Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

ClarissaMach · Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 10:34 am Post subject: Unforgivable mistakes

From your point of view, which mistakes are unforgivable even for someone who has English as a second language? I mean, what kind of mistakes can really be an obstacle to communication?

1) Excess of accent?

2) Use of wrong words (e.g., "My matrimony party was great").

3) Lack of vocabulary?

4) Bad use of verb tenses

5) Others.

Mexican_friend · Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 7 Location: Mexico

Hi Clarissa

My humble oppinion:

There is no unforgivable mistakes, all of them are part of the process of learning.

Let me try to explain it: At this moment, I�m not sure wheter what I�m writing makes sense, but this helps me to practic my writing. I would aprecciate somebody tell me my mistakes, thus I�m visiting this site.

In other words, you shouldn�t focus on the mistakes, but in your acerts.

hitori2k6 · Joined: 20 May 2006 Posts: 73 Location: California, USA

Clarissa,

Hi, I am a native English speaker and I admire your willingness to
learn English. It is a very difficult and confusing language.

Please remember that even native English speakers don't always
speak correctly.

Just do your best and never stop trying. I think most people
will give you some lee-way and recognize that you are trying.

Keep going. And if you need my help, let me know. I'll be
very happy to help you with any questions you have about
English.

ClarissaMach · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 4:07 am Post subject:

Thanks you all for the reply :lol: . I decided to ask it because I realised that, sometimes, when a foreigner is trying to speak Portuguese (my native language), people tend to get bored.

For example, at college, I had classes with an american Professor, and sometimes I must confess we (students) would rather listen to her speaking English than Portuguese. She kept forgetting the words; her sentences had really great gaps; It was hard to keep paying attention. On the other hand, it only happend while she was teaching; when she was just making conversation, she could do it fine.

Once, something very funny happend. She was teaching a lesson about a philosopher that had been institutionalized; she told us that "he ended his life in the sanitarium". Nothing wrong, isn't it? The problem is that she said it in Portuguese ("Ele terminou sua vida no sanit�rio").

Sanit�rio means "toto toilet" in Portuguese... Sanat�rio would be the correct word for Sanitarium... :lol: