"Who can tell me this phrase in English: Vivo en Valencia desde hace 5 años"

"Teacher, teacher, me, me! I know: I live in Valencia since 5 years ago"

Many English teachers who are reading this article right now will have a complicit smile on their lips. This is one of those mistakes that we Spaniards continually make and the reason is very simple, we translate the phrase word for word literally.

In this particular case a student thinks 'Vivo - I have lived', in Valencia - in Valencia (that's easy) ’, 'from - since (with my favorite pronunciation/sains/)', 'from - ago (ja, I won't get caught, I know it goes at the end of the sentence)', '5 years - 5 years' and we already have our completed sentence 'I have live in Valencia since 5 years ago'. Aiiins! That rhymes with /sains/.

This is just one of the many mistakes that we Spaniards make assiduously. Next, let's see what 10 mistakes are the most repeated among Spaniards who are studying English.

10. In the use of contrast connectors it is very common to say 'despite of‘ instead of ’despite’ due interference of the expression 'a pesar de’. If you don't want to make a mistake, use ‘in spite of’.

9. One of the first things learned in English is that the verbs' like ',' hate 'and the like are followed by another verb in' -ing '(although they can also be followed by‘ to+infinitive ’). Accordingly, when they use these verbs preceded by 'would' they still make use of the gerund form instead of the correct 'would like to + infinitive' form.

8. The use of the defined article in some situations is very common. In English, when we use a plural or uncountable noun to speak in general, the article 'the' is not used as we do in Spanish.

7. Another very common error is to use 'to' behind modal verbs like 'can' or 'must'. This is mainly because before an infinitive students think that ‘to‘ should be used as it happens with most verbs.

6. 'People is' is probably the most annoying mistake for most English teachers. 'People' is the plural form of 'person' and as such should be followed by a plural verb ‘people are’.

5. Using a double comparison -more quickly- is also a frequently repeated error. Single-syllable adjectives only add ‘-er‘ to form the comparative. One way to avoid this is to add the adverb ‘much’ to the comparison and that will also serve to emphasize the comparison.

4. Adjectives in ‘-ed’ and ‘-ing’. Confusing ‘bored’ and ‘boring’ is quite common. Students tend to simplify and use the adjective in ‘-ed’ in all situations.

Now let's go with the top 3 errors, those that most irritate the teachers or at least me:

3. Use the ‘of’ preposition after ‘depend’ instead of ‘on’. This is due to the literal translation of Spanish.

2. Using the verb ‘to be’ before ‘agree’ is a frequently repeated error and this is due to its Spanish meaning, ‘estar de acuerdo’. Remember that ‘agree’ already carries the verb ‘to be’ included.

1. Pronunciation. Some words like ‘comfortable’ or ‘vegetables’ are pronounced as‘ table ’. This is due to the erroneous hypothesis that all words ending in ‘-able‘ are pronounced the same.

Once we have seen the top 10 most frequent errors, we leave you also some others that have not managed to enter the list: Forget the ‘h’ in ‘which’, use ‘for to + infinitive’, say ‘lose’ (or ‘loose’) instead of ‘miss’, or use ‘use to + infinitive’ to talk about habits in the present.

What do you think? Do you agree with our list? If you think there are other mistakes that should be on this list, leave us a comment on our social networks.