Common Mistakes Made By Some Mozambican English Learners ||Students||: By English For You

To start look at the conversation below between two Mozambican English speakers, in particular, students:

Elisa: hi, how are you?

Pedro: I am fine and you?

Elisa: I am fine, too!

Pedro: How many years do you have?

Elisa: I have 10 years old and you?

Pedro: I have 14 years old.

As you saw the conversation above, are there some mistakes? If you say "Yes", you are correct. The mistakes in the conversation are:

1. How many years do you have?

2. I have 10 years old.

3. I have 14 years old.

Interference or transfer causes this kind of errors. (Lott, 1983, p. 256), he defines interference as ‘errors in the learner’s use of the foreign language that can be traced back to the mother tongue’. (Ellis, 1994), transfer 'is the influence that the learner’s L1 exerts over the acquisition of an L2'. Furthermore, for Ellis, there is no difference between interference and transfer.

So based on the two concepts of interference and transfer, we conclude that interference or transfer is the use of first language knowledge or competence in foreign language learning, second language acquisition/learning and language learning in general.

In case of Mozambique, Portuguese is considered as mother tongue and first language of many people (students). So students make those kind of mistakes mentioned above due to the use of Portuguese knowledge or competence, in this particular case, Portuguese grammar. They did direct translation.

Example:

Portuguese: Quantos anos que tens? English: How many years do you have?       

Portuguese: Eu tenho 10 anos de idade.               English:I have 10 years old.                           

Portuguese: Eu tenho 14 anos de idade.                 English: I have have 14 years old.                  

Correcting Mistakes

How old are you?        Not       ||How many years do you have?||.

I am 10 years old.        Not      ||I have 10 years old||.

I am 14 years old.         Not     ||I have 14 years old||.

 

Bibliography

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of Second Language Acquisition. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lott, D. (1983). Analysing and Counteracting Interference Errors. ELT Journal

 

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