#learners – Joanna the nomad

A preposition is a very common little word like at, for, in, on, and to, which the dictionary defines as

a word governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause.

For example:

PREPOSITION:
Thida works	at	the market.
This coffee’s	for	Luca!
Alejandro lives	in	Peru.
Agnieszka’s	on	the bus.
Mika’s listening	to	J-pop again.

Native English speakers rarely make mistakes with these very common prepositions. However, non-native speakers frequently get them wrong, often because they translate directly from their own language rather than listening to native English speakers (and yes, you always listen to something or someone).

The best way to improve your command of prepositions is to:

Continue reading “[For the OxfordWords blog:] 10 common mistakes with prepositions made by learners of English”

Do learners of English make particular mistakes in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary depending on their mother tongue? (While linguists distinguish between an error, made by a student who doesn’t yet know the correct rule, and a mistake, made by a student who knows the rule but momentarily forgets it, I’ll use mistake to cover both cases.)

It makes intuitive sense that some (particularly lower-level) mistakes are more likely to be made by speakers of certain languages. One well-known example is that speakers of Slavic languages, such as Polish, often miss out articles (*she bought new car) while speakers of Romance languages, such as Italian, occasionally drop in too many (I love the my sister!). These kinds of mistakes reflect the nature of the students’ mother tongues, and are arguably fairly minor, but other kinds – such as the greater tendency among speakers of certain Asian languages (like Khmer or Japanese) to mix up he and she – may lead to real communication difficulties.

Continue reading “[For the OxfordWords blog:] 10 mistakes made by learners of English”

About Joanna the Nomad

Joanna Rubery worked for Oxford Dictionaries on and off for over fifteen years, and now writes and edits children’s literature. She has also spent considerable time as a travelling writer and musician while teaching English around the world. So far she’s lived and worked in Belgium, Cambodia, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Germany, Japan, India, and Spain. She’s also worked voluntarily in Peru, and spent a lot of time in Ireland.

Joanna’s travel writing and articles on language have been published by Oxford University Press, Wanderlust, and the Christchurch Press. She has also won and been placed in several Very Short Fiction competitions, and her short stories have been published in Narrative magazine and the Grindstone Literary Anthology.