What common errors do Russian language learners make during tests

Common errors that Russian language learners make during tests largely stem from grammatical, morphological, and syntactic challenges, as well as interference from their native language. Key common errors include:

• Case errors: Russian has a complex system of noun cases, and learners often confuse or misuse the correct cases for nouns, adjectives, and pronouns.
• Gender and agreement errors: Learners struggle with grammatical gender distinctions and the agreement of adjectives and verbs with nouns in gender, number, and case.
• Verb aspect and conjugation mistakes: Choosing the correct verb aspect (perfective vs. imperfective) and proper verb conjugation is a frequent source of errors.
• Omissions or additions of auxiliary and function words, like “to be” or prepositions.
• Errors in word order and sentence structure, which may be influenced by the word order of their native language.
• Spelling and orthographic errors related to Russian’s Cyrillic script and phonological complexity.
• Interference from native language structures that do not align with Russian grammar rules, leading to errors unique to speakers of different native languages.

In addition to these, learners often display errors in syntax comprehension, case marking, and lexical choice in writing and speaking tests. Errors tend to fossilize if not corrected early through focused teaching and feedback.

These error types and their sources are supported by research on learner corpora and studies analyzing common mistakes made by foreign learners of Russian. ^{1, 2, 3, 4}

References

• Common grammatical errors made by Turkmen learners of Russian as a foreign language (insights from the Russian Learner Corpus)

• A Language Model for Grammatical Error Correction in L2 Russian

• Grammar Error Correction in Morphologically Rich Languages: The Case of Russian

• Becoming Native-Like for Good or Ill: Online and Offline Processing of Case Forms in L2 Russian

• Exploring Common Errors in Using Passive Voice Made by EFL (English Foreign Language) Learners’

• Investigating Errors in Past Simple Tense Usage Among English Language Learners As a Second Language : A Contemporary Analysis

• An Analysis of Common Errors Made by Grade 7 Students in Writing English Paragraphs at a Secondary School in Hanoi, Vietnam

• An FCE Corpus-Based Analysis of Writing Errors in Chinese English Learners: Common Types, Patterns, and Pedagogical Implications

• Unveiling the Errors Learners Make When Solving Word Problems Involving Algebraic Task

• AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON PRONUNCIATION ERRORS MADE BY YOUNG LEARNERS

• AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON PRONUNCIATION ERRORS MADE BY YOUNG LEARNERS

• An examination of Chinese character writing errors: Developmental differences among Chinese as a foreign language learners

• An Analysis of the Most Common L1 Interference Grammar, Vocabulary and Syntax Errors of Lithuanian Learners in Written English

• THE ANALYSIS OF GRAMATICAL AND LEXICAL ERRORS ON THE STUDENTS’ THESES OF IAIN TAKENGON

• On the possibility of measuring the level of articulatory skills

• Evaluating the Russian Language Proficiency of Bilingual and Second Language Learners of Russian

• Multiple Admissibility: Judging Grammaticality using Unlabeled Data in Language Learning

• Sentence comprehension test for Russian: A tool to assess syntactic competence