Hvordan gjenkjenne engelske ordfeil

Fiona Jane EllingsenH2013

Semantiske feil

• Misforståelse av ordets betydning/definisjon• Eksempel: Teens are usually early to pick up

new slang words and popular terms.• Problemet: En norsk bruker av engelsk tror at

«early» (N: tidlig) betyr samme som the first ones. Dvs. overførte norsk betydninger av ord til engelsk. Andre eksempler: many lands i stedet for many countries.

Kollakasjonsfeil

• Misforståelse av hvordan ord kombineres• Eksempel: Few manage to keep their original

language when English starts to settle in their nation.

• Problemet: En norsk bruker av engelsk tror at ordet English kan kombineres med «to settle».

• Riktig kollakasjon: /…/ when English starts to take hold in their nation.

Stilistiske / konnotasjonsfeil

• Misforståelse av ordets stil eller assosiasjoner til ordet

• Eksempel: “We got to stop English from taking over Norwegian” blir for muntlig i en formell tekst, der et mer formelt ordvalg som “We should try to prevent the English language from /…/” er å foretrekke rent stilistisk.

Stilistiske / konnotasjonsfeil

• Overbruk av generelle adjektiv• Dette gjelder særlig “nice”, “good”, “bad”,

“sad”, “little” og “big”, som bør unngås i fagskriving på engelsk

• Eksempel: Nice to be in Nice….

Nice to be in NiceThanks for your nice letter. It was nice to hear from you. I’m so glad to hear that you thought the film Lincoln was nice.You asked about my holiday in Nice. Well, let me tell you all about it. The airport was nice, the flight was nice, the weather was nice, the hotel was nice, the food was nice, the room was nice, the pool was nice, the beach was nice, the people were nice, everything was nice! Oh, I just remembered … the public toilets weren’t so nice.Now tell me about the film. Did everyone in the class think it was nice?

Syntaktiske feil

• Misforståelse av ordets ordklasse• Eksempel: “I speak New Norwegian “good”

(adjective), I stedet for “well” (adverb)

BUT, OR og AND

• Hvis to handlinger skal beskrives i samme setning, skal de ha noe med hverandre å gjøre innholdsmessig. Sideordning kobler sammen to setninger som er like viktige, med konjunksjoner som and, but og or.

• Eksempel: Feil bruk av BUT: But we have some people in Norway who /…./

• Problemet: Setningen starter med et bindeord

Viktig!!

• Most people tend to make the same mistakes repeatedly. These may be certain grammatical errors, words you always misspell, or words you commonly misuse. Encourage students to take note of these mistakes, and watch for them specifically when they proof read a paper.

Examples…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAaddkOjwiI

Rettingssytemet

Har er et system som brukes av noen kollega i Bodø. Det kommer til syne gjennom en rettenøkkel som limes inn i besvarelsene elevene sender inn til retting. Rettenøkkelen forklarer hva rettingene innebærer. Som dere se så er dette et fargekodesystem.

To Pass Or Not To PassDesmond is an English teacher with over thirty years experience teaching English in Norway. He told me a story about one of his Vg1 English students Betty Bimbo. This is the email she sent him.Dear Mr Mac,My Johnny is really jealous and says that if I do better than him in my English exams tomorrow he’ll break every bone in my body! He got a 2 in his exams. I HAVE TO pass mine! What can I do?

Desmond envisioned poor Betty in bits and thought that Johnny must be a big bloke to be able to break all of the bones in her body… I’d better help her he thought! This is what he wrote to Ms Bimbo…

Dear Betty, I understand your problem. Pity as I thought you were aiming for a 6 this year but I think I can help you get a 2. Its’ quite easy really, perhaps not for you, but for the “Johnnys” of the world it’s a push over.Firstly make sure you only use small letters instead of capitals. For example if you need to write the word “English” give it a small e: “english”. Do the same with the personal pronoun “I” – just write “i”. This will give your examiners the impressions that you have no idea about English spelling rules and that you don’t give a damn.Secondly make sure you make plenty of mistakes with your irregular verbs write WAS for WERE, IS for ARE, HAS for HAVE and visa versa. That should help a lot!Thirdly make absolutely sure whenever you write “Which” you leave out the h: “wich”. And finally use some Norwegianisms or better still put the whole Norwegian words in your essay “fattigdom” instead of poverty and “forurensning” instead of pollution, for example. But be careful if you do this too much you might actually fail the exam, and it would be boring to have to live off Johnny for the rest of your life.Oh I nearly forgot. Just in case you get a really forgiving examiner make sure your essay is untidy, with no paragraphs, no subtitles and of course DON’T make any reference to sources! Examiners only read the first and last paragraphs of an essay anyway so try to put all the mistakes in the first sentence for example: “In this essay i chose to right about the english language and weather it have effected norwegian.”

Good luck with your exams, and Prince Charming Johnny. Like John Lennon sang "All you need is love".

Best wishesDesmond