Hello Everybody!
Being a native speaker of Czech, I'm aware of the mistakes that are typical of us, those Eastern European English learners (EEE's :)))) whose mother tongue happens to be a weird difficult language, unfortunatelly quite different from what English appears to be. [I must've made some mistakes in that sentence, feel free to correct them as well as all that will [inevitably] follow :)]
Non-native speakers tend to apply their individual linguistic knowledge on English, which - as most of us will agree - doesn't always work. I think I'm a good example of that. However - some time ago - I got an advantage which I haven't made use of up to the present time (unfortunately). A booklet was published in the Czech Republic in 1989,
i.e. just after the Velvet revolution. The author, Dr. Don Sparling, gave it a self-explanatory title: English or Czenglish? (Jak se vyhnout čechismům v angličtině [= How to avoid "Czechisms" in English]
). Are there any books like this anywhere in the world?
Maybe, we could create a web site that would deal with these "-isms" (Sinisms, Germanisms, Frankisms, Russisms, etc.). It would not only be useful, but also interesting. There would be various summaries of mistakes supposed to be bound both generally to all non-natives and specifically to distinct foreign language speakers from all over the world. Certainly there'd be no gainsaying this functioning as a sociolinguistic study too, especially if we supplied it with registration forms where the linguistic background of the registered users would be dealt with.
The data collected could be analysed and used in the advisory pages. Also, the information gained would be used to create various exercises which would make it possible for the individual members to practise avoiding their individual errors.
I think all the help that has been given to various list members so far might well be a part of what could later become a...say...Non-Natives' Mistakes Database???
It would cover phonetics, lexicology, syntax, style...everything :)
Your opinions? Thoughts? Ideas?
