Posted on April 4, 2013
Here’s a summary of the top 30 mistakes Russian make speaking English. These are just some of the more frequent mistakes based on my experience teaching and interacting with Russians. Some of them seem to be quite common in other countries as well.
1- ‘Z’ instead of ‘th’ as in ‘the’
2- ‘We with my friend’ to speak about 2 people.
3- My boss he is…(2 subjects)
4- Using ‘because’ instead of ‘that’s why’
5- He very well works… (word order)
6- Omiting the verb to be ‘she my friend’
7- Using modal verbs alone ‘Tomorrow can’ = ‘I can make it tomorrow’
8- Using Present Continuous without ‘to be’ ‘I going tomorrow’
9- Mispronouncing ‘very’ (they often say ‘wery’ or ‘thery’)
10- Using the Present Continuous instead of the Present Perfect Continuous (I’m working in this company for 3 years)
11- Using a verb instead of a phrase ‘give?’ = ‘shall I give you one?’
12- Saying ‘Congratulations with…’ instead of ‘Congratulations on…’. Example: Congratulations with Teachers’ Day!
13- Article ‘the’ for countries. Example: The Germany
14- Saying the nationality instead of the country. Ex: ‘I was in Turkish’
15- Saying ‘take it’ or ‘please’ to say ‘here you are’
16- Saying ‘not’ instead of ‘don’t’
17- Mispronouncing brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Nike…
18- Mispronouncing letter ‘k’ in the brand KFC
19- Pronouncing ‘o’ instead of a diptongue ‘ou’ Ex: photo, ok, Toyota
20- Using ‘how do you do?’ To say ‘hi’ or ‘how are you?’
21- Answering ‘thank you’ to the question ‘how are you?’
22- Mispronouncing the first ‘o’ in the word Moscow
23- Saying ‘what?’ Instead of ‘sorry’ or ‘pardon’ when they don’t understand in formal contexts
24- Using preposition ‘in’ after the verbs go or come to say ‘go to a place’ or ‘come to a place’
25-Using haven’t and hadn’t to say don’t or didn’t
26- Saying ‘sorry’ instead of ‘excuse me’
27-Many Russians say ‘I very like pasta’ instead of ‘I like pasta very much’
28- Using prepositions ‘in’ and ‘at’ instead of ‘on’ to refer to the days of the week. Example: at Monday or in Friday
29- Saying the word ‘so’ in Russian while speaking English. The Russian equivalents sound like this: ‘tak, nu, tak chto’
30- And last but not least, doing the spitting signal after making a mistake