How does native language influence common English grammar errors

Native language influences common English grammar errors primarily through a process called first language (L1) interference or cross-linguistic transfer. This occurs when learners apply rules and patterns from their native language to English, resulting in errors that reflect differences between the two languages. For example, learners whose native languages lack certain English grammatical structures may struggle with those in English, leading to common errors such as incorrect verb tense usage, article misuse, word order mistakes, and difficulties with the passive voice.

Research shows that the typological properties of the native language strongly predict the types of errors learners make in English. For instance, Arabic speakers often transfer patterns that affect their use of the English passive voice, while learners from languages without articles (e.g., some Asian languages) commonly omit or misuse definite and indefinite articles in English. Errors can also stem from negative transfer where a native language feature incorrectly influences an English sentence.

Additionally, interference is not limited to grammar but extends to vocabulary choices and sentence construction. Pedagogical emphasis on raising learner awareness of these differences and targeted instruction addressing language-specific interference patterns can effectively reduce errors stemming from native language influence.

In sum, native language affects English grammar errors by transferring native language grammar rules and structures into English use, resulting in predictable error patterns unique to each native language background. ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}

Références

• The Influence of First Language Interference on ESL Writing Skills

• The cross-linguistic influence of Arabic on the English passive voice

• Grammatical mistakes of Albanian students in learning English as a foreign language

• Contrastive Analysis with Predictive Power: Typology Driven Estimation of Grammatical Error Distributions in ESL

• INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING ENGLISH LANGUAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION IN THE WRITTEN WORK OF YEAR 3 ESL LEARNERS IN WANGSA MAJU PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALAYSIA

• Definite and Indefinite Article Misuse Among Saudi Students Learning English as a Second Language

• Identifying grammatical errors as the result of native language interference in students’ compositions (a study at writing III class at ELT Department of IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the academic year of 2010/2011)

• Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis

• Understanding and Responding to Language Errors

• Thai EFL University Students’ Productions of the English Past Counterfactuals and Their Influences from Interlanguage Fossilization

• The influences of the learning of English as the first foreign language, on the learning of French as the second foreign language by native speakers of Persian

• Universal Grammar and Transfer in Second Language Acquisition

• The Influence of Swedish on the English of Finnish Learners.

• Adapting Grammatical Error Correction Based on the Native Language of Writers with Neural Network Joint Models

• Word Etymology as Native Language Interference

• Children Treat Grammatical Errors Differently for Native and Non-Native Speakers

• The role of priming in grammatical acceptability judgements for native versus non-native speakers: Effects of intelligibility

• Phonological transfer effects in novice learners: A learner’s brain detects grammar errors only if the language sounds familiar