterday that we should get you over for some cookies.

27 Feb

Magda

And a cup of tea ?;)

27 Feb

john

“fruits” is another one, as in ‘have some fruits’

Have a look at my website and tell me what you think

http://dev.mapible.com

27 Feb

Keith

I got stuck on http://dev.mapible.com/maps/new_map?page=final when trying to create my own map (after clicking Submit, the page just refreshes).

Otherwise, I couldn’t spot any other bugs and the site certainly looks pretty comprehensive. Not sure if it’s something that I would ever actively use.

What’s the distinction between MapMe and other photo/location tagging sites? I see that you can add video/text – does this give it the edge?

Glad to see some ads :)

27 Feb

Ronan Carrein

we are not supposed to pronounce the L in salmon ??? (as if it was the only mistake i make…)

27 Feb

Keith Mander

Nope. It's sam-en, not sal-mon. I'm still trying to master saying pain au chocolate, so I wouldn't feel too bad about getting this wrong.

27 Feb

Yannick

Okay Keith, I say saLmon and iRon… But Pau au chocolate doesn’t mean anything… or maybe chocolat skin? You can correct your ticket and spell it like this: Pain au Chocolat. When you will be able to pronounce it correctly I’ll offer you one :)

27 Feb

Keith

I don’t know what you mean…. ;)

03 Mar

Annette

and then we have a certain North African colleague (whose name I dont want to mention here) who has the charming habit of saying “he offered me” instead of “he gave me” and likes to use “each others” in plural :-)

04 Mar

Yannick

Pain au chocolat! You removed it from the post!

04 Mar

Keith

Ça va pas la tête?

04 Mar

Yannick

Brilliant! But I’m sure you asked for help to write that one ;)

06 Mar

Sarah

I find it interesting that you consider the Irish and Americans as foreigners to the English language… :-)

06 Mar

Keith Mander

It’s true. The British don’t actually have an accent, they just speak English properly.

17 Aug

Keith Mander’s Blog | Spotting A Foreigner, Part II

[...] prior post on common English errors made by foreigners raised sufficient controversy to warrant a second [...]

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