Different mistakes made by different people

[Englishuser]

[Yankee]

Hi EU

If you don't know the answer to your "there's" question and if you think that this does not also happen in British English, then you know a lot less about English than I previously thought.

[lost_soul]

I know than black americans (esp. Rappers, coz I've heard a lot of rap music) are used to rapping like you wrote
FE:

[Yankee]

Hi LS

It is extremely common for native speakers of English from all walks of life (no matter what the race or IQ or level of education) to say something such as "There's three books on the table." However, this is much less common in written English.

The reason people tend to do this in spoken English has to do with the fact that "there're" is such a difficult contraction to get out of your mouth.

But people might also say and write things such as "There is ham and cheese in the fridge." In this case, it's absolutely grammatical since "ham and cheese" is seen as a single concept (two things that are frequently used together to produce, for example, one certain type of sandwich).

Amy

[lost_soul]

[Englishuser]

Hi Amy,

[Conchita]

Note to learners of English:

NOT STANDARD

There's (= There are) lives at stake and we can't afford to take any risks.

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

The use of 'there's' with plural nouns might be accepted by some in everyday speech, but remember that it's a mistake -- a common one perhaps, but a mistake nonetheless.

[Yankee]

[Englishuser]

Hi Amy,

Would you say that 'foreigner mistakes' are worse than mistakes made by native speakers?

Englishuser

[Yankee]

[Yankee]

[Englishuser]

Hi,

How about writing "already as a child"?

Englishuser

[Yankee]

Well, let's put it this way:

I doubt that particular error would cause a misunderstanding. I'd say, however, that it would definitely be an "irritant" to a native speaker's ear. The "oddity" will register with the native speaker even though the native speaker might not be able to pinpoint what it was that sounded weird afterwards. This usage of 'already' would probably cause the listener to take additional time to process the sentence. The "irritant" is an unnecessary distraction from the content/meaning of the sentence.

Let me give you a further example of what I mean by "irritant".
I met a lot of Germans here in the US before I actually went to live in Germany. Though it is now over 25 years ago, I can still clearly remember one particular time I was invited to dinner by a particular German couple. They were a delightful couple, and both were what I'd describe as fluent in English. Not perfect, but fluent.

Anyway, neither one of them ever used the simple past tense. Literally never. They used the present perfect instead. Although this was before I became involved in ESL and before I learned German, it was not too difficult to understand anything they said. However, I got to the point that evening where I thought I'd scream if I heard one more 'have' or 'has'. I also developed a major headache that evening. Now, I'm the type of person who almost never gets headaches, but I clearly remember breathing a huge sigh of relief when I left that evening. Not because I didn't like the people, though. To this day I am convinced that my headache was brought on primarily by the present perfect.

Today I understand why that German couple spoke the way they did. They were from the area of Germany called Swabia and in Swabia nobody ever uses the simple past tense in spoken German. In addition to the fact that the German use of the present perfect is somewhat different from the English usage, my German friends had also carried over their complete non-use of the simple past tense in German to their English. Classic native language interference. It made listening to them difficult back then. I'd probably do better today since I've now heard this erroneous usage of the present perfect countless times.

And, don't forget, listening is anticipatory. I say we ought to reserve the unexpected surprises in sentences for interesting information and elegant turns of phrase.

Amy

[lost_soul]

I would add that the more you listen to erroneous speech the more the odds that some day you will start making the same mistakes
_________________
Alex

How much upchuck would a woodchuck upchuck if a woodchuck could upchuck ?

(a guy from Russia)

[Yankee]

That was precisely one of my difficulties in Germany, LS. I learned almost all of my German after I went to Germany. And what I heard every day was "Swabian". My German teacher used to tell me I "sounded like a farmer" whenever I came out with "Swabian" things I'd heard my friends say.