Common Language Errors of L1 and L2 Learners

Running head: COMMON LANGUAGE ERRORS OF L1 AND L2 LEARNERS
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1COMMON LANGUAGE ERRORS OF L1 AND L2 LEARNERS
Error Correction Agen
t
Mode Criteria Analysis
He do not
understand
Greek.
He does not
understand
Greek.
L2 Spoken
and
Written
Syntactic The verb does not
agree with the subject.
‘Does’ is the third
person singular verb
form of ‘Do’.
Therefore, third
person singular
pronouns like ‘he’,
‘she’ or it should
always be followed by
‘does’ and not ‘do’,
which can be in case
of ‘they’ or ‘them’
(Gibbons, 2002).
I don’t know
nothing about
the film.
I don’t know
anything about
the film.
L1
and
L2
Spoken Syntactic Use of double
negatives irrelevantly
in a sentence is one of
the most common
forms of error
(Fromkin, Rodman &
Hyams, 2018). Like
mathematics or logic,
similarly in modern
linguistics as well, two
negative words are

2COMMON LANGUAGE ERRORS OF L1 AND L2 LEARNERS
considered believed to
cancel each other and
result in an affirmative
sense rather than a
negative. This is a
problem faced by
many L2 speakers
coming from other
non-English speaking
countries like
Portugal, France or
Spain where double
negatives are much in
prevalence. It was
also accepted in pre-
18th century England,
during the times of
Shakespeare or
Chaucer.
Nevertheless, double
negatives are
sometimes used in the
modern lingo
purposively to
emphasize on an
affirmative idea.
Tin Thin L1 Spoken Phonetic The ‘th’ sound is one

3COMMON LANGUAGE ERRORS OF L1 AND L2 LEARNERS
Dis This and
L2
of the most
mispronounced one,
especially by those
who have English as a
second language.
They are voiced or
voiceless inter-dental
sounds where ‘th’ is
often mispronounced
as either‘t’ or‘d’.
Placing of the tongue
between the teeth
accurately is
extremely essential in
this case, which is
what results in
frequent
mispronunciation of
this sound.
Mischif
Bizy
Nid
Need
Mischief
Busy
Need
Knead
L2 Spoken Phonetic and
Morphological
Another extremely
common and nuanced
spoken error, in terms
of linguistics, is the ‘e’
sound. The L2
speakers are often
found to suffer with
where to put the