[emile]

What are the most common errors made by native speakers?

I can think of:

"I shouldn't of done that!"
"You better not do that!"

(Using 'of' instead of 'have' and dropping the 'had' in 'had better')

[simplyesl]

Me fail English, that's umpossible!

[quoi_de_neuf?]

"That was well good", "I done it", "We was..."

CRINGE!

[emile]

In some parts of England, people say: 'It were great!'

But I'd put that down to local dialect rather than 'error'. (Meaning that they know and use the right form when with a different group of people)

What say you?

[DaveESL]

Personally, I wouldn't really call any of the things described in this thread errors. Well, not in spoken English, anyways. The first two examples I agree are errors if written, though.

I guess what I'm saying is that I tend much more to the descriptive side of language teaching than the prescriptive side. I try to tell me students how people talk, instead of telling them how they *should* talk.

There is a huge amount of variety in spoken English (and written English, to a lesser extent). This happens on geographic lines, economic ones, generational ones and so forth. That's a really beautiful thing about language. I guess "right" and "wrong" just don't really interest me very much.

But, in the interest of not being a jerk, let me give an example of an ungrammatical thing I often say:

There's three apples in the kitchen.

Take care!
Dave

[Whistleblower]

I said one yesterday in front of another teacher during a coffee presentation with Nescafe. I was chatting to some groups and joined a group with the co-teacher and some Korean adults asked us if we had instant coffee in the UK. I naturally said;

"We have grinded coffee in England".

My co-teacher burst out laughing. I had to check the dictionary to check that verb didn't exist.

[michèle 2]

There is a huge amount of variety in spoken English (and written English, to a lesser extent). This happens on geographic lines, economic ones, generational ones and so forth. That's a really beautiful thing about language.

I coudn't agree more.

[mesmark]

a good question would be what 'mistakes' do you intentionally make to help get your point across?

[emile]

There is a huge amount of variety in spoken English (and written English, to a lesser extent). This happens on geographic lines, economic ones, generational ones and so forth. That's a really beautiful thing about language.

Unfortunately, this beautiful thing makes it all the more difficult to teach!

[DaveESL]

Quote mesmark

a good question would be what 'mistakes' do you intentionally make to help get your point across?

Good question! I find that after years living in Taiwan and China, there are certain ungrammatical things I say (outside of the classroom, of course) because I know that I am more likely to be understood by a Chinese learner of English that way.

Of course, I can't think of any examples right now...

Oh, this isn't an "error" but I use "bye-bye" to end phone calls which sounds strange to a lot of native speakers back in the U.S.

[emile]

I find that after years living in Taiwan and China, there are certain ungrammatical things I say (outside of the classroom, of course) because I know that I am more likely to be understood by a Chinese learner of English that way.

...and speed. My students once remarked that they could understand me when I talked to them, but not when I talked to another teacher. I realised that I slow down a lot for them to understand. Now I do the opposite, I intentionally speak quickly when teaching the advanced levels.

[JeremyinFrance]

I think it is very important to expose your students to a wide variety of speakers. If you're a man, play more female voices. If you're American, play more British, Australian etc English. An excellent resource for British accents and dialects is http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html
Hope it helps

[JeremyinFrance]

And on the errors, still with the third conditional: If I'd've known about the concert...