Common Mistakes French Speakers Make While Learning English

Learning a new language is difficult, the grammar and syntax are different and there are sounds that may not exist in your native language. It’s a struggle for anyone, no matter which language you have decided to learn. However, one way you can improve your communication skills in a foreign language is by identifying common mistakes in that language made by people who speak your native language.

For example, French, like many Romance languages, has a specific sentence structure and grammatical rules that don’t necessarily apply to English. For someone who is just starting to learn, these differences can be challenging to grasp in the beginning. Let’s look at some of the common mistakes that French speakers make while learning English.

Sentence Structure

In French, adjectives come after the noun, which can surely be an adjustment when speaking English. It’s not easy to change the order of the words in your sentence when you’ve been saying it differently throughout your life!

Look at this phrase, “la voiture rouge” means “the red car,” but the word “voiture” means car, and “rouge” is red. As you can see, you must change the word order. Even though an English speaker would understand someone who said, “the car red,” it would certainly sound weird to their ears!

Infinitives After Modal Verbs

As English speakers, we may not notice that we are doing this, but the infinitives after modal verbs should not include the word “to.” In French, infinitives are only one word, not two, so there is no need to change the infinitive when it comes after a modal verb. Therefore, French speakers oftentimes forget to eliminate the word “to” in their sentences.

An example would be: “I must finish my homework tonight.” A French speaker may say, “I must to finish my homework tonight.” This is because in French it would be written as, “Je dois finir mes devoirs ce soir.” As you can see, the word dois, or must, is followed directly by finir, or to finish. The verb finir is already in its infinitive form, there are no changes to be made. This can be a complicated concept for French speakers to understand at first.

Pronunciation Mistakes

French is a very specific language because there are many sounds that are either pronounced differently or that don’t exist in English or French at all.

The most common one, as most people know, is TH. This is a sound that does not exist in French, so many French speakers struggle to make the sound. It often ends up being pronounced more like a Z or S sound, turning “this” into “zis,” or “think” into “sink.”

Another pronunciation error is the omission of the letter H. In French, Hs are silent, so it is very common for a French speaker to forget that the letter H must be aspirated in English. Instead of saying, “I am happy,” you may hear them say, “I am appy.”

How to Improve

The first step to mastering a foreign language is learning about the common mistakes are and how to fix them. Once you learn which grammatical notions you struggle with, you can find exercises to correct them, or read books in the language you are studying. Reading is one of the best tools when learning a foreign language. As for pronunciation, find native speakers that you can chat with not only to listen to how certain sounds are pronounced, but also to practice them yourself! If you don’t have the opportunity to speak with someone, then you can use videos or recordings to listen to native pronunciation. Don’t be discouraged when you make a mistake. Instead, use it to your advantage and learn from it!

English Teacher Needed in Merrillville, Indiana

Job Description

Job Description

Midwest Language Services is now interviewing English as Second Language (ESL) tutors to business people and their families in Merrillville, Indiana for part-time work (from 1 hour to 16 hours per week) to prepare lessons and teach English as a Second or New language to beginners and intermediate-level students (Level A and B on the CEFRL scale).
Day and evening hours available. Please let us know your availability.
Responsibilities

• Arrive at lessons on time or even a little early (5-10 minutes) as punctuality is highly valued is certain cultures. Arriving even a couple of minutes late might be taken negatively.

• Create lesson plans

• Continually assess student needs.

• Create lesson plans to help students improve their language skills.

• Allow the student to speak at least 50 percent of the lesson time.

• Assign and check homework, as needed.

• Keep track of student attendance.

• Be patient, encouraging, and help students speak and understand English more fluently.

Desired Qualities

• At least two years of ESL teaching experience to adult learners

• At least a Bachelor's Degree in English, Education or related field

• Knowledge of a second language (to be able to understand the struggles of learning a second language)

• Professional in appearance, attitude, preparedness, etc.

• Business dress code (conservative attire - no jeans, no sandals or open-toed shoes, etc.)

