this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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For example, English speakers commonly mix up your/you're or there/their/they're. I'm curious about similar mistakes in other languages.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I know you're asking for such errors in other languages, but I find it interesting that some of the common english errors are more frequent with native english speakers than with learners of english as a second language.

A good example of that is using "of" instead of "have".
Should of... of what?? It makes no sense to me how someone could confuse the two.

Having learned english as a second language, I learned to read and write it before learning to speak it.
On the other hand, I'd expect native speakers to have learned spoken english before learning written english.
I think this difference changes which errors someone is likely to make.
Native speakers confuse of/have more because they heard it long before writing it.
People who learned it later are less likely to make that mistake, although they're more likely for some others.

TL;DR: Native speakers are more likely to make mistakes that are homonyms. Of/have, your/you're, etc.

As for the spirit of your question, I'll go with french.

Almost every noun in french is gendered.
Objects, body parts, concepts, ideas, pretty much anything and everything is gendered.
It's also super obvious whenever someone doesn't use the correct gender for anything.
It's also hard to explain to anyone.
There might be a logic behind it, but I don't know how to summarize any of it.
I just know it, but couldn't tell you why.

Some of those make no fucking sense either.
It has mostly nothing to do with women or men or gebder roles and identity, it just is.
"Jam" is a feminine noun, yet "butter" is masculine.
"Bread" is masculine, but a "loaf" is feminine.
The noun for each and every season are masculine nouns, but the word "season" itself is a feminine noun.
Also, a "vagina" is a masculine noun, because reasons? Weird.
Various different words for "testicles" vary between masculine and feminine.

It's all super obvious to anyone who speaks french, but I never managed to explain it to any speaker of a non-gendered language like english without breaking their minds.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Regarding should have and should 'of'; I've always understood it to be should've, which when spoken tends to keep a short vowel sound in the middle of the contraction that makes it phonetically sound like 'of'. Bit of a bone-apple-tea.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yea it's not even pronounced the same.
I just noticed native speakers confuse those more.
Meanwhile non-native speakers make other kinds of errors more.

[โ€“] abysmalpoptart 3 points 1 year ago

I disagree, "should've" and "should of" sound virtually identical when spoken (at least in some regions, can't speak for all pronunciations). I can imagine why a non english native speaker would have trouble with this, though I'm not disagreeing with it being a common issue amongst native speakers as well.

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