For example, in Italian people often struggle to get congiuntivo right (congiuntivo is the verb tense used when talking about hypothetical situations, much like konjunktiv I and II in German) or mix it up with condizionale (the verb tense to us for if clauses).
It’s so common that many comical characters use it incorrectly on purpose, as getting it right is for posh or bookish people who studied too much.
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I never heard this word in italian, interesting.. (i guess it’s bestia nera in french).
Anyway i could add a bit articles, articolated prepositions and pronoun particles.
I don’t know for synonims
Whether a conjugated verb ends in d, t, or dt (in writing; these sound the same when spoken). There are rules that govern this, and you’re taught them at a very young age, but people fuck it up all the time.
I would say it’s very often “vybrané slová” (meaning chosen words, in which you write an “Y”, for example syn, byť, rydlo; it’s a group of words you have to learn by heart in school but people still use “I” in them) and I also very often see “s” (with) and “z” (from) confused.
In English, you’re/your, their/there/they’re… Homophones are generally not great. People I know from home will mix up know/no even. Affect and effect is also a big one. The English subjunctive is typically never used even in situations where it would be correct. The mistakes that English native speakers make, second language speakers usually get right because they know the rules from a technical standpoint.
Edit: I wanted to add the subjunctive is like the example you gave. If someone said “If I were to…” I would think they were very well spoken, probably posh.
It’s difficult to say because there’re 500 million native Spanish speakers. We Spanish are only 45 million, so we’re a minority and do not represent all Spanish-speakers.
One thing I see people always getting wrong is the imperative. Instead of saying “callad (correct way)”, they say “callar”; instead of “corred (correct way, meaning run)”, they say “correr”.
I don’t know if this happens in Latam and Guinea as well.
De/dem/dom. Basically the Swedish word for “they/those”. Dom is just straight up incorrect, but dem is often pronounced like dom so it gets mixed up in casual writing.
As for the difference between de and dem… uh, I don’t want to write anything about it because I don’t know the grammatical rule. De feels more general and dem feels more specific, but I’m probably one of the people who do mix them up.
Word order in main clause vs subordinate clause. This is so common, a lot of people will even do it accidentally in speech. Me included.
Main clause order: 1) Noun 2) verb 3) Subject.
Subordinate clause: 1) Noun 2) Subject 3) Verb.
A lot of people, especially in speech, will just use the main clause order instead. Most commonly during explanations (“weil er hat gesagt, dass”)
Not for native speakers exactly, as we mostly speak English, but most Irish people can’t get their heads around the modh coinníollach, which is basically just the conditional verb tense in Irish
Most Germans never use the German tense that is used for the past before the past, like the past perfect in English. Instead they construct a weird tense that kind of doubles the normal past tense.
For the people that know German: “Doppeltes Perfekt” statt Plusquamperfekt.
Beispiel: Ich habe die Schuhe geschnürt gehabt, bevor ich laufen ging.
Richtig: Ich hatte die Schuhe geschnürt….
For learners of Danish, there are two things that they find difficult:
One is en/et where each noun in Danish has an assigned a gender either common or neuter, and really there is no way to determine which noun has which, and therefore it is a bit of a minefield for learners to know whether to use “en” or “et”
Pronunciation is also quite difficult for learners since Danish has a lot of different vowel sounds and vowels sound vastly different in different words.
The third most difficult thing is probably fitting the whole potato in your mouth, since it can be a bit tricky.
1. Correct short forms . Romanian have something similar to english where instead of you are you can say you’re . Unfortunately most of this forms have double meaning(you’re vs your) . For instance *s-au oxidat*(they have oxided) and sau (means or like in apples or bananas)
2. Like most (all?) romance languages our verb does change depending to tense , person etc (somewhat like be is in english with (I) am vs (You) are vs (He/She) is , just that every single verb have its own terminations , most do respect the rules but some don’t)
3. Plural of nouns in romanian is created by adding some terminations (like adding s at the final ) but our system is much more complicated and sometimes the plural is not straight forward . Word for strawberries was used wrong so much that now is considered also correct along the former correct form ( căpșune vs căpșuni )
I had to look up bête noire. Funny thing is I like rote Bete, but besides the point.
The proper use of genetive case and dativ case in german. We have a saying “Der Dativ ist dem Genetiv sein Tod” (Dative is the death of Genetive / grammatically correct would be: Der Dativ ist der Tod des Genitivs)
For Slovenian, it is:
* using the reflexive possessive pronoun (*svoj* etc.) when needed
* hypercorrecting the simple relative conjunction *ki* with a more complicated set of pronouns which is not necessary
* not using the genetive case with verbs in negated sentences when they should
– differences in writing i/y (they’re otherwise the same phoneme). There are lots of rules and exeptions from the rules.
– subject – adjective/verb agreement. Verb/adjective endings are not only affected by the person, tense and number, but also gender. The main issue is again i/y difference.
– capitalization of common names.
I’ve noticed some people will use the verb form rather than the adjective form to describe something such as ‘it’s broke’ rather than ‘it’s broken’
When you are from a tiny minority (Galician), and your strong brother could defend you but barely knows about you (Portuguese), while a beast of a language with 500 million speakers breaths down your neck (Spanish) being the official language of the government, TV, etc, … trying not to get assimilated by the use of *foreign* words and expressions is daunting.
*Galician is dead. Long live Galician.*
Many people struggle with de/dem (they/them) and usually defaults to “de” or the uneducated swines use “dom”
I would say understanding the difference between ay, ahí, and hay, it’s the easiest thing yet tons of people don’t know when to use the proper one… It’s infuriating.