• Able to create engaging lesson plans for expats who need English to communicate with business colleagues and with people in the community for everyday purposes

• Able to drive to the client or to one of our convenient locations

• Extremely punctual

Benefits

• Flexible schedule - set your hours, but then keep those hours regularly

• Motivated learners

• Compensation $20 - $25 per hour, depending on experience and other qualifications

Job Type: Part-time

Salary: $20.00 to $25.00 /hour

Join Us for International Art Break Day!

Current and prospective clients are welcome to join us for an art break on Friday, September 7, 2018 from 12:30-2:30 PM at 735 Shelby St., Indianapolis, Indiana. Midwest Language Services, LLC and Switchboard Indy are co-hosting this event on our porch.

“Art Break Day is a global art initiative created by Art is Moving to make art more accessible and inspire daily art making.” Making art together is a great way to make new friends and communicate with others. The focus is not on the art, but of the connections between individuals. www.ArtBreakDay.org

Follow-up to Learning Phrasal Verbs with Student-created Illustrations

A week has passed. Everyone remembered the meaning of each phrasal verb that they drew pictures for the previous week. In the follow-up lesson, students were grouped into pairs. Each student had to create a sentence using the phrasal verb together. Their partner had to rephrase the sentence that their partner had spoken and they had to separate the phrasal verbs with the object.

The class moved on to other topics, but I think that the lesson with phrasal verbs was a successful one and will be repeated as homework for future groups of phrasal verbs by having students first illustrate the meaning and then creating sentences two different ways, assuming that they are studying separable phrasal verbs. I would recommend introducing no more than about eight phrasal verbs per week, but it may depend on the level of your students.

Learning Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal verbs are useful expressions in English. They are made by combining a verb plus an adverb or preposition. Sometimes, the combination of the words does not retain the same meaning as the individual parts. "Take off" can mean "to remove," as in, "Please take off your shoes when you enter the house." In this case, the words "take" and "off" make it easier to understand the phrasal verb "take off" because each word retains its original meaning. "Take off" can also mean to launch, accelerate, or move away quickly. This meaning may not be as obvious to students.

Learning phrasal verbs can be a challenge, but it is important for students to learn them in order to become more fluent speakers. It also greatly helps in understanding native speakers of English. Today, some of our students were introduced to separable phrasal verbs used in everyday situations. These are phrasal verbs that have an object, and are also known as "transitive phrasal verbs." While it is less important for students to learn what these are called, it is more important to know how to use them.

Some phrasal verbs can take a direct object, such as "hand in." We can hand in a report, our homework, etc. If the phrasal verb takes a direct object, then the direct object can be inserted between the parts of the phrasal verb.

We can say, "I handed in my homework" or "I handed my homework in."

We can also substitute a pronoun for the direct object.

"I handed it in" is correct,.

"I handed in it" is incorrect.

Pronouns that replace the direct object cannot go to the end of a sentence.

People have various learning styles, but one of the most common types of learners is the visual learner. With that in mind, students tried drawing pictures that represented some phrasal verbs that were learned today. This was done with a small group of adult women who study English for everyday situations. The students were encouraged to draw something that would help them remember the phrasal verbs later. Later in the day, a business English student was asked to do the same thing. Here are the resulting illustrations.

This activity can be adjusted according to ability. For some, there was plenty of time to create an illustration and a corresponding sentence.

The first step was to learn the meanings of the phrasal verbs. The next step will be to use these in a way that practices how to insert the direct object between the parts of the phrasal verbs. By having students write sentences with the illustrations, the instructor can see what grammar points will need to be reviewed later. For now, the objective is to learn the new vocabulary.

For other students, more time was spent on the illustration to help remember the phrasal verbs. (I think there is an artist in the class.)

Other students needed more time to understand each phrasal verb and create a matching picture.

This could be something that students do again as homework. It will be interesting to see how many of these phrasal verbs will have been retained when the class meets again the following week.

While these are not all separable phrasal verbs, these are examples of drawings that one of the students of business English created to help him remember the meanings of some commonly used phrasal verbs. He will review the meanings of each one and be asked to create spoken sentences using these in his next lesson.