Probably mutations.
For example, instead of saying “Mae pel-droed yn da”, you would say “Mae pel-droed yn dda”.
There’s a load of letters that change and a bunch of situations that mean you have to mutate, as well as different types of mutations.
Mistakes with compound words, writing them separately when they should be written together and vice versa writing them together when they are actually two different words are rather common. Dropping the possessive suffix especially in declined words. Using the wrong interrogative “who”: *”ketä”* instead of *”kuka”* and the worst of all *”ketä”* instead of relative pronoun *”joka”*.
There’s no official grammer or spelling. If you’re in a city and talk to a group of people, chances are everyone speaks a different dialect. excemple: “not” can be “ned”or “nid” or “nöd” “nit” “nita” “nüd” etc.
Catalan weak pronouns (pronoms febles). They’re a whole ass nightmare.
There are a couple weak pronouns that new generations simply seem to have forgotten they exist or how to use them properly. We share them with French and somehow Italian: **en** and **hi*.
* en is a partitive. It substitutes complements that would start with «de» (of, from). So, if you ask me «Tens pomes?» (do you have apples?) my answer might be «No **en** tinc», as in «I have not (of them)». Or «has estat a casa els pares?» (have you been at your parent’s home?) «Sí, ara **en** vinc», as in «yes, now I’m coming (from there). And, well, many people either just don’t say it or say it but then add the complement making redundant. Oh, and also use other pronouns instead of «en». Then sentences sound AWFUL! As in «molta gent té por, però jo no **la** tinc» (many people has fear, but I don’t have it), when you should say «jo no **en** tinc».
* hi substitutes a place complement (that is not introduced with «de», from). So, «Has anat a França?» (have you gone to France?), «Sí, dilluns **hi** vaig ser», yes, on monday I was there. But many either do not say the «hi» but say «there» or say both «hi» and «there» making the «hi» redundant. Or people saying «ara vaig», now I go, instead of «ara **hi** vaig», now I go there, when the place has already bee mentioned. So wrong!
Ok, lets see.
– prefix ne (making opposite word) is used wrong, and people make different mistakes with it. Rule is, with adjective, it is written as one word like “nemoguće” meaning impossible, but with verbs it is separate, e.g. “ne mogu” meaning (I) can’t, with 4 exceptions for verbs “nemam, neću, nemoj and nisam” meaning (I) don’t have, (I) won’t, don’t and (I) am not. People make mistakes in either direction (save for nisam, but only because ne is a bit lost there)
– “jer” and “jel”, people use second (is it) when they mean first (because)
– parts of Croatia have real problems distinguishing ć and č phonemes
– accusative and locative cases are used instead of each others
– putting j between i and o, e.g. “bijo” instead of “bio” (was)
I’m sure there are others.
>as getting it right is for posh or bookish people who studied too much.
Ma quando mai
> congiuntivo is the verb tense
“Congiuntivo” is actually a mood (“modo” in Italian) with four tenses.
I think that in Polish it’s about writing words together or separately, e.g. *~~napewno~~* -> *na pewno*, *~~wogóle~~* -> *w ogóle*, *~~conajmniej~~* -> *co najmniej*, *~~na razie~~* -> *narazie* etc.
Sometimes it’s about orthography, many years ago in middle school I’ve heard about a guy who made three mistakes in a four-letter word: he wrote *musk* instead of *mózg* (“brain). You can’t do more wrong than this.
Some people struggle with correct conjugations and they are seen as uneducated, e.g. *~~poszłem~~* instead of *poszedłem* (“I went” – masculine), *~~weszłem~~* instead of *wszedłem* (“I came in” – masculine), or *~~wziąść~~* instead of *wziąć*. I personally hate it and it makes my ears and eyes hurt.
Some people have problems with language in general, especially pleonasms. It’s incorrect to say *~~okres czasu~~*, you should say either *okres* or *czas* if you want to speak about time. *Cofać się do tyłu* – just say *cofać się* (“back away”), *równe połowy* (“equal halves”) – can halves not be equal? *Spadać w dół* – in English it’s indeed “fall down”, but can you “fall up” that you have to use *w dół* to emphasize the difference? *Fakt autentyczny* – “authentic fact”, I mean, isn’t it obvious that facts are authentic? None of this makes any sense whatsoever.
I especially hate when people tell time in a wrong way. E.g. 2001 is **DWA TYSIĄCE PIERWSZY**, not *~~dwutysięczny pierwszy~~*. There was one year *dwutysięczny* and it was 2000, PERIOD. Nobody says *dziewięćsetny osiemdziesiąty czwarty*, so how come people say *dwutysięczny (któryś)*? Or the days of the months. The rule is: **the day OF the month**. What day it’s today? It’s the fourth day of May. *Jest czwarty (dzień)* – kogo? czego? (Genetivus) *MAJA*. Not *~~czwarty MAJ~~*, ffs. Because it means that it’s the fourth May as the whole month, I don’t know, in history? The fourth May in this decade? Century? Definitely it’s not the fourth day of the current May because it doesn’t mean that.
From the top of my head, past participle agreement has a lot of rules and they’re often obscure to most people. It’s just one thing out of plenty, though.
Well since my language is the same as yours I’ll answer for Finnish:
everything
Your example reminds me of plurals in Romanian.
If you don’t know the plural, there’s a good chance you’ll get it wrong. People will make fun of you for it.